SERIAL KILLER GAMES by Kate Posey, Excerpt
Jake
The next morning, I wake at 4:53 AM and stare at the dim grey square that is my ceiling and think about Dolores dela Cruz. I drink five cups of coffee in the dark, and I don’t even feel annoyed about Verity anymore. I have a name. Now I need to find out where she works. I need to know her department.
At work, after two weeks as photocopy bitch, Doug finally gives me some data entry to do.
“How long did this job usually take the last person?” I ask him.
Doug sweats and fidgets. “A week?”
I nod mournfully. “It will take me longer, because I’m learning.”
Then I request permission to relocate to the empty annex so that I can take advantage of the quiet to really focus, i.e., write a script that will automate the entire process, completing one week’s work in five minutes, allowing me to spend the rest of the day working on my list. Or staring into space and imagining shoving every person I ever knew off a tall building. Or, thinking about a slight figure in a black trench coat.
Permission is granted, and off I gambol to claim a cubicle in the annex, a deserted, corporate post-apocalypse frozen in time after the chaotic bloodbath of the last round of layoffs two years ago. The conspicuous absence of the warm bodies that left pens and papers scattered about and chairs half-turned from their desks pleases me. The fluorescents hum at the edge of hearing, the dry air tickles the throat, and the sensory pleasures of greasy, melamine surfaces and polyester upholstery beckon.
I plug in my computer, line up my pens, square my post-its, purposefully press the power button…and as my computer makes the sound of an angel chorus sighing, I look up, and there’s Dolores dela Cruz herself.
Ensconced in a corner office, her long, blue-black hair twirled into a perfect knot on the nape of her neck, her winged eyeliner like little black knife blades, her lipstick the only splash of colour in this monochrome environment, she’s been watching me through the floor to ceiling window that makes up one wall of her office with a stony expression.
I smile a bright, fake, shit-for-brains grin at her.
Fancy seeing you here!
She doesn’t even blink. She holds my gaze for five seconds, then turns back to her computer.
Now, my life is like this:
On Monday, Dolores walks in with lips as red and sticky and sweet as a Halloween candied apple with a razor blade inside, plucks up the coffee labeled “Dolly” from her desk, and holds my eyes while she drops it in the trash. Which is fair. I wouldn’t drink a coffee bought by me, either.
On Tuesday, my post-its and pens are smacked out of order when I arrive at work, and the pervasive pong of fish reveals itself to be one of Jared-from-accounts’ dirty tuna cans, taken from the kitchenette and hidden in my waste basket.
On Wednesday, my user account has been wiped from the computer. I make eye contact with Dolores as I pull a flash drive out of my messenger bag and restore my lost files.
On Thursday, I festoon my cubicle with strings of braided garlic and pour a salt ring onto the carpet around my desk.
On Friday, she cranks up her true crime podcasts to full tilt, daring me with a glance to protest. But the grisly podcasts just make the place feel homier. I decide to stay, and dear old Doug, pleased with my productivity, lets me.
It’s clear she isn’t happy about my intrusion. She never asks me what I’m doing here or how long I’ll stay. In the beginning she doesn’t talk to me at all, but some days I look up from my desk, my gaze drawn as if by an industrial magnet, and there she is, staring right at me through the glass window of her office with a bored, dissatisfied expression, like an apex predator considering something quite beneath her on the food chain.
When she’s not there, I pick the lock of her office door with a pair of paper clips and snoop her computer. It wakes when I touch the space bar, and she’s left open a browser tab for me: a Google search for “How to tell the office nutjob you know he’s snooping on your computer right now?” I leave a new search for her: “How do I gently let down an infatuated coworker?”
There’s nothing personal on her computer, and I can’t make out anything work-related, either. She spends all her time on her laptop, and that goes home with her.
I look up her podcasts and download an episode of Murderers at Work on my phone. I press play, and that eery, now-familiar opening jingle tinkles like a mallet sweeping over a skeleton’s ribs. I open her drawers and look through each one, just as she did to me, and as I lean back in her chair, I notice that the black stone vase sitting on her desk is angled just right so that she can see my workstation reflected in one of its flat, rectangular sides.
It’s a mystery to me what Dolores does. She doesn’t participate in any meetings. She doesn’t seem to be afflicted with a recurring appearance of paunchy middle management knocking on her door to “check in.” I watch her all day, and see nothing.
And all the while, there’s something. Something irresistible. I feel like a kid who keeps teasing the cat that scratches him. I feel like a cold, rubbery lab frog twitching to life every time she jabs me with an electrode.
Excerpted from SERIAL KILLER GAMES by Kate Posey Copyright © 2025 by Kate Posey. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
What would you do if you thought your coworker was getting away with murder—literally?
Dolores dela Cruz has been dying to spot one in the wild, and he fits the mold perfectly: strangler gloves, calculated charm, dashing good looks that give a leg up in any field . . . including fields of unmarked graves.
The new office temp is definitely a serial killer.
Jake Ripper finds a welcome distraction in his combative and enigmatic new coworker. He hasn’t come across anyone as interesting as Dolores in a long time. But when mere curiosity evolves into a darkly romantic flirtation, Jake can’t help but wonder if, finally, he’s found someone who really sees him, skeletons in the closet and all.
Until Dolores asks Jake’s help to dispose of a body . . .
A morbidly funny and emotionally resonant novel about the ways life—and love—can sneak up on us (no matter how much pepper spray we carry).
Fantasy Dark | Humor [Berkley, On Sale: April 29, 2025, Trade Paperback / e-Book , ISBN: 9780593818510 / eISBN: 9780593818534]
Apart from all the darlings. Kate Posey lives in Canada where she burns the midnight oil on Scrivener after everyone goes to bed. She writes darkly funny, escapist romcoms for her fellow dead-hearted millennials who find true crime less suspicious than true love.
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