Killing It Softly An Anthology of Thrillers

By Terry Barnes

SHE CAN'T REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAYAND NOW SHE'S WANTED FOR MURDER

Clarissa is a reclusive computer programmer that works at home. A long lost crush friends her on Facebook on invites her to dinner. She agrees and goes home with the man, only to wake up in his bed with him murdered next to her. Waking up with a feeling of "what did I do?", she runs out of the apartment and tries to put together both the secrets of the past and the past day that she can't remember.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trellis Publishing
• Release date: Jun 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201026097

Book preview

KILLING IT SOFTLY

––––––––

TERRY BARNES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

KILLING IT SOFTLY

THE SCARRED

THE SCREAMS OF GHOSTS

BLOOD STREAM

SHE WOLF

A MURDER NEAR PERFECT

ONE DARK PARTY

KILLING IT SOFTLY

Clarissa stared down at her yellow tulips, watching water collect in their soft folds. It had rained for three days straight and she wondered if her flower garden would survive the excessive moisture.

Sighing, she turned away from her window and back at her computer screen, where lines of code sat waiting for her. A collection of empty Chinese take-out containers was scattered over the surface of her glass desk, and the old wooden coffee table she once purchased at a garage sale. She tried to ignore the mess, internally blaming her laziness on the weather. Rain always had a way of making her despondent. Perhaps it was the cacophony coming from the roof of her two story apartment building. So many people found the sound of rain soothing, but it only kept her up, watching cheesy late night infomercials.

Clarissa readjusted her orange terry cloth robe and shuffled over to the worn leather sofa. She fumbled for the remote between dirty forks and a dusty National Geographic, doing her best to pretend that she didn’t have an entire website design due the following morning.

Situated on the couch, Clarissa couldn’t help but glance at her reflection, staring back at her from the mirrored bookshelf beside the TV stand. Even from five feet she could tell her limp brown hair was greasy. She looked extraordinarily pale considering it was mid-July in North Carolina. She flicked the remote at the television and the local news came on. A blonde woman with a gap between her front teeth marveled at the record breaking torrential downpours.

After a few more minutes of stating the obvious in regards to the weather, the camera shifted to an overweight news anchor in an olive colored sweater vest. Well, Greensboro may be turning into a puddle, but that is not stopping the local animal shelter from hosting a large adoption event, Carol, he beamed into the camera. Dozens of families are making the rainy trek to the shelter to check out these amazing animals in need of the perfect home. Let’s take a closer look.

Clarissa stared as the news segment cut to a video montage of the overweight man being excessively licked in the face by a Chihuahua. Even that guy is getting more action than me, she grumbled.

PING.

The tell-tale sound of a Facebook notification emanated from her computer. Clarissa pushed the power button on her remote and walked back to her desk that sat to the right of her rain soaked window. She dragged her mouse to the Facebook tab and saw two very promising things: one that she received a message, and two that someone wanted to be her friend.

She couldn’t recall the last time she had gotten a friend request. It was likely Tom, a man who hired her to do some programming for him four months prior. She had been vaguely interested in getting to know him better, before she saw the litany of eye-roll worthy motivational stickers that clogged his Facebook feed. She didn’t have much of a social life, but she wasn’t that desperate.

She decided to look at the friend request first. Her chest inflated as she read the name, and saw a handsome young man smiling at her in pixel form. Jake McLintock. Jake McLintock. It was a name as familiar as her own. How many times had she murmured (even, admittedly, panted) that name over and over again when she went to bed during High School? How many times was that named scribbled in her nauseatingly pink diary during Junior High? She half expected to hear fanfare as she whispered the name aloud to her empty family room.

She scrolled the mouse over to the message icon, wondering if it was possible that not only had the man of her dreams befriended her, but went out of his way to communicate with her as well.

Please.... oh, please, she murmured and slammed her index finger down.

