Chapter 15
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
WITH MY EYES CLOSED AND MY TOES CURLED.
Sterling
Dash advises that we move to the kitchen, and I don’t disagree. We think alike for a lot of things, and I can see his police officer wheels turning. Juni’s come clean. We’ve been shocked, we’ve heard things I never thought I’d hear from her, and now we’re on the other side.
The place where we take action in keeping her safe. Making sure no one connects her to any of the things she’s done.
Juniper stands in the kitchen, bags under her eyes, her nightie crumpled on the bottom from how many times she ran her hands over it. She’s relieved to have told us, I can see that in the calm set of her jaw and the relaxed slope of her shoulders. But she can’t sit still, so I know she’s still a little anxious about what’s to come.
Dash bobs his head, focusing on the grout as he speaks. “Bluebell PD tagged his truck yesterday morning. If we don’t find him and dispose of him, the PD will.” Suddenly he looks up, his eyes glossy. “It’s been a little over a day, we don’t have much more time. We gotta get down there as soon as we can.” He looks over at the green digital clock above the old oven. It’s nearing half past one in the morning. “As soon as we can,” he repeats.
Even though Dash can never unknow all the things he’s heard tonight, he doesn’t have to physically break the law. I don’t want him doing anything that will eat at him, and while he’s come around to us being in this together, I question if he’s doing what he wants or doing what he feels he has to do.
Juniper gnaws on her bottom lip, also staring at the grout. “How will we?—”
“I can do it,” I say to Dash, wanting him to know he has a choice. I don’t need a choice. If something happens to me protecting Juniper’s livelihood and life, so be it. My brother can come back and run the sanitation business. I’m thirty-five and I’ve been in love with Juniper Sky Ellington for so many years, the idea of living a life with her anywhere but in Bluebell just doesn’t appeal to me. But Dash. He’s twenty-five. A young, fit cop with his life stretched before him. I know he cares for Juniper, and I’m still happy to step aside to let them be together. But he doesn’t have to give his freedom to save her.
I can do that.
“If you want to bow out and pretend you didn’t hear any of this, I’ll do it. I’ll take care of everything.” Our eyes idle, but I move around the kitchen island, so unlike myself charging toward him that way, but I can’t help myself. I rest my palms on his shoulders, and make it known one more time, enjoying that I have a reason to have my hands on him. “I will take care of it all, and we don’t ever have to mention it again. Just say the word. Say the word and I’ll handle everything.”
From my periphery he raises his hand. There’s a diffusion of heat in my veins as he comes to rest his palm over my hand. “I’m committed to this.” He looks over at Juni, still somewhat in a trance as she now sits atop a barstool, smoothing the pad of her finger over the rough grout, lost in thought. “I’m committed to her,” he says, his volume low enough that his words don’t travel beyond our chests, which are nearly touching.
He’s committed to her.
Sadness sweeps through me, leaving my bones a little weary and my chest a little sore. I nod, accepting his words. “Okay.”
I go to turn, to console Juni and ask what part of planning the next steps has her so quiet and detached, but Dash stops me. “I’m…” His silver eyes hold mine as an electric current swims through my soul. “I’m, uh, I’m committed to…” He pauses, and for the briefest of moments, his eyes fall to my lips before returning. “This whole thing.”
I don’t know what he means by this whole thing but he stopped me, he wanted me to know that he’s in, that he isn’t going anywhere, that we’re solid.
“Okay,” I reply, taking a seat across from Juniper at the bar. Dash sits next to me after retrieving a glass of water and giving it to Juni. She sips quietly, assuring us she’s only running down all possible details, making sure she didn’t leave anything crucial out. As she does, Dash and I get to work on how we’re going to fix this the best we can.
“We need to find them all and dispose of them, once and for all,” I tell Dash, having started this mental plan the moment she started coming clean. I knew right away I’d help her, that I’d try to clean up her trail for her as best I could. I knew it. But I’m relieved to know Dash will be there, too.
More than that, I’ve learned that he doesn’t just have a crush. I was right. He’s gotta be in love with her. Because he’s making the same bold statement with his commitment to this as I am, and I know how I feel about Juni.
“I agree. I think we start with the locations that are the riskiest, to eliminate the greatest possibilities as quickly as we can.” He looks at the clock again. “We gotta get the guy in the ravine. Priority one.”
I look around Juniper’s house and recall the last time I went into the Ellington barn, detached but near the main property. “We’re gonna need gloves, bags—” I stop, a small chuckle erupting from me, surprising all three of us.
