Leah nodded. “OK. Well, if you change your mind, just shout.”
He knew he wouldn’t. And he could tell she knew he wouldn’t.
Underneath the decrepit carpet, it turned out, were wide oak floorboards. With a hum of satisfaction, Jackson began pulling the threadbare material up from the edges of the room, knifing it into manageable sections as he went, clouds of dust gathering around him as he worked.
“Imagine how much human DNA you’re kneeling in right now. And most of it from dead people.”
Jackson glanced up to find Leah sitting on the arm of one of the couches he’d pushed back into the opposite half of the room. She was crunching on a whole carrot, tiptoes grazing the wooden floor for balance.
“Thanks for that.” He ran the box cutter blade through another section of carpet, the brittle fibers breaking so easily he could probably tear it with his bare hands.
“Years from now, our DNA will be here too, long after we’ve gone.” She sounded almost wistful. “A hair between the floorboards, stubble in the drains, a stray fingernail—”
“Stop.” Jackson grimaced. “Fingernails are too far. I don’t need that shit in my head. You sound like a serial killer.”
“I’d suck as a serial killer. I haven’t got the upper-body strength.” Leah appeared to consider the matter seriously. “Although I could knock the research side of it out of the park.”
“And serial killers are famously great at research?” Why was he encouraging her nonsense?
She nibbled the stub of her carrot, the fingers of one hand twisting around and around in a section of her midnight hair. “It stands to reason. Tear blindly into stabby situations without any planning and the police will pick you up before you’ve washed off the first spray of blood.”
“‘Stabby situations’?” Jackson sat back on his heels.
“Yeah. Or poisoning predicaments or—”
“Shooting shitshows?”
“Yeah, those.” She grinned. “They can be especially messy.”
“Don’t require much upper-body strength, though.” He stacked another section of carpet and scooted sideways, ignoring the DNA coating his knees.
“Until you need to dispose of the corpse.”
“The amount of thought you’ve put into this is disturbing.” Jackson used his forearm to push sweat-dampened hair out of his face.
This back-and-forth with Leah was dangerously addictive. Try as he might to block her out, he quite liked the person he became around her. Ripping up another piece of carpet with unnecessaryforce, he made himself focus on the matter at hand. It was time to shut down the conversation.
“If you’ve finished your yammering, I’ve got a job to get on with here.”
Jackson pretended not to notice the way Leah’s face dropped, or the strange pang he felt in his chest because of it.
Chapter 11
From Esther’s diary
March 28th, 1972
I swear if Mother brings up The Creep once more, I’ll scream. Honestly, I don’t see why they can’t see past his smarmy smiling and all the sucking up. He’s unbearable. I told her I’d rather chew my own eyeballs than date him and she said I’ve been spending too much time with Hazel.
Leah
Jackson didn’t stop until every square foot of ancient carpet had been torn up and removed from the house. Then, doors and windows open to clear the air despite the early-spring chill, he levered up tack strips, swept, and vacuumed.
“That looks amazing.” Leah loved the look of the battered, original floorboards.
Jackson paused in the middle of chugging a pint of cold juice. “Still needs sanding and sealing, but it’s an improvement.”
There was barely an inch of him that wasn’t either filthy or sweaty—his hair coated in a thick layer of dust, gray t-shirt more dark patches than light. Even the hairs on his forearms were clogged with grime. He smelled of hard work and stale debris and, damn, if that wasn’t a whole lot more appealing than it sounded.
