Chapter 24
Chapter twenty-four
Halo
“The Body I Borrowed”
Eden was still asleep when I woke up. The morning was only a suggestion, barely bright enough to cast a glow at the edge of the curtains.
I propped myself up onto my elbow to look at her, lifting my hand hesitantly to brush her hair away from her face.
She rolled before I could touch her, folding into my chest. I flinched at the contact but watched her a second longer, long enough to make it hurt, then slid out of the bed.
The room was too quiet once I left her side.
I was used to sleeping on the floor, propped against a wall, weapons crammed into my ribs.
Sleeping in my bed at my apartment was even worse; it felt less secure, and I felt less prepared.
Last night? That was the first time in a long time that I hadn’t woken up in a cold sweat, scanning my dark apartment for whoever it was that would finally catch up to me.
I didn’t want to leave. That should’ve been my first warning that things were not going according to my plan. I was failing to create distance, I was letting her get under my skin. She had a chokehold on me that I couldn’t get out of. I kept pretending I could shake it, I kept lying to myself.
I grabbed my duffel, checked my gun, and headed out the door, shutting it gently so as to not wake her.
Morning had barely arrived, casting the entire parking lot in a purple and grey haze.
Cicadas buzzed in the trees, screaming in some ancient tongue that civilization had forgotten.
I rounded the back of the parking lot and saw Rook’s car idling as he waited for me.
I walked up, opened the passenger door, and sat down. Rook looked like hell: bloodshot eyes, jacket zipped all the way up like armor, and he was gaunt and drawn.
“Cute spot, huh?” he said.
“What do you have for me?”
He grumbled and opened a bag, pulling out a stack of folders.
“Everything you need to know is right here. Contacts, aliases, locations they frequent, family members… you name it.” Rook paused, leaning in closer like he was afraid someone might overhear them.
“You’ve got three agencies and one independent contractor who will be looking for her soon.
My sources tell me Matteo isn’t happy that you’ve fallen off the map.
If he doesn’t have results, he’ll declare open season on her and you both. ”
“I had to get her out of town first.”
“Who is this girl? I mean, I know. I looked into her. No record, no family, no assets… just witnessed a sloppy execution. What’s she to you?”
I looked over at him, daring him to ask me anything else about her.
“Hate to see you go down over something like this. Doesn’t seem worth it.”
My voice came out low. “Be very careful what you say next.”
He held up his hands. “Look, I’ve done what you’ve done.
Maybe worse. You want to be her knight in shining armor?
Fine. But you just remember that nobody cares about her, nobody cares about you.
At the end of all this, you let her go, get rid of her, or keep her close and watch her die in your arms. That’s where we are, and you know it. ”
He let the words hang, and I just sat there, the weight of her presence still hot against my skin. I hated that he wasn’t wrong, but I hadn’t forgotten what had to be done.
Rook sighed. “Look… you want her safe? I’ve got a way. It’s messy, but it buys time.”
I already didn’t like where this was going.
He continued, voice dropping. “Give Matteo a body. Get someone who looks like her, stage it right… a burner phone, some blood, a story they can sell themselves. Then deal with whatever you got to, after that.”
“That would require me to kill some innocent woman.”
“And? Hands like ours don’t come clean, Halo, and you know it.”
He was right again, and I was already formulating a plan in my head. If I had to kill someone innocent to save Eden, I was willing to do it.
“Consider it. There are other options… Find an overdose victim, corpse from cold storage, someone undocumented… I’m saying you could use the kind of rot already in the system. You don’t make the corpse. You just… borrow it.”
Still, I didn’t speak.
“I gotta get outta here. You got your files, you got my opinion. I’ll be back in Sunning if you change your mind.”
I reached into the duffle bag and withdrew a stack of cash, laying it in the cupholder of the car before I stuffed the files inside the bag and retreated.
After his car pulled away, I stood alone for a long time. I wasn’t rejecting the idea outright; I was calculating the odds.
When I returned to the room, the door stuck again on the way in. I pushed harder than I meant to, and the slam of it against the wall made Eden flinch where she was sitting on the bed. Her hair was pulled up into a messy knot, but she looked well rested. Worried, still, but well-rested.
I dropped my bag to the floor and locked the deadbolt behind me. She didn’t say anything at first, just watched me with anticipation, like she was trying to draw what had just happened out of me. I don’t know why, but it felt like she knew I was about to do something terrible.
“Everything okay?” she asked finally, voice still soft from sleep.
“Fine,” I said, just a minute too long after she asked. I could hear the hollowness in my own tone, and so could she.
Her brow furrowed slightly, but she didn’t push. I hated how easy that made it. She wanted to fight me tooth and nail for everything, but she wasn’t pushing this.
“I need to go back to Sunning,” I added, unzipping my jacket, “just for a few hours.”
She stiffened. “Back there? Why?”
“Someone I need to see.” I avoided her eyes, checking the magazine in my handgun. “You’ll stay here. Lock the door behind me, don’t answer it. When I get back, I’ll let myself in.”
“I don’t like this.”
“You don’t have to.”
She was already shaking her head. “No. No, I’m not staying here alone.”
“You’re going to have to. It’s too dangerous for you,” I cut in, sharper than I meant. At the pained look on her face, I softened my tone. “Eden, you'll just be a distraction to me, too. So it’ll be more dangerous for me if you go. It’s just one night, less if I can help it.”
