This month, I’m diving into one of my favourite genres: crime and thrillers. Lately, I’ve been drawn to books like The Secret History, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and We Solve Murders, stories that give us, the readers, a front-row seat to the killer’s mindset. We witness how they rationalize and justify their actions, adding a deeply psychological layer to the narrative.
A few years ago, I underwent surgery to remove a bone tumour from my hip – Yes, your maths is correct that was during the pandemic. As some of you may know, morphine is the standard painkiller for this type of procedure. What I didn’t know at the time was that one of its lesser-known side effects is intensely vivid and often downright terrifying nightmares. While this only affects a small percentage of people, I was one of the “lucky” ones. No matter how many times I woke up, the dream would pick up right where it left off as soon as I fell back asleep.
After weeks of sleepless nights, my Macmillan nurse gave me a surprisingly simple but powerful piece of advice: write the nightmare down as soon as I woke up. The idea was to “finish” the dream on paper, to get it out of my system so it wouldn’t return. I was sceptical at first, but desperation will make you try anything, and it worked.
That’s how I began journaling my nightmares, and over time, they became the foundation for my writing. I started using the nightmares as the crime in a story, then worked backwards to solve it through plot and character. It became both a creative outlet and a way to process the trauma.
Now I have what I call my “nightmare bank”; a growing collection of dark, often unsettling crime concepts that I plan to develop into full-length novels. I use the crime as a backstory, building the novel around how the case would be solved.
The short story I’m sharing with you today was born from one of those dreams. It touches on disturbing themes like murder and hints of domestic abuse, so please read with care.
What fascinates me most in these stories is the emotional tension that arises when we know who the killer is from the start. As readers, we often form a strange intimacy with them. You see their thoughts, understand their motivations, and in some twisted way, you may even root for them. It creates a powerful contrast: part of you wants justice especially if the victim or detective resonates with you but another part can’t help but hope the killer escapes. After all, they’ve become your literary companion.
Isn’t that the beauty and complexity of fiction? That feeling of loyalty to a character who might, in another life, be the villain. It makes us reflect on the roles we play in others' lives, and how perspective shapes morality.
With that, I’m excited to share my latest crime short story with you.
A knife’s edge
Evie Adams stood frozen, her breath coming in shallow gasps, the knife still clutched tightly in her trembling hand. Blood, Peter’s blood, spread across the kitchen floor, mixing with the chopped vegetables scattered haphazardly near her feet. The vibrant reds and greens of peppers and tomatoes were now taking on a macabre hue.
Her eyes darted between the knife in her hand and Peter’s lifeless face, his eyes wide open, as if he too were in shock at what had just happened. "Oh God, Peter..." Her mouth was dry. Her hands shook so violently that the knife threatened to slip from her fingers. "What have I done?"
For a split second, the horror of it all gripped her; pure, unadulterated panic. She hadn’t meant to stab him. Not really. He had come up behind her, just like he always did, and in that moment, she had spun around and...
Her mind raced. "Think, Evie. Think." She was going to prison for a man who should have been behind bars himself.
She stared at the knife in her hand, realising she needed to act. Now. Slowly, she lowered it, letting the blade slip from her fingers. The sharp clatter as it hit the tiled floor broke the deafening silence in the room, cutting through her daze.
Her heart pounded in her chest, but her thoughts grew sharper, more calculated. "I can make this work. I won’t go to prison for him... If I handle this right, they’ll believe me."
Evie stepped back, inhaling deeply. "Calm. You need to be calm."
The phone was only a few steps away on the counter. "You know what to say. You’ve already rehearsed it." She had thought about it before, late at night, after Peter’s temper had flared one too many times. She knew what would work, what would make it believable. "He came up behind me, startled me. I was chopping vegetables, and I spun around without thinking. It’s an accident. A terrible, tragic accident."
Her hand hovered over the phone for a moment before she snatched it up and dialled. As the ringing began, she looked down at Peter one last time, her chest tight.
Finally, the line clicked, and the operator’s voice came through, brisk and professional.
“Emergency services, what’s your emergency?”
