It was at the Halloween Masquerade that Trish spotted Roy, the husband that she had killed, doing the two-step with a woman dressed as Little Red Riding Hood.

     Trish, in a nurse’s costume, was dancing with the Pink Panther -- Brian, her boyfriend -- when she saw him.

     At first she thought it was a trick of light.  The floor was dark, and many of the dancers were partially covered in shadows.  However, taking a second look, Trish realized, that it was no trick of light.

     It was Roy, looking as if he had not aged a day since she had killed him eight years ago.

     Dressed like the devil.

     Back from the dead.

For her.

* * * 

Her boyfriend, Brian had followed Roy to the bar every time he went.  It was a fairly crowded place and Brian was able to blend in.  Without failure, Roy got either heavily buzzed or drunk.  His house was walking distance, and he would always leave the car and simply stagger home.

It took two months for Brian to pick the right night to act.

He phoned Trish and she raced over to pick him up.  Jumping into the backseat, Brian covered himself with a blanket. 

Roy was halfway home when Trish drove up. 

He collapsed onto the front seat and immediately began to nod off.

Lurching forward, Brian got him into a chokehold.  Roy was a big man, but he had put away enough liquor to barely put up a struggle.  Loosing consciousness, he slumped forward.

Trish quickly drove to the bridge.  It was a narrow, old structure with aged, rusty guardrails and poor lighting.

Placing Roy into the driver’s seat, they shifted the car into Drive.  The vehicle struck the railings, nose-dived off the bridge and was swallowed up by the darkness.

Trish and Brian smiled at each other.

A flawless plan.

Except for the fact that the police couldn’t find the body after they had recovered the car.

The police theorized that Roy had been swept from the car by the currents.

Witnesses from the bar gave statements of how drunk Roy always got.  Trish made up a convincing story as to why Roy was driving her car.

Finding no criminal intent, the police classified the death as an accident.  The case was closed.  Trish was awarded the insurance money.

Still, the issue of Roy’s body not turning up made the first several months torturous for Trish.  She expressed her fears to Brian constantly.

“He’s dead, Trish.  Even if he were alive, where would he be?  Doing laps in the river?”

               *              *              *

Trish leaned over and shouted into Brian’s ear.

“What?” he asked, swinging his head around.  “I’m all but deaf in this thing.”  She could see his moustache.  “Speak into the mouth.”

“I think I just saw Roy!”

The Panther looked at her silently for a moment.  “Follow me.”

Walking off the dance floor and past the dining tables, they climbed a set of stairs, past an assortment of pirates, clowns, and policemen.  They found an empty, quiet room at the end of the hall.  It was one of the house’s three studies.

The house’s owner, Lloyd Custer, CEO of Moxxon Electronics and host to the Halloween Ball had done very well in the bull market.

Brian walked over to the fireplace and tugged off the Panther’s head.  “I thought this was all past us.  If it was Roy, don’t you think he would have showed up a little earlier than now?”

Trish heard the study door click shut.  She sensed someone behind her.  “After all, it has been years.”

Trish spun around.

The devil...Roy was at the doorway.

Trish felt faint.

Seeing her reaction, he smiled.  “Why, my dear wife, what’s wrong?”

She stopped walking backward as she noticed the space between his front teeth.  Roy’s teeth were flawless.  The gap in the teeth.  It looked familiar.

“Albert?”

Albert, Roy’s younger brother, looked at Trish for a moment.  Pulling out a gun from beneath his costume, he leveled it at her.  “Very good, Trish.”

“What are you doing here?”

“You don’t know what today is?”

Trish looked at him blankly.

Albert shook his head.  “Tisk, tisk.”  He twisted on a silencer.  “If you tell me what today is, I won’t shoot you.  And you’re answer can’t be, Halloween.”

“Albert, for god’s sake!”

He clicked off the safety.

With the gun leveled at her, she couldn’t think straight for a moment. “Today would have been my 20^th anniversary.”

Albert’s lips creased in recognition.  He lowered his gun.  “I must say I’m impressed.  I’m surprised you remembered.”

“Then you’re not going to shoot me?”

“No.”

Trish breathed a sigh of relief.  Then, feeling like she had been kicked in the back, she fell face-first onto the floor.

The bullet had passed through her.  She felt the front of her costume grow moist with blood.

Summoning her strength, she turned over.

The Pink Panther stood over her.  He was holding a pistol in his ungloved hand.

She opened her mouth to speak but found that she barely had enough energy to part her lips.  The blood was quickly spreading out through the carpet’s fibers.

“Who would have thought that I would run into Roy’s younger brother?  It’s a small world we live in, Trish.”

Albert walked into view.  “Brian’s Company contracted out some of their business to my firm.  It was purely by chance that we met.  It wasn’t after a couple of years later that we became friends and Brian confessed to me about how you murdered Roy.”

As if her eyesight was failing, they were slowly becoming fuzzy as Trish stared at them.

“Right now you are probably asking yourself why?  For Albert it was revenge.  Pure and simple.  Revenge for killing Roy.”

No!  Trish looked at Albert.  He helped me!  I didn’t do it alone!

“For me it was money,” Brian said.  “The insurance policy that we took out on you last year should take care of that problem.”

Trish felt her chest grow heavy as if the Devil was stepping on her...squeezing the very breath from her.  It’s not fair!

The Pink Panther and the Devil began to wave.

I’m not going anywhere!