9 - Rolling in the Deep

Her cheek stopped throbbing an hour ago, but the burning memory lingered. Closing her eyes, she kept the incident at bay, wanting a reprieve from her thoughts.

Slam! Robin's body tensed as she heard the door down the hall whack the lock. The walls quaked as she listened to him shuffle around his bedroom. Only until she heard the squeak of his bed she allowed her muscles to relax.

Wham! She jolted up and her eyes darted to the door. The light in the hallway flicked on. After a minute, the light turned off as heavy thuds clumped downstairs.

Robin sat as still as a statue, listening to the seven-minute process. He was as punctual the not late rabbit. His dark loafer stepped out the threshold at two o'clock, on the tick.

Tiptoeing to the window, Robin lifted up the corner of the shade. Her eye scanned the midnight clear sky. The moon was a half crescent the lamp lights casted oblong shadows across the pavement. A low rumble from below grunts as his sedan starts, tearing her gaze away from the stars. The headlights flash on as his car pulls out of the driveway. The flashlights graze the potted plants and the little gnome on the lawn.

Within the minute, his four-door was midway through the street. Retreating from the sill, Robin slipped back into bed.

Her body ached for sleep, her head yearned for the comfort of slumber, her body craved the serenity in rest. But sleep tantalised her like the coveted candy jars, desired by the children, filled to the brim of sweet treats. It toyed with her brain. Wiggling the potion in front of her nose, allowing a minuscule to waft into her airways, she reached out to snatch it. But it was an illusion, as its hand snapped back with a laugh.

"Please." The words slipped out of her lips. "Please." She chanted over and over until, finally, rest took pity or grew its conscience. With an exhale, Robin swam into dreamland.

"Mommy! Mommy come 'ere!"

"Okay!" The woman standing next to the bench, chatting with a new young nanny, skipped to the child.

"Catch me!" She exclaimed as her body swooped into the enclosed slide. "Wheeeee!"

Reaching the bottom, she flew into her Mother's waiting embrace. "There you are!"

"Again, again!"

"Okay. Let me see how fast you can run up the stairs!"

"I'm here!"

"Alright, I'm ready!"

"Woohoo!"

"Gotcha!" The two girls laughed like they were being tickled by the tickle monster. "I love you Chicka."

"Me too! Me too!"

"You love yourself? Well, I'm very glad to hear that!" Her mother chuckled with a squeeze.

"I love you too Momma! And me!"

"You're so silly!"

"Can I go again?"

"Uh, it's getting pretty late out."

"Please?"

"Oh, why not? Once more, then what do you say about getting an ice cream?"

"Ice Cream! Ice Cream! We all scream for ice cream!" The little girl belted.

"I take that as a yes?"

"Yes!"

"Okay, go to the top!" Her little light up shoes sparkled as she bounded to the head of the tube.

"Ready!"

"I'm ready too!"

"Yeeaaa!" Her pitch echoed inside making it sound lower. When her mother caught her again, she twirled the young lady around bridle style.

"Piggyback?"

"Yes! Yes!" Her mother dropped to her knees.

"Climb aboard, me hearty!" Her voice deepened in a vain attempt to mock a pirate.

"Off to Neverland!"

A they walked back to her Mother's bug, a patter of feet raced toward them.

"Excuse me, Miss!" The woman continued singing Captain Hook's solo. "Miss! Wait!" Finally, she turned around and stopped.

"Me?"

"Yes," he said far from out of breath. His Saint Bernard was happily at his heels.

"Doggy!" The girl yelled as she jumped off.

"Robin, don't!"

"Oh, it's quite all right. He's a gentlemen, aren't you, Ted?"

"Teddy! Teddy! Mommy, Teddy!"

"What do you say?"

"May I please pet Teddy!"

"Why, you have such good manners, young lady. Of course you may." The gentle giant wafted her scent, then with his huge tongue he licked her hand.

"Ah!" She jumped back.

"Oh, it's alright. That's just his way of saying that it's okay to pet him." Robin tried again, but she didn't flinch again.

"Mommy, pet Teddy!"

"May I?"

"Sure, he's quite the show stealer."

"He's a beautiful dog. How old?"

"Uh, turning seven."

"Oh, really!"

"Yeah. He's getting there."

"I use to have an Australian cattle dog as a kid."

"They're very good dogs. My cousin has two!"

"Yeah. Old Yelper is what we'd call him!" She said jokingly.

"Yeller?"

"No, 'cause he was a big whiny butt!"

After their laughing a bit, he stuck out his hand. "My name's Robert Elliott."

"Hi, mine's Marian-"

Thwack!

Her eyes flashed open on cue.