She stood, folding her arms across her chest, suddenly looking even smaller than usual. “I could sit in the car… You’re asking me to sit in this cheap-ass motel, alone, after everything that’s happened? What if someone finds me and you’re not here?”
I stepped closer, not to intimidate but to close the space between us. To quiet the fear in her eyes that I didn’t have the luxury of comforting properly.
“Nothing’s going to happen to you. I’ll be gone for a few hours, max. If I’m not back by sunrise, you take the cash from my duffel, and you run. No questions.”
“I don’t like this,” she said again, but her voice had lost its fight.
“I know. I don’t either.”
She looked up at me, mouth tensed like she was swallowing back ten different arguments. I knew that look. She was scared that if she pushed too hard, I’d bolt and withdraw from her again. She wasn’t wrong, but I wished she understood that I was doing it for her safety.
“I’ll be back before you miss me,” I said.
“That’s not possible,” she confessed quietly.
I didn’t look back as I left, not wanting to acknowledge what she’d said.
The drive back to Sunning was excruciating. I couldn’t stop thinking about Eden, although I couldn’t decide if it was worry and stress over her being there alone, or if it was because I just… missed her. Wanted her there with me, completely unrelated to the grim task at hand.
Halfway to the city, I texted Rook and told him I was going to go through with faking Eden’s death.
He gave me an address, with no other information.
It was in an industrial park in a bad part of town, right off of Jessop Terrace, a place often known for its illegal activities.
It was an old parking garage, according to my GPS.
The moment I reached the city limits, it started raining.
I wasn’t sure if it was a bad omen or if it was a blessing in disguise.
Rain masked so much: noise, visibility, trails.
Rook was already standing outside his car in the abandoned parking garage.
It was near the railroad tracks. I felt the vibration under my feet as it rolled by.
The sharp tang of rust and weed smoke hung in the air around him as I approached.
He was wearing a hoodie, pulled low over his face.
“You sure you wanna do this?” he asked, flipping a lighter open to light a cigarette. “You want to kill some innocent girl to save another girl?”
I ignored his question and put my hand out.
He offered me a photo, grainy and black and white, of a young woman that did resemble Eden.
In the right light, with a little facial damage, no one would question it.
Rook worked fast. I wondered how he’d found this girl so quickly, and if she’d done something that made her a target too.
Rook was shrewd; he would be milking two wallets that way.
“She’s a runaway. No one is looking for her, as far as I can tell. Already halfway disappeared at this point. She waits tables at a diner off Needham, walks home every night… but… she also does sex work.”
I stared at the photo longer than I should have. Just a girl trying to make it in this shitty world. She walked home alone at night, just like Eden.
“Easier to proposition her, then,” I agreed.
“Would be cleaner,” Rook said, puffing more coniferous smoke into the air between us. “There’s no street cameras down there. Police don’t give a shit about this part of town either.”
I reached into my pocket, handing him another wad of bills. He stood there and counted them, pulling the rain saturated paper apart.
“Need anything else?”
I turned and climbed back into my car, letting my departure speak for itself.
Rook watched me leave, no surprise on his features as he finished his cigarette.
I drove to Needham, checking my watch to see that it was almost perfect timing.
I parked, pulling the hood up on my jacket as I went back into the rain.
I stood against the wall a few blocks down from the diner and waited for the woman to come down the street.
I saw her coming, minutes later, clutching her purse to her body, head tucked as she tried to avoid the rain that pelted down on her.
In the grand scheme of things, she was just a kid who ran from something worse and straight into me. I didn’t even know her name, but the lie would work, and it would buy me time. That was all that really mattered to me, wasn’t it?
“Hey,” I called, voice nearly lost to the rain.
She flinched, side-stepping.
“Haven’t I seen you around?”
She narrowed her gaze at me, and I kept my body posture loose and casual.
“I don’t think so,” she responded, and I thanked God she didn’t sound like Eden.
“Do you…” I looked up and down the street like I was afraid someone would hear me. “I think I know where I’ve seen you… do you do work, you know? On the side?”
She pursed her lips together and I saw the dread there. That might have been worse than the idea of murdering her, knowing that she would die hating what she was about to do for money. She nodded slowly. “Yeah, sometimes.”
“Well, I know you’re soaked, and I’m soaked, but… if you got like five minutes…” I pulled a hundred dollar bill out of my pocket and extended it towards her.
She didn’t take it, hesitating in the rain.
“I’m going to be honest, maybe two minutes.” I tried a sheepish grin. “Not proud of it.”
“Okay,” she said, approaching to take the money with a shaking hand. “Where?”
“Here’s fine,” I said, motioning to the alleyway. I leaned back against the wall by a dumpster as she dropped to her knees in front of me, disappearing into shadow. She unfastened my belt, unzipping my pants, and I looked both ways again, this time to really be sure no one was there.
I reached down to grasp the back of her head as she reached into my boxers.
I withdrew the handgun with the suppressor and fired it into the top of her skull.
She fell forward against my crotch and I used her hair to pull her back, laying her down on the damp ground.
I tucked the gun back into my jacket, refastened my belt and pants, and squatted down to make sure she was dead.
Her chest fluttered, but her eyes were fixed.
I waited until she was completely still.
I smoothed her hair out of her face and then grasped the front of her blouse, and I punched her. It only took a couple of hits, hard ones, before her face was swollen and discolored.
I took pictures of her: full body, close ups of her face, and then of the gunshot wound in the top of her head. I propped her against the dumpster and walked back to my car as I texted the photos and a message to Matteo.
It is done.