Chad laughed.“That hasn’t happened.”
“That.One hundred percent.Has happened.”
Chad cooed at Mercutio, telling him he would see him soon.
“I’m going to get her, Chad,” Josh said suddenly.“It was so hard not to drive straight to her place and arrest her.”
“You can’t.Not yet—”
“I know, I know.We have to do it by the book.Gather evidence, get a warrant for her place, arrest her, charge her, Iknow,” Josh sighed.“This isn’t going to be an easy conviction, but I swear to you, I’ll make her pay for what she did to you, for what she did to all her victims.”
“Come here,” Chad said.
Romeo listened intently.
Both Chad and Josh were quiet downstairs, but Josh’s jacket rustled, and there was a smack of a hand patting on a back.
“I’m sorry,” Josh whispered.
“I told you before, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”
“I wish you were coming back to work.”
Chad didn’t reply.
“Anyway,” Josh said.“I better go.You need me.You call me.”
“I will.”
Josh whistled, and Mercutio followed him from the house, barking happily.
Chad closed the door.He rested his forehead against it as Romeo came downstairs.
“You’re not stupid,” Romeo murmured.
“Maybe...”Chad pushed off from the door.“We’ve got a grave to dig.”
“We have.”
****
They dug it togetherin silence.
Romeo kept glancing Chad’s way, wondering what was on his mind.Whenever he asked, Chad shook his head, breathless with effort.
Two magpies watched them.
The songbirds were afraid, and had hidden, but the magpies remained.
They didn’t fear Chad and Romeo.
Romeo had found the raven with gruesome wounds beneath the birdfeeders.
It was dead, and although he hadn’t witnessed the final showdown, he knew the magpie pair had killed it.
Before Romeo went to get Keeley’s body from the outhouse, he scooped the raven up with the shovel and dumped it into the grave first.
Chad didn’t comment.He added his own object to the hole.