Thump thump thump!

Her heart raced a she heard his footsteps ascend. A tear escaped her eye. "Mom," she squeaked.

Her hands felt as frozen as ice fish, and they must have appeared as wrinkly as an elephant's hide from the fidget water by now. She scrubbed relentlessly at the grime left over from Mr Bishop's breakfast. Her joints ached, but the dull ache was better than the sting from a smack or a pang from a punch.

He had slept until six forty-five, at which his breakfast was waiting at the table. Robin awoke at an unruly hour, remembering that when he came home at four thirty-eight and slept, she laid awake.

Just to be on the safe side, or get on it, she had fixed a meal fit for a king. The milk was nearly expired, so all she could do was pray that he wouldn't notice. Her nerves skyrocketed when he sat down in silence. She watched, chewing on her lip, begging her hands to stop shaking. His face never changed, faltered, gave away an indication that he was pleased or disgusted.

When he had finished, all he said - rather grumbled - was a pitiful thanks. It bothered a little part of her, nicked her heart some, but she'd been wise to let it go. It was just the way he was so she was quickly learning.

Gathering the polished dishes, Robin stored them into the cabinets, smiling inwardly. Erin was coming at some point today.

She could hardly wait to hear the tales of her adventures. The thought made her pause. What would she tell her? Certainly reporting that her father was within inches of feeling her up the other night during a drunken stupor wasn't something she aimed to relay.

Lying wasn't an angle she'd willingly take either. It wouldn't be a lie to say that things had been lonesome without Erin's vibrancy. Robin thought about it a little more while reaching on her toes to stack the remaining plates. Her parents, though sinful, never lied or embellished. They were frank, brutally so. But they never lied to her, no matter how ugly the subject.

Mr Bishop was at work while Robin stayed at the house. After completing the list of daily chores, she was left with a couple of hours to spare. What to do, what to do? Wandering around the rooms she searched for inspiration. Nothing struck her fancy though.

Closing the bedroom door, she inspected the room. Only a few items laid out of place, so she took the liberty to move them. Scanning the room again, her eyes found the books shelved in alphabetical order.

Robin had begun reading something with a mockingbird. Why was it? Going to the standing wood, her eyes glided across the titles. There it was! To Kill A Mockingbird. She smiled with content. Plucking it out from between the other two books, the book split open to where she had left off.

"Chapter seven," Robin read aloud, "'JEM STAYED MOODY and silent for a week. As Atticus had once advised me to do, I tried to climb into Jem's skin and walk around in it: if I had gone alone to the Radley place at two in the morning, my funeral would have been held at the next afternoon.'"

The chapter felt relatively short in comparison; she glanced back. No wonder, it was three pages less than the last. With a brief glance at the alarm, she decided that if it took her shy of a minute per page, she could clock about another one hundred pages. Page 184 was half way between chapter fourteen and fifteen. She decided later to procrastinate the options.

Ding dong! Robin's head shot up, searching for the noise. The front door. Her eyes peeled off of Atticus's line. She grunted a little. That Aunt Alexandra was sure giving Scout a hard time. Uncurling from the covers, Robin shuffled to the window and peeked out of the shade.

There was a dark car parked in front of the house, her eyes followed the sidewalk to the walk up. The crown of a person's head stared back at her. Her eyes shifted to the other person. They were as tall as the other. Two men in suits waited on the porch.

Climbing down the stairs, Robin let her hand slip around the silver coloured circle knob. Her hand shook as she slowly unlocked the deadbolt. Biting her lip, she swallowed deeply, trying to calm her nerves before revealing the foyer to the mystery men. She couldn't tell why she was anxious, plenty of people came in and out of her house when her parents' business was thriving. They came like female mosquitos to a still watering hole. Addicted and thirsty. The door swung wide.

"Robin!"

"Good afternoon, Sergeant Murphy." She gave each man a polite nod with a timid smile. Her heart quickened a little, but she also felt relieved that the two mystery men reduced to only one.

"Can we come in?"

"Oh, uh. Of course." The click of the storm door retreated with a happy yip and Robin stepped aside. They filed into the foyer and drove into the living room.

"Hi, I'm Detective Holland."

"Hello. Uh, may I get you anything to drink or-or eat?" Her breath stumbled as she tried to keep the soliciting fear away. Her palms were still sweaty as she wiped them on her shorts. She would have to ask Mr Bishop to buy her some more clothes, which would mean picking up the pace with the daily chores and taking up some of his house duties.

"Robin?" Her eyes flickered to meet the sergeant's chest.

"S-sorry? Did you want anything?"

"No thanks, we're good," he answered for himself and his colleague. No one spoke. "We uh, we need you to do a victim identification."

