A Grim Reaper's Guide to Catching a Killer by Maxie Dara

Author:Maxie Dara [Dara, Maxie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2024-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

* * *

Simon dropped the cardboard box holding my things onto the living room sofa to catch his breath.

“You painted,” I said, annoyed. One of the few things Simon and I ever fought about, aside from my secrecy, was how to decorate the drafty Victorian town house we’d shared through the decade of our marriage. I wanted to counter the sparsely windowed darkness with floral walls and pale furniture; Simon wanted blue. Not one tasteful blue wall or a blue couch offset by complementary paint, just blue. When I’d asked him why, he simply said, “I like blue.” I’d won in the end, but clearly my hard-earned victory had an expiration date, because I now stood in the belly of a blueberry.

Simon’s face couldn’t have looked more uneasy if I’d caught him cheating.

“It’s…nice,” I said.

“It looks like that time I drank too much blue Gatorade and vodka and threw up everywhere,” Conner said.

“I knew you’d like it if you gave it a chance.” Simon beamed. “Just wait till you see what I did with the upstairs.”

An involuntary shudder rolled through me at the prospect. The last time I’d been in this house was more than seven months ago, and I’d ended up getting a baby out of the deal. It was strange to be back; mostly because it wasn’t strange at all. It felt like coming home. Even if that home was now shockingly cobalt.

Simon scooped my box from the couch and led the way up the creaky narrow staircase. At the top of the stairs, the hallway emerged, looking somehow self-conscious in a dizzying cyan wallpaper.

At the far end of the hall sat the master bedroom, still etched in my mind with visions of Sunday morning cuddles and sweaty, naked acrobatics past. I would be avoiding that room at all costs. In front of me, the guest bedroom’s door lay open enough for me to see that the room had somehow managed to escape Simon’s blue period. I followed Simon inside to find pink flowers dancing across green-and-white striped wallpaper, just as I’d left it; my grandmother’s heavy oak bed frame still taking up half the room. Simon placed the box on the bed and dusted his hands off on his beige slacks.

“I’ll go start dinner and let you get settled in,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said. “Really, Simon. Thank you.”

He gave a bashful shrug and shuffled back downstairs. Conner poked his head around the door.

“Holy shit, I almost forgot what other colors looked like.”

“Simon likes blue,” I said.

“Clearly.”

I sat down at the foot of the bed and ran my hand over the floral bedspread. The texture of it, this room, this house, felt very surreal. I was in a daze; in a dream. I could hear Simon banging pots around in the kitchen beneath me, the neighbor kids playing in their backyard outside my window. It was like someone had pressed play on the soundtrack of my old life. I had to remember why I was here. And why I wasn’t.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.