“Can I make one last wish of mine, Summers?” she asked me. There were tears in my eyes.

“You indeed like me?” she asked. I nodded.

“Can you be the last person to see before I die?” she said and I came close to her and hugged her.

“And please read this. It’s about me, my husband and you. But promise me that you will read it only after my death,” she told me after handing me over a note book.

A few hours later, I stood there helplessly at the glass window as I saw the doctor deliver the lethal injection. I banged my fist at the window even as she gestured her final good bye through her eyes and a smile on her face.

I opened the book and started to read...

Chapter – 1

The world is a bad place. Think beyond your family and you don’t know, there might be a killer lurking around. Whom should you believe and whom you shouldn’t is all a part of the game in which you are just a pawn.

The first time I saw him was at a local mart. He was cute, irresistible and swanky. Two months from then we were swearing an oath of marriage at the local church.

I should say that I was the happiest girl. What else can you ask for more than a caring and an extremely loving husband?

But this happiness which I wished to be eternal never lasted long.

Chapter – 2

“These things shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have fallen in love with him. I shouldn’t have killed those girls at the first place,” I said to detective John Summers. Tears inadvertently flowed through my eyes.

“I am so sorry to each of their families. I know what it feels to be like to lose someone whom you love. But at that moment, I was outta my mind with no discerning abilities,” I told him.

Reena Stevens, that’s me, was convicted of serial killing of four teenage girls. The B.A.U. of the F.B.I. released a profile which fitted me and I was taken down in no time. They traced my compulsive murderous behavior to my childhood days when I was abused.

Everybody except profiler John Summers believed that there was another angle to these killings.

Chapter – 3

He walked into my prison room. He looked around. Three to four paintings, I drew were hung at the walls. He carefully examined them.

“You love you husband very much, is it?”

“Every girl would do that, Mr. Summers”

“But not to the extent of saving their husbands by convicting themselves,” he moved his finger over those paintings.

I dint reply. Silence reined the prison room for a while.

“I killed the girls myself. The forensic reports prove it. The profile fits me correctly….” I was interrupted.

“I see a humane angle, additionally. It’s called love,” he said.

“Then prove it. I have nothing to say.”

Chapter – 4

Days passed, weeks and then months. But Summers would visit me almost daily.

“Look at your face. You are so beautiful. You are well qualified. You don’t have to do this. In a few more days, they are gonna kill you by means of a lethal injection as per the court’s orders,” he paused for a while.

He was walking restlessly. “I have my own limitations. I can’t challenge the profile released by the B.A.U. but I can help you if you testify that you weren’t the killer!”

“Come on. Why do you still wanna love a coward, who’s ditched you and he’s never even come to see you?”

“He would come Mr. Summers. I still love him so much. He would certainly come for me,” I said and erupted into tears.

Chapter – 5

All the while I drew his paintings. He was a nice man. We planned to have two kids too in the near future.

“Why dint he come to see you, even once?” Summers seemed to be very stern. He should be. I will be executed in a few more days. “This proves that you were just his partner and the fear of being convicted prevents him from seeing you… yes?” he asked.

“Why can’t you think it this way? He loved me so much and now after learning that his wife is a murderer, he was heartbroken and that he never wanted to see his murderous wife?”

“Then why did he have to run away from Jacksonville?” Summers’ a tough customer. He’s too obstinate to let it go.

“Perhaps, he was frightened of the society. All of them would see him as the husband of a serial killer. Even people like you would suspect his hand in my serial killings” I sobbed.

Chapter -6

It’s a lonely life out here. Abuses by the other prisoners and sometimes by the jail wardens themselves. I never made any friends in this eighteen month long detention period. Everybody considered me a sinner. Of course I was. There were nights when I couldn’t sleep and when I cried and cried till the point my eyes couldn’t wet my cheeks anymore.

I wished he was there with me to console me. But I knew he would never come.

Eighteen months, so long have passed. I haven’t seen the sun or the moon. I didn’t know what was happening in the world around me. I never cared to.

To me, the whole world was those paintings which I drew. The whole world was him. I missed all those beautiful days I spent in his arms, being kissed and cuddling to him like a kid. Perhaps my life was never destined to be like this.

Chapter – 7

The only friend I ever had was Summers. He never treated me like a convict but as a friend. I will never know if it was a part of his profiling that he was good to me. Nevertheless I still felt happy for atleast some time because of him.

“Tell me Summers, how’s the world around? How the sun shines brightly, how the moon cooled the nights and how the trees swayed in the wind?” I would ask him.

“It’s been so long. I have forgotten the world around me,” and I would sob.

Summers would hold my hand, sit beside me and would describe everything patiently. I never knew if he really liked me, but I liked him. Next only to my husband.

If there were any happy moments I spent amongst these secluded walls, it was perhaps with Summers. But this friendship wouldn’t last long. Tomorrow is my execution.

“At least temme the truth now, I can still save you. Where is your husband, and what’s his role in these killings?” Summers would never let it go.

“I have heard that the execution will be painful?” I asked him.

“They will execute you in three phases. First an injection will make you unconscious. Second will paralyze you and the third will stop your heartbeat. It’s not gonna be painful..”

The last chapter

The clock slowly ticked and I rubbed my tears as I tried hard to write this letter to Summers. My hand trembled and tears blotted the paper. But still I have to tell Summers. ‘God, please give me the strength,’ I prayed.

Dear Summers, you have been a good friend of mine. Thanks a lot for all those golden moments I’ve spent with you. I would be ever grateful to you for your company. I had no one else but you to share this.

Months after months you came back asking the same question. Even now, I wouldn’t have revealed it but for your friendship.

Paul Stevens, my husband murdered four women and their remains were first discovered by me. I was aghast on seeing the remains in the basement of our house. I tried to talk about the same with Paul. But he doesn’t seem to remember anything. Apparently he seemed to have killed them without his knowledge. He was mentally sick. But he still loved me and I reciprocated equally.

I dint want him to kill some one else and so I killed him myself and so he never came to see me.

By the time you finished reading this, I would have already been dead.

Paul was kind to me. He loved me so much. Still I killed him and so I deserved this death sentence. You have been kind enough to me too.

Even though I couldn’t feel the warmth of the sun, I felt the same in your words. Whenever you touched me, I felt I should live a little longer. But as days neared, I just wanted one final thing. The last person whom I should see before I die must be you.

I liked you. I loved you. And now I missed you too. And thank you so much for everything.

The end

With bated breath, I read till the last line and could see the excruciating pain that crunched her heart.

I, summers closed the book and collapsed to the ground on my knees. With my hands covering my eyes and Reena’s paintings on these walls as the inanimate witnesses, I cried and cried after reading the last chapter of Reena.