Juniper blinks. “What?”
Dash eyes me suspiciously.
“It’s just— I mean, come on,” I say, waving toward Dash. “You’re a cop and I’m a garbage man. Together we should be the dream team disposing of bodies.”
Juniper’s smile is slow but gains momentum as Dash erupts in laughter, where I join him. Sometimes if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry, and I’m not crying. Not yet.
Dash’s laughter intensifies, and a moment later he’s swiping tears away, completely out of breath. “What?” I laugh, laughing harder as he does, the hinges of my jaw burning from use.
“I’ve never dealt with a homicide,” he finally says, gathering his composure as Juniper smiles, laughing softly as a bystander to our conversation. “And I’m gonna venture out on a limb and guess you’ve never even broken a law.”
I shrug. “This is why stereotypes are bad.”
Dash shakes his head like a dog who just jumped out of a swimming pool, his umber locks flying. “Okay. Back to business. The ravine is a time crunch deal, I’m telling you.” Another glance at the clock that hasn’t changed since he looked last. “We should go by our place and get some stuff,” he adds.
“That’s what I was thinking.” I look over at Juniper. “Get some clothes on, sweetheart, okay?”
She nods, slipping off the barstool and down the hall. The levity of the moment leaves the room with her as my eyes return to Dash’s.
“There’s a mine shaft down there in the ravine, a quarter of a mile down from the curve in the road,” I tell Dash, speaking low and slow, laying out important details I’ve been brainstorming. He reaches into his back pocket, producing his phone, unlocking the screen with a quick swipe. I grab it from him, causing his eyes to jump to mine. “You can’t look it up. We cannot look up any of the men or their families, locations, the woodchipper rental, nothing. Not. A. Single. Thing. Forensics will be all over everything if she becomes a suspect. We cannot give them ammo.”
He nods, shoving a hand through his hair. “That never even occurred to me.”
“I want us all to make it out the other side of this thing, so ever since she opened her mouth, I didn’t get lost in shock. I just started working on the exit strategy.” I wait for his eyes to lift to mine. “Let’s go by our place, I’ve got a plan.”
Juniper riding bitch in my truck is something I’ve thought about with my eyes closed and my toes curled. I can’t deny that. But Dash riding shotgun to her bitch? I’ve imagined it, I won’t lie. Usually, one of them rides in the back. But now? We’re all up front, and I hate to be sentimental, but I know that means something. Glancing over the moonlit cab, seeing the two of them thigh to thigh, his arm draped along the back of the seat, well, it does things to me I’m maybe not ready to admit.
“Right up there, on the right, there’s a turnout,” Dash says as we approach the bend in the road.
Juniper, dressed in blue jeans and a Juni’s Jams crewneck, her hair braided, leans forward, bracing her hands against the dashboard. Following the headlights, she peers out over the ravine before saying, “It was a little farther down.” She wags a pink-painted fingernail up the road where the back of a truck is barely visible. “There it is, right up there.”
“We don’t want our tracks near his,” Dash explains, reaching into the back to snatch the bag of supplies we loaded at our place. We have a plan I feel great about, and I think Dash does, too.
Unclipping my belt, I twist to face Juniper in the cab, turning the truck off so that we’re in complete darkness. “Sweetheart, wait here for us, okay? If anyone comes by, you tell them that we swerved, thought we hit a deer, and that your friends climbed down to make sure that we didn’t. Okay?”
Eyes wide, glittering in the dark cab, she nods. “Okay.”
“It may be an hour, so keep the doors locked, and keep the keys in your hand, okay?” Dash says, reaching back again for the second bag.
“Okay,” she says again, but once we open our doors, she reaches for my wrist, then Dash’s too. Glancing between us, she whispers, “Thank you.”
“Lock the doors,” Dash reiterates, slipping his hand from hers. His nerves are made clear by his hesitancy; he’s usually the last one to call it a night, the one of us who holds his hug with Juni a few seconds longer. Now, though, he’s eager, already traipsing off toward the truck while I’m slipping the bag over my shoulders and quietly closing the truck door.
I know I should be nervous. I should be a lot of things. Scared. Worried. Concerned. Depressed.
More than anything, I’m eager to get this done, and in a twisted way, glad to be doing it with Dash.
