Chapter 20
Jiya
Ican’t decide which is weirder—standing next to two men discussing body disposal methods, or that I stabbed one of them an hour ago and now we’re all working together.
Marcel’s corpse lies like a prop in the middle of the living room, his dead eye staring at the ceiling.
“We should bury him,” Calloway says, breaking the silence. “It’s been raining all day on and off, so the ground shouldn’t be too hard to dig.”
Lazlo holds up his bandaged arm. “I just got stabbed, remember? I can’t dig.”
“It’s okay,” Calloway says. “You can wait in the house. We’ll handle it.”
“We?” I raise an eyebrow. “I don’t recall volunteering for grave-digging duty.”
Calloway gives me a look that’s somehow both pleading and challenging. “Unless you have a better idea for disposing of a two-hundred-pound corpse?”
I don’t. The poison was supposed to look like heart failure, but Marcel’s eye socket currently houses a letter opener, which makes the natural causes angle a bit difficult to sell.
I sigh. “Fine. But I’m not carrying him.”
Calloway nods and heads toward the back door. “I’ll get shovels.”
While he’s gone, Lazlo slumps onto the couch, clutching his arm. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Join the club,” I mutter, eyeing Marcel’s body. “I had a whole elegant plan, you know. Quick poison, slip out, leave him to be found days later. No mess, no fuss.”
“Calloway’s plans are usually cleaner too,” Lazlo says, almost defensively. “He’s... artistic about it.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Lazlo tenses. “I never said—”
The back door swings open, and Calloway returns with two shovels, rain dripping from his hair. The moisture makes his shirt cling to his chest, highlighting every muscle. Despite everything, I feel a flicker of heat at the memory of those muscles tensing above me less than two hours ago.
“I found these in the garden shed,” he says, handing me one shovel. “There’s a suitable spot behind the tree line where the ground slopes a bit. No one will find him there.”
We trudge through the wet undergrowth, Calloway leading the way with a flashlight and Marcel’s feet dragging through the leaves behind us. We’ve wrapped him in a shower curtain, which makes him look like the world’s most macabre burrito. My arms burn from the effort, but I refuse to complain.
“Here,” Calloway says, stopping in a small clearing about fifty yards into the woods. “The ground slopes down, and it’s far enough from the house that no one will stumble on it.”
I drop my end of Marcel’s body with a thud. “Let’s get this over with.”
The night air is thick with humidity, and mosquitoes buzz around us as we dig. The ground is softer than I expected, the shovel sinking easily into the dark soil. Too easily, actually. After a few minutes, water seeps into the shallow pit we’ve created.
“That’s weird,” I mutter, digging faster. “Maybe we hit a spring?”
“I don’t think—” Calloway starts, but a sharp slapping sound from nearby cuts his words short.
We both freeze. The sound comes again, followed by splashing.
“What the hell is that?” I whisper.
Calloway aims his flashlight toward the noise. In the beam, I see a large, brown, furry creature with prominent front teeth, dragging a branch toward our hole.
“It’s a beaver,” Calloway says, sounding surprised. “We must be near its dam.”
The beaver drops the branch into our half-dug grave and stares at us with the indignation of a homeowner finding strangers digging up their lawn.
“Shoo,” I snarl, waving my shovel. The beaver doesn’t budge. Instead, it chitters angrily.
“We need to move,” Calloway says, glancing around. “This entire area must be part of their system. That’s why the ground is so wet.”
We try digging a few feet away, but the same thing happens—water fills the hole almost immediately. The beaver, meanwhile, continues dragging sticks to our original dig site.
“He’s...fixing it,” Calloway says, watching the industrious animal.
“Great. We’ve got a rodent contractor.”
Calloway approaches the beaver. “Hey, buddy, we need to bury something here. Can you work somewhere else tonight?”
The beaver slaps its tail against the ground, sending a spray of muddy water over Calloway’s pants.
“I don’t think it likes you,” I say, failing to suppress a laugh.
Calloway turns to me with an exasperated expression that transforms into something mischievous. He bends down, scoops up a handful of mud, and before I can react, launches it at me.
The cold, wet earth splatters across my chest. I gasp in shock.
“Oh, you’re dead,” I say, dropping my shovel.
I grab a handful of mud and fling it at him. He dodges, but not fast enough—it catches him on the shoulder. Soon, we’re both hurling mud balls at each other, ducking and weaving between trees while the beaver watches our ridiculous display.