"You found the man who killed my parents?"

"Uh, we think so, but we need to bring you down to the station to point him out."

"Where is Mr Bishop?"

"He's at work."

"He's supposed to be home, we don't have any record of him taking up another job," the other man narrowed his eyes like he doubts the validity to Robin's statement.

"Holland," Sgt. Murphy coughed loudly. "Do you have his number so we can call him?"

"Yes, let me get it." Robin hopped into the kitchen and rips off the post-it note on the fridge. "Here."

"Thanks, let me take this call really quick, and I'll be back in." Sgt. Murphy's hand grasped the note tightly as he exited the house. The other guy, Holland kept on staring at her. She reclined into the wall, wanting to be invisible from his hard stare. He made her feel uneasy as she looked everywhere in the room except his direction. There was just something about him that Robin didn't like. Sort of like the way she was cautious around Mr Bishop, but in a different way too. Detective Holland just gave her instinct red flags.

~

"Wait. I-I don't if I can do this," Robin hiccuped as she took a step back. Her head shook and her breath became laboured as she bit her chapped lips.

"Robin, they can't see you."

"What if. What if I don't choose the right guy?"

"It'll be alright, we'll deal with that, okay." She looked at him with uncertainty as she paused in her place. Sucking on her lip, her eyes turned to the precinct floor. Her nerves were tingling and her legs kept trembling. Heck, everything was shaking.

"Come on, Robin. Let's give it a try, what do you say? Be a brave girl, I know you are." She listened, but Robin couldn't make her legs move. Sgt. Murphy began walking toward her. "You survived, now it's time to get the guy that murdered your parents."

Nodding her head, she sucked in a calming breath. Finally, her feet peeled off the tile crack.

"If you see the man that hit your car, tell me what number."

"Okay."

"Send them in," Sgt Murphy commanded through the intercom.

One by one, six men dawdled into the interrogation room with bland faces. They had sunglasses covering their eyes, and each one had tattoos scaling their faces. Unconsciously, Robin chewed on her lip. The sweatiness in her palms only worsened, so she had to dry them against her shorts. Crunching her knuckles, she let out a sigh. By then, every man was inside, facing her, looking at her, and holding their respected numbers at their stomachs.

"Remember Robin, they can't actually see you."

"Okay." Her voice cracked. Even though they couldn't see her, she knew it didn't matter. They already know her face, they should at least by now know that there had been a survivor.

"Robin?"

"Right. I'm looking."

She returned a wry smile. Each exhale wavered as she stepped forward. They looked so similar, all of them. But, at the same time, they were different. With every tick that passed on the second hand, Robin doubted herself more. They all look so similar, she felt her lip quiver.

"Take your time, Robin."

"Sergeant," someone warned from the corner.

Robin flinched and her head whirled toward the intruder.

"It's okay Robin, he's just there to make sure all the rules are followed."

Uneasily, her attention focused back on the line-up.

The hand not occupying the beat on her thigh was gripping the window ledge fiercely. She couldn't concentrate, not with all eight men peering at her, watching her, waiting in anticipation for her verdict. Closing her eyes, her mind travelled back to the incident.

Brown hair, coloured ink, sunglasses, the visions came one-by-one. Squinting harder, her memory pressed further. A nose. Long. It was long like Pinocchio's but curled down at the tip. Her eyes opened. Automatically, two suspects were eliminated. "It's-It's not three or five," Robin whispered breathlessly.

"Do you know which one is?"

"Sergeant, if she doesn't know, she doesn't know!" The man cried with exasperation as his back bumped against the wall. Instantly, Robin shied away.

"Shut up, counsellor, she can take all night if she needs to," growled Sgt. Murphy. His arms folded over his chest protectively as the two stared down.

Her eyes shut again in an attempt to narrow down the suspect pool. Concentrating hard, she allowed thoughts to swarm in. Lips. His lips! They smiled at her before the cars smashed together. Think Robin, think! She chanted inwardly. Her heart was pacing laps as she dug deeper into the week-old archives. They were plump, kissable, full all around. They suited his face nicely, as they didn't overrule any of his other features. Nothing else presented itself, so she had to use what she had. With a beat, her eyes awakened from the minute long slumber.

She scanned the remaining four men, skipping over three and five. Furrowing her brows, she examined their mugs harder. How-how could that be? Her brain panicked. "He's-he's not there!" The confession came out in a high mousy squeak.

"Are you sure? Make sure you look really close."

She obeyed, but still, not one was the man they were seeking. "I-I don't see him!"