Evie let out a shaky sob, her voice rising and breaking as she forced herself into the role she needed to play. "It’s my fiancé... I…I’ve stabbed him! Oh God, please, you have to help!"
Her breath hitched, and she let the real panic wash through her words. It was easy to sound desperate when your hands were covered in blood.
“Ma’am, stay calm. Can you tell me exactly what happened?”
Evie closed her eyes, letting the sobs take control for a second before reining herself back in. Her words needed to sound natural. Breathe.
“I... I was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables,” she gasped out, each word deliberately scattered between breaths. “Peter, he came up behind me. I didn’t hear him, and I... I spun around. The knife... it went into his chest. I didn’t mean to hurt him! It was an accident, please. Please help him!”
“Stay with me, ma’am,” the operator’s voice was steady, grounding. “Help is on the way. Is he conscious?”
Evie hesitated, staring down at Peter’s pale, still face. She paused just enough. Her heart pounded against her ribs. "No... no, he’s not," she stammered, her voice cracking, just as she had practised in the mirror the other day. “He’s bleeding so much. There’s... there’s blood everywhere. Oh God, please hurry!”
“We’re dispatching an ambulance right now,” the operator said. “Stay calm, ma’am. Do you know if he’s breathing?”
“No, I don’t think so!” she gasped, forcing a frantic edge into her voice. “I…I don’t know, it’s hard to tell!”
“Alright, ma’am. Take a deep breath,” the operator continued calmly. “We’re tracking your location via your phone. It looks like you’re at... Maple Drive, is that correct?"
Evie’s stomach twisted. “Yes,” she whispered, her voice shaky. “52 Maple Drive. Please, please, he’s losing so much blood. You need to hurry!”
“52 Maple Drive, we’ve got it. The ambulance is already on its way,” the operator reassured her. “Stay with me, ma’am. Help is coming soon.”
The operator’s steady reassurance droned on in her ear, but Evie’s mind was elsewhere. While the operator talked, Evie glanced at the knife on the floor. Without missing a beat, she moved closer to Peter’s body, her eyes scanning his chest one more time. The pool of blood had spread even further, seeping into the cracks of the floor tiles. He wasn’t going to make it. That much was clear. Estimating how long to wait for Peter to definitely die and still have her emergency call serve as an alibi had been the most complicated part of her plan, and it’s not like she could exactly Google the information.
“Please, he can’t die... It was just an accident,” she added.
The wail of the ambulance’s siren pierced through the quiet house long before the paramedics burst through the open front door. Evie stood by the sink, her arms wrapped tightly around her body, trembling with every breath.
“Ma’am?” one of them asked her, as the other kneeled beside Peter. “Ma’am, can you hear me? Ma’am?”
Evie blinked, forcing her body to jerk back into the performance. She gasped, wide-eyed and frantic, and stumbled toward them. “Please, help him! I…I!”
The second paramedic, a woman with sharp eyes, grabbed a medical kit and began working swiftly with her partner. They checked Peter’s pulse, their movements brisk and efficient, but the glances they exchanged were promising. Evie let out a sob, her hands clutching her hair as she staggered back.
‘Cry, Evie. You need to cry now.’ She squeezed her eyes shut and let the tears flow freely, her shoulders shaking. When she opened her eyes again, she saw one of the paramedics, the woman, watching her just a little too closely.
“Ma’am, I need you to stay calm,” the paramedic said, her voice firm but with an edge of something else.
Evie nodded frantically, wiping her face with her bloodied hands, leaving smudges across her cheeks. She watched them for a few more moments, watching how their hands moved quickly but not with urgency. They were losing hope. They stopped asking questions about him and started asking questions about her.
“Ma’am, are you hurt?” the female paramedic asked, eyes narrowing. “You’ve got blood all over....”
Evie stared down at her hands, pretending to only now notice the thick, sticky mess. Her stomach churned as she clutched them to her chest. “No… no, it’s his blood. I…I tried to stop it. I tried to help him.” The tears came again, and this time, they were easier.
“How did this happen?” the female paramedic asked, eyes flicking between Evie and Peter’s bleeding body. “Can you walk me through it?”
