Page 3 of Boneyard HEA

I pull open the driver’s door and slide in, then grab the steering wheel as if I can find comfort there. My heart seems to slow and ache less. It does help, it does, gripping the wheel helps to ground me, and I lean my forehead into the leather cover and exhale slowly.

Before I drive off, I must do one more thing. I sort through the few items I took from his pockets and the bag he carried, spreading them across the passenger seat. Nothing, nothing. These I will get rid of. I left his phone in the sea, and mine is at home. They can’t trace me to here. This old vehicle doesn’t have GPS or a dashcam. To actually, irrefutably, find out who else was involved in the rape, I need some magic to happen because that video…the one she sent just before she died…it only showed Nathan’s face.

“Who were the others? I wish I could’ve fucking tortured you to find out. Ethan? Baxter? Some other friend?” I thump the steering wheel and show teeth.

The arms of those men were there, holding her down, but no matter how many times I stared, paused a frame, and swore, I was unable to figure out who else was there.

That satisfaction I felt when Nathan was dead and I could throw dirt on him and finalize his existence—I need more of that. I need them all gone from this world. One isn’t enough. If they are going try me for Nathan’s murder, let it be fucking worth it.

His friends are my first and best candidates, but how do I find them?

On that awful day, her words went to voice mail.

I can’t take it anymore. I’m so so sorry. Please forgive me. There were three of them and I just can’t. Sorry, Gremlin.

Gremlin was close to my username on Warcraft. Gremlin651.

I knew, instantly, what she had done.

She sobbed as she ended the call. The video came through next, but I was already trying to reach her and didn’t view it. Soon after the message, she ended her life.

My chest aches again and I remember my cry, and how I tried to squash my phone in my hand, and how I thought through where she might be and how to get there, and should I ring someone or would that waste time…

And…

And…

Everything went wrong.

I was too late.

Three men. She’d thought it before, but had seemed unsure, and I hadn’t believed her for two whole years after the trial.

Drugged, half drowned, and she took days to decide to talk to the police. With the evidence and samples not gathered, with no bruises, no DNA, no drugs to be found in the blood sample, and that lawyer twisting things, he was found not guilty. I still don’t know why she didn’t say who the others were in her last message, unless she still couldn’t remember.

I suck in a long breath, wrapping my fingers even more tightly over the wheel. Seeing my own skin, all the creases, and how my fingers fit together, it reminds me I’m here and alive. Yet I feel so alone.

I wasn’t with Riley that day. The day they dragged her down the embankment at the back and raped her in the creek bed in just the right place to lose the DNA evidence. Though her showering and waiting for three days didn’t help.

I start the engine and edge out toward the highway, wait for the one car then swing out once they’re far ahead of me. With so little traffic, I drop effortlessly into my previous chain of thoughts.

They dragged her. They. I hate thinking of her alone with them. I could’ve stopped it happening.

No. No, I could not. Therapy told me that. Just… I breathe and think and tell myself that this idea is stupid.

I was supposed to see her that day, but I didn’t. I often do things on the spur of the moment, such as hitting evil assholes with shovels.

Let’s try making that spot into a proper boneyard.

2

Aaron

I’ve never thought I was the kind of man who would kidnap a woman.

My whole life, I’ve been patient and tried not to do anything illegal.

I shove the mouse, send it skating over the timber, and exhale in a hiss. Aiming for serenity, I carefully rest my elbows on the desk and interlace my fingers. Haste and following your dick makes for stupid decisions.