Calloway lunges for me, catching me around the waist. We struggle, laughing, until we both slip and fall, landing in a muddy puddle with a splash. I end up on top of him, both of us covered head to toe in mud.
“You look ridiculous,” I say, wiping a smear from his cheek.
“You should see yourself,” he replies, his voice lower.
Our laughter fades as we stare at each other. Even covered in mud, he’s gorgeous. I lean down and press my lips to his. He responds immediately, his hand sliding up to cup the back of my neck. The kiss differs from our frantic ones earlier—slower, deeper.
When we pull apart, I’m about to suggest we find somewhere more comfortable when a chorus of tail slaps erupts around us. I look up to find we’re surrounded by at least five beavers, all looking extremely agitated.
“Um, Calloway?” I whisper.
“I see them,” he says, slowly sitting up. “I think we’ve angered the beaver mafia.”
One large beaver charges forward a few steps, baring its teeth.
“Time to go,” Calloway says, scrambling to his feet and pulling me up.
I grab both shovels with one hand, mud dripping from my clothes as we retreat from the beaver militia. Calloway snatches Marcel’s feet, and we stumble backward through the trees, keeping our eyes on the angry rodents.
“I didn’t know beavers could be so territorial,” I whisper, trying not to make any sudden movements.
“I didn’t know they hunted in packs,” Calloway replies, dragging Marcel’s body across the forest floor. The shower curtain snags on fallen branches and rocks, making a horrible scraping sound.
When we’re about twenty yards away, the largest beaver slaps its tail against the water. The others return to their dam-building activities, glancing in our direction with beady-eyed suspicion.
“Did we just get intimidated by rodents?” I ask, choking back a laugh.
Calloway’s mouth twitches. “Not just any rodents. The beaver mafia. Don’t you know they run these woods?”
“Right. The notorious Beaver Family. I hear they control all the underwater real estate from here to Canada.”
“Exactly. Their leader there? Don Beaver-leone. Very dangerous.”
A snort escapes me, and then we’re both laughing. The uncontrollable, slightly hysterical laughter that comes when you’re covered in mud, dragging a corpse through the woods, and have just been chased off by beavers.
“We should—” I gasp between giggles, “—we should try another spot.”
Calloway looks down at Marcel’s body, then back at me, then at the muddy path leading back to the house. “You know what? Let’s regroup. I need to check on Lazlo, anyway.”
We trudge back through the woods, Calloway dragging Marcel behind him like a gruesome sled while I carry the shovels.
I pause periodically to blur our footprints with my feet, then use the flat side of the shovel to smooth over the drag marks.
I pull fallen branches across the disturbed areas, making the forest floor look naturally scattered again.
Every few steps, one of us laughs again, setting the other off. By the time the house comes into view, my stomach hurts from laughing, and my arms ache from carrying the heavy tools.
“What are we going to tell Lazlo?” I ask, trying to compose myself as we approach the back door.
Calloway’s eyes still sparkle with mischief despite our dire situation. “That we’ve been blacklisted by the local wildlife union.”
This sets me off again, and I’m still giggling when we reach the house.
We stumble inside, tracking mud across Marcel’s pristine floors. Lazlo looks up from the couch, his eyes widening at the sight of us covered in dark, wet earth. Marcel’s corpse, still wrapped in its shower curtain shroud, leaves a trail of mud and debris behind us.
“What the hell happened?” Lazlo asks, rising from the couch. “Did someone see you?”
I exchange a glance with Calloway, and we both burst into another fit of laughter. I double over, clutching my stomach.
“The beavers staged an intervention,” I say, trying to catch my breath.
“The beavers?” Lazlo repeats, his voice cracking. “What beavers? Are you both having breakdowns?”
Calloway drops Marcel’s feet, leaving the body sprawled half in the living room, half in the hallway.
“We tried digging near their dam,” Calloway explains, setting down the shovels. “They were...uncooperative.”
“They had a whole neighborhood watch thing going,” I add, wiping mud from my face. “Very organized. Like a little beaver HOA from hell.”
“Don Beaver-leone,” Calloway says with a straight face.
I snort with laughter, which sets Calloway off again.
Lazlo stares at us, his mouth hanging open. “You’re telling me you couldn’t bury a body because of beavers?”
“They were very intimidating,” I say, trying to sound serious.
“Territorial,” Calloway adds.
“Big teeth.”
“Slappy tails.”
