Page 15 of A Very Killer Christmas
“Give up? What do you mean?”
He smiles, his dark eyes crinkling. “Just talking to myself, fluffy socks. Come on, show me where you keep your Christmas things. We have a house to decorate.”
I shake off my daze and look over at the table, my eggnog untouched. My throat tightens as I think about my grandpa teaching me how to make it when I was seventeen. He let me have some back then, saying he learned the hard way that keeping strict rules about alcohol and substances didn’t work.
“Everything in moderation, Prudy,” he’d say. “If you have too many rules and restrictions, you’ll just break them all. So have what you want, just not more than you should.”
God, I miss him so much.
“Prudence? You okay?”
I wonder what grandpa would say about me helping a killer. Would he curse me, say I became just like my mother—irredeemable?
No, a quiet voice in the back of my mind says reproachfully.No, he wouldn’t. He’d say he’s glad you’re not alone tonight. He loved you and wanted you to be happy above all else, remember?
I take a deep breath, straighten my spine, and turn. Rowley regards me with warm curiosity, and I give him a watery smile, blinking away unshed tears.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
It’s dusty in the attic. I haven’t been here in over five months, ever since I finished sorting through grandpa’s clothes. I donated most of them and left only his woolen winter coat and an old leather jacket he always wore for his morning walks in the fall.
“The boxes should be somewhere in the back, labeled,” I say to Rowley, who climbs the foldable stairs right behind me, even though I said I’d get the decorations myself.
“You better stay here, or your fluffy socks will get all dusty,” he says, laying a warm hand on my shoulder.
I shiver. He’s touched me so much tonight, first to threaten and restrain, and then whatever it was in the kitchen. But this touch, simple and friendly, is what makes me almost jump out of my skin. I don’t think I’ve touched another human being since the funeral.
“How many are there?” Rowley asks as he shuffles stuff in the weak, yellow light of the lone lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.
“Just get one box,” I say, shrugging. “We don’t need to go all out, just do the minimum to be believable.”
But when he comes over, he hauls two big boxes. “Out of the way, fluffy socks. I’ll be back for the other two.”
I follow him down, huffing with annoyance. “Why? I just said…”
He looks up at me with a wide, charming smile.
“Because my girl deserves a nice Christmas.”
He turns around before I have a chance to respond and goes downstairs, whistling the tune ofDeck the Halls.I gape after him, my face heating.My girl?What does he mean,my girl?I look around helplessly, expecting another woman to jump out of the bathroom, screaming “Surprise!”.
I’m still on the foldable stairs when Rowley comes back, now singing in a clear, warm baritone.
“Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!”
I stare at him. This is so uncanny, because my grandfather used to sing around the house, too. We’d decorate together for Christmas, and he’d always sing carols.
For a brief, terrifying moment, I consider the possibility Rowley isn’t real. I’ve always lived my life halfway in some fictional reality, so it’s not a stretch to suspect my mind has plunged me into a crazy fantasy in my time of grief.
And yet, would I actually fantasize about spending Christmas with a killer?
“What’s wrong?” he asks, stopping a few steps down in front of me.
“You’re just…” I shake my head, unable to express all the weird, half-formed thoughts that flit through my mind. “You’re singing.”
“And you don’t like it?” he asks, neither upset or annoyed, just curious.
I shake my head helplessly. “You have a beautiful voice. I just… I don’t know.”
