17. Thea
17
Thea
O ne of the very first things my father had taught me as a little girl was that it’s difficult to prove a crime had taken place without a dead body and a murder weapon. While it was possible to build a case based on circumstantial evidence, such a case would be weak at best. The lack of a smoking gun could easily derail a police investigation.
Dead bodies were a gold mine of DNA evidence. Skin fragments, hair, blood, and more. If the police found a body, they stood a much better chance of identifying the killer.
AKA me.
Staring down at the recently deceased asshole I’d first had the misfortune to meet at the fight club reminded me why having Torrance around was helpful sometimes. Not often, admittedly, but he had a vested interest in making sure I didn’t get arrested on murder charges. When there was an inconvenient dead body, I called him.
At least the dickhead lying at my feet hadn’t attacked me in the middle of town. Concealing my crime would have been much harder if CCTV had captured it in glorious high-definition. Out here, there were no cameras or witnesses. The only two vehicles on the deserted road back to Abernethy right now were Eden’s car and the would-be rapist’s piece of shit truck.
Eden’s SUV had a dent in the side where the asshole had forced me off the road, but there wasn’t much I could do about that now. She’d understand when I explained. At least I hoped she would, given I’d ‘borrowed’ her car without asking.
Maybe I could make it look like another student had hit it in the college parking garage? I hummed as I contemplated the idea.
Dirk looked like a driver who might struggle with parallel parking. Or anything, really.
If I put Eden’s car back in her spot and then moved Dirk’s so it looked like he’d hit hers, she’d assume it was his fault. The cameras didn’t work in the garage - I’d disconnected them earlier. This meant he’d have a problem proving otherwise.
But Eden’s car was not my priority. I needed to dispose of the dead body lying at my feet, along with the truck.
Fuck my life.
An icy gust of wind screeched through the small, stunted trees lining the road, and I shivered uncontrollably. Why had I left my cozy, warm room and come out on a night like this?
Oh right . Because my father sent me a parcel and the collection locker was in the nearby town. I hadn’t had a chance to see what was in the small box. The moment I tossed it in Eden’s car, the fight club asshole appeared.
He’d clearly been drinking because the idiot had threatened me. I’ll admit it. I laughed. Unfortunately, things then escalated.
Not wanting to get involved in another violent incident, I’d driven away, assuming he’d have the brains to leave me alone. But he hadn’t taken the hint. The stupid dickhead followed me, probably deluded enough to think he could run me off the road and rape me while I was lying in a ditch, mortally injured.
It hadn’t played out that way.
And now he was dead.
Oops.
Small flakes of snow drifted down, dusting my coat with white speckles. The dead man lying on tufts of heather stared up at me accusingly, still wearing an expression of surprise from when I lost patience and stabbed him in the neck.
Maybe I should have stabbed him somewhere less fatal and left him to bleed out on the moor. It had occurred to me, but the risk someone would find him before he coughed his last whiskey-soaked breath had been too high.
Remember the smoking gun I mentioned earlier?
Yeah .
Not a good outcome for me.
I tapped my foot on the gravel verge and considered my options.
One: I could heave the body into Eden’s trunk and drive it to the nearby reservoir, toss it in, and then get the fuck out of there.
The downsides of that plan were significant. First, DNA evidence all over Eden’s car would link her to the crime. I liked Eden, and I wasn’t keen on the idea of her going down for murder. Second, the college’s drinking water came from that reservoir. Eww .
My second plan involved dragging the corpse away from the road, digging a hole, and burying it.
The downside of plan number two was I had no shovel, and it was fucking freezing.
Again, FUCK MY LIFE.
I was so busy yelling obscenities to myself that I failed to spot a vehicle approaching. It was only when its headlights temporarily dazzled me that I realized I’d massively fucked up and done the one thing my father warned me never to do: get caught with a dead body while in possession of the murder weapon.
“Well,” Kyril said when he hopped out of his fancy 4x4 and saw the dead body. “This is interesting.”
We both looked down at the rapidly cooling corpse. Me with a deep sense of resignation, because how the fuck was I supposed to explain a dead body, and him with what looked a lot like amusement.
Was he seriously laughing at me?
“This isn’t funny,” I pointed out, annoyed.
“Oh, it is.” He laughed harder. “Do I even want to know what happened?”
“No.”
Kyril smothered his laughter and cleared his throat. “OK, then. So what’s the plan?”
“Plan?” I looked up at him in puzzlement.
After rolling his eyes obnoxiously, he folded his arms across his broad chest. I fought the urge to lick my lips. God, Kyril was… big . My brain helpfully showed me a memory of him covered in sweat and blood as he fought in the ring. This was the kind of guy who’d have no problem hauling a corpse a few hundred feet. Or throwing me around the bedroom.
