Chapter 14 #2
I strip off my raincoat, placing it next to him on the ground with the outside facing up.
I set the bat on it, and then I roll his body onto it as well.
As far as I can tell, there’s no blood on the floor, and if I want to make this look like an accident, I need to keep it that way.
There can’t be a pool of blood inside the house, and he can’t have drag marks on his torso—both will be dead giveaways that the scene was staged.
They might figure it out anyway, but I don’t want to make it easy for them.
Once I’ve got him positioned in the center of my coat, I grab the edges and start dragging him along. I need to find the door that goes out to the backyard, where the pool is. I’m not sure how long he’ll be unconscious, so I need to get him into the water as quickly as possible.
Matt has got to be around a hundred and ninety pounds, and right now, it’s all dead weight.
My right arm is screaming at me, and I think my elbow might actually be fractured this time.
It doesn’t matter, though. I can deal with it later.
I drag his body down the hallway on the far side of the kitchen, opposite where I came in.
If his house has a somewhat standard layout, there should be a door leading outside there.
About fifteen feet down the hallway, I find it.
It’s locked. I hope unlocking and opening it won’t set off the security system, but at this point, I don’t have any choice but to take my chances.
It’s dark, but as soon as I step outside, motion-activated floodlights turn on, brightening the entire yard. There’s a tall hedge all the way around the rear of the property, so I’m not concerned with being seen by the neighbors.
I drag him about thirty feet across the yard and position his body along the pool’s edge.
The night is still quiet. I pull my coat upward, rolling Matt’s body into the water.
He lands facedown with a small splash and doesn’t stir.
His dark hair is lazily floating in the water, fanned out around his head.
He might already be dead for all I know.
I didn’t check for a pulse after I hit him.
I grab his shirt, moving his body closer to me before pressing my hand to his neck.
The water is warm, and there’s a pulse. He’s still alive.
That’s good. That means there will be water in his lungs when they do the autopsy.
I dab the part of my coat that’s covered in Matt’s blood on the concrete near the edge of the pool. With any luck, they’ll believe it’s where he fell and hit his head.
Then I sit down and watch Matt Davidson drown.
It’s cold, but there’s no wind. If my arm didn’t feel like it was broken, and my cheek wasn’t on fire, it would be peaceful.
I remove the goggles but keep the mask on.
Hopefully there aren’t any external security cameras—because if there are, the game is up and they’ll know it wasn’t an accident despite my best efforts.
Regardless, I don’t want to take the mask off until I’m back inside and I can replace it with my scarf.
I pull my coat toward me and shove the goggles into the pocket.
The water should wash away all traces of pepper spray from Matt’s body. It’ll just be a tragic accident.
After ten minutes have gone by, I reach for the body again. There’s no pulse this time. He’s dead.
I swap my gloves for a fresh pair from my coat pocket.
If I got any of Matt’s blood on them, I don’t want to risk transferring it to the doorknobs or surfaces in his house.
And since my coat does have his blood on it, I don’t want to risk accidentally brushing against anything when I retrieve my scarf from the pantry where I left it earlier.
The adrenaline is ebbing by the time I return to the house, and the air is pungent with the acrid scent of pepper spray hanging heavily in it when I swap my mask for the scarf.
I crack the window over the kitchen sink open a couple of inches.
If I’m lucky, it’ll be long enough before his body is found that whatever breeze trickles in will dissipate the smell.
The lights are still on, and I decide to leave them that way as I survey the kitchen to ensure it doesn’t look like a crime scene.
There’s a faint sheen on the side of the island where some offcast mist from the pepper spray is visible.
I grab the roll of paper towels, tear one off, and turn the sink faucet on, wetting it.
There’s no dish soap beside the sink, so I pump some of the hand soap onto the paper towel and use it to clean up the cast-off pepper spray.
Eventually I’m satisfied that there’s nothing visible to the naked eye, and I chose a pepper spray that was UV dye free, so even if they bring in black lights it shouldn’t be obvious that it was ever used in this kitchen.
I do one final check to make sure I have everything I brought with me, which wasn’t much, and then I return to the backyard to get my coat and the bat.
I put the coat on and tuck the bat under my arm before going around the side of the house to the front where I can climb over the fence to get out.
Even though it would be simpler, I don’t want to leave the way I came in because I’d have to leave the garage door open, which would look suspicious.
I don’t have any way to rearm the security system, which is unfortunate.
But they should assume Matt hit his head and drowned before he could do it.
I take off the shoe covers once I’m at the front of the house, but leave the gloves on since I have to climb the fence.
If I open the gate, there will be a record in the security system somewhere.
I throw the baseball bat over the fence and try to follow it.
My arm screams and my head swims as soon as I put weight on my elbow to pull myself up.
I count to thirty, then steel myself and try again.
This time I’m better prepared for the pain, and I hook my leg on the top of the fence and use it to propel the rest of me over.
I land on the other side and stagger a step before catching my balance.
Then, I stand there panting for a minute.
My face and arm are both throbbing in time with the beat of my heart.
Eventually, I take off the latex gloves, pick up the baseball bat, tuck it inside my coat once more and start the walk back, moving a lot more slowly than I did on the way here.
By the time I make it to my car and open the trunk, it’s eleven-fifteen.
I remove the bat from inside my coat and shove it into the garbage bag I put in my trunk for cleanup purposes.
I do the same thing with my coat before tying the bag shut.
I’ll throw it in the trash at my office building tomorrow, and it’ll be carted off to the landfill on Tuesday.
Once I’m sitting in my car, I flip the visor down and open the mirror to take a look at my cheek.
Damn. There’s a small, one-centimeter cut along my cheekbone where Matt’s fist made contact with my face.
It’s going to be impossible to cover up.
I’m going to need a better plan for the others.
Especially Rhys Steichen. He’s huge. A baseball bat and some pepper spray won’t cut it against that asshole.
I sigh, then close the visor and start the drive home. With any luck, Katie will have gone to bed before I get back, but it’s hard to say—she keeps odd hours due to her tutoring schedule. Then I can spend tomorrow figuring out what lie I’m going to tell about how I got punched in the face.