[ WP ] '' He loved her , so he had to kill her . ''

He wrapped her up slowly. By no means was Christmas his favorite time of the year but the gift wrapping was *always* his forte and it carried on to this wrapping, even if it was his dead wife's body. 
 
 No longer was he crying. Simply completing the task. Moving step by step to conceal a body lay inside the sheets and tarps. 
 
 `` No mess. Absolutely clean. Be careful, Dan.'' He thought to himself. 
 
 It was clear he was planning to ditch the body. To leave it somewhere far away or deep within the ocean. The ocean that lay 4 short hours away. A short trip to expunge himself from the past hours of his horrible life. 
 
 `` Why Claire? Why did it have to come to this? `` 
 
 He asked to his dead wife as he stood over the wrapped body. A body wrapped so tightly, securely that you'd think it was a dead body, of course there was no way to hide that, but you'd think it to be a child of 80 pounds or so. While Clair was a solid 140 pounds, Dan packed his'gift' meticulously small. 
 
 The next hour or so was a dimly lit montage of Dan packing his wife in the Subaru station wagon with a burnt out headlight and cleaning up. `` Damn that burnt out headlight'' Dan would think in a few hours as he drove towards the ocean. Hoping no police officer would pull him over. 
 
 Dan returned inside to the mess. It was tiny. It was... neat. Neat for a place that held the death of a thirty-something woman by partial strangling and somewhat of a destructive dance of life or death. There was some blood. But nothing a few paper towels could n't handle. 
 
 *sigh* 
 
 Dan stood there. He stood there for an uncomfortable amount of time. His hands found his face and he began to weep. It all hit him. The events that had occurred had rushed over him. Too much for him to hold in. Not much time for crying, though. Dan finished up and walked back to the bedroom. 
 
 Opening his bedroom door he drew in a deep breathe to help calm himself. 
 
 `` Chloe. Danny. Are you okay?'' 
 
 The children nodded slowly. Surely they had heard what had just happened in the other room. Surely they were aware of whom was no longer in the house. Surely things would be different now. 
 
 `` Okay. Did you pack your things?'' 
 
 Small and gentle nods. 
 
 `` Good. I packed us a few sandwiches for the road. Let's go.'' 
 
 As Dan and his children exited the house and entered the car. The car where she lay in the trunk. Dan felt somewhat at ease. No longer would his wife have to struggle with anything. 
 
 Normally she would n't hit the kids, hard. Normally she would n't have been screaming and swinging this much. Normally was out the window earlier this evening. Elizabeth almost took her children's lives. Danny, only 6, now possessed two purple hand-like marks around his neck while Chloe had a few scratches with small bits of blood from Elizabeth's scratching and clawing towards her as Dan held her down. 
 
 Dan loved his wife, no question. He would have done anything for Elizabeth. This is why he'd gone through more than a decade of therapy with her. Years with doctors attempting to help her with her mental instability. Life was not kind to Elizabeth but Dan was the middleman ensuring she got along quite nice. And they did. Most of the time. 
 
 But no matter how much Dan loved Elizabeth, he loved his kids more. Somewhere, deep down, Dan knew that Elizabeth would have wanted this. Safety for their kids.
