Why? Why had she left him?
He couldn't remember. He tried, but he couldn't remember. He couldn't even remember how he got in here. Had he stolen a key? Bribed the red-head at the desk downstairs?
He couldn't even remember two minutes ago.
He stood there in the hot windless dark, listening to Lisa's soft breathing, listening to the uneven rhythm of his heart. He sucked in the heady perfume that he had reason to remember so well. He did remember that. He saw rows of little bottles, lavender bottles, oddly shaped bottles. Anniversaries. Birthdays. No special days. What was it called? Tigress? Musetta? Jealousy? Maybe. Maybe that was it. He couldn't remember concreteness, only things you feel more than you think about.
Why didn't Lisa ever open her window at night? Such a hot summer's night as this?
He curved a little smile into the perfumed dark. Lisa had always been like that. Always. No fresh air fiend Lisa. Lisa shrank from draughts as from dragons. She always kept her windows shut tight at night. They had quarrelled about that—too. Lisa loved warmth. She was like a kitten snuggling cosily in front of the fire, a lissome tawny-haired kitten.
And now.
John Reeve sighed. Because now he remembered the one important thing he had to remember. He remembered why he had come here, to Lisa's uptown apartment, now in the darkest corner of the hot summer's night. All in a rush it came to him, a rush of tremulous feeling. There was no thought behind it. It was pure feeling. He didn't stop to analyze the wherefores to any degree, or to catalog them neatly in the pigeonholes of his brain. He just knew what he had to do and he did it.
He walked over to the bed and strangled Lisa.