Some people bake to relax.
Others hide bodies wrapped in rugs.
My neighbor does both.
“Are you saying you saw a dead body?” Cata asked the next day over a video call, while applying a black face mask that made her look like a cross between Batman and a nervous olive.
“I didn’t see a dead body,” I clarified, pushing up my blue-light glasses while trying to balance the laptop on my knees. “I saw something. A bundle. Big. Wrapped. And he was dragging it like you’d drag… well, a body. Or a very suspicious rug. What else would you drag in the dark, at that hour of the night, with so much secrecy?”
“Are you sure it wasn’t just a rug?”
“No. But it had the shape of a person. Or a polar bear. But let’s be real, Apartment B doesn’t seem like the kind of place where someone keeps polar bears as decor. Unless they’re taxidermied, and I don’t get that vibe from him. I get more of a… ‘I’m hiding secrets and cook with weird ingredients’ kind of energy.”
Cata snorted and peeled off the mask with a sound that, honestly, sent shivers down my spine. I don’t know how anyone can call that ritual relaxing.
“It also doesn’t seem like the kind of place where people bake zucchini cake in an apron with no shirt on,” she added, making a face like she could smell something fishy.
“That’s exactly my point, Cata. Nobody happily cooks zucchini shirtless after burying a body. Or… do they?”
I sighed and slumped back against the couch, with Simon curled up on the cushion beside me, completely unbothered by my emotional crisis. I felt like a budget version of a soap opera detective: no badge, no real intuition, and a heating pad on my stomach because, to top it all off, my period had decided to show up. Great. As if the body-rug mystery wasn’t enough, now my uterus was joining the general drama.
“Sofia, listen,” Cata said, mask-free now, her skin glowing like she was a vegan influencer freshly enlightened by the universe. “You’ve got three options. One: ignore it. Two: report it. Three: infiltrate his life, uncover the truth, and if there’s no body, hook up with him.”
“You watch way too many shows, don’t you?”
“Way too many. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
I stared at the screen. Partly because the laptop light was the only thing making me look halfway alive. Partly because Cata, in all her craziness, always has a point.
That afternoon, I decided to go out. To walk. To clear my head. To pretend I wasn’t spending every waking minute analyzing whether the neighbor across the street had committed murder or just had weird decorating habits. I circled the block, bought a bottle of water I didn’t need just to delay going back, and forced myself not to look at the balcony of Apartment B. I almost succeeded.
But when I got back, like in one of those movies where fate doesn’t give you a break, I ran into him.
Him.
In the hallway.
Julian.
Face to face.
Sweaty, wearing an old T-shirt half-tucked up, carrying a box in his arms.
He looked like he’d just run a marathon or fled a poorly planned crime scene.
“Sofia, right?” he asked, with a smile that was half-friendly, half-exhausted.
I swallowed hard. I wasn’t ready. No one is. There’s no emotional training for having a conversation with a suspected killer who looks like a model for organic flour ads.
“Yeah… I mean, yes. That’s me.”
“Could you help me with this box? It’s for the building association. Books to donate. Though I’m starting to suspect no one reads around here.”
“Sure,” I replied on autopilot. What kind of detective helps the suspect with a box? Where’s my common sense when I need it?
I took the box. I expected it to weigh as much as bad karma, but it was surprisingly light. Suspicious. Very suspicious.
Books? Or parts of a plan for his next victim?
“What kind of books are you donating?” I asked casually, as if I weren’t mentally building a criminal profile.
“Thrillers. Mysteries. Crime novels. The usual.”
“Very… on brand,” I muttered.
“Sorry?”
“Nothing, nothing. Just saying… the genre suits you. Mysterious, dark, with a ‘I know things you don’t’ kind of look.”
He laughed. That deep laugh, like he had a secret stuck in his throat. It unnerved me and intrigued me at the same time.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
We walked to the building’s common room. It was a small, rectangular space that smelled like old coffee filters, with decor that screamed “I gave up trying.” A broken water cooler stood in the corner like a useless statue. A crooked sign on the wall read “No pets allowed. Except the doorman’s cat.”
“So, what brought you here?” Julian asked as he carefully set the box on the table.
“An urgent need to escape my old life,” I said, with the filtered honesty you reserve for attractive, dangerously charismatic strangers.
“An urgent need to escape my old ex,” he replied without hesitation.
We exchanged looks.
One second.
Two.
Silence.
The awkward kind. The kind that reeks of pasts poorly sealed with packing tape.
“Well,” I said finally, breaking the tension like someone smashing a family heirloom plate. “So, what were you doing last night around ten? I saw you on your balcony with… something.”
“Spying on your neighbors, Sofia?”
I turned red. Tomato red. Or like a badly made paella. Or both.
“I don’t spy. I observe. It’s different. And you were… noticeable. What do you expect, with an apron, a spoon, and opera music?”
He shrugged, amused.
“It was a rug.”
“Uh-huh. Sure. A rug. So why were you dragging it like you were hiding a body?”
“Because it was wet. It weighed as much as every bad decision I’ve ever made. My ex-mother-in-law gave it to me, so… the drama came with it.”
I looked at him. Straight on. There was sincerity in his eyes. Or he was a top-tier actor. Both possibilities worried me.
“You have to admit it looked suspicious.”
“And you have to admit you’re more curious than a detective cat.”
“What if I told you I’m an illustrator with an unhealthy obsession with dark stories?”
“I’d tell you to invite me over for coffee. Or one of those weird teas you drink. And tell me all about it.”
I froze. Invite him to my place? Him? The alleged rug-murderer?
“What? Scared of a conversation?”
“I’m scared you’ll turn out to be a serial killer with excellent cooking skills,” I said, half-joking.
“That’s a compliment. And you know it,” he winked with the kind of confidence that only comes from someone who either hides nothing… or hides everything very well.
That night, while Simon slept on my lap as if nothing in the universe could disturb him, and I mentally replayed all the red flags I’d willingly ignored, I knew one thing:
I was already in way over my head.
And the worst part: I was starting to like it.
Yeah, the neighbor might be weird.
But he was also funny.
Sweet.
Unsettling.
And that, for me, was irresistible.