Page 165 of Shhh…It’s A Killer Story

I've developed worse hobbies.

Seraphina

My hands were still trembling when the printer finally surrendered the last photograph. The machine gave its familiar mechanical sigh, and another glossy page slid into the tray with surprising gentleness, as though even the printer understood that certain moments deserved to be handled carefully.

I waited.

Fresh ink always needs a few extra seconds.

People rush everything these days. They snatch photographs before they're dry, fold pages before the glue has set, speak apologies before they've actually thought about them. Then they wonder why everything smudges.

Patience has always produced prettier results.

When I was satisfied the ink wouldn't smear beneath my fingertips, I lifted the photographs one by one. A ridiculous grin tugged at my mouth.

You photograph sunsets…I photograph a specific detective.

Everyone has hobbies. Mine simply required more storage space than most. The hallway creaked softly beneath my feet as I walked toward the spare bedroom. Most people would have called it an office. Frank insisted it was a museum. Gerald preferred Exhibit A, which I felt was unnecessarily dramatic. I liked archive. Archive sounded responsible. Respectable. Academic.

Archive sounded like something historians built after wars instead of something assembled by a woman who accidentally fell in love with a detective who kept apologizing before breaking her heart. The room greeted me with the comforting scent of paper, old pine shelves, fresh printer ink and adhesive.

It was my favourite room in the cottage not because it was beautiful but because it made sense. Everything in here had a place. The wall stretched from floor to ceiling. Months ago, it had been blank. Now it breathed.

Photographs overlapped in careful layers, pinned with mathematical precision. Newspaper articles sat beside printed police press conferences. Community fundraiser photographs. Old army photos. Grainy newspaper clippings. Local Facebook posts where someone had accidentally captured him standing in the background. Screenshots from forgotten livestreams. A blurry image from the annual Pioneer Parade where everyone else was waving and Elias looked like he'd rather arrest the marching band. Every version of Detective Elias Reed lived somewhere on that wall.

Uniform Elias. Coffee-before-sunrise Elias. Brooding Elias. Rain-soaked Elias. Bruised-knuckles Elias. The Elias who never smiled. The Elias who smiled so faintly nobody else noticed.

I noticed. I always noticed. Nothing escaped me where he was concerned.

Red thread connected dates. Pushpins marked locations. Small handwritten notes filled the spaces between photographs.

Doesn't smile around strangers.

Always stands closest to exits.

Drinks coffee black.

Left shoulder stiff before rain.

Checks windows before sitting down.

Carries everyone else's burdens. Never hands anyone his own.

Calls Max "partner."

That one made me smile every time I read it. The new photographs looked almost shy beside the older ones. I positioned the first carefully. Tilted it two millimetres. No. One millimetre. Perfect. Pushpin. The second went beneath it. Then the third. The one where Max's paws were resting against his chest while Elias laughed.

My favourite.

I pinned it right beside the photograph from yesterday. The one where he'd kissed me. Not the kiss, obviously. There hadn't been anyone there to photograph that. Just him walking back toward his porch afterward, shoulders heavy beneath the evening light. I touched the corner of the photograph gently.

"There," I whispered.

"Now you're where you belong."

My fingertips lingered against the cool metal of the pushpin longer than necessary.

People think obsession grows like lightning. One dramatic strike. One catastrophic moment. It doesn't. It grows politely. One conversation. One apology. One photograph. One heartbeat against your ear. One piece of clothing, quietly rescued before the washing machine steals its scent forever. Tiny permissions.