Chapter Twenty-Four
York
“Where is all this coming from?” I asked, panic surging up the back of my throat, making my breath catch and my chest tighten as I looked her over. “Runa, come on, babe. Talk to me. Where are you hurt?”
“It’s not mine.” Her voice sounded slow and robotic.
“It’s not yours? You’re sure?”
“Sonny…”
“He’s who hired the hitmen.”
“Yes.” God, she was so detached, in shock.
“Did he hurt you?”
“He killed them,” she said, looking at, but through me. “All of them. He killed them.”
“I know. I know, baby. This is his blood? Where is he? Is he coming?”
She gave me a short shake of her head.
“Okay. I’m going to need to go double-check that.”
Another nod.
“But I’m going to get you upstairs first.”
With that, I lowered down, pulled off her shoes, and led her inside and upstairs.
I led her into her old bedroom, then through to the en suite bathroom to strip her down and push her into the shower.
The water ran red for a long moment before it dulled to pink, then nothing.
“Listen to me, babe. I need you to wash yourself, okay? Body, hair, under your nails. Every nook and cranny. Then when you think you’re done, do it all over again. Then again. Three times, okay?”
“Okay.” She reached numbly for the soap.
I didn’t want to leave her.
But the last thing in the world we needed was a half-dead Sonny crawling for help.
This ended now.
I gathered the clothes, pausing only to tell Denali everything was okay, but that I needed her to stay in her room for a few more minutes. Then I stopped to throw the clothes in the wash with half a bottle of bleach before rushing back in the direction she’d come from.
I nearly fell on my ass several times with the uneven terrain. But then I saw it.
A pickup truck.
I ran that way, the gun heavy in my hand.
But Runa was right.
Sonny was dead.
“Fuck,” I said, sighing.
Alright.
Crisis mode.
I reached for my phone, calling Huck and filling him in.
“Call Slash,” Huck demanded. “You need reinforcements. Shady Valley is a lot closer by plane.”
“I’m not leaving a body here that long. I have no fucking idea what kind of staff might be coming by or who might be missing him at home. I’m not having evidence pointing back here.”
“Okay. You get that started. I will call Slash. Make sure your phone pings nowhere but that house.”
“Used to do this for a living,” I reminded him. “I’m going to leave my phone with Runa. If you need to talk to someone, you’ll have her until I fix this.”
With that, we ended the call and I grabbed the knife and gun and booked it back to the house.
Inside. The knife and gun went into the laundry room sink with bleach. I washed my hands and went back upstairs, pleased to find Runa out of the shower and dressed.
“Runa, listen, Huck is going to be sending some guys over from Shady Valley. Maybe four to six hours from now.”
“Okay,” she said, sounding a little less detached.
“I need to deal with the body.”
She tensed. “No, I should—”
“No,” I cut her off. “I need to do this. I know what I’m doing.
But it’s gonna take a while, and I need you to hold onto my phone, to answer it if it rings, or if anyone texts you.
No details about the body or anything like that.
But in texts, pretend to be me. We need an alibi just in case.
” Her eyes went panicked. “I’m not going to get caught.
I know what I’m doing. But I like being careful. ”
“Okay. I answer calls and texts, being you.”
“Yep. That’s all. No one is going to ask about the incident. They will likely be giving you ETAs or asking for an address. That’s all I need you to do. Well, that, and I need you to be with Denali. I got the call from Arty and locked her in her room. She’s scared. She needs you.”
I barely got that sentence out before she was rushing across the hall, reaching for the knob, but it didn’t turn.
“Munchkin? It’s Mommy. Unlock the door for me, okay?”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I whispered to her. “Stay upstairs for at least half an hour. I need to get supplies.”
I heard the lock slide and rushed to head downstairs. I paused to scrub the shit out of the knife, which I took with me after I put on gloves.
The gun went in a cabinet to deal with later.
I grabbed trash bags, paper towels, more bleach, a hammer, and then a wheelbarrow and a shovel.
I had no idea where I was going to bury the body. Yet. But I gathered anything I might need.
Then I went back to the site, removing his phone from his pocket and placing it in his truck along with his keys.
Then his body went in several trash bags and into the wheelbarrow.
