Chapter 17 Guy
Guy
Kate’s head thuds against the table, her cheek on the tablecloth, the arrow protruding from her face. Silence falls, until the sound of Lina reloading the crossbow.
That didn’t just happen. It didn’t. I’ve fallen asleep and this is a goddamn nightmare—that’s the only explanation. I blink fast, trying to wake up, but all I’m doing is staring at Kate’s lifeless body.
Gable appears, his nose still bleeding. He puts his hands on his knees as he tries to catch his breath. “Shit, I was too late.”
Ella picks up a napkin and starts whacking Lina with it. “What the fuck is wrong with you!”
“I got bad vibes,” Lina says, resting the crossbow on her shoulder and popping her hip. “Now I don’t.”
Bad vibes. She killed a woman over bad fucking vibes. How did I ever get involved with her? Why did I ever think this could fucking work?
“Wait!” Ella suddenly says, breaking through my spiral. “Maybe she’s not dead.”
Gable arches a brow. “She looks pretty dead to me.”
“No, I did some research for a book once! If the arrow hasn’t gone far enough back, she could just have serious eye trauma!
We wake her up, explain everything, and we don’t go to jail!
” Ella says, walking around the table and toward Kate.
We all wait with bated breath as she grimaces and pokes Kate’s shoulder.
“Kate?” Nothing. Ella shakes her a little. “Kate, are you—”
Kate sits up.
She screams, her hands flying to the arrow, blood pouring down her cheek.
We all scream, too, because what the fuck?
Then, while still screaming, Lina raises the crossbow and fires again. This time, it goes straight through Kate’s skull, and she thumps back against the table.
Gable blinks. “Okay, now she’s definitely dead.”
I shake my head at Lina, unable to quite believe that tonight has unfolded the way it has. “What was the one thing I asked of you?”
She has the nerve to look hurt. “This was exceptional circumstances.”
“No, it wasn’t.” I gesture at Kate. “She did nothing to you, and even if she had, you swore you wouldn’t kill anyone else! But I guess you’re good at going back on your word, aren’t you?”
Lina’s shoulders slump. “I said I was sorry, Guy.”
“Wait …” Ella holds up her hands. “What is going on?” She looks between us, and then her eyes widen. This wasn’t how I wanted her to find out. In fact, I never ever wanted her to find out. “Was Monty your Christmas girlfriend?”
“Oh my God!” Gable cries, his hands on his cheeks. “I’d never have guessed!”
I sigh, ignoring Gable’s amateur dramatics. “She wasn’t my girlfriend; it was one night.”
“Two nights!” Lina brandishes her index finger at me. “And we had sex like six times!”
Ella groans and shudders. “Oh, I did not need to know that.” And then she punches Lina’s arm. “You swore you wouldn’t sleep with my dad! I told you he was out of bounds! This is the worst dinner party ever!”
She runs her fingers through her hair, and Gable comes to her side. I hope he can say something to get this evening under control again, because I’m lost for fucking words.
“Okay, let’s list the facts here,” Gable says, kissing Ella’s head.
She leans into him and whimpers. “One: Kate is super dead. Two: we need to move her car and the body pretty sharpish. Three: Your dad and Monty had sex six times. And four: I knew absolutely nothing about it. Are we all firm on those facts?”
I shake my head. “We’re not getting rid of the body; we’re calling the police.”
Gable and Lina cackle. “Not a chance,” Gable says. “You really want to bring attention to the two dead people?” He points at himself and Ella. “We’ll wrap her up with some rocks and chuck her in the lake.”
“No, we should cut her up,” Lina says. “Spread her around the forest, let the animals take care of it.”
Gable rolls his eyes. “That’s how every true crime documentary starts. Do you want some dog walker to come across her head?”
“Fair point,” Lina says. “Or—”
I bring my hands together, one loud, sharp clap. “Enough! We are not cutting up or dumping an innocent woman!”
“Well, first of all, she wasn’t innocent,” Lina says. “I’m telling you, I got vibes from her. Didn’t you, Gable? She felt familiar. Let’s check.” She goes over to Kate’s body and snatches up her purse.
Now we’re robbing an innocent dead woman. Great.
Ella sits down and sighs, pouring herself more wine. She takes a sip and passes the glass to Gable, who takes a mouthful of his own.
“I’m sorry we ruined your vacation, baby,” I say quietly.
Ella shrugs. “It’s fine. It wouldn’t be a family get-together without a little murder, would it?”
This is what our life is because of the fucking Flynns. My gaze cuts to Gable, and he raises his brows, pausing the wine glass at his lips.
“You aren’t seriously blaming me?”
I shake my head, looking away. “I didn’t say a word.”
