A smile twitches at my lips and I hand her a bag. “Personal items,” I tell her. “Put them in there for me. We’re going to have to get him out of here, but we’re not going to do it yet. See if he told anyone where he was going. You know his passcode, right?” Already, Es is unlocking his phone, and she leans back on the counter with her hands trembling only slightly.
“Wait, are you telling me we’re going to have to hang out with his dead body?” she blurts out suddenly as my words sink in. She glances down, then up. “Inhere?”
“Yep.” I unroll a garbage bag, and use the kitchen scissors in my hand to cut the side. “But we’re not going to let him bleed all over the hardwood. I don’t want to have to re-stain it, do you? Hell, I don’t actually know how.” I’m no handyman. “So we’re going to make this into a tarp, you’re going to help me roll him onto it, and we’re going to turn him into a human burrito.” Glancing up at her, I catch her momentary horror but choose to ignore it.
“Can you go get the duct tape from my room?”
Esme squeakswhen she drops Alan’s head a foot from the trunk, her grip finally giving out as she fumbles to keep hold of him. Panting, she looks up at me in abject horror, but I only offer her a look with raised brows.
“He doesn’t mind,” I tell her quietly, glad that the parking lot is just as empty as we predicted it would be. Our building is low-quality enough that we don’t have cameras in the elevator or the parking garage. Something that was impressed upon us when we moved in by the chronically high building manager. Usually, that’s a concern. Tonight, it’s a blessing.
My words have the opposite effect of what I intended, however. Esme’s face pales, and even in the low light of the half-underground garage, I can see her going a bit green around the edges. I’d laugh if I weren’t trying to think of what we need to do here, and making sure I don’t miss anything.
Could I call Cass? Sure. But I don’t really want to hear him lecture me. Maybe Wren would be the better call, but he’s never liked me so much. Or at least, never quite trusted that I’d gotten over my “phase.”
Clearly, he was right.
Killing Alan had been easy. Easier than it should’ve been, and I almost hated washing his blood off my hands instead of smearing it over my face and lips just to see how it felt. With a huff, I shake my head, trying again to clear it and to shake off the feelings that keep bubbling up. I can’t do this. I can’tbethis. Not now, when I’m an adult and the court definitely won’t give me any leniency.
Esme pops the trunk of her car and together we hoist Alan into it, his body thumping around and making her wince again as he rolls onto his side. I’ve taped him up in trash bags so well that he’s not going anywhere, and his blood definitely won’t be getting in her car with all the prep work we’ve done to make sure of it.
While our fingerprints will be on him, that’s okay, I hope. If he’s found, we can tell them the truth. That he was dating Esme, and that he and I were together often because of it. Not that I’d ever willingly touch him, but the cops wouldn’t have to know that.
The drive to the bay is silent, and I use my phone’s GPS to take us near enough to the trail where the body was recently found that I hope we can piggyback off the PNW serial killer who, right now, doesn’t have a cool name. The whole time, I can see Esme talking to herself, mumbling soundlessly as her lips move and her eyes stay wide and mostly unblinking.
Maybe I should be like that, I think to myself. Horrified, instead of going over everything in my head to make sure I didn’t forget an important step. I should try to keep myself together and slowly shaking apart, like how Esme’s hands occasionally twitch or tremble.
But I’m not.
I can’t understand her reaction, and it makes me wonder if what I did so long ago wasn’tjusta product of all the years ofabuse and neglect I experienced. Maybe Mom had been right. Maybe deep down I’m?—
Don’t go there, Tova.I chastise myself silently and lean back with a sigh, eyes closing as I ease into the passenger seat. The drive passes slowly, but at the same time, I’m almost surprised when Esme pulls into a parking spot at an old trailhead. She doesn’t pop the trunk, but she cuts the engine, and when I expect her to say or do something, she just sits there.
Hands on the steering wheel.
Staring straight ahead.
She looks petrified, both literally and not. Except her lower lip trembles, and I see tears in her eyes, which feel a bit pointless now to me. I’ve already killed him, and she’s helping me clean up. The time for crying or other options has long passed.
“You’re okay.” The words pass my lips as a statement, not a question. With only a little hesitation, I reach out and touch her shoulder, my fingers light on her hoodie. “You’re okay, Es. We’re almost done.”
“Someone is gonna find him,” she whispers. “There’s no way he’ll?—”
“Get eaten by sharks? Get torn apart by dolphins? It’s the bay, Es. There’s a current, there’s marine life. And even if he is found, we’ve planned for this. We’re close enough to where they found the other body to pin it on whoever did that. We’ve planned this out.”
At least, to the best of my ability.
Esme takes a breath and steels herself. She straightens a little, rolling her shoulders back, and lifts her chin like she’s trying to intimidate the night into bending to her whims. “Okay,” she agrees. “You’re right. I’m ready.”
The trunk pops open smoothly and I get out, my flashlight in one hand as I go back to where Alan’s lying at an unnatural angle. But Esme must have hit enough bumps to toss himaround back here, so I only adjust the tarp a little with my gloved hands and wait for Esme. When she appears, she looks almost composed, though I study her face for a moment, wondering if I’ll have to throw him over my shoulder and drag him to the water myself.
Thankfully, that’s not the case. At my nod, Esme picks up Alan’s feet, and I grab the tarp by his head to haul him up out of the trunk. “At least your boyfriend wasn’t a gym bro,” I grumble as we walk, trying to use the flashlights in our full hands to give ussomethingto see by.
Esme winces, and I feel a little guilty at my casual jibe. “Yeah,” she whispers. “At least there’s that.” I really don’t understand how she can feel bad, when he was probably going to kill her or at the very least, injure her severely enough for a hospital visit.
But then again, I’m not like her. Or most of the people sleeping in Seattle, hopefully. If there were more people like me, the population would probably be a lot smaller, and there would be a lot less tolerance for bullshit.
Tripping our way up the trail isn’t how I wanted to spend my night, though I suppose there are worse things. Esme doesn’t talk, and I’m too busy navigating the ground to really think of anything to say. Even at the best of times, I’m not the conversationalist between us, so now that she’s clammed up in whatever emotional crisis she’s having, there’s no noise at all except the tarp wrinkling and our footsteps in the dirt. Even the animals seem to have fled tonight.