Meeting him at the passenger door of the abandoned truck, I peer into the cab as he shines his cell phone light through the window. The cab is pretty empty, thankfully leaving us to set the stage. “On our way back up,” Dash says, nodding to the cab where we plan to stash a few items.
Nodding, I agree. “Right. First things first.”
In unison, we turn and stare down the expansive ravine, nothing but vast darkness staring back. Dash shines his light on our feet, both of us wearing sneakers. Boots would’ve been better for getting both down and up the ravine, but police boots leave a distinct print. We went with sneakers. I follow his gaze as Dash points down a few hundred feet, to a place where the brush looks disturbed. It could be in disarray from animals or nature, but with limited light, it’s our only lead.
“Down there. I think we head that way based on where he could’ve rolled.”
I nod, and together we start the tedious descent.
In daylight, I could hike up and down this ravine no problem. But as night envelops us in darkness, each step becomes crucial and dangerous. We told Juniper one hour having factored in our climb with the retrieval.
At one point, Dash groans, and a slew of pebbles and earth come down around my neck and shoulders, causing me to duck my head, diverting my eyes. “You okay, man?” I groan, shaking my head to free myself of the debris while trying not to lose my footing, the bag on my back growing heavier with each movement.
“Fucking almost slipped,” he grunts, finding his footing on a small piece of granite jutting from the hillside. Sweat shines on his forehead and above his top lip as he stops next to me, catching his breath.
“Just a few more feet. We’re almost there,” I reassure him. His eyes tangle with mine as a chilled breeze sweeps between us, making my words turn to puffs of white. The tip of his nose is pink as he nods his head. “I’m ready.”
We make our way down, stopping at the very bottom to look back up at my truck. “Fuck,” Dash groans. “The hike up is gonna suck.”
I blink up at my truck, looking a quarter of its size. “Let’s not focus on that. Let’s… start looking,” I reply, digging out my phone to use its flashlight, too. Gravel crunches beneath our feet and in the distance, a wolf belts his nighttime warning song. We look, moving rocks with our hands, our backs sweating beneath our packs. After ten minutes, a slow panic creeps into my nervous system.
“What if someone already found him? There’s no way he didn’t have a hair or fiber or fucking molecule on him that could be traced back to her,” I breathe, walking toward the only large rock in the area I haven’t searched behind. Dash follows me.
“Nobody found him. I would’ve heard. C’mon, we just need to keep looking, maybe an animal moved hi—” Dash’s sentence falls off a cliff.
At our feet rests a dead man, his face so bruised and stained with blood that features are completely unrecognizable. Dash nudges him, and something scurries from beneath his body, making us both jump.
Dash shines his light over the man’s body, and silently, we take it in for a minute.
He’s covered in blood, jam and dirt, but his face is so swollen, he’d be unrecognizable no matter what. I take a step back and suck in a deep breath of fresh, Bluebell air, trying to find a sliver of calm.
I didn’t think I’d feel any type of way, but I do. Uneasy and nauseous, I stare at the sinking moon until my mind feels right. When I drop to my knees and sling off my bag, I notice Dash doing the same.
“I stashed a few neck gaiters in my bag,” he says quietly. He opens his bag and tosses me one. I watch as he slides his over his face, only his eyes exposed as he says, “Helps with the smell.” I realize then that part of my nausea came from the lingering stench.
“Thanks,” I reply, tugging mine down, taking small, shallow breaths from my mouth to avoid the smell as much as possible. As planned, we put on our gloves next. After wrapping the man in a tarp, we drag him half a mile down the ravine, collecting scrapes and bumps as we go.
After what feels like too long, Dash stops, the tarp crunching as we release our hold. “Here,” he says, his voice muffled through the gaiter as he nods toward a smattering of tumbleweeds clinging to a large rock. He kicks some away, and grabs others, tossing them aside, exposing a very worn, wooden door. It looks like a storm hatch to a cellar, but I know it must be the mineshaft.
“You get the stuff out and I’ll work on getting it open,” he says, lifting a small combination lock, the moonlight reflecting off the metal. He pulls a crowbar from his bag, and while he starts prying open the abandoned shaft, I unpack my bag on the ground, making sure to place things logically.
After I’ve set up a tent, I step on the stakes, using my body weight to make sure they’re anchored tightly to the earth. Setting a few things inside, once I’m done, Dash has the door completely open, and he stands with his mask lifting, panting, eyes shining. “Ready?”
I look down at the blue tarp, envisioning the dead man rolled inside. “Ready.”
