Chapter Eight
Hazel
Sleep didn’t come easily. In fact, it only came on the tails of some melatonin after several hours of trying to knock out, which ended with me bolting upright in panic.
I woke up feeling sluggish and distracted, burning my eggs and letting my coffee go cold twice before I finally just chugged it lukewarm and hoped for a little boost.
The day after I’d found the body, the garden center had (for obvious reasons) been closed.
But things were up and running again, and I needed to be as bright-eyed and ready to go as possible. There were two class trips. Then it was the all-important Grassi family night.
No matter what I was going through emotionally, I had to keep it in check and be professional.
Though, oddly, my emotions were okay. It was more my mind that was reeling.
Because I’d been almost compulsively checking the news stations for any mention of the murder. And there was nothing. Not a whisper.
Surely, a murder was big news in a relatively small area like Navesink Bank. It wasn’t like this was some sprawling metropolis of millions of people where murders could happen and be all but forgotten.
It should have been primetime and front-page news.
But there was nothing.
I slammed my laptop shut, feeling the swirling sensation in my stomach that no amount of antacids could ease.
What was going on?
I walked back down to my bedroom, yanking one of my sweaters off the hanger since it was finally cool enough to warrant it, pulled it on, pulled my hair into a clip, then grabbed my things to head out the door.
I didn’t know what the heck was happening. But I knew where I could find that information.
With family night in the works, I was sure Dante would be at the garden center to make sure everything was up to par.
I drove there in a bit of a daze, seeing the area a bit differently than I had just two days ago. Suddenly, it felt less bright and new, now full of secrets and hidden darkness.
The lot was surprisingly full, but of cars that didn’t belong to our crew of employees.
As I climbed out of the Jeep, I saw several unfamiliar men hanging about. They were all dressed casually, but there was something tense about their postures, something strange about how their heads seemed perpetually on a pivot.
Weird.
Kind of creepy.
I almost considered going back to my car until I finally spotted a familiar face.
Domenico, standing half-facing me, nodding at something the man with his back to me was saying.
I recognized him even before he turned around.
But as soon as Domenico spotted me, he nodded, and Dante turned, his face softening for a beat before a strange, detached mask overtook his features.
My step faltered, then stopped completely.
Dante was the one who closed the distance, moving away from Domenico to step in front of me.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, babe. How are your hands?” he asked as his gaze inspected my face.
“They’re scabbed over now.” I flashed the angry red but healed scratches at him before balling up my fists.
Because something felt weird here.
Between us, sure, but also around us.
The men? They’d all disappeared. But their cars were still hanging around.
What was happening?
Even the hairs on my arms sensed something was off, and suddenly the ground under my feet felt uneven, off-kilter.
“I, um, have been checking the news,” I said when Dante didn’t say anything. “And there’s been nothing about the murder.”
“Yes. About that,” Dante said, moving to stand next to me, his hand going to my lower back, leading me out of the parking lot as another car pulled in behind us.
“What about it?” I asked, my belly twisting tight, bile climbing up, making me choke it back.
“Well, while I was taking you home, Dom was searching the woods. And, well, he didn’t exactly find a body.”
Even with his hand leading me forward, I froze, my head whipping over to stare at his too-handsome profile.
“What? I saw it. Him. I saw him.” I’d been seeing him behind my eyelids each time I closed my eyes—an image that refused to be erased.
“I know. I didn’t believe him either at first,” Dante said, his tone even and convincing. But why wouldn’t he look at me? “When I got back here, he was waiting, ready to show me what you’d seen in the woods.”
“Who. Who I’d seen in the woods.”
“It certainly looked like a who,” he said, leading me over to a stack of hay bales and sitting down on one.
Feeling like I had no choice, I sat beside him, hating how I was aware of every inch of our bodies that brushed, how I could feel the heat of him through his suit, chasing the chill on my skin and in my bones away.
“Because it was. I saw it. I… touched him with my shoe. He was… squishy. Like a human. Well, like most humans,” I said, glancing at Dante’s strong, hard body.
“I think maybe the low light and the spookiness of the woods made it seem that way. But it wasn’t a person, Hazel.”
His head was turned toward me, his voice was confident, but he still wasn’t looking at me.
“Dante, it was. Is he still there? I’ll show you.” Two days passed; I imagined the smell of decomposition would lead us right to him.
Did my stomach flip at the idea of that?
