Page 47 of Not That Complicated

That was a problem for Future Ray.

As for today, I had most definitely earned myself a pizza. With two sides. Garlic bread and cookies.

I moseyed over to the bed to grab my phone where I’d tossed it after pulling up Spotify and starting a peppy playlist to accompany my labours. The boards creaked under me.

I stopped and glanced around, vaguely surprised. They hadn’t creaked before. Then again, the bed used to be here. I hadn’t walked over these boards before.

I shuffled through my modest toolbox and grabbed a claw hammer and a box of nails. Fixing boards: something else I knew how to do.

Forget branching out into art as a side hustle. I should go into the handyman business.

I got down onto my hands and knees and bounced my palms on the boards as I’d seen Craig do. Yep. Definitely loose.

Humming to myself, I dug around to catch the head of the loose nail and levered it up.

I could get into this. I tugged out the second nail. Be some competition for Craig.

The third nail came out. The fourth was pounded in flat. I wrestled with the board, wiggling it, getting a flathead screwdriver in the crack and easing it up. I worked the nail loose enough to catch it with the hammer, yanked it out, and pulled up the board.

The board either side and ahead were also loose, and I...

Froze.

I froze.

Very, very slowly, I pushed back to my heels, then to my knees, and then I rolled up to my feet. Never once taking my eyes off the hole I’d opened up in the floor.

Like a moron.

I backed up to the bed, flailed around until my fingers brushed the cold hard casing of the phone, and only then did I glance away.

It was the looking away that did it.

Panic, shock, fear. It all punched me in the chest at once.

I bolted out of the room, slammed the door behind me and shot down the stairs. I ran out into the back garden and raised my phone, double-fisting it in shaking hands. It took me three goes to navigate to my contacts, and two to hit the call button and press it to my ear.

“Hello, Ray,” Liam said, sounding surprised but pleased. Also a little smug. “You called.”

“A-a-n other,” I gasped out.

“Ray, you sound out of breath. Are you okay?”

“Another one!” I yelled.

“You want another date?”

“Dead guy. Body. Dead body guy.Jesus.”

“What?”

“I found another one!”

“What?”

I held my phone in front of me with both hands and yelled at it, “I found another dead guy in my house!”

“Okay, that’s a police matter—”

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