Chapter 31 #2
He shrugged, closed the side door of the van and began walking back through the gate. “By the time they see it, we’ll be long gone. And all the evidence will be ashes.”
He had a point...
Except, I had one tiny issue.
“Why aren’t we leaving her in the house then, if we’re torching the place?” I asked as I followed him.
He tilted his head, quirking his brow in a way that said, trust me, and stated, “It’s too messy. I’d prefer to do this my way.”
I was getting the impression he liked having control tonight. And in this case, I had to trust him. I didn’t really have any other choice. We’d already established that.
We both trekked back across the garden and into the house. The armchair looked a state, with blood soaked everywhere.
“Get your bag, the wrench and the knife. We’ll dispose of those ourselves. Like I said, it’s too risky to leave anything incriminating behind.”
“And the kitchen towel and your apron?” I asked, but he shook his head.
“They’ll burn easily in the fire. Leave them where they are.”
I picked up my backpack, well aware that my hands were shaking.
Then I put the bloody wrench and knife inside as Isaiah started pouring petrol all over the armchair, moving to the area around it and then splashing a trail on the carpet that led to the back door.
He threw a little into the kitchen for good measure, too.
Once he’d emptied the can, he stood at the door, took a lighter out of his back pocket and asked, “Are you ready?”
I nodded, put the backpack on my shoulder and sidled past him, heading outside. I stood in the garden just behind Isaiah as he flicked the lighter and then put the flame under the rag in the glass bottle.
“Stand back,” he told me as the flames licked the cloth, and then he threw the bottle into the house.
I saw the armchair catch fire first, just before Isaiah closed the back door.
“There’s no time to stand and watch the party. We need to go.”
I didn’t need to be told twice.
We both ran down the garden, through the gate, and Isaiah opened the van. I got into the passenger side as he jumped into the driver’s seat. And then he started the engine, and I glanced out of the side window, watching the orange glow from the windows.
“In a few minutes it’ll be out of control. It’s an old cottage. Wooden walls, floors, all of it will go up.”
“Are you sure they won’t find anything?” I asked, peering at him as he drove through the field at the back of the lane and then bumped us back onto the main avenue. The moonlight reflecting off his face made him look otherworldly. I’d never seen a man who looked like him before.
“Not a thing.” He turned to look at me, the smallest hint of a smile on his face. “Don’t worry. Daddy will never know.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
He cocked his brow and then focused back on the road ahead. “Come on, Abigail. The whole world knows who your father is.”
The dread that was already weighing down my stomach felt heavier. I couldn’t think about my parents. Not now. This wasn’t a part of my world they needed to know about. Ever.
“Are you threatening me?” I felt so uneasy. Sick, in fact.
“Of course not.” He laughed quietly to himself. “You have secrets and so do I. I get it. I’m the last person you need to worry about.”
After hearing the rules he’d spouted at me back at the house, I guessed he was right. But I was still on my guard.
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“You’ve asked me that already.” His jaw clenched and he paused for a moment, then added, “I’m helping you dispose of a dead body, and I’ve incriminated myself in this as much as you.
I’d say that’s pretty trustworthy. But hey, trust me, don’t trust me, at this stage it’s kind of a moot point.
” He glanced to the side again, giving me what I can only describe as an evil smirk that looked even more menacing in the darkness. “You don’t have a fucking choice.”
He was right. We were in this together. And I didn’t have a fucking choice.
“Where are we going?” I asked, turning to look at the plastic roll in the back, fighting the sickness that was swirling inside me, then focusing back on the dark road ahead.
“Hadfield lake,” he replied. “I have an old boat there. We can take it out to the middle and drop her in the water, along with the weapons in your backpack. Personally, I’d ditch the backpack too.
Then we come back to the jetty, and...” He clicked his fingers.
“Poof. You can forget any of this ever happened.”
“Won’t the bag wash up on the shore and give away the evidence?” I asked, and he laughed.
“It’s a lake, not the coast, but don’t worry, if you throw them all in separately, they won’t ever be found together. We can use weights to weigh the bag down too.”
“Why didn’t we just leave them in the fire?”
He didn’t like that I was questioning him, and his nostrils flared as he replied, “Because I don’t leave weapons at a crime scene. I have my way of doing things, and my way is the best way.”
“A killer with OCD,” I joked, but he didn’t laugh.
“My methods have never let me down.”
“Unless they decide to drag the riverbed and the divers find everything.”
“Do you want my help or not?” he snapped, then he sighed, ran his hand through his hair, and in a lighter tone, he said, “It’s the river or a vat of acid.” He turned to face me for a moment, and that smirk was back in place. “Which one do you prefer?”
“The river,” I replied.
“Good,” he stated far too chirpily. “Let’s get this done then you can forget you ever knew a woman called Angela Maynard.”
My blood ran cold.
“I never told you her name.” I glared at his profile, but he didn’t look fazed. “You are stalking me.”
“I do my research. I already told you that,” he replied, not a hint of guilt evident in his response. “And my hacking skills are fast and precise. I had her details before you’d even walked through her front door.”
“Are you good at picking locks too? Breaking into women’s apartments?” I put my hand on the door handle, ready to open it and let myself out if I needed to. I’d probably break my legs from the fall, but I blocked that part out.
“Has it ever occurred to you that I might be following her too? Like you said, she wasn’t a good person.”
He had a point.
But I had a gut, and it was telling me to be wary.
“Let’s just get this over with,” I snapped. “You can forget this nightmare too, then.”
He shook his head, that smile still in place. “I won’t forget. This night is going to be seared into my brain for a long time. I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun.”
“You need to get out more.”
“Says the girl who spends her evening dicing up old ladies.”
