“I…I haven’t been to it.” God. I had forgotten all about it. What was happening to me?
Haze stared at me. “Wasn’t that the whole reason Jenny sent you out here?”
“I got a little distracted! What was I meant to do? Drive the body down to a house to discover who-knows-what waiting for me there? The Chameleon could be in residence with a whole host of—”
“Okay, okay.” Haze gripped me by the shoulders. “I’ll go check it out.”
“You shouldn’t. What if—”
“I’ve got this.” Haze waved Danny’s gun at me. “And my phone. I’ll just creep down the road and see if anyone’s even there. You need to stay here with the cars and work out where we’re going next.”
Before I could reply, she’d jogged off down the road. I ignored my racing heartbeat as I scrolled through our shared Google Drive spreadsheet titled “Picnic Sites!” Jenny had created this document—it was a handy guide for potential body-disposal locations, and each entry had a notes section as well as a star rating.
I’d just decided on where to go when my phone beeped. A message notification. Mike Martin asking “Harriet” if she had any food allergies. Haze’s secret dad was texting me, just as I was working out where to dump Haze’s ex. Sometimes, just sometimes, I wished we were a normal family.
I looked up to see the light blue of Haze’s jumpsuit returning. I silenced my phone and put it back in my pocket.
“There’s no one there. No cars, and no lights on. Let’s just get out of here.” Haze scraped her hair up into a ponytail. “Where are we going to dump him?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Haze
The first time I dumpedDanny, it was with a hastily typed text message. This time would be a little more final.
Life was funny like that. One year, you’re spending a lot of time naked with someone. And another, you’re standing over their dead body, debating the best way to get rid of it. You never knew how someone was going to come into your life, or how they were going to leave it. Maybe I should get that on a bumper sticker.
I’d never suffered through an acrimonious breakup, as I’d never been invested enough in a relationship to care. I’d never had to experience the trauma of having someone who knew every square inch of me, who had once held me at night and heard all my secrets, being downgraded to someone I crossed the street to avoid. Or worse, had to exchange pleasant annual small-talk messages with. Danny was just someone I’d had repeated carnal knowledge of without ever noticing he was a drug-dealing criminal. Maybe this was why people said you should think carefully about who you sleep with. Or at least get to know them a little first.
Together, we shifted Danny from Fox’s boot to mine. Driving Fox’s car with its dented bonnet was too risky. Having checked it over for any telltale blood splatter, we determined it was safe to leave it there overnight.
Fox had suggested a dump site that might work that was less than eight miles from our current location.
It was not a peaceful drive as we debated how best to proceed.
I parked up opposite the abandoned house that had become a popular place to chuck unwanted rubbish. It was far enough from any neighboring houses that kids wouldn’t come playing around here. There had been talk of developing the plot, but due to its proximity to a sewage plant, it seemed unlikely it would ever be touched. Fox’s plan was that we’d dump Danny here. Thanks to the emergency items we always had in the car, we could make him indistinguishable enough that it would take a long time for him to be found, and even longer for him to be identified.
We just needed to get him across a country lane and through twenty feet of undergrowth surrounding the house before carrying him another twenty feet to the old septic tank. It was a workout I was not looking forward to.
I opened the boot and took a deep breath. I tightened the tarpaulin that was securely wrapped round him. Fox picked him up by the shoulder, I got the feet, and together we yanked him out of the car.
“God, he’s heavy.” I groaned. “He’s so tall.”
Fox mumbled something.
“What was that?”
“He’s notthattall.”
“Seriously? Will you stop?” The fragile male ego couldn’t even stop feeling competitive with an actual dead man.
Fox grimaced at me. “Let’s get him across this road, and we can take a break once we hit the undergrowth.”
We set off. I was struggling.
“Hurry up!”
“You try doing this in heels!” I hissed back.
