83...

The smell of the Pacific was pouring in through the Cadillac's window. Alexis couldn't see it yet, that infinite stretch of blackened blue, but she was starting to see shops along the side of the canyon road which would multiply until there was a crowded fury of unnecessary boutiques selling unnecessary shit; handcrafted and tacky jewelry, expensive and uncomfortable shoes, clothing that would quickly go out of style.
She ignored the lights that were becoming more garish and again thought back to the early morning in front of Lou's door. She had given Lou a quick kiss and trotted to the staircase that Mary was just beginning to come down.
Mary was dressed in a denim skirt and a navy sweatshirt brightly emblazoned with her sorority letters. Alexis wasn't paying attention to what her high pitched, bordering on shrill, voice was saying into her phone as she was sure it would take her headache and expand it. Alexis waved to Mary. Mary's eyes tried to skim over Alexis and pretend that she wasn't there, but ultimately the manners that had been hammered into her won out and Mary waved back. Alexis tried to signal to her that she wanted to talk, and this time even the etiquette lessons couldn't win over Mary's intense need to roll her eyes.
"I'll call you right back," she said into the phone before folding it closed. "Hello Alexis," she said with a smile that looked like she was trying not to let on that she had just eaten something that tasted like vomit. "What can I do for you?"
Tried patience sounds like something intangible being slowly ripped.
"Sorry to bother you Mary, I was just wondering if it would be possible to borrow that turquoise sweater that you have."
Mary looked down at Alexis as though she had just been asked to French kiss a sibling.
"Right now?"
"Yeah," Alexis said with an amazingly natural embarrassed shrug. "I have a job interview today, and it would just go perfect with this skirt I have. I just love the way it looks on you. If it's not too much trouble."
"Fine," she sighed. Emotion seemed to drain out of Mary's face as she turned away to head back up the stairs. Alexis trotted up the stairs after her. Mary unlocked her apartment door and walked in, again Mary followed.
"You can stay here," Mary pointed to the general vicinity of the living room.
"Oh sure," Alexis put on her best voice of gratitude. "Thanks a bunch Mary, I really appreciate it."
Mary walked down the darkened hallway towards her bedroom and Alexis walked quickly into the living room. She took a quick glance around the room, her eyes finally settling on the couch. Alexis pulled one of the couch cushions off and quickly undid the zipper on the back. She pulled the professor's ID, gym membership and card key out of her pocket and shoved in into the bottom of the cushion before quickly zipping it back up. She was replacing the cushion just as Mary came stomping back into the room.
"I need you to be careful with this," Mary snidely said as she handed over the sweater. "It's one of my favorites."
"Oh of course," Alexis said with mock concern. "Thanks again Mary, you're a life saver."
Mary threw on a smile that was polite enough, but with just a touch of snotty at the corners. She opened the door and let Alexis out in front of her. Alexis, her back to Mary, let a faint smile just touched with malice caress her mouth.

82...

Alexis remembered wanting to shriek out with a primal scream, stooped over on the railroad tracks and breathing like an animal trying to sick something up. She looked intently at the wet and pummeled pile of ruined flesh that had moments ago been a fairly handsome face. She wanted to drill this sight in, hoping in some way that the horror of seeing what she had done would keep whatever demon had possessed her from coming back.
Slowly becoming aware of the rock still in her hand, her nose wrinkled back with a wave of revulsion. She threw the weapon, hard, into the struggling shrubs and weeds a few yards off the rocks and debris of the railroad tracks. She wiped her hands convulsively on her pants.
Holding her breath, she bent down and removed the man's wallet and quickly shoved it into her own back pocket. She would remove the cash and dispose of the rest later.
Now, sitting on the trunk of a Cadillac in Southern California, Alexis sat up straight, lost in concentration.
Trying to remember quite clearly what she did next, Alexis ran over her memory slowly. Back then, she had been fighting panic, trying to figure out how to cover up what it was she had done. She thought that maybe, just possibly, if she left the body here it would look like another drunken dumb ass hit by a train. She decided to put the wallet back in that case. She was bending down to do that very thing when she reached into the wallet to pull out any sort of ID. She figured she could at least slow down the police if nothing else.
There wasn't much in the wallet; about sixty-five dollars, a driver's license, membership card to a gym...
Alexis gasped, jumping down off the Cadillac's trunk. Was that what Matthew had been talking about? Was that what they were looking for?
Inside the professor's wallet had also been a key card, the sort that are used for hotel room doors. She had taken the three cards, shoved them in her pocket and quickly walked away from the railroad tracks.
Alexis got into the car and started it up. She sat for a moment, looking grimly out the windshield before pulling the vehicle on the canyon street and heading towards the ocean.
After leaving the scene at the railroad, she hadn't gotten back home until close to dawn. Unable to shake off the adrenaline, or cope with the vicious nausea that came at her in waves, she paced her apartment for a couple of hours before heading over to Lou's place. Lou was just getting up and heading off to practice when she got there, the look of concern on his face almost tipped her precariously balanced emotions towards a tearful breakdown.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I've just been up all night with a couple of the girls."
"What's this?" he asked, peering closely at her pants. "Is that blood?"
Keeping her alarm in check, Alexis looked down at her jeans. There, bright as a stop sign, were drops of spatter.
"Yeah, rough night." She laughed, but it sounded hollow in her own ears. "We hit a fucking deer out on 32. Can you believe it? I was trying to help push it off the road, but I guess we just winged it or something because it jumped up and took off."
She could see skepticism swimming around in Lou's eyes, but he didn't challenge her.
"I'm sorry Lexy, I gotta get going. Do you wanna crash out here?"
At that moment, Alexis heard Frank's girlfriend Mary, leaving the apartment upstairs and chatting away on her cell phone.
"That's alright sweety, I'll see you later. I need to ask Mary something."