Two Beds
The detective clenched his teeth until his jaw ached. The house reeked of blood, the scent thick and metallic, clinging to the back of his throat like rusted iron. His stomach churned as he passed the two beds.
They sat side by side, their blankets peeled back, frozen in the act of waking. The sheets, rumpled but not tangled, still bore the faintest imprints of their last occupants. A stuffed bear slumped against a pillow, its fur worn thin at the neck where a childâs hand had once held tight. The open window let in the summer breeze, stirring the sheer curtains. The fabric billowed, whispering against the sill, the only thing left with the luxury of movement.
The detective followed the breeze and stepped out onto the awning. He struck a match, the sulfur bite sharp in the thick air. A cigarette perched between his lips. It caught the flame, paper curling, embers flaring before settling into a slow burn. Smoke curled around him, coiling in the dry heat. The stone wall at his back pulsed with the dayâs stored warmth, seeping through his shirt. It did nothing to settle the itch beneath his skin.
Delphine twisted her wedding ring, rolling it up to the knuckle and back again. The gold had lost its shine, dulled by time, by sweat, by the dried blood wedged deep into its grooves. Her fingers trembled, as though the movement had become habit rather than thought. She rocked forward, the plastic chair creaking, then back again, her gaze fixed on the space just beyond the awning. The wind shifted, pulling silver strands of hair across her hollowed face.
The detective exhaled. The smoke unravel between them. âMrs. Suthers, tell me what happened.â His voice came steady, practiced, the same way he had asked a hundred other widows, orphans, ghosts-in-the-making.
He pulled his notebook from his coat, the leather cracked, its pages soft at the edges from years of ink and grief. He flipped to the last empty page, the white paper untouched, waiting.
Delphine didnât look at him. Her fingers still played at the ring, twisting, twisting, pressing it into the ridges of her skin. âA man was there,â she said. Her voice was brittle as if it had been dried out by the sun. âAnd then he wasnât. It was as if a phantom had entered the house.â
Her words hung in the air, weightless. The wind shifted dust along the patio, carrying the distant scent of saltwater. She shook her head, a slow, tired motion. Her eyes were empty-the light in them had dimmed a long time ago, according to the testimonies the detective had gathered. A ghost would have looked more alive.
âThere was someone else in the house?â The detective tapped the ash from his cigarette. The embers spiraled down to the concrete, racing to see who would stain the ground first. âWhy would he leave you alive?â
Delphineâs hands stilled. The ring sat crooked on her bony finger, catching the light like a dull coin at the bottom of a fountain long since drained. She inhaled through her nose, sharp and slow, before her lips parted.
âWhat are you saying?â Her voice wavered, thin as old paper. âI didnât kill my family.â
âI said nothing of the sort, Mrs. Suthers.â The detective said.
Her shoulders curled inward, the slightest flinch at the sound of her last name.
He had done this dance beforeâtoo many times to count. The cigarette burned low between his fingers, the heat licking close to his skin. âHow did this âphantomâ get inside?â
âI donât know.â
âWhat did he look like?â
âI donât know.â
His patience stretched thin, pulling like an old wire ready to snap. He needed a break, needed to step away, to experience something other than the press of heat and the weight of dead things that clung to his skin. The ocean called to himâthe hush of waves, the pull of the tide, the promise that saltwater could scrub away the years spent walking hand in hand with Death. Innocence was already too far gone, buried under ink, blood, and the cold certainty that he would never outrun the ghosts that followed.
"Why should I tell you?" Delphine's voice was small, a thread unraveling. "Youâre already convinced I did it."
"That remains to be seen." The detective inhaled, slow, measured, letting the smoke settle in his lungs before exhaling through his nose. "Please, for their sake, tell me what happened,â he said. "Why would this man kill everyone else and not you? I need to know what you saw."
Delphine lifted her hand, the movement stiff and mechanical. The ring slid from her finger, leaving behind a pale band of skin, untouched by sun, unmarked by time. She stared at itâjust for a moment, just long enough for the weight of it to settle in her palmâbefore shoving it back onto her bony finger with a flinch.
"Okay," she said.
The detectiveâs pen hovered over the paper, catching the rhythm of her speech, the hesitations, the practiced cadence of a story told too carefully. A fight. Raised voices. The sharp crack of a door bursting open. A bangâloud, final, echoing through the walls. Then⌠red. So much red. Nothing but red, and silence, thick and swallowing, like the house itself had exhaled its last breath.
The detective had heard this story before, told in different voices, wrapped in different dialects, but always the same at its bones. The ghosts of past victims crowded close, their laughter dry as their cold fingers traced the ink as he wrote. Murderer. The word sat crooked on the page, the letters uneasy, slipping into the margins as if trying to escape his pen. He had written it a thousand times, yet it never settled right beneath his hand.
The facts twisted in his gut, coiling tight. Mr. Suthers had it comingâthat much was clear. A thesaurus could break trying to find enough words for the manâs cruelty. But the children? No. That was the jagged edge he couldnât smooth down. His fist curled against his thigh, the itch in his skin flaring. A motherâs instinct was to shield, to shelter, to fight until there was nothing left of her but bones and willpower. Yet here she sat, hands stained but whole, her body unbroken, her story too neat at the edges.
She was lying.
âWhy the boys?â
âThey had his eyes,â she said.
The detective pushed himself away from the wall. He stepped into the bedroom, the air inside still and thick, clinging to his skin like dust. The walls stretched bare, their surfaces too smooth, too uniformâno faded outlines where posters once clung, no stubborn smudges of marker or crayon near the baseboards. The room held no echoes, no lingering touch of the boys who had slept there. No trace of them at all.
The carpet, however, had not forgotten. Small footprints pressed into the fibers, their shapes deep, unmoving, caught mid-step. They led nowhere. No scattered toys littered the floor, no toppled bookshelves spoke of lives interruptedâonly the quiet indentations, the weight of movement that had not been allowed to finish. In the corner, a pile of clothes lay twisted in itself, sleeves turned inside out, pant legs tangled, abandoned in a hurry.
The detective let out a slow breath, his fingers tightening around the worn leather of his notebook. The final page stared up at him. He tore it free, the rip loud in the hush of the empty room.












