“Usually, you have to wait for this,” Lonsdale said. He held out a padded envelope that hung heavy in the bottom and waited for Ledger to take it. His hands left sweaty smudges on the thick paper, and he glanced nervously over at the cleaner. When Ledger didn’t take the envelope fast enough, he jiggled it nervously. “Under the circumstances, however, I thought it was best to do as you asked.”
Ledger took the envelope and nearly dropped it.
It was still warm.
In his line of work, there wasn’t a lot that bothered Ledger. This did. The envelope squatted warm and sweaty against his palms, making his skin crawl. It was the closest he’d been to Bell in a long time.
“That’s… Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate that.”
Lonsdale nodded and wiped his hands against his thighs. Then he pulled a money clip out of his pocket, peeled off two hundred dollars, and handed them to Ledger.
“Amy shouldn’t have taken your money,” he said. “That’s not how we work.”
“Give it to charity,” Ledger said. “Or tip your cleaner. Thank you.”
“Thank you,” Lonsdale parried. He gave the envelope a look of distaste. “It’s not how we usually do things, but… I’ll be glad when he’s gone.”
Ledger took the hint. He tucked the envelope under his arm and let himself out of the chapel. Habit had him pull his sunglasses out of his jacket as he left the building, but he stopped with them halfway to his face. It was still daylight—it onlyfeltlike he’d spent all day waiting to char his dead parent—but the clouds had rolled in. Rain splattered the pavement. Ledger hooked his glasses into his shirt and broke into a jog to get to the car.
The rain soaked the envelope quickly. It would have been a good idea to keep it dry—Lonsdale probably didn’t want Bell turned to mud in his parking lot—but the thought of tucking the envelope under his jacket made Ledger’s gorge rise. It would be solid and warm against his hip, like a fat lapdog.
If the envelope split, it split.
It didn’t.
Ledger scrambled into the car and tossed the envelope onto the passenger seat. He started the engine, and the radio crackled at him. It had lost the station.
“There’s only the one,” Ledger muttered. He jabbed at the buttons a couple of times, but the display just cycled up through the bandwidth and back to where it started. Ledger sighed and turned it off. “Great. I get to drive back without Sutton County’s thoughts on the new sewer plant. Big loss.”
He pulled out of the spot and onto the road.
The splatter of rain turned into a downpour as Ledger reached the town limits. It soaked his shoulder and arm as he lowered the cracked window. He kept his eyes on the road as he reached over to blindly grab the envelope. As he drove past the abandoned Wallace gas station, he hung what was left of Bell out of the window and shook the envelope out. The rain caught the ash and battered it into the road. Bits of bone clattered against the side of the car and, when Ledger checked the mirror, bounced down the road.
If Hark wanted to find bits of Bell to sell as relics…
“Good luck to him,” Ledger muttered.
* * *
It wasafter midnight when Ledger woke up to someone hammering on his door.
He scrambled out of bed on adrenaline-fueled autopilot. The sheets were tangled around his legs, and he cracked his knee on a bedside table that shouldn’t be there. A bottle of water tipped over, rolled off the table, and onto the bed. It soaked the nearest pillow and the sheets underneath.
“Shit.”
Hotel room. Ledger lifted the bottle off the bed, although it was too late for damage control, and tossed it in the trash.
Whoever was at the door banged on it again. Ledger wasn’t the only one who’d been jarred out of his sleep—or whatever—by them. From one of the other rooms, a woman yelled, “Shut thefuckup!”
Ledger scrubbed both hands over his face in a quick proxy for being awake and went to open the door, just in time to stop the next tattoo of knocks. Wren stood on the walkway outside. He dropped his hand back to his side.
“It’s tomorrow.”
The light from the strip club opposite was too bright for this time of night. Ledger squinted his eyes closed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I meant at a decent hour,” he said.
Wren laughed, low and dirty. “There’s nothing decent about me.”
