“I’m very good at digging holes.”
“Go get in my car.”
He hops out and runs off to my car without another word.
See, Gabriel? I can be nice when I force my body to do so.
I go inside and meet up with Gabriel. “Can you order me a second meal?”
“You’re that hungry?” he asks in surprise.
“Yes.”
“Sure,” he says as I head off to the bathroom. By the time I get out, the two of them are waiting for me, and I realize I should say something about Matthew. Then I decide that would take too much energy, and instead, I simply walk out and get in the car.
“Fucking hell,” Jesse cries, jumping when he sees Matthew already in the back seat. “You almost gave me a heart attack. Were you following us?”
“No. I was just… here… and ran into Liam. He, uh… asked if I could dig a hole.”
“Did… he?” Jesse asks as he stares a hole into the back of my head. We won’t even need shovels with his ability to use his eyes.
“We’ll put a blindfold on him and tell him to start digging. He won’t notice anything amiss,” I promise.
“Who in here thinks that’ll work?” Gabriel asks, looking around. I would raise my hand, but it sounds like too much work.
I sigh and grudgingly take control of the situation, seeing as I invited a Matthew-sized menace into it. “Here’s the gist, Matthew. We’re trusting you to keep this to yourself while we figure shit out, got it?”
“I’ll take it to my grave,” Matthew vows.
“I will hold you to that, and how soon you take it to your grave depends on how well you listen.”
Matthew looks concerned, which he should be.
I continue, “When Jesse was younger, he was harassed by this guy that he believed was a serial killer. The police didn’t believe him, so they didn’t even make a report of it. Jesse moved away out of fear, and about six years ago, the man was marked as deceased. When this case came up with Nadine, I made a comment that it seemed rather pointed to have the victim displayed like it was an autopsy. I noted the foolish look on Jesse’s face and pestered him about it until I got answers.”
“So… you think this dead potential serial killer is still alive and after Jesse? Why wouldn’t you share this with the department?” Matthew asks.
Jesse refuses to meet his eyes. “Because… there are a few things that happened which… weren’t quite… legal that I did back then. If I’m wrong and he actually is the dead guy in this grave, then I don’t want to draw attention to why I thought he might be a killer. When I knew him, I was young… while trying to survive, I’d done a few things that weren’t legal and would destroy my ability to work with the police. I really don’t want to jeopardize my life and job for absolutely no reason unless I need to.”
“So we’re going to dig up the body and compare it to medical records?” Matthew asks.
“Yes, we were able to get dental and medical records sent to me… in a very legal way,” Jesse says with a grimace.
“Jesse’s Southern accent wasatrocious,so I took over,” I joke, just doing my best to make fun of Jesse, when I’d actually never given him the chance to get the records.
“So… in an attempt to not drag you into our illegal… mess, we thought we’d try to keep you out of it,” Gabriel says. “We really didn’t mean to make you feel left out.”
Jesse nods. “We just… it was like a tiny snowball that started rolling down a hill, picking up snow and dragging more people into it the longer it rolled.”
“I’m totally good with illegal stuff. This one time, my brother grew this whole weed farm in our grandma’s backyard. And our uncle was a super-strict cop who decided to surprise us with a visit. You should haveseenustrying to sell that weed as fast as we could.”
“You sold weed?” Jesse asks with a smirk.
“I did. My biggest buyers were a bunch of grannies who were in some church club with my grandma. They thought I was cute and bought half of my supply to smoke during their needlepoint club,” Matthew says, sounding quite proud of himself. “I’m a bad boy too.” In the rearview mirror I see him doing this weird head bob thing, like it’ll cement this fact.
What disgusts me even more is that the look on Jesse’s face tells me that to the lesser humans, he pulled it off.
I scrutinize them until Gabriel puts my burger in my hands.
