Page 78 of Shhh…It’s A Killer Story

I leaned forward, my hands coming out of the oversized sleeves to rest lightly against the rough canvas of his jacket.

And I kissed him.

It was a brief, surprising pressure, my lips brushing against the cool, firm surface of his cheek, right along the sharp line of his jaw where his stubble rasped against my skin. It was warm, brief, and entirely unexpected.

Elias froze. His breath hitched sharply, his hands twitching inside his pockets as if he wanted to reach out and pull me down the steps, his entire body going rigid with shock under my touch.

Before he could recover, before his large hands could leave his pockets, I pulled back. My heart was thumping like a trapped bird against my ribs, but my face felt strangely cool, my mind remarkably clear.

"Goodnight, Detective," I murmured, my eyes locking onto his wide, stunned gaze for one final, lingering second.

"Goodnight," he rasped, his voice rougher than usual.

I turned, slipped through the screen door, and closed the heavy oak door behind me. I didn't look back through the window. I just stood in the dark hallway of my cottage, the silence of the house rushing back to greet me.

I touched my lips where the cool night air still lingered, and then, slowly, a wide, genuine smile broke across my face. I felt almost weightless. Like I was floating an inch above the old floorboards as I walked toward the bedroom, the memory of his lingering warmth clinging beautifully to the blue wool around my shoulders.

Seraphina

The sun did not so much rise over Blackridge as it bled through the fog, a pale, diluted grey that seeped across the floorboards of my bedroom. The world outside was perfectly still. No wind stirred the trees. No birds broke the heavy morning hush.

I sat wrapped in a thick wool blanket, my legs tucked beneath me on the window seat, a mug of coffee with a dash of cinnamon resting between my palms. The steam rose in thin, lazy curls, warming my face against the draft that always found its way through the old glass pane. On my lap lay the manuscript. It was thick, a stack of heavy white paper held together by a single black binder clip, the top sheet blank except for the working title typed in a small, stark font in the dead center of the page.

The Keeper.

I wasn't reading it because I enjoyed murder. I was reading it because I was editing it.

People often forget that fiction requires a meticulous sort of maintenance. A story is a garden; if you don't tend to the soil, if you don't trim the dead leaves from the dialogue, the narrative chokes on its own weeds. As an author, my job wasn't just to invent the shadows, it was to ensure they fell across the page with absolute precision. I dipped my pen into the red ink, my fingers steady as I traced a line through an unnecessary adjective in the third paragraph. The ink was the exact colour of dried rowan berries.

I turned the page.

JOEY

Darkness settled over the abandoned building like a second skin, swallowing the long, empty corridors until only fragments remained. The roof groaned softly beneath the weight of years, rainwater dripping somewhere deep within the walls. A handful of rusted light fixtures buzzed weakly overhead, one flickering just enough to throw broken shadows across the cracked concrete floor before dying again. The air smelled of damp timber, mildew, rust, and decades of forgotten dust.

Somewhere beyond the room, hidden behind a crumbling wall, an old grandfather clock stubbornly refused to die.

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

Every measured beat echoed through the empty building, swallowed by peeling wallpaper and hollow hallways before returning as a faint whisper. Time hadn't abandoned this place. It had simply slowed down.

The leather restraints creaked as he tested them, panic setting in one movement at a time. His wrists and ankles were secured to the corners of a solid wooden table anchored firmly to the floor. No amount of struggling would move it.

The air smelled of damp stone, old timber, and mildew. Dust drifted through the thin beam of light, disappearing whenever the failing bulb flickered overhead. An old workbench stood against the far wall, cluttered with forgotten odds and ends gathered over decades—gardening gloves stiff with age, coils of frayed rope, cracked flowerpots, rusted pruning tools, jars of bent nails, chipped hand towels and a dented watering can that had long since lost its purpose. Nothing was arranged. Everything looked abandoned.

I brushed a fingertip across the workbench, leaving a clean line through the dust. Behind me, leather creaked. The silence didn't last.

A restrained movement disturbed the stillness, followed by the scrape of wood against concrete. I turned slowly toward the figure waiting in the gloom.

"You know… as a librarian you are very loud. Has anyone ever told you how noisy you are?"

His breath hitched. He tried to speak, but the heavy burlap bag over his head muffled the sound into a wet, desperate plea. I walked forward and ripped the bag away, letting the flickering bulb blind him for a moment.