Chapter 17 #3
The sharp chemical smell of bleach saturated the room, burning my nostrils with every breath.
Damp patches remained across the concrete where I had scrubbed too hard, and faint streaks of pinkish water gathered near the drain, refusing to vanish completely no matter how many times I rinsed the floor.
I stood there quietly for a moment, staring at the floor to make sure I hadn’t missed anything obvious.
No visible blood remained.
No fingerprints that could betray me.
No jewelry or other personal effects lingered.
No signs Talia had ever been down there at all.
Sighing heavily, I braced myself for the arduous task of hauling the body upstairs.
As I moved up the stairs, my body protested with every movement.
My arms ached, my lower back throbbed from the strain, and my stomach clenched uncomfortably, reminding me to pause and breathe before continuing again.
A sheen of sweat clung stubbornly to my skin, mixing with the chill from the basement.
To my advantage, Talia was petite, probably around one hundred and thirty pounds.
Unfortunately, pregnancy had apparently turned my body into a seventy-year-old woman with bad knees and no upper-body strength. It didn’t matter that I was only seven weeks along. Dragging that bag made me feel thirty weeks pregnant, overdue, and one inconvenience away from requesting bed rest.
By the time I finally reached the top of the stairs, my chest was heaving painfully, my arms felt numb, and my hands trembled from exhaustion. I stood there bent over for several seconds, fighting to catch my breath before lowering myself onto the nearest step.
As I sat, I couldn’t help but wonder if a simple poison followed by burning the house down would have been a better plan.
It would’ve required less lifting… that’s for damn sure.
Of course, the voices in my head hadn’t suggested that.
They never offered practical advice. They critiqued my every move like unwelcome overseers while I was usually the one stuck dealing with the consequences and cleanup.
After taking a ten-minute break, whispering several complaints to nobody in particular, and briefly questioning whether I had the upper-body strength to finish what I started, I forced myself back onto my feet.
I dragged the heavy bag through the house a few inches at a time, stopping whenever my muscles threatened to give out.
Lifting it into the trunk of her car became an entirely separate struggle.
I pushed, pulled, adjusted my grip, and rested against the bumper twice before finally managing to get it inside.
Getting Talia’s body from the basement to the garage took far longer than I expected and required more strength than I comfortably had.
Pregnant or not, adrenaline made people stronger.
Or maybe fear did… probably both.
I rubbed the side of my neck and frowned. “When I get home, I’ma have to call Jace and tell him I need a full-body massage… preferably with oil, candles, booty rubs, and no questions about why my back suddenly feels like I work in construction.”
Carrying his baby and handling this type of physical labor? Yeah… I deserve a spa day, a new purse, and at least one meal where I didn’t have to look at the prices.
Rolling my aching shoulders, I glanced around Talia’s cluttered garage and stumbled upon gold.
Well, not actual gold… more like murder supplies with excellent timing, but under the circumstances, they held about the same value.
Old chains, loose bricks, and a handful of zip ties sat buried beneath dusty boxes and forgotten junk, as if she had unknowingly prepared for permanent relocation… like some part of her had known that would be her fate.
Some people leave behind wills, insurance policies, or heartfelt letters. Talia left excellent time management and saved me a trip to the hardware store. Honestly, the gesture felt considerate.
I didn’t need a ton of bricks, just enough weight to help keep the body underwater long enough to disappear properly.
A patient from Willowgate with yellow teeth, matted hair, deeply wrinkled skin, and enough murder stories to make the staff dismiss everything he said as another delusion told me that.
He swore he’d killed somebody years ago and never got caught because “water don’t like giving secrets back.
” At the time, everybody assumed he was crazy and lying.
Now? I’m not so sure.
I worked quickly, making sure everything stayed firmly in place. After checking each piece one final time, I stepped back to admire my hard work. I had to admit, the finished result looked horrifyingly secure, and that disturbed me for all of three seconds.
Sure, I’ve killed before, but that had been a different kind of situation. Stabbing someone in a fit of rage is one thing. However, this required planning, patience, and more upper-body strength than I knew I had. Murder clearly has levels, and tonight, I accidentally unlocked the advanced course.
