Page 24 of Deep Feelings & Shallow Graves

Nope. Focus. Bodies first. Orgasms later.

Probably.

It’s full dark by the time we get the last bag loaded into my SUV.

The porch light casts Blake in a halo as he wipes his hands on his shorts, leaving a streak of suspicious garden gore across his thigh. He doesn’t seem to care. Just flashes that perfect smile that could cause ovulation in a five-mile radius.

“There,” he says. “Crisis contained.”

“You’re the best,” I tell him. “Seriously. If this virus had spread any further, the whole neighborhood could’ve been crawling with dead things.”

He nods solemnly, like I just explained soil pH levels and not a cover story for corpse disposal. “You handled it like a champ.”

I grin. “Come over for breakfast on your next day off?”

His smile goes full wattage. “Hell yeah.”

“Hell yeah,” I repeat.

He gives me a two-finger salute and strolls off into the night like he didn’t just help me load several ex-boyfriends into my car. I watch him go, ass hypnotic in the moonlight, and make a mental note to google if someone can be both your next victim and your next husband.

Then I head inside, shoulder aching from overuse. I peel off the gloves and apron, roll them tight into a garbage bag, and toss them in the laundry sink. I’ll bleach the hell out of them later, or maybe burn the whole set. Depends how romantic dinner gets.

For now, I wash off the mess and lean against the counter, breathing in the sharp smell of antiseptic and metal.

Breakfast plans made. Bodies bagged.

Now I just need something cute to wear for dinner with my possibly-boyfriend, possibly-accomplice.

Date three with Edgar.

If he survives date four, do we get matching rings or matching alibis?

Chapter Ten

Edgar

I set the final dish on the table and take a step back, hands behind my back, shoulders squared. Two plates, dark stoneware, minimal glaze. Cloth napkins, properly folded. The roast rests beneath foil. The wine is breathing. The coffee is poured into a thermos and decant cream into a tiny white pitcher she’ll never use. The little things matter. Even to someone like her.

Especially to someone like her.

I’ve prepared family meals for grieving widows with less care than this.

Maybe it’s the chaos she carries like perfume. I knew what she was the moment I saw her. She arrives with sugar and violence, dressed like an avenging angel who traded her wings for box cutters and didn’t regret it. What I didn’t expect was the way she unraveled my caution just by existing.

There’s a hum under my skin tonight, like the moment before a scalpel meets flesh, sharp, precise, and already aching to cut deeper. Anticipation, yes. But also hunger. Not for the food. Not entirely.

I run through my checklist again. Incinerator preheated. Privacy lock engaged. Ventilation optimized. Bags for ash collection. Nothing she brings will be traceable when I’m done. No teeth. No fingerprints. No names.

Except hers. She’s the one thing I won’t erase.

The first time I saw her I knew she was made for me.

I pause. There’s a slip in thought. Rare enough that I register it.

That’s what she does. She interrupts. She leaves fingerprints. Not on my hands, but on my thoughts. In the space between one breath and the next.

I move to the back room. The cremation chamber is warm, clean, orderly. Stainless steel and sterile tile. Comforting, in its way. Obedience to process. The kind of control I understand. The kind I need.

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