He rolls his mask down and grabs one end while I take the other. After a three count, we release the edge of the tarp, sending the dead man straight down the abandoned shaft. Next, I pluck items from the ground, passing them to Dash. He chucks them down the shaft after the man, and once our bags are empty, we reroll the tarp and slide our packs back on.
Out of breath, we stand at the foot of the shaft, sweaty and tired, moving on pure adrenaline. He faces me, stroking a filthy hand through his hair. We’re both filthy. “We just staged a death to protect Juniper from a murder charge.” He shakes his head, toeing at a rock on the ground. “I had to say it out loud to make sure I’m not dreaming.”
I can’t help but snort as we start making our way up the ravine, back toward the truck. “You know, I know I should feel bad about this but… right now, the only thing I care about is rinsing this ravine and the stench of death off of me.” Reaching for a branch, I pull myself up as I find footing on the steep hillside. “And a beer.”
“And roast beef dip with the wedge fries at Goode’s,” he groans, climbing up behind me.
We stop mid-hillside and I glance down at him. The ravine and the terrain surrounding is beautiful, but as I glance back at Dash, it takes a back seat. Sweat glistening on his forehead, his coif of dark hair disheveled as all hell, he’s one of those men that makes people look twice. He’s a guy that, on your drive home from a long day at work, you remember his face and envision how beautiful his life must be because a man with that jawline and that smile must have it all figured out.
“What?” he questions.
I haven’t said anything, yet I feel like I’ve been caught in a lie already. I scratch my jaw. “Think our plan will work?”
He nods. “It will. I believe it.”
We climb the rest of the way in silence, reaching the top a handful of minutes later, completely out of breath. Trudging back to the truck, as we near, the passenger door pops open and Juniper dips her head out. “Are you guys okay?” she whisper-hisses into the night.
I peel off my sweatshirt and gloves, and Dash does the same. We stuff them in our bags and toss them in the back, sliding into the cab. Immediately I take the keys from Juniper and start the truck to roll the windows down.
I glance across the cab, realizing that Dash and I are even filthier than I realized. Catching Juni’s gaze, I tell her the last of the plan. “We’re going to the sanitation plant to hose off our shoes and the tarp, and to get cleaned up. We don’t want to take any of him or the ravine home. While we’re cleaning up, I’ll need you to vacuum out the truck.”
She nods. “Of course.”
“Before we can head out, we have to plant some things in his truck.” I look at Dash, dirt smudged along his forehead, sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He reaches down, grabbing the bag, and nods. “One more minute, Juni,” I tell her as we slide out, walking slowly to the truck not more than ten paces ahead.
At the driver’s door, I wrap my hand in my sleeve and tug on it, popping it open. Dash cups his hands to the passenger window, peering in at me leaning over the driver’s seat.
“Oh,” he says bashfully, realizing the doors are unlocked. He opens the passenger side, and together, with our hands covered in our sleeves, we gently sift through the pickup. Dash grabs a paper from the floorboard, holding it to the moonlight to read it.
“Oh shit,” he says thoughtfully, tipping the paper sideways for more light. “This is a body scan from a gym. Says he just finished 75 Hard.”
“Good for him,” I say, slipping a pair of new gardening gloves into the side pocket of the door. I place some new bottles of water in his cup holders, and a box of garbage bags in the front seat.
“Can you imagine, doing 75 Hard and then on the day you can finally indulge, you get murdered?” he says, shaking his head as he returns the paper to the floor.
I look at him, lifting a hand to prevent my headlights from hitting me in the eye. “He was a dog beater,” I tell Dash. “He was whaling on Yellow Dog.” The yellow of his coat caught my eye, so it makes sense to name him Yellow Dog.
“His karma really got him, huh?” Dash says, popping open the glove box.
I nod. “Yes, it did.” We both pause, and even though we’re calm and collected, I think it’s one of those moments where what we are doing really hits us. We’re staging a disappearance to cover up a murder, and that’s heavy.
“All right,” I say, suddenly eager to not be in this dead guy’s truck anymore. “We’re good. You got the bag?”
Dash lifts the bag and nods, and both of us slowly and quietly close the truck doors. Walking back to my truck, he quietly says, “We’re doing the right thing in some twisted way, aren’t we?”
I dip my head once. “Yes, we are.”
We get into the cab, assuring Juniper that we handled it, that everything is going to be okay. And what’s crazy is that I believe it. I don’t feel like I’m pacifying her. I do feel a little crazy because of how much I believe we’ll be okay. I know it’s not right to be okay with murder, but for Juni, it just… makes stupid sense.
