Page 106 of Haven't Killed in Years

“Yeah,” I said.

“And you too?” he asked Elyse, and she nodded.

“Okay, wish me luck.” He spun around and bounced toward the funeral home like he was about to go onstage. He really was such a light. I was glad he hadn’t become a serial killer. I’d been worried there for a minute.

“Can I join you?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said, scooching over, assuming she wouldn’t want to invade my personal space in the same way Porter had.

She took a seat but faced forward like she wasn’t fully committed to sitting with me. “Where have you been?” she asked.

“Nowhere,” I said. “Just trying to clear my head.”

She still didn’t look at me.

“No, that’s a lie,” I confessed. “I ended up looking up this guy I used to know from when I was a kid in that school with Natalie.”

That got her to glance over at me.

“I know,” I said. “I have problems. It’s just…I don’t even know why I thought of him, but once I did…I don’t know. I think I’m crazy.”

“Did you find him?”

I nodded. “Totally strung out. Really bad drug scene there.”

She went quiet again, thinking before changing subjects. “You know, Cody had the best chance out of any of us to be normal. He didn’t grow up with all these dark, twisted memories like we did.”

“That’s what I thought!” I exclaimed, way too excited. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. I should have known, but he really seemed fine. When they identified James Calhoun, I confronted him. Part of me did wonder, but he was really convincing. He said he had nothing to do with it, and I had to believe him. I wanted to believe him.”

“Listen to me, this was not your fault—not even in the realm of being your fault.” I stared at her and forced her to stare back until it started to morph into something more suggestive and I had to ruin it. “I mean, I’m the one who screwed up killing him in the first place.”

She swallowed that joke hard, wincing. “Jesus.”

“Sorry, that was horrible.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “True though, I suppose.”

“It’s still all my fault,” I said, “what happened to your family.”

“I know,” she said.

“You don’t seem like you want to kill me anymore. Is that wishful thinking?”

“We’ll see.” She smiled before going quiet again, her focusturning to the funeral home. “Like you said, murder isn’t supposed to be easy.”

“I saidgetting away with itisn’t supposed to be easy,” I corrected her.

“Hmm.” She shrugged.

At the end of the day, I guess that was the best a person like me could hope for—a thinly veiled threat to my face instead of an obvious one on mydoorstep.