Page 237 of What We Burn

“Beautiful,” he whispers. “Burn it. Burn it all.”

I pull out onto Pike Street, unhurried. No witnesses left behind. The devices are coming with us. Fourteen parcels ride in the bed while the fire eats the rest.

“I hope kitten knows how much I love her.” Milo sighs.

“She does,” I say. “We all do. You did good, Milo.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You should rest now. Job’s finished.”

He laughs, high-pitched. Keeps rocking, blood flaking off his cheek onto my passenger seat.

“Kitten’s safe now. Kitten’s safe. She’s safe. Safe. Safe. Safe.”

I point the truck toward Dean’s.

Fuck. I hope so.

SIXTY

ELI

Dean’s funeral home sits at the end of an industrial strip on the east side of town, sandwiched between a plumbing supply warehouse and a self-storage facility. The sign out front says WEBER & SONS, DIGNIFIED FAREWELLS SINCE 1972, which is either ironic or prophetic depending on how you look at it. There are no sons. There’s just Dean. And he wasn’t even born in 1972.

He’s also a McMahon. I have no idea who Weber is.

We find Dean waiting at the service entrance when I pull the car around back. Tall, muscular, mid-thirties, with the kind of calm that either comes from years of therapy or years of proximity to death. In Dean’s case, it’s both. He and I met at a support group for the families of sexual assault victims. Our stories are quite similar, but his is far more tragic—when his sister tried to take her own life in the months after, no one found her in time.

“What have we got?” he asks, holding the door open as I back the vehicle up to the loading bay. His voice is steady. No judgment. No questions beyond the operational. That’s why I brought him in—Dean doesn’t need to know the why. He just needs the what and the when.

“One body,” I say. “Male. Mid-twenties.”

“Wrapped?”

“Plastic and blanket.”

He nods, then looks past me into the car. “You have company.”

“It was an all-hands-on-deck situation. This is Sage and Amy. Amy’s in shock. She’s the one who⁠—”

“I see,” Dean says, pulling open the back passenger door and leaning down to their level. “Why don’t you ladies come inside where it’s a little more comfortable? This is going to take a while.”

Sage nods and thanks him, sliding out of the car and helping Amy to follow. The moment Amy gets on her feet, she wobbles and almost crumples to the concrete.

Dean bends down, catching her under the arms before she can hit the ground. He braces her with the ease of someone who’s done it before, maybe with old women at open-casket viewings, maybe with the kind of drunks who tip over at funerals because their grief is still in liquid form. He holds her steady, and her face crumples into his shoulder, the whole fight gone out of her.

“You’re okay,” Dean murmurs, hugging her tiny form against his large frame. “You’re here. Just breathe.”

Amy does, ragged and wet, the breath coming in like short bursts she has to fight for. I try to step forward, but Dean stops me with a gentle flick of his eyes. Not that he wants me gone, just that this next bit is his. I get it. He knows her. They’ve never officially met, but he knows her. I asked him to start watching over Amy when Tyler ended things, making sure she got home safely and he didn’t find his way back into her life.

But she was never supposed to see him.

Sniffing, Amy lifts her head and studies his face.

“Do I know you?”

Dean doesn’t hesitate. “No. We’ve never met.”