“You didn’t have to!” He slams the glass down. “This is so fucking typical. Monty kills someone, but of course, it’s my fault. This is history fucking repeating itself.”
Ella looks between us. “Please don’t fight.”
“What else am I supposed to do when everything that goes wrong lands in my fucking lap, Gibson?” He gestures at me.
“You have something to say, Guy, just fucking say it.” I tense my jaw, the night already weighing on me, and this adds a ton of fucking bricks, too.
I won’t say it, though. I can’t. It’d break Ella’s heart.
“Say it, Guy. Say you wish Ella had married someone else and the twins had a different dad.” We’re almost toe to toe, his anger palpable, but there’s hurt, too.
Ella watches me, her eyes sad, because I may not be saying the words, but I’m not denying them, either.
“Ah-ha!” Lina cries out, snapping us out of our argument. She’s holding a piece of paper victoriously. “Look!”
Striding away from Gable, I take the paper from her.
It’s a photograph of Lina and me holding hands in the grocery store before New Year.
Shit. I lift my gaze to Lina. “You were right.”
“I always am,” she says. “I knew something wasn’t right with her the moment she walked in. I mean, who just invites themselves into a barbecue?”
“You did,” Ella grumbles.
“Yeah, but I’m boning your dad.”
Ella throws her hands in the air and walks away. As Gable goes to follow, he points between us. “You two sort this mess out.”
Despite the situation, it burns a little that I’m the one who fucked up. Sure, I had no idea who Kate was, but I should’ve been more diligent before inviting her to the goddamn house. The kids are here. How could I have been so reckless?
“Okay, you get her feet, I’ll get her arms,” Lina says.
I shake my head. “We’re moving the car first.”
“Good plan.”
Lina gets Kate’s keys out of her pocket, and together, we walk to the car. Lina is talking, but I’m not listening.
I’m a cop, and I just witnessed a murder and I can’t report it. Putting Ella, Gable, and the kids in the firing line just isn’t an option, but it goes against everything I stand for.
“Shit,” Lina mumbles, pulling me from my thoughts. She’s opened the trunk, and as I look over her shoulder, I whisper the same word.
Hacksaw. Body bags. Bleach. Gloves. And a simple leather bag reveals endless knives and other tools.
“She wasn’t going to just kill us,” Lina whispers. “She was going to torture us.”
And the kids were upstairs.
“Let’s get this over with,” I say, and slam the trunk closed.
We move the car further up the driveway, and I empty the trunk while Lina wriggles under the vehicle and disables the tracker.
When she reappears and stands, she winces, holding her side.
I eye her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, just a twinge. Are we dumping the car in the lake or town?”
Dragging my attention from her side, I say, “It doesn’t look like a rental, so the lake.”
“We’ll put her in the trunk.”
My spine steels at the coldness of it. Kate was going to kill us, sure, but this entire experience is souring my gut.
Still, I do it.
For Ella, I do it.
There’s nowhere for us to successfully roll the vehicle into the lake from the house, so we get behind the wheel of a dead woman’s car, and we drive off the property until we find a gap suitable. The ground is dry, so at least the tire marks will be easy to cover.
I turn off the handbrake, and together, Lina and I push the car into the water.
We watch it bob for a few minutes before it sinks, and we stand side by side until the last bubble pops.
My first body dump.
I feel sick. Thirty fucking years I’ve followed the law. I’ve judged those who haven’t, locked them up, and was happy to throw away the key. And now I’m one of them.
Anger and disgust burns in my chest, and I turn and walk away, leaving Lina behind.
What would Ella’s mom say if she could see me like this? What would my dad say? He’d be so fucking ashamed of me. He’d expect better, and so do I.
“Guy—”
I keep striding away. “Just leave me the fuck alone, Lina.”
“Let me explain, please.”
I whirl on her. In the shadowed forest heavy with humidity, sweat and guilt clings to my skin, and I don’t think I’ll ever wash it off.
“I don’t want your explanations. I don’t want fucking anything from you!
” I bellow, and she stares at me, eyes convincingly sad.
“Do you understand what I’ve sacrificed for you?
I turned a blind eye to the senseless murders in my home.
I didn’t report you when you confessed about Richard, or when I put together what you did to Seth Sinclair.
And now this!” I thump my chest, my anger spitting and bubbling through my veins.
“I was a good man. A decent, honest man.”
“I didn’t ask you to,” she says, her voice small.
“You knew I would! Why else did you fucking come to me?” My voice echoes through the forest, bouncing off trees until it’s swallowed into the dark.
“I did it because I cared about you. I did it because I thought you could change, do better. And you know what you did for me in return? You broke my fucking heart!”