“Let me see it,” I hold out my hand. “It can probably be unlocked using his face.”
“Huh, that’s cool. Never had that option back when I had a cell phone.”
“Yeah, a lot happened in the last decade.” I eye him as I lean over Bill’s body and angle the screen to capture his face. “Good thing I went for the neck,” I add, as the screen unlocks.
I straighten up and then stare at the background of his phone. A picture of his farm fills the background. I don’t bother with searching the contents.
I don’t want to know what’s there.
“Who called him?” Noah’s voice keeps my head on track. “Did they leave a voicemail? Old people always leave voicemails.”
“I’m looking right now,” I hum, clicking the phone app. I see the missed call first. “Jimmy.” I pause, my mind running back to the parking lot of the gas station. “I wonder if it’s the same Jimmy that he talked to…”
“The cop?” Noah connects the dots.
“Maybe.” As soon as the word leaves my lips, the notification pops up for the voicemail. I turn it so Noah can see, and then click to listen, putting the phone on speaker.
“Hey, Bill. Hope you made it home okay. Sorry you had to head home early from your camping trip. I was thinking I would stop by this evening and bring by the devotional material for Sunday. Anyway, I’ll probably be there in about an hour.”
“An hour,” Noah deadpans. “He’s going to be here in an hour.”
I nod and then glance back toward the door. “I guess we could hide the truck and camper.”
Noah shakes his head. “No way. More than likely,Jimmytalked to him, which means that it might be suspicious, even if we have it staged like Bill isn’t home.”
“Plus, Buster is here, too,” I add, my skin starting to prickle with panic.
Noah’s eyes sweep the floor and then the house. “Our DNA is going to be all over this house. There’s nothing we can do to get rid of it in an hour.”
I nod. “Yeah. I don’t think I have any on file.”
His jaw ticks, his gaze jumping to me. “But I do.”
“They’re going to know we went back east.”
“Yeah.” Noah’s already on the move, heading back for the bedroom. He starts gathering our things and sliding back into new clothes. “Take anything you want from here,” he calls out to me. “But only if it fits in the bags.”
I’m still standing over Bill in the hallway, blood seeping around my tennis shoes. “Are we going to take the truck?”
“No,” Noah says. “We’d have to unhook it from the camping trailer, and then, on top of that, the momentJimmygets here, it’s going to be reported as stolen.”
“So then…”
“The motorcycle,” he finishes, stepping back out into the hallway with our things. “We’re going to take the motorcycle, and we’re going to get out of here right now.”
I nod, suddenly finding the will to move. “I have one more thing I want to do.”
“What’s that?”
I step over Bill and go for the room that we haven’t entered in days. I use my fingernail to unlock it from the outside, and then push the bedroom door inward.
“What are you doing?” Noah sounds impatient, but I ignore him.
Without looking at the actual contents, I rip the top drawer out completely. “I just think the world needs to knowexactlywho Bill is. Don’t you think?” I give Noah a slight smile, and then dump a few of the photos onto his body.
“They would’ve found them anyway…” Noah’s eyes follow me, his voice trailing off. “But thiswillkeep them off our scent at first, yeah.”
“And I just think the world should know.” With that I set the drawer down, careful as to not get too much blood on it. I don’t want the blood to ruin the evidence. “I’m sure they’ll find plenty on his phone though.”