I hurried back inside the house, grabbed an old comforter, and returned to the garage. After draping it over the bag, the trunk looked far less suspicious, like I was hauling nothing more than a pile of forgotten laundry.
Once satisfied, I shut the trunk.
By the time I slid behind the wheel, my breathing had steadied.
Outside, rain poured heavily, pounding against the pavement and blurring everything beyond the windows.
Perfect.
Bad weather had a way of making everybody hurry home and mind their own damn business. Most people were too busy avoiding puddles and protecting their hair to notice what anybody else was doing.
With the windshield wipers working in sync to clear the view, I drove towards the outskirts of the city, softly humming the lullaby I had sung to myself during the darkest nights at the institution.
The roads were slick from rain, streetlights smearing into long golden streaks across the windshield.
The farther I drove, the calmer I felt.
By the time I reached the bayou, the rain had softened to a cold, steady drizzle.
I pulled my hood over my head before stepping out of the car, immediately feeling the mud sink beneath my shoes.
Ahead of me, the bayou stretched into the darkness, its surface unnaturally still beneath the thin mist hanging over the water.
Before moving any closer, I stopped and carefully studied my surroundings.
The road behind me sat completely deserted.
There were no fishermen nearby, no late-night drivers lingering on the shoulder, no headlights appeared in the distance, no voices carried through the trees, and no vehicles were tucked beneath the shadows along the tree line.
The only signs of life came from the occasional croak of an unseen frog and the soft rustling of wet leaves in the breeze.
Still, my eyes kept moving. I couldn’t afford to get careless in that moment, not after everything I had already done to make it that far.
After a moment of quiet hesitation, I finally popped the trunk. The lid rose with a faint creak, revealing the old comforter draped over the shape of Talia’s body beneath it.
Getting the bag out of the trunk proved to be another fight entirely.
I pulled, grunted, adjusted my grip, and nearly lost my balance twice before the weight finally shifted. Every muscle in my body screamed in protest.
“If all this lifting makes me lose my baby, I’m finding your ass in the afterlife,” I grumbled through clenched teeth. “And when I get there, we’re fighting every day… no rest, no peace, just me waiting outside wherever they put you like an unpaid bill.”
The bag slipped from my hands and hit the muddy ground heavily beside me.
I pressed one hand against my stomach and took several deep breaths.
“You already ruined my back, my clothes, and what little upper-body strength I thought I had. Don’t add my pregnancy to the list.”
When the bag refused to move, irritation flared through me.
“You could’ve at least made this easier on me. Being dead does not mean you suddenly forget how to cooperate.”
I kicked it once, then again. The second kick was harder and far more personal.
“Now look at you… still getting on my nerves, and you can’t even talk.”
After one final struggle, I shoved it away from me. The dark water accepted the weight with a heavy splash, and within seconds, the current began carrying it farther from the bank.
I stood beneath the drizzle, chest heaving, and watched until every trace disappeared into the darkness.
“Welp,” I exhaled, slapping my hands together. “that’s taken care of. Can’t start a new life with old clutter lying around.”
Then I rested both hands over my stomach.
“See, baby? Mommy handles her problems.”
I spent the next hour wiping the car down. Anything I could’ve touched, I cleaned twice. By the time I finished, the inside smelled aggressively like disinfectant.
But paranoia was better than prison.
After that day, I could no longer keep Talia’s car in my possession.
When Talia was still alive, driving her car around didn’t feel quite as risky.
It wasn’t like she owned anything rare or flashy that people would immediately recognize as hers.
She had a simple black Toyota Camry, one of several I passed almost every day, sometimes multiple times within the same hour.
Unless somebody knew Talia personally and paid close attention to the license plate, her car blended in with every other car on the road.
Besides, nothing had popped up on the news about her being missing, and nobody had mentioned the police looking for her car.
As far as anyone knew, she could’ve loaned it to a friend—that friend being me—or taken one of those extended vacations where somebody goes to Miami for four days, meets the love of their life at brunch, and somehow doesn’t come back for weeks… or months.
But she was dead now.