The Cryo Killer Read Free Page A

across the table, and stroke
the fine hairs on her arm. The freckles on her wrist. She’d laugh
with me like she’s laughing with Daisy.
    Daisy.
    Daisy is the answer. The gas leak could
happen on a day when Inesa and Daisy don’t meet at the coffee shop.
On an evening, that is, when Daisy would be visiting with her
husband. They’d find Inesa and Paul, dead on the kitchen floor.
They’d call the emergency services in time for the paramedics to
preserve their brains with Cryo serum.
    “Want to come over Friday night?” I hear
Inesa ask. “I’ll make those tortillas you like.”
    “Of course!” Daisy replies.
    Perfect. On schedule. Two days from now.
That’s when I’ll do it. Gives me enough time to clog up their
garbage disposal to mask the smell of the gas. All the pieces are
falling into place. The Cryo Bureau won’t suspect a thing. The
perfect double killing.
    But instead of feeling the pastel-blue
relief I feel whenever the plan for a killing materializes, I see
an image of Inesa, her pale cheek cold against the kitchen floor,
lying in a cloud of gas. My heart chokes. Takes all my willpower to
keep my latte down.
    I can’t do it.
    Inesa laughs at something Daisy says. Her
voice is birdsong. Her eyes are portals to another world.
    I can’t kill her. If she’s frozen in
cryogenic suspension for the next twenty years without me, well
then … I’ll never see her again.
    A thought flashes through my mind. A
dangerous thought. But it feels familiar. As though it’s lurked in
the dark corners of my brain for some time. Ever since the day
Inesa walked into my store. Since the moment I suggested the gas
leak. Maybe this is what I’ve wanted all along. Maybe I’ve wanted
this from before I met her. An exit from this life. And a ticket
into a new life. A future.
    With Inesa.
    *
    It’s Thursday night, and I can’t sleep. I glance
over at the alarm clock. Actually, it’s Friday morning. 05:00.
    Tomorrow – well, later today – is gonna be
rough. I’m going to die. But first, I’m going to kill Paul.
Permanently.
    If there’s one thing I do well, it’s
killing. I’ve never murdered anyone before though. And the prospect
of eliminating Paul doesn’t bring me any peace. But Inesa. Inesa’s
worth it.
    I sneeze. Have a God-awful headache too.
Thankfully, by this time tomorrow, I won’t have to worry about
whatever I’m coming down with.
    I’m not sure whether it’s the thought of
dying later today, the headache, or the smell, that’s keeping me
up. One of the tanks at the sulfur factory on the edge of town
exploded this afternoon, and not even my cold can mask the stench.
With the cash that I’ve earned from the ‘life insurance’ industry,
I can afford a country estate in the winelands. All fine and well,
until there’s a problem with the sulfur factory. Which, mercifully,
isn’t often.
    Yesterday morning, while Inesa was coffeeing
with Daisy, I slipped into her kitchen and backed up the garbage
disposal unit. Normally, I would’ve left as quickly as I came. But
I was curious to see more of her. How Inesa lives. The house was
decorated just as I would’ve expected. Understated. But elegant.
Just like the perfect killing. Inesa and I, we think alike. She’ll
be happy with me, one day.
    After my visit to the house, Doug, my PI and
go-to-tech-guy that I use for more complicated jobs, called.
    “He ain’t got much love in this world,” said
Doug, “beside that gorgeous wife. Did you see the legs on that
one?”
    “Go on, Doug.”
    “Paul’s father died four years ago, and his
mother rots away in a retirement home in Iowa. Only sibling, a
sister who lives in Vancouver, isn’t mentioned on his Facebook
profile. They aren’t connected on any social media networks either.
And there’s no trace of a phone call or message between them the
last few years.”
    “He’s a piece of work, that guy,” I
said.
    “Yeah,” Doug concurred, “I think you got
yourself a missing piece.”
    In other