Lazlo’s face darkens. “This isn’t funny! We have a dead body, I’m bleeding, and you two are giggling like schoolchildren because some rodents scared you?”
I straighten up, trying to compose myself. “Sorry. You’re right. It’s just—”
“It’s just that you two are covered in mud, standing in a murder scene, and somehow finding this amusing.” Lazlo runs his good hand through his hair. “I can’t believe Thorne sent me to help you. This is a disaster.”
“Relax,” Calloway says, his tone becoming more serious. “We’ll figure something out. No one knows we’re here.”
“You need to clean yourselves up,” Lazlo mutters, eyeing the muddy footprints we’ve left across the floor. “Both of you. I’ll try to clean some of this mess.”
“We can’t leave these tracks,” I say, looking at the trail of mud. “And we can’t clean them without leaving more.”
Calloway nods. “Let’s use Marcel’s shower. Then we can deal with the rest.”
We shuffle down the hallway, careful to step in our existing footprints. Marcel’s master bathroom is as luxurious as the rest of the house—a massive glass shower stall, dual sinks, and heated marble floors. I avoid looking at myself in the mirror, afraid of what I might see.
“Ladies first,” Calloway says, gesturing to the shower.
I shake my head. “We don’t have time for separate showers. Plus, it’s not like we haven’t seen each other naked already.”
A slight smile plays on Calloway’s lips. “Fair point.”
“So,” I say as we strip off our mud-caked clothes, “next time we kill someone together, can we pick somewhere without wildlife?”
Calloway turns on the shower, testing the temperature. “Next time?”
I step under the warm spray, washing away mud and the lingering adrenaline. “Well, assuming we survive this time.”
“When we survive this,” he corrects, joining me in the shower. “And yes, next time we’ll do better location scouting.”
The tight space forces us close together, and despite everything, the danger, the corpse in the living room, I feel safe with him. Protected.
I work shampoo through my hair, trying to get all the mud and debris out. My fingers catch on tangles, and I wince as I try to work them loose.
“Here,” Calloway says, “let me.”
His hands replace mine, and I close my eyes as his fingers work through my hair. He starts at my scalp, massaging gently to work the shampoo through the roots, then combs his fingers downward through the length. When he encounters a tangle, he stops, working it loose with infinite patience.
“You don’t have to—” I start.
“Shh,” he murmurs. “Let me take care of you.”
My breath catches. Something tight in my chest loosens, unraveling like the knots in my hair. His fingers move through my hair in long, slow strokes, separating each strand with careful attention. There’s something almost reverent about the way he touches me.
He works methodically, combing through section after section until every tangle is gone. Then he does it again, just because. His fingertips trace along my scalp, sending shivers down my spine. My shoulders drop, tension I didn’t realize I was carrying melting away under his gentle touch.
“There,” he says, his voice rough with something I can’t name.
I turn in his arms, looking up at him. Water droplets cling to his lashes, and his hair is slicked back from his face. In this moment, he looks younger, softer somehow. My throat feels tight.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He cups my face in his hands, thumbs brushing across my cheekbones. “You’re beautiful, Jiya. Even covered in mud. Even in the middle of all this chaos.”
My eyes flutter closed at his touch. Something warm unfurls in my stomach, spreading outward until my fingertips tingle. I lean into his hands, my body seeking more of this gentleness I’ve forgotten existed.
“So what’s Plan B?” I ask, not wanting to break the moment but knowing we have to.
“Something that doesn’t involve territorial rodents,” he says. “Maybe we get creative.”
“Creative how?”
His smile is wicked even through the soapsuds. “Leave that to me. I’m the artistic one, remember?”
We finish showering, aware of Lazlo waiting for us. When we step out, I realize we have nothing clean to wear. Our clothes are caked with mud, unwearable.
“Marcel must have clothes we can borrow,” Calloway says, wrapping a towel around his waist. “Let me check his closet.”
He returns with a silk robe for me and sweatpants for himself. The robe is clearly meant for someone Marcel planned to seduce—short, red, and barely closed in the front.
“Sorry,” Calloway says, seeing my expression. “It was either this or his golf clothes.”
“This is fine,” I say, tying the sash tighter. “Let’s get back to Lazlo before he thinks we’re in here having round two.”
“I wouldn’t mind round two. I enjoyed round one.”
I slap his arm. “Not now.”
When we return to the living room, Lazlo has wiped up most of our muddy footprints. He looks up as we enter, his eyes lingering on my robe before glancing away.
“Time for a new plan,” Calloway announces.