Hello Clarissa. I’m not sure if you remember me or not, but we went to high school together. Facebook asked if I knew you, and I thought I would leave a quick note to see how you were. I remember you being very charming back in the day. I know this is out of the blue, but would you, by chance, like to get coffee or something sometime? Hope you’re well.

Clarissa raised a triumphant fist in the air, and quickly proceeded to read the message another ten times. By then, her face felt permanently fixed in an ecstatic smile. She flexed her fingers, then began to type a response.

Jake, hello! Of course I remember you—you were always so nice to me in Biology. How have you been? I’d love to meet up for coffee, or perhaps even dinner, if you aren’t too busy.

Scrunching up her nose, she pushed the SEND button, and hoped that she didn’t come across as too forward. Bouncing up from her office chair, she paced around the room, internally chiding herself for her temporary bravado. Dinner! Was she mad? She flung herself onto the sofa with a groan, convinced she appeared too eager and would never hear from Jake again.

That’s right, Biology! I thought you were in my English class, but I had that with your sister. Remember dissecting those frogs? To this day I still can’t eat frog legs. With that being said, how does Italian sound?

I love Italian! I am free any night this week.

Great. I thought it might be fun to have it delivered from my favorite place to my house. That way we can laugh over our old yearbooks while we dine. That sound appealing enough to you?

What a great idea, yes, I love it.

Fantastic. So, Friday night, 8 PM. My address is 7685 Salisbury Court. I look forward to seeing you!

You too!

Clarissa pushed herself back from her desk, with a small yelp of glee. She looked around her messy apartment, no longer seeing a week’s worth of delivery food strewn about, nor a dozen sticky coffee cups. All she saw was Jake McLintock’s handsome face.

By 7:30 on Friday evening, Clarissa had attempted four different hairstyles, and tried on over half of her wardrobe. She sat on a pile of hangers on the end of her bed, staring into the empty void that was now her closet.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had been so nervous. She glanced at the white cordless phone resting on her cream colored nightstand, wondering she should call her mother for the third time. While Mrs. Stevens had been excited that Clarissa finally had a date with the infamous Jake McLintock, she wasn’t exactly up to speed when it came to modern dating. This was one of those moments when Clarissa wished she had a best friend to turn to. Or, at the very least, a favored hairdresser.

After much hemming and hawing, Clarissa scoffed at herself, wiggled into a black dress and threw her hair up into a messy bun. Taking one last glance at the mirror hung up inside her closet door, she hoped that her attire would not be misconstrued as careless.

––––––––

She was nervous at first, but the moment Jake pulled out his old yearbooks, she was at ease, nestled up beside him at his dining room table.

Oh god, don’t look at that one, I hadn’t started subscribing to Vogue yet, she chuckled, attempting to shield his eyes.

He laughed and brushed her hands away, peering at her 1x1 photograph.

No, see this is just how I remembered you, he said, his silver Rolex thudding against the page as he tapped her picture. That scrunchie! You wore it almost every day! Sometimes I wondered if you even slept in it.

Clarissa laughed, not able to suppress the pink hue that flooded her cheeks.

Oh, now I’ve embarrassed you, he tutted, his blue eyes apologetic.

No, not at all, she murmured, lighting touching his forearm. Although it does remind me of this one day where you wore this hideous red and yellow striped rugby shirt...

The absolute travesty! Jake said, and laughed with her.

The evening had gone so well, so smoothly, that Clarissa only half registered what was happening as Jake helped her remove her polka dot bra.

They had kissed their way from the dining room into his bedroom, where two lamps glowed on either side of a king sized bed. He eased her down onto the chocolate brown duvet, before briefly tearing away from her to look her in the eyes.

Are you sure? he said, his mouth half open due to heavy breathing.

His panting brought her back to ten years before, fantasizing about him under her flower comforter. How she would have killed for this moment back then.

I’m sure, she whispered, and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his face down to hers.

