Page 148 of Shhh…It’s A Killer Story

They don't. There are fingerprints everywhere. On the cupboard, the kettle, shopping trolleys, café mugs, library books, door handles and the steering wheel of your own car.

If someone wanted to write a mystery, fingerprints are wonderfully dramatic…but reality is rarely interested in drama.

I placed the naked lemon on the chopping board.

Thankfully…

I laughed quietly.

I'm just an author.

Silence settled between us then I tilted my head.

Right?

"That,"

Gerald gasped dramatically from the top of the breadbox, clutching his tiny ceramic chest,

"Is possibly the worst legal advice I have ever heard."

I blinked.

"It was fiction."

"It was almost fiction, It was entirely too believable." he corrected, pointing an accusatory painted finger at me.

"There's a difference."

Frank sighed from his place beside the stove, where he'd somehow managed to look bored despite being made entirely of ceramic.

"Oh, leave her alone."

"I'm trying to save her."

"From what?"

"A deposition."

Frank looked at him.

"You're worried she's going to be subpoenaed?"

"I'm worried one of these readers is going to misunderstand her artistic intent!"

Gerald shouts back.

Frank rubbed his little forehead.

"If someone misunderstands artistic intent that badly, Gerald…”

Gerald quickly pitched in.

“They'll end up on the evening news.

Frank rubbed his little forehead again, shaking his little ceramic head.

“They'll stop reading after chapter three."