When Trips steps back, RJ clears his throat. “The ground is frozen. We can’t dig a hole.”
“The dump?” Jansen asks.
“There will be physical evidence. We can’t risk the body being found,” I say.
Walker looks a little green at our conversation but stays in the room with us. “What about those body cleaners?” he asks.
“There’s a chance they’ll get swept up in my father’s investigation. I don’t want to risk it,” Trips replies.
Bryce comes to enough to scream in frustration, the sound muffled by the shirt, but still audible.
“What does that leave us with?” I ask.
“Fire?” Jansen answers.
RJ pulls out his phone, scrolling for a moment, then shakes his head. “The temperature required to incinerate a body is impossibly high.”
Jansen hops onto the counter. “We could call Emma. See if there’s a crematorium we could use. He’s not much bigger than a Great Dane.”
Bryce screams again, and Trips grins, obviously enjoying the psychological torture. I might smile a bit, too. There’s something about making him sweat, when I was always the one who had to watch myself, that hits like a glass of cold water after a long run. It’s so damn refreshing.
Walker shakes his head at Jansen’s suggestion. “We’ve already pulled her into this mess once. I know she’d do it again, but disposing of a body is a much bigger ask than saving a life.”
I end up nodding. “I don’t want her involved. We already risked her future once. I won’t do it again.”
“Dump him in a lake?” Jansen asks.
I take his arms and wrap them around me. “There’d still be physical evidence.”
“In those movies you love, they always use acid,” Walker says.
Trips is the one who shoots that one down. “The type of acid we’d need is almost impossible to come by without a good reason.”
We stand in a semicircle around a yelling Bryce, wondering what other options there are. RJ’s brows drop, and he slides behind the restrained man and does something to his shoulder.Bryce’s screams turn to quiet whimpers. I’m definitely smiling this time. It’s about time his shoulder got dislocated. Tit for tat, just like he said.
Something dawns on me, and I mull it over as Jansen rests his chin on my shoulder. “What about the city’s composting center?”
“With everything biodegrading, it wouldn’t be frozen,” RJ says.
“Depending on how quickly the body decomposes, it might still leave physical evidence,” Trips says.
“We’d have to bury it deep in the middle. That’s where it’s hottest,” Jansen says, his knowledge of composting not unsurprising. The man knows a little bit about everything, it seems.
RJ once again scrolls on his phone, Bryce’s whimpers quieting as his anger returns. “If we do it right, they won’t find anything for six to nine months.”
“Maybe we burn it, then bury what’s left?” Walker asks, leaning against the wall, looking a little limp.
Trips steps around the bound slug. “I think that sounds like a great plan. What do you say? You’re a worm. You might as well get fed to them.”
Bryce kicks out, his shouts still muffled, and Trips dodges, laughing.
I shake my head, trying not to get caught up in his vicious excitement. “Okay. That’s settled. Now, where should we kill him? And do the burning?” We have a plan for disposal, but I want to get this done before I lose my resolve.
Once again, we stand there thinking about our options before Jansen shifts his weight. “I think I’ve got a place we can burn him. But we’d be offering a future favor.”
“What kind of favor?” Trips asks.
“No idea,” Jansen says. “I’ve never done anything like this.”