––––––––

When Clarissa woke up, she saw a plain white ceiling above her head. It looked no different from the one in her own bedroom, yet she knew instinctually that she was not there.

She wiggled her toes against silky sheets, and stretched her legs beneath the duvet. Sunlight flooded the left side of her face, and she turned toward it, inviting the warmth in. She grabbed a handful of the duvet and pulled it closer to her chest with a short shiver.

She admired the warm brown silk of the duvet, and glanced down at it only to see a dark red stain within her hands. Puzzled she rolled over, and suddenly it felt like all of the warmth and possibility of the day had been sucked back out the window.

Red stains created a chaotic pattern all across the blanket. It’s wine, it’s makeup...She told herself, and she believed in those possibilities until she saw handprints streaked in the middle of the bed, as if Jake had tried to wake her in the middle of the night.

Jake. It took Clarissa several seconds to pluck up the courage to look over at him, lying beside her. The duvet was up over his head, but she knew what she would find underneath. Her hands shook as she slowly peeled the blanket back.

His blue eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling. His mouth was parted, and she could imagine him whimpering her name as he lay there dying. Tears sprung to her eyes. She dragged the blanket down further to reveal his chest, which was bloody and ripped up, as if he had been stabbed.

Clarissa jerked back and proceeded to vomit onto the beige carpet on her side of the bed. Hunched over, she reached over to the nightstand and fumbled blindly for the tissue box she remembered seeing there the night before. Her fingers made contact with something hard and plastic.

She grabbed it and brought it down to see past her ragged brown hair. It was a kitchen knife, long and narrow with a smooth black handle. It was caked with blood. She dropped it in a state of shock. Her fingerprints were now on the knife that had been used to murder Jake and she felt she was going to be sick all over again.

She searched the room through tear streaked eyes for her clothes, scattered across the room during their tryst. The police would already try to pin the crime on her, and now they had evidence to put her away. She had to get out, and she had to get out without being seen.

The moment she shut her apartment door behind her, she threw her purse onto the floor and ransacked her desk drawer for a piece of paper and a pen. Choking back another onslaught of tears and vomit, she sank down onto her couch and began to jot down notes.

Arrived at Jake’s at 8

Dinner was delivered around 8:45?

Had two gin martinis each.

Went to bedroom to have sex around 10? Maybe?

Then???

Those question marks seemed to mock her. She remembered kissing all the way into the bedroom, and falling onto the bed. She remembered the way he asked if everything was okay, she started unbuttoning his dress shirt with a coy smile on her face. She remembered having sex, his headboard knocking over and over again into the wall, she had wondered if it would cause permanent damage.

And then? Then? Nothing. A complete blank. She dropped the ball point pen onto the coffee table as her lungs began to contract and tighten. Her breathing came out swift and shallow as panic really and truly set in. How did she manage to stay asleep, when this horrific thing happened? Or worse, what if she had been drugged and entered some kind of psychosis and did the evil deed herself? Was it some kind of repressed anger for never receiving his affection all of those years ago?

Clarissa grabbed a carton that once contained Lo Mein and emptied the remaining contents of her stomach. No....No, it wasn’t me. It couldn’t have been me, she said, shaking her head until she felt vertigo.

But who? And why? 

––––––––

She began to pace her family room, occasionally wiping the sleeve of her black dress across her mouth. Perhaps it had been a coincidence that this happened the night she was there. Or what if she had been the unknowing catalyst? It had been ten years, and not everyone was a recluse like she was. Had Jake been married before? Had he died a married man, all because he chose to have an affair?

Clarissa ran her hands through her tangled hair, and walked around the room blindly. He had had sophisticated décor, but nothing about the sports memorabilia or knick-knacks seemed particularly feminine. If he had been married, it seemed abundantly clear that his wife did not live there with him.

What if it had been a criminal? Jake said he was a prosecution lawyer. It could have been an ex-con seeking revenge on the man who put him behind bars.

But hadn’t Jake mentioned that most of the men he