Boneyard HEA (CNC Fraternity #4)

Chapter 1

Juniper

(Find a Glossary of Australian terms in contents)

I’m not a stupid person. Or at least I hope I’m not.

I pause in the shoveling, dig the metal blade into the ground beside the makeshift grave, take a few deep breaths, then wipe my forehead with my shirt. One thing Australia has is sweat and heat in summertime, even at six PM…or whenever the fuck this is.

We also have a lot of spare land where few people go, but most of it is hard to reach. I would’ve loved to have dug this somewhere more discreet, but it is not easy to accomplish that. Male bodies weigh a ton. The mixture of sand and soil here makes digging less problematic.

Which is why I’m digging a grave beside this small gravel road that runs off the highway. Raising my head to listen for traffic, I only hear a distant hum, and the screen of trees is thick enough to conceal my nefarious activities.

“Deep enough?” I mutter at the tarpaulin-wrapped corpse as if the asshole can hear me. I wish he could, because then I could kill him again. “Fucker.”

Escaping a rape charge was simply a matter of lawyering up for him. Me? I’ll be in prison if or when I’m caught. The tension in my jaw, the aching, reminds me of my anger. My anger problem, some might call it.

Though I hope the body is never found, I’m prepared to go to jail to get the men who messed with Riley. This is a new decision.

I wrap my hand around the shovel, wriggle it to free it from the soil and glance at the remains of Nathan De Brit. The blood hasn’t seeped through the canvas.

If he wasn’t the victim, he’d probably laugh at what I’ve done today. Then he’d do something to me, same as he and his friends did to my friend. Raped her, then pretended it was consensual. He stood up in court and said he’d done nothing wrong.

They didn’t even have the other men. The cops never figured out the others were there, holding her down. Neither did she. The drugs messed up her memory.

“That video. I don’t know when or how you found it, and now I can’t ask you.” Not anymore. “Shit.”

I jam my eyes shut. Blaming myself will not help.

I don’t know their names, but I will.

There is a chunk as I push the shovel deep, biting the dry earth.

I killed a man today. I don’t feel good about that, but it feels right. Satisfying. Vengeance is mine?

Yesterday, I was staring at a future that was possibly going to be okay, with therapy, if minus my friend, but I had a plan. I sniffle, wipe my nose and wet eyes with the back of my hand, then keep digging.

If only he hadn’t lawyered up and been found not guilty.

If only Riley hadn’t killed herself. My heart drops. The world stops. As it always does.

Fuck.

I encountered him at the beach, in the small parking lot high above the sea. It was late, with the sun almost gone and no one else around—not even on the beach below. No cars, no other people, just a late seagull flying overhead and a crow in the tree.

A crow. Those are harbingers of death.

He laughed at something on his phone as he walked to his Porsche.

Me, I was staggering a little, with my arms full of things.

Rolled-up shelter. A bag with two books, goggles, and sunscreen, and the shovel I used to get the beach shelter properly set up.

I’d accidentally dropped my phone at home and smashed the screen, decided to not bring it in case the waterproofing was fucked.

I had a towel over my shoulder and was wearing one-piece swimmers.

They were still wet, so the fabric clung to me.

He turned and smiled, staring, his gaze crawling down my chest like a slimy creature. Revulsion shuddered in—then recognition—like a cold fist jammed into my stomach.

I remembered him.

With my broadbrimmed hat squashed floppily on my head and wet hair clinging to my face, he clearly did not remember me, the friend of Riley. I’d sat in court, firing laser eyes at him and his brother and friends, who’d come to offer support.

The tear streaks might’ve disguised me on those days. Or the anger.

Therapy had subdued the anger, but not enough. Bad luck. For him.

He turned away, back to his phone.

After I hefted the shovel, high, and slammed it into the back of his head, those slime eyes stopped sliming, forever.

Blood spattered, and he grunted as he hit the ground.

One blow. I’d put all the force I possessed into that swing.

I was dead lucky and he was not. It was not David and Goliath. One blow but he was no giant.

He was just fucking beautifully dead.

He took one breath, one groan, then went still, apart from several random twitches. For forever, I stared down at him, open-mouthed, shocked but triumphant, before remembering to do something more than gloat.

“How’s that for justice, Nathan, you fucker. Eat hot shovel.”

A caw had me frantically checking the surroundings before I was reassured it was only a bird sound. No one was here. No one alive, anyway. No one had seen this or heard me talking.

Late sunlight reflected off the dropped phone, the screen a blast of gold that flashed everything around me into brightness. I blinked away the blur. The phone hadn’t closed down. Stooping, I picked it up and read what was on there.

BAXTER: Don’t lose your shiny ticket to the CNC Frat event. Carpe diem. A week-long smorgasbord of kink, kinbaku, bukkake, and killer fucks. Bring a mask and a girl. Ethan will be there. Sharing is caring.

I froze, shocked…well, a little more shocked than a second ago when I’d just murdered my first man. My fingers hurt where they crushed onto the edges of the phone. I lowered the shovel, propping it against my leg.

Baxter and Ethan were Nathan’s friends. I’d overheard them introduce themselves outside the court room. If I tapped anything on here, if I sent it to myself, I may as well kneel and confess to the nearest cops.

The screen tilted. Again, light flashed in my eyes. I’d killed a man. The last bubbles of air had left his lungs. No, just no. Do not do this. I was already in enough trouble. Besides, there was no ticket attached.