Evie’s breath came in ragged, shallow bursts, her words tumbling out in a disjointed rush. “I was in the kitchen... chopping vegetables. Peter, he came up behind me. He does that all the time; he likes to surprise me.” Like the surprise of his mistress being pregnant with his child. Or the surprise of bruised ribs when she’d had the audacity to be upset about it. Her voice cracked as she forced out another sob. “I didn’t hear him. I turned around... and... and the knife... it went into his chest. Oh God…”
“Right. We’ll do everything we can.”
The male paramedic stood, “We need to move now,” he muttered. Together, they hoisted Peter onto the stretcher, strapping him in as quickly as they could. But their movements felt resigned.
Evie stepped back, her fingers gripping the countertop for support, watching as the paramedics led Peter into the ambulance. She followed them, trailing behind as they rushed him into the hospital. Now, she sat in the cold, sterile waiting area, the hard plastic chair unyielding beneath her. Her body ached with exhaustion, but she couldn’t relax. Not yet. Not until she knew it was truly over.
Her hands, still smeared with Peter’s drying blood, lay limply in her lap. The once-vibrant red had begun to darken, cracking on her skin like paint left out too long. She stared at them for a moment, feeling almost detached, as though they didn’t belong to her.
‘Peter’s blood.’
The thought felt distant now, as if it had happened to someone else, not her. Evie clenched her fists, feeling the dried blood crack on her skin. She should have been nauseous, should have recoiled at the sight of what she’d done. But instead, she felt a strange sense of release, as though she’d slipped into a warped version of time, her body no longer her own. It was like watching herself from the outside; disconnected, untethered.
Evie closed her eyes and forced herself to exhale, the sound shaky and deliberate. She could still feel the eyes of the hospital staff on her, their concerned looks filled with pity. Inside, though, a different emotion was stirring; a feeling so intense, so heady, that it threatened to make her dizzy. ‘It’s almost over,’ she thought, ‘It’s almost over.’
She heard footsteps approaching, the soft scuffing against the sterile hospital floor cutting through her daze. Evie didn’t look up.
“Miss Adams?” The voice was low, sombre, just as she expected.
Evie raised her head slowly, her eyes red-rimmed, her lips trembling. “Yes?” Her voice barely rose above a whisper.
The police officer, a middle-aged man with kind eyes, sighed deeply before speaking. His hat was clutched in one hand, and his face was drawn, as though bracing himself for something difficult. The moment stretched out unbearably. Her throat felt tight, her stomach twisted in knots.
“I’m so sorry,” the officer began, his voice soft and sincere, “but I need to speak to you.”
Evie froze, her breath catching in her throat.
The officer nodded, his expression tightening with sympathy. “Peter didn’t make it. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
For a moment, time seemed to stop. The words hit her, and she blinked, absorbing them slowly. ‘Peter didn’t make it. Peter was dead.’
Relief flooded through her, so strong and overwhelming that her entire body trembled. The world tilted, and she collapsed forward, knees hitting the floor with a dull thud. A wail tore from her throat, loud and guttural, echoing through the quiet waiting room. She sobbed uncontrollably, her body shaking with the force of it. The officer knelt awkwardly beside her, unsure how to comfort her, while nurses and staff rushed to her side, murmuring condolences, offering tissues, a hand to hold, anything they could to ease her imagined pain.
Evie stayed on the floor, hands covering her tear-streaked face, her body hunched over in what everyone assumed was heart-wrenching grief. She let them believe it. Let them comfort her, surround her in sympathy. She could feel their hands on her shoulders, could hear the soft, murmured words of support.
But Evie wasn’t broken. She wasn’t devastated.
She was free.
So, what do you think? Has she left behind a thread that could unravel everything or is her secret safe for now? If this story were to grow into a full-length novel, what details might a sharp-eyed detective uncover? What turning points could shift the narrative? As I mentioned earlier, I’m fascinated by stories where we start inside the killer’s mind and work backwards. That psychological tension, that blurred line between empathy and accountability, is what drives my writing, and I’d love to hear how you would develop it further. What clues would you plant? How would justice (or the lack of it) unfold?
Feel free to share your theories, plot ideas, or even alternate endings in the comments, I’m always curious to see how others would build the case.