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“She ain’t worth this,” he repeated, still not quite getting it.
I had a bit of tape left after going around his midsection so much, and I knelt beside him, gazing into those dark brown eyes that were so much like Charlie’s. Charlie’s, though, were a lot nicer to look at. The only thing I wanted to do to this set of eyes was pluck them out and stuff them down his throat.
“You don’t get it,” I whispered, my voice deadly. “Someone like you never will. Charlie’s worth everything. It’s you who isn’t worth anything.”
“You think she’ll still care about you when she finds out who you really are?”
“Oh, Davey-poo.” I slapped his cheek and grinned. “I guess you don’t know Charlie as well as you thought. She knows all about me. Who I am, what I’ve done. She even knows that I killed her ex.”
His eyes widened at that, so I told him, “Yeah, that was me. Got a little jealous. Plus, I thought he was stalking her, but it turns out it was just you.”
“Me? What—” His brows creased, and he frowned at me. “Someone like Charlie—”
I yanked off the last piece of tape in a fit of rage and slammed it over his mouth to shut him up. He’d never speak of Charlie again.
With my hand flat over his mouth, pressing down the tape, I growled out, “Someone like Charlie needs someone like me to protect her from people like you.”
Here I used to think I was the worst of the worst, but Dave here proved me wrong. I might’ve been a killer, but I didn’t do kids, and I didn’t do them in the way Dave evidently did.
“You should be grateful I brought you here instead of ending you in that house. The truth is, you don’t belong in this field. You belong in the ground, but I’ve learned that the best way to hide a body is to let nature take its course. You’ll die out here, slowly, feeling hunger and dehydration get the better of you as the days wear on.”
The harsh reality of what he could expect dawned on him, and he started to struggle against the rebar, but there was so much tape—like, a comical amount of tape—so he could hardly move.
“You’ll die,” I told him, “and no one will know. The sun will speed things up. You’ll get bloated, the gas in your body will try to get out. Your skin will turn black and blue as you start to rot from the inside out. Your skin will sag as the flies come. Coyotes and vultures will get their pound of flesh, and you’ll be full of maggots in no time.”
I gave him a chilling smile. “In about a month, with the help of nature and all of its critters, you’ll be nothing but bones. And when you’re nothing but a forgotten pile of sun-dried bones, that’s when I’ll come back for you. I’ll bring a sledgehammer, and I’ll grind your bones into dust. I won’t stop until there’s no trace of you left.”
Dave’s eyes were wide as saucers. He tried to speak, but the tape across his mouth wouldn’t let him. He’d passed from pissed off to fearful, finally understanding the shit he was in—and it was shit he would not get out of. This was his last rodeo, his last hurrah, and what a slow and painful one it’d be. He’d be faced with his impending death every minute, and he’d sit in his own piss and shit while he starved, knowing all of the things nature would do to him once he perished.
“Have fun,” I said, straightening myself out. I said not a word more as I returned to the truck. I started her up and drove away from Dave, though I didn’t leave the field. I drove to another spot and grabbed the shovel out of the bed.
Now that Dave was taken care of, it was time to dig.
This was my field. You didn’t have your own field where you disposed of bodies without also having a little backup planned, just in case things turned sideways and you had to make a quick getaway.
I couldn’t go back to my house. Not now, not ever. I couldn’t use my ID or my debit card. I’d abandoned all that stuff in my car after getting stabbed.
It was a good thing I had backups ready to go.
About a foot down, at the base of a lone tree in this expansive field, I hit the black bag. Once it was mostly uncovered, I was able to pull it out. After checking its contents, I tossed the duffel bag over my shoulder. I went back to the truck, threw the bag in and the shovel in the back.
I had a few other things to do—getting rid of Dave’s truck was one of them. I couldn’t rush anything, if I wanted to make this work.
And believe me when I said there was nothing I wanted to make work more. Not ever.
Chapter Nineteen – Charlie
Empty. That’s what I felt inside. Like, when I’d dropped Brett off, I also pushed out the only part of me that had felt alive. The only true bits of emotion dwelling inside me. I’d clung to Zak and the normalcy he’d brought into my life for years, but that was nothing compared to how I felt when I was with Brett.
And I sent him away because I was too ashamed to tell him the truth.
Class passed slowly. I wasn’t really there. It was like the world moved on around me, time marching forward, while I was trapped in my own head, watching a movie play in front of me. Class after class, I couldn’t shake the hollow feeling inside.
Loving Zak was like loving a puppy. It came easy, and of course you loved that puppy. How could you not? With Brett, it was different. It was always different. Brett was no puppy; nothing easy about him. I knew his past, his crimes, both recent and far, and still I think I loved him.
I loved him, and I sent him away.
God, I wished I had more of a backbone. I wished I could’ve told my uncle to fuck off, that I wasn’t alone anymore. I wished with all of my heart I would’ve told Brett the truth, but the mere possibility that he’d think differently of me had tripped me up, past the point of no return.
