She followed him, instantly noticing the intricately carved doorway surrounding her, and her finger traced one of the markings as they made their way inside. She was hit with the strong smell of tobacco, although it didn’t bother her. Keith had been a long-time smoker, and luckily for Caroline, she had never picked up the habit. She had a field day as she observed the man’s apartment. It was a wreck. He led her to his desk and they both took a seat quietly, and she was snapped out of a day dream when he began talking into his recording device. 

Caroline watched the man’s mouth move as he spoke as she tried to keep her tired mind focused on what he was saying. Her attention span had been zapped, and she was sure that the weed wasn’t helping, but it hurt too much to be stone cold sober. Her eyes moved to analyze the rest of Thomas’s face. He didn’t look like he put any effort into his appearance, which made Caroline feel slightly at ease since she felt she must have looked just as tired as he did. There was something about his eyes, though, that she could not put a finger on. They were almost mesmerizing, nearly putting her into a trance as she watched them move about as he spoke. [i]”I need to stop smoking so much weed,”[/i] she thought to herself as she scratched her forehead. 

“Yes, well, my husband Keith Clarke was murdered two weeks ago. He was in sales and traveled a lot, sometimes for a couple days, sometimes for weeks at a time.” She cleared her throat to try to stop the raspy sounds coming from it. “I was only 22 when we met; he was 30 at the time. He was in Georgia on business, and he came to the bar I was working at during the day. We hit it off, and after a while, he asked me to move up here with him.” Caroline nervously picked at her short, unpainted fingernails as she spoke. “Things were good for a while. I loved him. I still do.” She cleared her throat once again as her throat became irritated from talking. “We got our nice apartment, I became a freelance artist, we didn’t have a worry in the world. He proposed and we got married about a year after we met. It was something out of a dream.” She realized what she had been doing to her fingers and placed one in her lap, the other playing with the ends of her hair. “Then, he confessed that he wanted kids, and I didn’t, and that kinda set him off. But I thought we worked it all out.” Caroline looked up and met Blackgate’s eyes before continuing.

“Well,” Caroline began, straightening her posture in the wooden chair, “things were getting pretty rocky in the last year or so. Couples therapy, fighting constantly, growing distant. He, um,” Caroline paused. She was embarrassed of her past and of how her relationship turned out, and telling a complete stranger about her personal issues was disarming. “One night, during an argument, I told him I had been dancing when we first got together to pay for college, but I quit when I moved to New York. He didn’t know, and he…” She felt herself getting emotional and did her best to hold herself back from completely losing it in the disheveled office. “He got angry. Left. He didn’t come home for three days, but he had no business trips scheduled then. He wouldn’t answer my calls, texts, nothing. He came home finally, and he was… different.” Her eyes shot to the corner of the room to avoid the mysterious man’s glare. She took a deep breath, pushing herself to continue. “It was like he wasn’t [i]there[/i] anymore. I couldn’t get anything out of him. I even tried to piss him off, but nothing. After a few months, I told him I wanted a divorce; I just couldn't stand it any longer. He didn’t get upset, but he told me that he wasn’t gonna let that happen. He disappeared again, this time for almost a week.” 

Caroline took a deep breath as an attempt to calm the nerves that were fluttering throughout her body. “That’s when things started getting weird. Since he came back, the house felt strange,” Caroline said as she scrunched her up her nose. She felt silly talking about the paranormal realm; it was something she never believed in. “I mean, you usually never get peace and quiet in a New York City apartment. But, I started to hear things. Whispers. Scratching at the door. I’d see shadows in the corners of my eyes late at night. I thought it, at first, was just the stress of everything that was happening. But,” she got the chills, and her body shook and her hair stood up, “then, doors started slamming on their own. Dishes breaking. I’d even feel things grabbing at my legs at night. And it only ever happened when he wasn’t there.” She put her hand up to her face and used her middle finger and thumb to rub the bridge of her nose. Bits of her southern accent were popping out when she spoke, often happening when she got worked up. “I’m sorry. I don’t… Well I didn’t believe in this type of stuff before. Never had a reason to. Now that he’s gone, I thought it’d stop but, it seems the house is becoming [i]more[/i] active. I’m even getting bruises now.” Caroline stood up and lifted the black maxi dress that resembled a long tank top, showing him the marks that littered her calves. “They go up to my thighs,” she nearly whispered as she sat down. “I tried to look up his bank records, but everything seemed normal. The only thing different was a bar he started frequenting. The Black Dame, I think.” 

“No one will listen to me, Mr. Blackgate. They all think it’s the stress caused by the murder. I get that, and if it wasn’t happening to me I’d probably think the same thing. But…” She stopped and pulled out the envelope that she had sitting under the chair. “Pictures from the crime scene. Feel free to keep them, I don’t want to see them again. He had some sort of symbol carved on him. Teeth and eyes missing. He was also showing signs of a struggle.” She sighed. “Well, I didn’t think at 28 I’d be a haunted widow,” she said quietly and chuckled nervously. “Sorry, the corniness again…” she trailed off, realizing how extensive the story was that she had just shared, but it felt [i]so good[/i] to tell her side of the story without being interrupted or questioned.