Sure. But I would do whatever it took to find him, to give the man the dignity of being discovered, picked up, and given a proper funeral.
There were probably people out there who were looking for him, who missed him, who deserved to know what happened to him—no matter how horrific.
Dante’s hand slapped down on my thigh when I went to stand. It wasn’t a hard touch; he wasn’t holding me in place. But just the feel of his hand on my leg was enough to keep me completely immobilized.
It was insane to be thinking of anything else at a moment like this, but I couldn’t help but notice how big his hand was, how it completely covered my thigh. Or how high his placement was. Just another couple of inches and I could feel those big fingers press between my thigh—
No.
God.
What was wrong with me?
I shook off the thoughts.
But there was no reasoning with the ache deep in my core in response to that line of thinking.
“It’s not there, babe,” Dante said, fingers massaging my thigh. It was beyond distracting.
“Wait. What?”
“When Dom and I looked it over, what seemed like a real person at first turned out to just be a really well-done prop. A movie prop, as it turned out. Once we realized it wasn’t a body, we started calling around. It was one of my cousins. He was trying to fuck with Dom. But he got you by accident.”
“Dante, I was there with the body. I know what I saw.”
Right?
I mean, it had been dark. I just had my headlamp. And I had been completely freaked out and panicked. But I’d seen his open eyes, his parted mouth, the moisture still gathered there. That said, could that have just been… glue or nail polish, or something else meant to make the area look wet?
The squishy feel of him—surely there were ways for a designer to make a mannequin feel that way.
Something in me still rejected the idea.
But if both Dante and Domenico said it was just a prop, who was I to say otherwise? I mean, they’d been the ones to move the thing. Surely they would know better than me that it was fake.
“I’m sorry you were so scared, Hazel,” he said, hand massaging again. “My cousin got a talking-to.”
“I’m… I’m sorry I overreacted.” Feeling suddenly incredibly embarrassed, I got to my feet, ignoring the way my body objected to the distance between the two of us.
“Hey, don’t be sorry,” Dante said, stepping in front of me, surprising me enough to make me glance up. This time, he was looking right at me. “It was a valid response.”
To a real body, sure.
I should have investigated harder.
I should have been more logical.
“Haze, got a minute?” Ant called, making me jerk away from Dante.
“Yeah, coming,” I said. “Again, sorry about the overreaction.” I rushed past Dante before he could contradict me, making my way over to Ant, who had his whole face painted midnight black with two white diamonds up and down from his eyes.
I could practically see the thirst trap videos of him being posted online.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Nothing. Just looked like you wanted an excuse to get away from the boss man,” he said, shrugging as I fell into step with him.
“I, uh, yeah. I need to get to work.”
“Family night,” he agreed.
“Yeah. Everything has to be perfect.”
“You got this,” Ant said as I glanced around, frowning a bit at the men still meandering around.
I wanted to ask who they were, but Dante and Domenico were here. They clearly knew them. It was probably none of my business. Maybe they were just family too, showing up early to hang out with the guys.
I threw myself into setting everything up over the next few hours—spreading pumpkins across the field, adding more straw for the build-your-own scarecrow, walking through the corn maze to make sure the walls were all in place and the trash was all picked up, and setting up the craft areas.
When all that was done, I had to do what I was dreading. I needed to walk the path through the woods.
Sucking in a deep breath, I reminded myself that there were people all around now, that there hadn’t been a body anyway.
So I grabbed a bucket and pincher tool for trash (because there was always something leftover from previous tours) and made my way into the woods.
My body’s response was instantaneous. My hairs stood up, goosebumps pricked, and a cold sweat started on the back of my neck and down my spine.
Despite the sun still dappling in through the canopy above me, the familiar woods felt eerie, almost ominous.
I found myself side-eyeing all the decorations: the fake blood, the missing limbs, the pretend bodies in trash bags.
But there was nothing unexpected. Except someone’s lost ugly animal keychain that, apparently, was expensive and highly sought after.
I took that back with me to the office in case someone came looking for it, then greeted the rest of the staff, reminding them to be on their best behavior with not only the boss but his whole family in attendance.
As the night drew down around the garden center, anxiety started to ratchet up through my system, making me feel antsy and tense. Each sound had me jumping; each shadow demanded investigation.
But then the headlights were turning into the lot, and I had to get my head in the game.
The Grassi family was here.