—
I SPEND THE EARLYafternoon in and out of sleep, wrapped in a blanket and staring at the television. Every so often I hear the creak of their weight on the stairs as my sisters peek in on me. To check if I’m still breathing, I suppose. Disposing of a body is nothing I can’t handle, but I’ve never had to do it when I was losing blood and halfconcussed. I hate how hollow and exhausted I feel, but it’s a relief to take a break from Jade. To lie limp on the sofa and not think about how I’ll murder Edison, or what aspects of our sex life I share with Moody and Iris when they ask.
I don’t know how long I sleep, but when my eyes open, the sun is starting to set, a vivacious orange light streaming in through the closed blinds.
The TV is still on, the evening news crews gearing up to tell us of the day’s tragedies. The anchor paces through a live feed of the desert wilderness. Police tape. Flashing lights. An ambulance idling on the shoulder, and a gurney carrying a body under a sheet.
My heart is thudding in my ears. I know that particular stretch of nothingness. I recognize the start of the hiking trail.
“Moody!” My voice is hysterical, and I command myself to remain steady. “Iris!”
My sisters thunder down the stairs, Moody clutching the tire iron we keep by the bed, Iris ready for a brawl with nothing but her bare fists. From the pitch of my cry, they were sure that we were in danger.
“Sissy?” Iris rasps.
Then they see the TV, and they understand. The headline at the bottom of the screen reads:
BODY FOUND ON HIKING TRAIL SET TO REOPEN THIS FALL
“Oh,” Iris says, flopping onto the couch beside me. “Oh shit.”
Bodies are always found. I knew this even as I labored to destroy the evidence and leave him somewhere that would buy us enough time. Of the six prior kills my sisters share between them, three have emerged, two of which have been identified. None of which have been linked to us. But we were long since out of town before they were uncovered.
“How bad is this, really?” Moody’s voice betrays nothing, but I can feel the nervous energy within her. She paces, chewing on her lip. Sourly, I hope she feels a healthy dose of regret, because her impulsiveness is what got us into this mess. “Sissy makes sure we never leave any DNA. There’s nothing linking him to us.”
“Nobody saw you talking to him when he pulled over to help?” Iris asks. “Not a single car passed by?”
“No,” Moody says.
“Think, Moods. Are you sure—”
“I told you!” Moody hisses. “I’m not fucking stupid. Nobody saw us.”
“Well, if you’re so smart, why did you make us kill him at all?” Iris fires back. “You knew we’d still be living here when he was found.” Even if I hadn’t set my sights on Edison before we killed the trucker, we wouldn’t have been able to abandon the mission so early. Jade Johnson had only just put down a deposit for this rental, and if she had skipped town without spending a day in it, that would have raised more suspicions in a town as small as this. The landlord would have made a note that it was strange.
I hold up a hand and shush them. They stop bickering and look at me like I’m the only salvation in this world, and for them I may as well be.
The news has already transitioned to another topic. They won’t have more to say about the missing man until he’s been properly identified and the family has been notified. After several weeks in monsoon season, the discovery won’t be pretty. Animals will have picked away most of the flesh. His teeth are long gone. After I removed them, I put them in a plastic bag and smashed them to bits with a hammer, flushed the dust down the toilet. Burned the plastic with a lighter and threw the husk of it away weeks and weeks ago.
“They’ll identify him soon enough, if they haven’t already,” I say. “Nobody else has gone missing and not been accounted for.” His photo will be on the news. His name will be released. His spouse, his kids, everyone who’s ever bummed a cigarette off him, will have something to say for the cameras. “But there’s nothing to tie him to us. We were on a stretch of road with no cameras. We didn’t touch his truck. I’m positive we didn’t leave any DNA on his body, but even if we did, our hair and fingerprints aren’t in any police database. Nobody would be able to match it to us.”
“So, we’re okay,” Moody exhales. “Good.”
Iris shakes her head. “I don’t trust it,” she says. “We should get out of here. Abandon the plan and find you someone new.”
Leave Edison. Leave the desert. I steel myself against the weight of it. “Leaving would be more suspicious than carrying on as normal,” I tell her. “Jade has a life here. She has friends at church. Edison will try to find me.”
“He’ll try to find Jade,” Iris corrects. “And he won’t, because Jade isn’t real.”
The words sting. I know that Jade can’t come with me when we leave this town, but the reminder that she’ll blow away like dust breaks something inside of me.
Iris grips my wrist. When I look at her, there’s determination in her eyes. This never amounts to anything good. Once Iris has made up her mind about something, it’s easier to grind blood from stone than make her see things differently.
“You could kill Edison now,” Moody tries to compromise. “We can make it look like a serial killer.”
“What?” I squeak. I have to work to compose myself, but if Moody catches my slip, she doesn’t comment.
“Dump him on another hiking trail,” she says. “We’ll do the same thing—hack out his teeth and roll him into the brush. But someplace more obvious where he gets found.”
