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“Nora?” The concern in his voice can’t be missed, and it’s that alone that gets me to look outside my own inner turmoil over what we’re about to do and instead look at him.
“I’m okay,” I lie. “Thank you again for helping me.” Part of me wants to ask him why he’s doing all of this, but I shut that impulse down. Do I really want to make him question his decision to help me anymore than he probably already is on the off chance that his answer might be, because I never stopped loving you, Nora?
Yeah, right.
Pretty sure Jack stopped loving me the second I said no to his marriage proposal.
I only wish I’d been so lucky.
“Don’t mention it,” he grunts in his matter-of-fact Jack way. A second later he’s out of the car and running around to get my door.
Oh look, another feeling weed. It’s one of those prickly ones that’ll really hurt you if you don’t put gloves on.
Where does one get gloves to protect themselves from love prickers?
“Okay, so now what?” I ask Jack as we head for the garage.
“First we bag up the body, then clean up the car and take it back to his house. Then we come back and move his body to a deserted alley downtown. Maybe put it in a dumpster.”
“A dumpster?” I stop walking. “I thought you said we weren’t hiding the body; that we were staging a murder?”
“And we are. But hiding a body is what a murderer would typically do. So, we’re going to hide it but leave clues that point to anyone but you.”
“What kind of clues?”
“Take his wallet, rip his clothing up some, make it look like a robbery gone wrong. I don’t want to do anything that would make it look like a specific person did this.”
“Right, of course not,” I agree, a wave of unease crashing over me at the thought of someone else going to prison for a crime I committed.
“Do you know Ian’s address?” Jack moves on from this sticky point. “Or do I need to look it up in the system before we drive his car back?”
“I know his address,” I say. “He’s hosted a few company parties there,” I add, because for some reason it’s important that he knows that I had no relationship with Ian outside of work.
“Okay,” Jack says, his face giving nothing away as to whether he finds this information to be a relief or even worth noting.
The impassive cad.
“We’ll have to be careful his wife doesn’t see,” I go on.
“He was married?”
I nod.
Jack looks disgusted by this news. “That throws a wrench in things.”
“Maybe she won’t be home,” I say.
“We can only hope.” He sighs, then resumes walking toward the garage, his pace brisk. I hurry to follow him. “We need to speed things up. His wife could start looking for him at any point. May already be looking for him. We really need to get the car back. We’ll just turn the lights off when we get close to their house and be quick about the dropoff. If we see signs that she’s home, we’ll have to amend our plans.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “Maybe we can park it on his street. I don’t know. We’ll have to see. Of course,” he goes on, “we’ll take my car too, so we can get back here.”
Nausea churns in my stomach. Am I going to have to drive Ian’s car again?
It was one thing to drive him here. My adrenaline was flowing. I was in survival mode. Driving in his car again, even after we take the body out…well, I’m not sure I can handle it.
“You can drive my car,” Jack says, “and I’ll drive Ian’s.”
Relief pours over me like cold water on a hot day. I may have regularly teased Jack about being predictable when we were dating, but there was nothing teaseworthy about the fact that I could always predict that he’d anticipate my needs and do whatever he could to meet them.
And he’s still doing that now, all of these years later, despite the way I hurt him.