Still, I want to be smart.
Shifting the truck into drive, I pull out on the road and head to work, eager to get there and glad to be able to offer a safe place for us to wash away the evidence. “I’ve got a few sets of clothes there in my office, we’ll need to completely wash down and change. These clothes we have on should probably get burned.”
Dash bobs his head as wind whips through the cab. “I agree.”
Strands of Juniper’s honey hair fly around, bringing her scent to me. A familiar comfort diffuses in my chest, and I place my hand on her thigh, giving her a squeeze. “We took care of him, sweetheart. Okay? It’s gonna be okay.”
“One down, nine to go,” Dash comments.
“What did you do with him?” Juniper finally asks after we ride in contemplative silence for a few minutes. “If you don’t want to tell me, I understand.”
Waiting for the light in the center of town to turn green, I look down at her, centered between the two of us, so small in comparison. “We carried him down to the mineshaft, and made his death look like an accident.”
“I tore the door off the mineshaft, Sterl set up a tent and staged it with a few things. We tossed him into the shaft along with supplies, like a lantern, knife, a headlamp, and some other things to make it look like he was looking for gold.”
She doesn’t say anything, just stares at me, then turns her head to stare at Dash.
“I put a pamphlet called Miner’s Gold on the passenger seat of his pickup truck,” Dash adds.
“Thank you,” she whispers, her tone husky with emotion. “You guys know I love you both, right?”
Dash takes her hand, waffling their fingers together. Juniper uses her free hand to grip my thigh. The connection roars between the three of us. “I know,” Dash says. “Love you, too.”
I keep my focus on the horizon as I drive toward the sanitation plant. “Of course, sweetheart. Love you too.”
More than you know.
It’s only a few more minutes until we’re there, but when I glance over at Juniper, I don’t have the heart to wake her up. It’s been a big few days for her, but tonight was especially hard, I’d have to imagine.
Having secrets is one thing, but secrets like hers? Then to spill them to two of the most important people in your life? That had to be hard. She handled herself so well, she was so brave.
She is so brave.
Hell, when she told me about all of her victims, I started to think victim is the wrong word. Those men gaslighted her, they baited her, they expected to treat her like an object while demanding king worship in return.
They had it coming and as fucked up as it is, I’m proud of her.
I wish I could’ve offed them myself.
When I finally pull into the plant and put the truck in park, Juniper is still asleep and Dash is quiet, gazing thoughtfully out the window at the sliver of moon that remains.
“You okay?” I ask hoarsely over a sleeping Juniper.
His eyes are misty when they come to mine, and my chest tightens at his expression. “Just… processing.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
He blinks at me. “How are you always so solid? I feel… fucking dumb for struggling right now. I’m the cop. I should be?—”
“You’re not dumb so shut the fuck up with that. And the reason you’re struggling is because you’re a cop.” I glance out at the lights glowing on the side of the old concrete building that I call home all week. “I’m not good all the time but I will be good until we get this mess cleaned up.” I look back toward him. “I have to be. To save her.”
“You know what’s funny?” he hoarsely asks.
“What?”
“I thought ditching the scene in front of Ink Time so that Ivy didn’t get arrested was the worst thing I was going to do for Juniper.”
In a way, I kind of did, too. It didn’t surprise me that he whisked Ivy away after she destroyed Trace’s car. Juniper’s pleading would’ve worn me down, too.
“I’m going to say this one more time. If you want out, I’ll never tell a soul. If we get caught and it traces back to any of us, I will solely take the heat. For you, too, not just Juniper. And I will not judge you if you take the out.”
His gray eyes narrow, studying me, dissecting my words, Juniper’s soft breathing diffusing the otherwise silent moment. “Why would you offer that? Aren’t you worried about yourself at all?”
The answer is easy so it comes fast. “I care more that you two are okay.” I pop open the door quietly and step out, ducking my head back into the cab. “Tomorrow night we’ll get the guy she buried earlier tonight. C’mon. We gotta get cleaned up and get her home.”
I don’t tell Dash that me taking the fall for them makes the most sense. If it’s any of us, I should draw the short straw. They can have a future together. I was just about to step aside and let them before this happened.
I’m prepared to do that still, in any situation. I can’t be the guy who gets the beautiful bad girl who makes jam and kills evil men, but he can.