Copy Cat

My husband is so supportive of me as a writer. I know I am very lucky. Not all spouses would be comfortable carrying their partner, the way he did at the beginning. Garrett is different, though.

My friends told me it was fishy that he didn't want me to work. They said, he's isolating you at home and depriving you of your financial independence!

They didn't seem to understand. Garrett always wanted me to work. He wanted me to be successful in my dream job. He wanted me to be a writer, because I wanted to be a writer. He has always wanted me to be happy.

I distanced myself from them, and they believed that was his influence, too. It wasn't. He encouraged me to go out and spend time with them. I didn't want to. I felt they didn't take my dream seriously.

I remember we went out for lunch, and they would all be talking about work. What their workload was like, how they got along with their boss, who got promoted, who left, who was flirting with who, who was pregnant... I felt on the outside.

When it came to my turn, their expressions would glaze and their gazes skitter over me. My turn would get skipped. I didn't get to talk about my workday. If I shoehorned myself in, they would smile, polite and fixed, and change the subject as quick as possible.

Or they would winch a curious look on to their faces and say, "So! How is the book coming along?" There would be some nodding, and some mhm-ing, and they'd move on.

I don't say any of this out of self pity. I'm just describing how it was.

I do get it. I'm not completely clueless. For me to start banging on about my latest book is nearly as bad as some guy in a fedora pulling out a guitar at parties. It's... how do the kids say it... Cringe.

Garrett was always genuinely, gratifyingly (yes, I know I stacked the adjectives, so sue me) curious about what I did. My ideas, and which of them I'd managed to pin to the page before they fluttered away.

He didn't do this to find out whether his support of me was a good investment, or at least, I never got that impression. It did have that effect, though. A bit. I wanted to have something to report. I wanted to see him lean in, fascinated. It pushed me, kept me accountable.

Of course, now I have achieved my dream. I have an agent, and a publisher. I make a decent living. I am financially independent after all, and those friends have drifted back, keen to tell me they always knew I'd succeed...

I tell them, "I could never have done it without Garrett." It's true.

They lean in now, intrigued, eager for tidbits from my next book. It rankles a little, but I smile blandly, scatter some crumbs, and then turn the conversation on to their careers. How are things at the office? How do they get along with their underlings? How are their children?

I play the part, humble, magnanimous, but it gives me pleasure to twist the knife.

Knives are my specialty, as it turns out. Twists, too. I love a good twist. Horror is my happy place. Romance earns me the most, but I don't enjoy reading it, or writing it. Detective stories are a nice earner, easy to write, a little formulaic, but the readers never seem to mind this. They expect it. They seem to prefer it that I don't go off-piste. The best part, I can add a splash of horror. A red splash, naturally. People love blood and guts almost as much as they love sex.

Sometimes people ask me, where do you get your ideas? I used to say Garrett, because it was the truth. He has been a source of inspiration to me, in both genres. I've woven his kisses into my stories. I've had him covered in blood, those beautiful eyes narrowed and cold. I've had him stagger and fall to his knees with a knife in his belly. He's been a sounding board. He's come up with inventive ways of killing, and covering it up.

Other times, I've come up with an especially horrible way to end someone, and where other people (some might say, "normal people") would pull away, repulsed and concerned, his eyes light up. A smile blooms over his features like a fresh blood stain.

Garrett urged me to stop crediting him, and to take that credit for myself. He really is wonderful.

Last year, there was something of a controversy, because there was what the police called, a "copycat killer". Someone had, apparently, been killing people in the same way as in my novels. It was all quite unpleasant, really. I was nervous for a while, but when it comes right down to it, I can't be held responsible for the actions of a mutter, can I? That would be absurd.

They took my laptop, and my search history gave them pause. I said, haven't you ever seen a writer's search history? It did look fishy, I'll admit, with how relevant some of the searches were to the crimes they were investigating. Then they came up with this theory of a copycat, and I breathed again.

To be honest, once this fact leaked to the public, it didn't hurt my sales one iota. It's partly thanks to this copycat that my mortgage is paid.

The only worry now is that the killer hasn't been caught. I wanted to swear off horror and crime, stick to Romance. It's safer. Garrett wouldn't hear a word of it.

"You know you hate Romance," he said. "Finish 'Copy Cat' and release it. It would be criminal not to. You've worked so hard on it."

I smiled at him, a big beaming smile.

"You know," he said, suddenly thoughtful, winding his arms around my waist, "It would be genius if you were the Copycat Killer. Hiding in plain sight."

I giggled and poked him in the ribs.

So I did it. I released it, we had a wonderful launch party, and Copy Cat rocketed up the bestseller list.

I think Garrett does feel a little emasculated by being out-earned. He's working late again. That's fine. It would be a bit weird if he was completely flawless, wouldn't it? Whatever he has to do. I know when he does finally come home, he will be happy and relaxed, practically glowing.

I can't wait to share the plot of my next one with him. The working title is 'Til Death Do Us Part. Obviously, it's the spouse who "dunnit",, but like I said, the readers expect it to be formulaic.

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Thank you for reading!

Tell me about your search history - how incriminating is it? 😂