I should probably be nice to him.
“I assume you have a plan for getting rid of it.” He nudged the corpse with his toe and it barely moved. Rigor mortis had already set in. If only Eden kept a set of butchery knives and a tarp in her trunk. It would have made my life a lot simpler.
I might suggest she invest in both when I next caught up with her. Pretty sure Amazon did next-day delivery on shit like that.
“Um… no. I didn’t leave college with murder in mind.” I gestured down at my fluffy bunny leggings and pink sweater beneath the black padded jacket that was the only thing standing between me and hypothermia.
Kyril stared at my fluffy bunny leggings for way longer than was necessary. “Cute,” he said with a smirk. “I didn’t take you for a fluffy bunny-loving girl.”
“I like bunnies,” I replied defensively. Kittens, too, but I wasn’t about to admit that.
“Girls usually do like rabbits,” he said with a wink. It took a few seconds for his meaning to sink in before I looked away to hide my blush.
I didn’t own a vibrator, although I kinda wish I did. It might help with stress relief. Perhaps I could hide the purchase under ‘personal care items’. Then again, Torrance needed no excuses to perv over me and seeing that on my credit card statement would give him hours of sleazy fun.
“Look, if you’re not here to help, kindly fuck off. I have a dead body to get rid of and time is ticking on.”
“Of course I’ll help, my little gadyuka.”
I didn’t like it when he spoke Russian words I didn’t understand, but when he pulled a tarp and a shovel out of the back of his 4x4, I no longer cared what he called me. He was officially my new best friend.
With Kyril’s help, it didn’t take long to dig a deep hole in an inhospitable location and bury the body. Once we'd finished, he tossed the guy’s phone in the truck and then I followed him while he drove it back toward town, abandoning it in a gravel parking area a short distance from a derelict pub.
By the time we were done, I was exhausted. Eden’s car still had a dent in the door, but I decided I no longer gave a shit. If she unfriended me, then so be it. I’d pay for the damage repair and hustle on with my job here. All being well, I’d complete my assignment and be back home for Christmas.
“Thanks for…um…helping.” Kyril locked his 4X4 and turned toward me. The light over my head flickered and died, plunging our cozy corner of the parking garage into darkness. If this was a horror movie, I’d be shitting myself. But my life was way scarier than any horror movie, so I barely registered the danger.
If the Russian bastard wanted to try anything nefarious, he’d had ample opportunities while we were out on the moor.
He moved close enough that the tang of fresh sweat tickled my nose. Man sweat was normally abhorrent to me. I associated it with Torrance’s lessons in the training room. The many fun hours I spent fighting him while he beat me senseless and called me a pathetic whore.
Being this close to Kyril didn’t trigger me.
“You’re most welcome, my little gadyuka, ” he said. “Our first date has been most entertaining.”
My head snapped up. “First date?” What the actual fuck was he on about?
“Yes, little gadyuka. Now go get some sleep and wash the evidence of that mudak from your skin. Next time, I’ll take you out for a nice dinner and you can wear something pretty for me.”
“Pretty?” I repeated. Pretty wasn’t really my aesthetic.
Kyril traced a finger down my cheek, pausing when he reached my bruised, swollen lip from where the dead guy had landed a punch shortly before I knifed him to death.
“Yes, pretty. Just like you.”
I scoffed loudly. “I’m not pretty.”
He leaned in, pressing me against the door of Eden’s rather battered car. The heat of his body ignited a raging fire in my veins, burning away all traces of exhaustion.
“Yes, you are. More than pretty, little gadyuka.”
Any other man would be on the floor by now, screaming as I broke his arm, but Kyril had me frozen, like a rabbit facing down a fox.
He was a bigger predator than me, but he didn’t scare me. Far from it. He’d willingly implicated himself in my crime this evening. If the body ever came to light, DNA from both of us was all over it.
I wasn’t worried about my involvement since I had no intention of sticking around, but he didn’t know that. And he’d helped me despite the risk when any sensible guy would have driven away at one hundred miles an hour and reported me to the police.
Kyril was my kind of guy.
Before I could voice any further objections, he kissed me. Like him, his kiss was hard and unapologetic, and I melted. My lips parted willingly, letting him in.
Kissing Kyril was nothing like my stolen kisses with Dar back when I was an innocent 15-year-old.
Something told me Kyril wasn’t sweet in the bedroom. He was a man who took what he wanted when he wanted it.
He was exactly the kind of man I needed to stay the fuck away from.