It’s that lastpleasethat does it. Because her voice cracks when she speaks, and her big, blue eyes seem glossier than usual. Those stupid pumpkins are still bobbing this way and that on her headband, and her inside-out sweatshirt advertises loudly that this is a woman possibly unhinged.
Crap.
“Fine,” I say, sighing. “Fine. Just for a little bit, okay? What do you need help with?”
Her eyes brighten. “Thank you, thank you! And it’s really nothing much,” she says. “I just need your body.”
I swallow.
“I hate you so much.”
“I know,” Juniper says soothingly from where she’s standing over me. “Lift your left foot a little bit more?”
I comply, glaring at her. “So, so much.”?*
“I know,” she says again. “It will all be over soon, okay? Now I’m going to try to drag you by the ankles.”
As it turns out, the research help Juniper needs is figuring out how her female killer would move a body.
And guess who was stupid enough to agree to be that body?
I’m lying supine in the middle of the living room floor, glaring up at the ceiling. The fall decorations have all been moved to the couch, so it’s just me down here, feeling ten kinds of foolish. Juniper has both of my ankles held in her weirdly strong grip. She’s repainted her fingernails, I notice dully; they were black before, but now they’re a vibrant pink.
“Okay,” she says, taking a deep breath. “Ready?”
“No.”
She ignores this. “Here I go.” She heaves, and with a decent amount of force, she begins pulling me. I slide slowly along the hardwood floor as she moves backward, her face screwed up with concentration. Despite her efforts, though, I continue to move at roughly the rate of a migrating ice cap.
I think I’d rather be the ice cap.
After only a few seconds of this, Juniper stops. She drops my feet without warning, causing both heels to bang painfully against the floor, and then bends over, panting slightly.
“That’s not ideal,” she says.
“No,” I agree, still glaring. I sit up, rubbing my heels. “It’s not.”
“Let’s try thefirefighter’s carry.”
My jaw drops. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I never kid about dead bodies.” I can tell she says this without thinking, because a second later, her mouth snaps shut, and she looks at me, her eyes widening in horror. “Aiden,” she whispers, sinking to the floor next to me and looking dazed. “We saw a dead body last night.” She hesitates, then adds, “Right?” She turns her beseeching gaze on me. “We didn’t imagine that, right?”
“No,” I say heavily. “We didn’t imagine it.” I’m not sure my imagination could conjure up such a vivid mental image.
Juniper settles into a cross-legged position, playing with the hem of her Halloween leggings as she says, “If the body was gone by the time the sheriff went to look for it, that means whoever moved it was probably watching us the whole time, waiting for us to leave.”
I swallow, rubbing my hand absently over my scruff. “I thought of that too,” I admit. How close were we to a potential killer last night? How close did we come to being hurt ourselves?
And what would have happened if Juniper had gone by herself?
Next to me, Juniper shudders—almost like she’s read my thoughts. On her headband, the little pumpkins wave back and forth. Then she claps her hands on her knees. “Nope,” she says. “I can’t sit here and think about this. It will drive me insane. Come on; up. Fireman’s carry.”
I can’t believe this is how I’m spending my Sunday, but I play along anyway—mostly because Juniper is still looking iffy. “If I’m a dead body, shouldn’t I stay on the ground?”
“Oh, good point,” she says without missing a beat. “Right. Okay. Lie down, then.” She considers me for a second before adding, “On your stomach, I think.”
She stands up while I lie face down in the middle of the floor, re-evaluating all my life choices.