“I didn’t dice her up.” My voice was way too high-pitched. I cleared my throat, and in a calmer voice, I said, “I didn’t mutilate her or anything.”
“Sliced, then.” He shrugged, turning a sharp corner and making the plastic parcel in the back roll across the van. “And I still want to know the story behind it, by the way. Let’s call it the payoff for me helping you. I want to know exactly why you went after her tonight.”
“And if I don’t tell you?”
“I can be very persuasive.”
I didn’t reply, but as I sat there in the darkness of the van, contemplating going on a boat in the night with this man, I started to panic.
“Do I need to be on the boat? Can’t you drop me off somewhere?”
“And miss out on a valuable lesson?” He tutted and shook his head. “No. You need to see this through to the end, Abigail. This one is yours.”
What was mine?
The crime?
Because judging from the way he was talking, he thought I should be proud of it. And most times, I was, but not this time. This time, I’d failed.
“I’d prefer to go home,” I said, trying one last time to get myself out of this. Maybe I could open the van door when he slowed down and jump out? I’d probably end up in a hospital bed, but that might be better than whatever might happen to me on that boat.
“Not gonna happen,” he said, and I covertly reached forward again, gripping the door handle, and then pulled it to try and open the door. It didn’t budge.
“Are you trying to open the door and do a runner while I’m driving?”
“No.”
Yes.
“You are a terrible liar, Abigail. Don’t you want this sorted out? Or do you want me to bring her to your apartment so you can figure it out on your own?”
I wanted to wake up and find out none of this had happened, but we don’t always get what we want.
“How do I know I’m safe?” I asked, choosing honesty.
“How do any of us know that?”
It wasn’t the response I expected. But then he pointed to the glove box.
“I’ve got a gun in there. It’s loaded. If it makes you feel better, you can bring it with you onto the boat.”
I’d never shot a gun. We lived in the U.K. My father didn’t even carry a gun. But it was something, I guess.
I opened the glove box, reached inside and took the gun out. I didn’t even know how to check if it was loaded, but I held onto it as Isaiah pulled off the main road and onto a dirt track that I knew would lead us to Hadfield Lake.
When we arrived, he parked the van and switched off the engine. Then he turned in his seat to face me, took the gun from my hand and pulled the chamber, or whatever the fuck it was on the top, to show me the bullets inside.
“See, fully loaded. Just point and shoot,” he said, handing it back to me.
“So simple,” I replied, and he gave me a quirky smile.
“Let’s go for a sail, yeah?”
The door was unlocked now, and I climbed down from the van, watching as Isaiah pulled the side door open and picked up the plastic burrito.
“Don’t forget your backpack,” he told me, and I twisted to the side to show it was on my shoulder.
I followed him down to the small wooden jetty, where a few boats were moored.
“Are you sure this is safe? I mean, someone on one of the other boats might see us.”
“I own all the boats,” he replied. “So unless I have a stowaway, I think we’ll be okay.”
“You own all the boats?” This guy was becoming more of an anomaly the more I got to know him. “Why would you need four boats?”
“It’s funny the things you collect as you move through life,” he replied as we walked along the jetty.
Again, another response that left me feeling like there was more to unpack, but I didn’t have chance. Isaiah was throwing the plastic roll onto a boat. It was showtime.
Isaiah held his hand out to help me climb into the boat.
I looked down at his outstretched hand, then contemplated making a run for it.
I don’t know why I chose to take his hand and step into the boat, but I did.
It was like some unspoken, unfathomable tether that was keeping me here, and it made no sense. But then, none of this did.
As I sat on a small wooden bench at the side of the boat, Isaiah held his finger up and said, “Wait there. I just need one more thing.”
He walked at pace towards the trees that edged the lake, leaving me to sit there on the boat with the body.
What the fuck was he doing?
Moments later, he reappeared holding concrete blocks, one under each arm. Then, when he drew near, he placed them on the floor of the boat and told me, “We need the weight.”
He climbed onboard and walked to the front of the boat, turned the engine on, and we started to move through the water.
I stared out at the dark, murky lake, sparkles of moonlight bouncing off the waves the boat was creating. It was a deathly mesmerising scene, and I found myself switching off from reality. It was better that way.
Eventually, Isaiah announced, “We should be fine here,” as he shut off the engine.
We sat silently for a moment in the middle of the vast lake. Then he opened a small box next to the bench where I sat and took out some rope.
My heart was pounding out of my chest, and I held the gun tightly, ready to use it if needed.
He wound the rope around the bottom of the plastic where her legs were, then tied the other end to one of the concrete blocks. He did the same at the top, working like he was a professional.
“I might need your help to lift her with these blocks,” he said, and I stood up, shuffling slowly across the rocking boat, trying not to lose my balance as I manoeuvred myself to stand at her feet.
“Ready?” he asked, giving me a nod, and then we both lifted her, stepping to the side and dropping her off the edge of the boat into the water.
The pale plastic faded slowly into the dark, murky depths as the weight of the blocks pulled her to the bed of the lake. And I stared down, watching the ripples, feeling relief that it was over.
“You need to ditch the bag,” Isaiah said as he stood beside me.
“I know,” I replied, reaching to pick my backpack up, pissed that a perfectly good backpack was being discarded in the lake. But it had to be done. I couldn’t hold onto evidence. Not while he was standing here watching me.
I wanted to do everything right. So, I took the wrench out first, dropped it into the water, and watched as it plunged out of sight, then I added the knife, and finally, the backpack, which drifted away slower but eventually disappeared.
There was nothing in that backpack that could be tied back to me.
Everything was gone. Swallowed by the lake, hidden in the water.
A secret cavern of my crime that no one would ever discover.
At least, I hoped so.