"All right! Thank you, Sergeant Murphy, I'll be taking home my client." The lawyer had the cockiest grin she'd ever seen plastered on his face. His face, though clean of tattoos, but he still lacked charm. Grabbing his briefcase, he nearly skipped out the room.

Sgt. Murphy's face was borderline crazy-mad, but he remained as silent as a ninja. Only his breaths, coupled with her own sang a lullaby.

"I-I'm sorry, Sergeant Murphy."

"It's okay, Robin. You tried your best. Maybe you just don't remember-"

"No, I do remember! He just wasn't there."

"Okay. Detective Holland is going to take you back home, alright."

She frowned as her mouth got dry. Anyone but him. Closing her palms around her arms, she hugged herself.

"Are you okay?"

The last thing she needed was him thinking she was weak and/or crazy. Det. Holland didn't do anything to make her question her safety. Besides, she agreed to let the sergeant walk her through the line-up. Of course, it wasn't supposed to have an unhelpful outcome. "I'm fine."

"Okay. Do you want anything on the way out? A snack, drink?"

"No thank you."

He nodded and opened the door. Like a gentleman, he let her out first, earning him a polite nod. "Holland, I need you to drive Robin home!" His voice boomed through the noisy squad room.

Promptly, the man stood up and grabbed his keys from his desk.

~

The walk to his car was silent. She kept her distance plus a few steps between him and her. He was ahead, leading.

"Get in," he said with annoyance. But annoyance was better than perverse glares. "Doesn't matter where, front-back, I don't care." His attitude was less than pleasant. The less he talked to her the better, so she swung into the front.

She didn't want to sit where real scum sat. With a roar, the engine came to life.

The car rolled out of the car park. Robin kept her eyes straight ahead with a brief glance to make sure he was still driving. She needed to calculate her time, so her eyes searched.

Less than an hour until Mr Bishop's expected return. Erin should be back at the house soon if not already there. Dinner was mozzarella sticks, and depending on the time of arrival, she could either microwave them or cook with the oven. The latter was preferred, but she'd have to make do with the time allotted.

"He wasn't there, was he?"

Startled, Robin's eyes darted to his voice. "P-pardon me?"

A sly smirk appeared on his face. "The man you were looking for, he wasn't in the line-up?"

She eyed him incredulously. Robin couldn't speak, the words weren't forming.

"Let me tell you something, girl." Det. Holland's eyes narrowed sternly, locking on hers as he sneered. "You tell one person who the man is, and you'll be dead within the week, your pal too."

Her heart screeched to a halt, almost catapulting it out of her chest. Within the second, it galloped with fear as he allowed the words ingrain into her brain.

"I swear on my mother's grave." The threat was blatant, but his face was relaxed in a lopsided grin. Honestly, the smile was more menacing than his glare of contempt.

She shook in her seat and her tongue flicked across her dry lips. Her head was beginning to spin in nauseating thoughts of death. The man had an iron face as his focus flashed to the road. As before, the silence returned, but it came less eagerly and more hauntingly.

His car rolled down Hoffer Street and came to stop at the Bishop's house. She was relieved that their time together was over.

"Don't forget who you're dealing with." His head jutted to the outdoors as he motioned for her to exit. "Robin."

She paused halfway out of his cruiser. Neither spoke. The quiet made her jaw tighten as she averted her eyes elsewhere.

"I've got eyes on you, don't you forget it. But, just try me if you don't believe it," ending at that, he shot a warning glare.

Shutting the door, she bounced toward the house, wanting out of his sight.

The wheels screeched as the dark sedan bolted out of the neighbourhood, leaving Robin alone and terrified with her thoughts. The man was serious, not once was there a sign of cruel teasing in his admonishing words. His words struck her hard. No matter what she did, for the rest of her life, however long that would be, she'd have to look behind her shoulder in constant fear that he would enact his promise.

Word Count: 2624

A/N: Please go read HeatherGraceStewart's novel Strangely, Incredibly, Good and Remarkably Great are published! This is SIG's summary; I do not own it!

"Cat Glamour is an overweight 38-year-old divorcée who is struggling with finances, self-esteem, and balancing her personal life. While her 91-year-old, decidedly different, grandmother provides emotional support, Cat needs to take control of the life that has been shattered by her abusive ex-husband and tragic events of the past.

On the day Cat decides to start an exercise routine, the last thing she expects is a modern-day Genie to pop out of her Wii machine. Unfortunately for Cat, her Genie is somewhat unreliable in his wish-granting capabilities.

In a series of hilarious misadventures, he sends Cat to a castle in France and back in time 20 years in an attempt to solve both Cat's weight issues and emotional stresses.

Cat's journey is one filled with quirky adventures, realistic love and, above all, self-discovery."