Page 13 of Perfect Mess

I burstthrough the doorway and screeched to a halt.

What. The. Hell.

The inside of Aunt Catherine’s house looked like a murder room. Tarps on the floors. Duct tape piled on a table. Plastic sheets covered the windows so nobody could see inside.

“Hello.” The voice came from behind me. I spun around, almost face planting into a wall of flesh. Pectoral flesh. Shoulder flesh. Jaw flesh.

I looked up. A pair of eyes looked back down at me. Steel-grey eyes ringed in sea-foam green. Like tiny whirlpools in the middle of the ocean, sucking wayward ships into the depths of oblivion.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” His eyes locked onto me. Sharp eyes. The kind of eyes perfect for stalking prey. And those shoulders, big enough to heave heavy sacks. He was tall, too. Enough vertical length to peer over fences. Arms etched in muscle. Arms that could shovel for days.

As soon as my life finished flashing before my eyes, my next thought was, he’s kind of cute for a serial killer. I held my breath as the serial killer’s eyes floated over me. His jaw ticked when they brushed over my chest. Like he was wondering how I would taste with a side of fava beans.

“Mary Burns?” His smile made a dimple pop in his stubbled cheek. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

Mister, if I ever met you before, I sure as hell wouldn’t forget.I stood there gaping long enough to make it awkward. He knew my name, but there was no way we ever met. I wouldn’t have forgotten a face like his. A body like his, either.

“It’s Gary.”

Blink

“Gary Wright.”

Blink

“From high school.”

It took a couple of seconds to piece it together. But when I did, my mind was officially blown. I had to grab on to the doorframe to steady myself.The man standing in front of me was Gary Wright?

“We had a biology class together, remember?”

Of course I remembered Gary Wright. How could I forget Gary Wright? The memory of Gary Wright was like a toe fungus that wouldn’t go away. But not just because Gary Wright and I were in the same biology class. And not even because he squirted formaldehyde from a dead frog all over my favorite Red Hot Chili Peppers shirt when he sliced open its stomach.

I remembered Gary because of Janet. Janet talked about Gary Wright … every … single … day. Every day I had to hear about what kind of t-shirt Gary was wearing. Usually something involving Star Trek or hobbits. Every day I had to suffer through a play-by-play of conversations they had in the hallway. Janet was obsessed with Gary Wright almost as badly as I was obsessed with Jack Thompson.

“I know I look a little different,” said the imposter, pretending to be Gary.

A little different? How about a lot different. How about there was no way that the man standing in front of me was the same kid Janet was in love with back in high school. If Jack Thompson was the official high school alpha male stud, Gary was his polar opposite. A geek among geeks. Dweeb among dweebs. A loser with a capital “L.”

“You’re Gary Wright?” I continued to stare at him in disbelief.

Gary shrugged. “I guess puberty was kind.”No, puberty deserved a standing fucking ovation.

That’s when I noticed all the red. Splattered on Gary’s overalls. Dripping from … Oh. My. God … dripping from Gary’s knife.

“Um … is that blood or paint?” I calculated the distance to the still open doorway, ready to bolt, depending on how he answered.

Gary looked down at the smear of red across his chest, then grunted in amusement. “Probably both. My hand slipped when I was trying to pry open the paint.” Gary plucked a rag from his tool belt and wiped the red from his blade.

I heard a tiny knocking sound in the back of my mind. Like my subconscious knocking on the door so my regular conscious would let it inside.

Red blood.

Red paint.

Why was he opening a can of red paint?????

“So what do you think?” Gary pointed to the wall behind me.

---