Page 18 of Serial Killer Games

She’s getting to know me, all right.

“Shemoved on quickly enough, after. And we just got a Christmas card from them. Did you get one?”

Dolores’s eyes flash back and forth amongst us all, like she’s hanging on every word.

“No,” I say, nettled. No one knows my address. I never shared it after I moved in with Grant.

“Engaged,” my uncle says, like he’s been sharpening that word to a keen point and was looking forward to stabbing me with it.

My aunt purses her lips and glances at me, concern creasing her forehead. “Lovely girl! It’s nice to know she’s happy! And you’re happy, too!” Her voice is brittle, like a cracked windshield about to give way. “All ancient history,” she says to Dolores in a loud whisper. “It’ssogood to meet you.”

There’s an awkward pause at the table, punctuated by Dolores slinging back the rest of her glass of wine. She smiles sweetly at my aunt. “Likewise. Now tell me, did Jacob torture animals as a small child?”

My aunt stares at her with an expression of alarm. “He was good with animals. He wanted to be a vet.”

My uncle snorts at this. “He had more drive as a child than he does now.”

“Andrew,” my aunt says, but my uncle carries on.

“A veterinarian would be a step up from a ‘temp.’ ” He says it like it’s an experimental word that hasn’t been accepted into common usage. He uses the same invisible bunny ears he puts on words and phrases like “mental health” and “feelings.”

Dolores eyes me.

Laura ignores him. “How did the two of you meet?”

Dolores shoots me a dreamy, sickly smile and takes my hand in hers. My fingers start to tingle, but I notice Laura twinkles at our grasped hands. She’ssohappy. She’s a reflective substance, requiring that I be happy in order for her to be happy. No pressure at all. I leave my hand where it is.

“It was a chance meeting. I’d stopped looking, to be honest. Do you know how hard it is to find a man who gets what a modern, equitable relationship is supposed to look like? I’m talking splitting the load. I bumped into him at a hardware store—Jake was in front of me buying rope and a hunting knife, but he wasalsobuying bleach and a tarpaulin. I thought, here’s a guy who cleans up his own messes. No weaponizedmale incompetence here. We got to talking, and what do you know? He knows his way around a kitchen knife, how to clean fingerprints off walls, get bloodstains out of his own laundry. If he fills the bathtub full of lye, he’ll drain the sludge out himself when he’s finished.”

My aunt laughs and says, “Oh, you like that stuff, too. Jake was always so interested in it. He used to spin theories with me about the best way to off someone.” She smiles fondly at me, like plotting murder was our alternative to I Spy for long car rides. Because it was.

Dolores stares between the two of us.

“For a while I thought he’d follow in my footsteps,” my aunt continues. “It takes a strong stomach, I suppose, being that close to death every day. At any rate, you figure out the best laundry stain removers on the market pretty quick. But it’s aninterestingcareer. Every day is different. Thevariety! The number of ways a person can be killed! It’s fascinating.” My aunt prattles on pleasantly like that, like she’s participating in book club conversation. “My favorite murder weapon so far has to be the fake leg—”

“Laura!” my uncle hisses. “We’re in a restaurant. There are people around.”

Laura turtles in on herself and glances around nervously.

For the first time, Dolores looks like she’s at a complete loss. I allow her to feel uncomfortable for ten seconds while I slowly sip my wine.

“She’s a mortician,” I explain. “An excellent one, so she winds up with the most grisly cases. Accidents. Murders. She makes them…presentable.”

Laura beams at my praise.

Dolores is fascinated. “And him?” she asks, gesturing to Andrew.

“Catholic school superintendent.”

There’s a certain logic to it if you know how to look for it. Catholics display their dead. I’ve imagined their meeting: Laura lurking behind a floral wreath with a paint palette in her purse for last-minute touch-ups on a cadaver she really got invested in; across the room, Andrew, only tangentially related to the stiff in the casket but present nevertheless for the recreational experience of pouncing on the grieving and helpfully rationalizing their loss as God’s plan. Andrew and Laura raise their eyes, connect gazes over the top of the casket, and nothing is ever the same. Laura has a romantic streak. All the white flowers, the sunlight slanting through the stained glass onto the pews, the muted sobbing into handkerchiefs—it must have felt almost bridal.

Dolores sips her wine thoughtfully. “In a Catholic school and a mortuary you were raised,” she says archly. “So much about you makes sense now.”

“Funeralhome,” Laura corrects with a warm smile. “I try to emphasize family and human connection in my business. You know, I actually come across a lot of tattoos through my job. Nobody has secrets from me. And—I just noticed you have someone’s dates on that tombstone tattoo—”

Dolores’s right hand twitches over to cover her left forearm, and Andrew makes a noise.

“Why do women these days ruin their bodies with tattoos?”

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