Yours Truly—Chapter 18

Tom Harris is sitting at the feeble wooden table in the small apartment with mediocre grey carpeting and a tiny kitchen, overly visible, next to them. He’s across from Jim. The two are staring each other down in silence once more. Jim says nothing, yet Tom knows the man has something to say. He’s hiding something, and Tom knows it. There’s gotta be a reason the bedroom door—quite visible from the table—is latched shut and closed.

“What’s behind the door, Jim?”

A pointed silence.

“That’s private,” the man replies, smirking.

“Is it now?”

Another glare.

There’s a knock on the front door.

Jim gets up, eager for an excuse to escape.

“Hello?”

“Detective Sarah Gunderson here.”

His smirk turns to a frown. His body tenses up and he becomes petrified.

Jim began trying to desperately close the door.

“I have a gun. Open the door or I’ll shoot.”

Feebly, shivering, Jim opened the door.

Sarah Gunderson entered. Then she looked around the place, noticing the locked bedroom door.

She pointed at it with her gun, then pointed the weapon directly at Jim’s forehead, making him cower even more.

“I-I have to grade papers. I’ll be in trouble for tomorrow’s class.”

“I think we have more urgent matters to attend to, buster.”

“F-fine.”

Walking only because he was being forced to by Sarah’s gun at his head, Jim moved sideways towards the bedroom door as slowly as possible, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Officer, are you sure you really want to see this?”

“That is irrelevant, sir. This is my job.”

She nudged the gun at his head.

“Open it. Now.”

He opened it.

There it was. The gory scene attempting to mirror a picture of a perfection.

There were women taxidermied in lovely gowns and, closest to the door, was Lucille in that blue, sparkling dress, her long blonde hair cascading down her shoulders, perfectly brushed to indicate morbid elegance. Tom walks over, curious, then faints when he sees his wife’s glassy eyes staring back at him.

Everything turns black as he falls to the floor.

Sarah Gunderson puts her gun away and cuffs Jim.

“Jim McCarson. You are under arrest for murder.”

THE END

***

This is the end of the novella I've written. It is available on Amazon KDP if you want to support my work. You can find it here.

How This Book Was Inspired

This novella was actually inspired by a film based on a novel by James Patterson. The film is called The Postcard Killings. I highly recommend it. It is quite good. It's about two people who have been very hurt and decide to inflict pain on others, yet they have an affinity for art. The whole story is really about the contrast between beauty and gory ugliness. If you appreciate fine art and murder mysteries, this provides a combination of the two.

By the way, you can find any missing chapters on Vocal in the "My Books" section of my Substack newsletter titled The Bookworm. Some chapters were inappropriate for Vocal, so I posted them there. I've also recorded audio versions of each one I posted. I like Substack because they give you the option to do voiceovers.

I've never written a suspense novel or novella before, so this is my first go at it. I hope you enjoyed it. I've recently published a collection of short stories on Amazon KDP, so I'm going to go about publishing them on Vocal soon.