Page 82 of Unruly

“It was an accident, Halle.”

Her eyes are wide and glassy. “Someone heard the shot go off. Someone is going to call the cops before we do.”

“It’s the middle of the night and The Bar is one hundred and fifty yards away from the street. Someone probably heard something, but they aren’t going to pinpoint it here as long as no one is here by the time anyone decides to go snooping.”

She stares at me, chest rising and falling too fast, the strap of her tank top slipping off one shoulder. Her eyes keep flicking back to his body. “So, what do you suggest we do?” she asks.

I shake my head. “Let me handle it. You go clean up in the back sink and pour every cleaner down the sink afterwards, and don’t stop running the water in the sink until I say so.”

Halle listens, leaving the main room and heading into the back room that has an industrial sink. I look down at the body.

Fuck. I pull out my phone and decide to call the only person in the world I would ever ask to hide a body, mainly because I know they have experience with this.

I call him five times before he finally picks up.

“What the fuck, Cash?” Dawson’s voice comes through, groggy, pitched low like he’s trying not to wake somebody up.

“I need your help.”

“At three in the morning?”

“Yeah. And you being hours away from me is gonna make this even more of a problem.” I glance toward the back room and hear the water’s still running. Good.

“Who the fuck is it?”

“Doesn’t matter … Can we meet in the Ozarks?”

I hear him shift, the creak of a bed frame, then the rustle of him pulling clothes on in the dark. “This is only because I owe you. Because if you only knew⁠—”

“That you got pussy last night? Yeah, I can hear it in your voice.” I’m already grabbing my keys off the bar top, eyeing the blood pooling dark against the old hardwood floor, soaking into thirty years of spilled beer and cigarette burns. “Halle and I will be there in an hour and a half. The usual spot.”

“Halle? What the fuck did you get her into?”

“It’s more like what she got herself out of. Text me when you’re on the road,” I say before hanging up.

Halle comes back out and stands there, her arms wrapped tight around herself as she keeps glancing over at Zach and then looking away just as fast.

“Hey,” I say, stepping in front of her so she has to look at me instead of him. “We need to move him.”

She shakes her head, eyes filling with tears. “I can’t—I can’t touch him, Cash. I can’t do this.”

“You can,” I tell her, keeping my voice steady. “You’re gonna help me wrap him up and get him in the truck. I’m not leaving you here alone.”

She looks like she wants to argue, but she doesn’t. She just nods once, small and shaky, like she’s running on autopilot.

We move fast, grabbing some old blankets and a tarp from the back room while Halle stands there, arms wrapped around her middle. When I come back, I have her hold one side of the blanket while I roll him up. She doesn’t look at his face, and I don’t blame her. Her hands are shaking so bad the blanket keeps slipping, but she doesn’t let go. We drag him toward the back door together. He’s heavier than I expected, and Halle struggles with her side but doesn’t complain. She just keeps her eyes on the floor and keeps moving.

By the time we get him into the bed of my truck and cover him with another blanket, her hands are shaking so hard she can barely close the tailgate.

I guide her to the passenger side and open the door for her. “Get in.”

She climbs in without a word.

I slide into the driver’s seat and start the truck. We pull out of the lot and head toward the Ozarks. The roads are empty this late, just long stretches of dark highway and the occasional pair of headlights in the distance.

For a while, neither of us speaks.

Halle is curled in on herself in the passenger seat, staring out the window. Every few minutes her breathing hitches like she’s trying not to cry. I keep one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the center console, close enough that she could reach for it if she wanted to.