I took the phone and threw it off the cliff and into the sea.

I would never get away with this without penalty, but I could still try.

So, back to the job.

“Is the hole big enough? You going to fit in there, Nathan?” I scowl and figure it’s a yes.

One last thing I really need to do, before I bury him. I need the shovel for this, too. The only negative is having to see his face after I roll back the canvas. When I gingerly move his clothes, I’m greeted with the ugliest thing ever.

I raise the shovel and bring it down. Thunk. Thunk. Two tries to get it done.

I rearrange the corpse and smile.

Perfect.

Dragging the body to the grave then filling in the hole, leaves me panting and sweating even more.

“What are we doing now, Juniper? Going crazy? Talking to myself is a start. Murdering people might be a bad sign, too, I guess?” After wiping my face with the back of my arm and my shirt, I trudge to my Nissan ute.

I study the shovel, turning it this way and that way.

The shadows are long and growing longer by the minute.

The trees creak and the scent of gum leaves is pungent with the distinct smell of eucalyptus.

Overhead, the branches rattle and rustle as a light breeze sweeps through.

My eyes are adjusting to the lowering light of dusk, but unless I wish to drive back onto the highway with my headlights on, I should leave ASAP.

Headlights would be a big clue that someone has been here on this track.

This was likely once a logging road and people might recall the time they saw headlights, if the cops ever check for dashcams or interview drivers who might have passed the area. They will check, if they find the body.

Digging has scraped off the blood from the shovel blade. The visible blood, anyway.

Cops look for soil composition to figure out if you’ve been near a grave site, as well as stray hairs and bits of tissue and DNA, and…stuff. I’m no forensic scientist. I’ll toss this away, further down the road. A long way down the road, ideally.

“Can they find phones in the sea?” I hope not. I look at the trees, as if they might know. Surely the salt water should wreck the insides?

With a clatter of metal, I drop the shovel into the ute’s tray, thinking I will clean the car later, maybe at a servo. Wait, no, that would be recorded on CCTV. Do it at home and get rid of anything I hose or vacuum out.

The cops might find me and examine my car. I frown at myself. If I google how to talk to cops after you murder somebody, is that incriminating evidence? No. Wipe that attitude and that thought.

They won’t find me.

They won’t.

I pull open the driver’s door and slide in, then grab the steering wheel as if I can find comfort there. My heart seems to slow and ache less. It does help, it does, gripping the wheel helps to ground me, and I lean my forehead into the leather cover and exhale slowly.

Before I drive off, I must do one more thing.

I sort through the few items I took from his pockets and the bag he carried, spreading them across the passenger seat.

Nothing, nothing. These I will get rid of.

I left his phone in the sea, and mine is at home.

They can’t trace me to here. This old vehicle doesn’t have GPS or a dashcam.

To actually, irrefutably, find out who else was involved in the rape, I need some magic to happen because that video…

the one she sent just before she died…it only showed Nathan’s face.

“Who were the others? I wish I could’ve fucking tortured you to find out. Ethan? Baxter? Some other friend?” I thump the steering wheel and show teeth.

The arms of those men were there, holding her down, but no matter how many times I stared, paused a frame, and swore, I was unable to figure out who else was there.

That satisfaction I felt when Nathan was dead and I could throw dirt on him and finalize his existence—I need more of that. I need them all gone from this world. One isn’t enough. If they are going try me for Nathan’s murder, let it be fucking worth it.

His friends are my first and best candidates, but how do I find them?

On that awful day, her words went to voice mail.

I can’t take it anymore. I’m so so sorry. Please forgive me. There were three of them and I just can’t. Sorry, Gremlin.

Gremlin was close to my username on Warcraft. Gremlin651.

I knew, instantly, what she had done.

She sobbed as she ended the call. The video came through next, but I was already trying to reach her and didn’t view it. Soon after the message, she ended her life.

My chest aches again and I remember my cry, and how I tried to squash my phone in my hand, and how I thought through where she might be and how to get there, and should I ring someone or would that waste time…

And…

And…

Everything went wrong.

I was too late.

Three men. She’d thought it before, but had seemed unsure, and I hadn’t believed her for two whole years after the trial.

Drugged, half drowned, and she took days to decide to talk to the police.

With the evidence and samples not gathered, with no bruises, no DNA, no drugs to be found in the blood sample, and that lawyer twisting things, he was found not guilty.

I still don’t know why she didn’t say who the others were in her last message, unless she still couldn’t remember.

I suck in a long breath, wrapping my fingers even more tightly over the wheel. Seeing my own skin, all the creases, and how my fingers fit together, it reminds me I’m here and alive. Yet I feel so alone.

I wasn’t with Riley that day. The day they dragged her down the embankment at the back and raped her in the creek bed in just the right place to lose the DNA evidence. Though her showering and waiting for three days didn’t help.

I start the engine and edge out toward the highway, wait for the one car then swing out once they’re far ahead of me. With so little traffic, I drop effortlessly into my previous chain of thoughts.

They dragged her. They. I hate thinking of her alone with them. I could’ve stopped it happening.

No. No, I could not. Therapy told me that. Just… I breathe and think and tell myself that this idea is stupid.

I was supposed to see her that day, but I didn’t. I often do things on the spur of the moment, such as hitting evil assholes with shovels.

Let’s try making that spot into a proper boneyard.