Then I spent an ungodly amount of time cleaning up the blood in the cavern, needing to break some of the precious rock up in places when I couldn’t get the surface clean.
That was the golden rule of crime scene clean-up—when you think you’re done, you’re not. Keep going. Over and over.
I’d never cleaned up a scene that didn’t take me at least three to four hours. Unless I was lucky enough not to have a mess. But, let’s face it, with the guys I was involved with, it was always a mess. Some worse than others.
I’d take a gunshot over arterial spray any damn day of the week. But at least Sonny got stabbed in the femoral artery, not the carotid. At least all the cleanup was below the waist, not making me reach above my head to get to it.
Finished, all that trash went in a separate bag that I took with me as I left the site with the body, taking it way out on the back of the property.
The problem?
Wyoming dirt wasn’t New York State dirt.
The shovel pinged off something every two seconds. There was no way I was getting a body buried deep enough in this ground without—
“Fuck.”
I glanced back toward the ranch. I couldn’t see it from so far away, but when I’d toured the place with Denali the day before, I’d explained to her all about the farm equipment we’d seen.
A tractor.
A baler.
And a backhoe.
A shovel wouldn’t work in this soil, but a backhoe would do the job.
It was a solid hour-long walk all the way back to the house.
And as I rounded the house, a figure stepped out of the shadows.
“I feel like the clubs should have some sort of secret password,” the man said, holding up his hands in surrender.
I knew a lot of the guys from the Shady Valley chapter, but this one wasn’t familiar to me—with his long, dark hair, his tattooed body and neck, his facial piercings. But I knew the lore of his club well enough to recognize him.
“Crow.”
“That’s me. Raff is inside with your girl and little girl. Colter and his girl are just doing a perimeter check. What do you need?”
“I’m taking the backhoe out to dig. The ground is too hard for a shovel.”
Crow checked his watch. “So long as you’re done before dark, shouldn’t rouse too much suspicion. What do you need from me?”
“I need someone to empty out the bed of the pickup truck back that way.” I pointed toward the excavation site. “Then I need that car driven to the guy’s house, wherever that is. And to have a call or text made once you get there.”
“Got it. Anything else?”
“Colter is the blond guy, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Have him drive the car. There’s not a lot of cars out this way, but the body is a blond guy.”
“Understood. You know how to handle that thing?” he asked, nodding toward the backhoe.
“Do you?”
“I married me a girl who likes to garden. Learned to drive one of those ages ago. I could handle it so you can go see your woman.”
“It’s not that I doubt your ability to do it, but this is my girl, my mess, our future… and I used to do this for a living.”
“Alright. We can go out there together then. Just give me a few minutes to fill in the others.”
With that, I watched him disappear around the other side of the house.
I glanced in the windows, wondering where Runa and Denali were—if Runa was out of her shock, if Denali had recovered from her fear.
I wanted to be in there with them. I wanted to put an arm around Runa and feel her relax into me, knowing I would take care of them. I wanted to treat Denali to anything from the groceries that were still in the trunk.
But to do that for them, I had to get this done, making sure that nothing could ever trace back and ruin what was becoming the most important thing to me.
A couple more hours, I reminded myself.
Then we were free.
Well, mostly.
I still had to deal with the hitmen.
But after that, we were done with this whole mess. We could start our new life.
Whatever that might look like.
Crow came back around, and the two of us took the backhoe around the hill, then deep into the more densely wooded area of the ranch.
Honestly, after just a few minutes of watching Crow dig with the backhoe, I was left to remember all the long, endless nights digging graves as deep as humanly possible to ensure the remains could never be found.
Then dealing with aching arms, shoulders, back, and abs for days afterward from all the strain.
Once the hole was deep enough, I slid the body inside, said good riddance, then let Crow show me how to dump all the dirt back on.
Finished with that, I had him drive it back to the house so there were no suspicious lights out in the field to lead anyone to suspect anything if the cops ever came looking for Sonny.
I spent the next half an hour rearranging the dirt, grabbing rocks and tree limbs, and making the area look as undisturbed as possible.
I would venture back out in the morning to both sites, make sure there was nothing I missed in my haste to get the job finished.
But I knew myself. I was meticulous, even when I was distracted, even when I was in a rush.
By the time I neared the house, it was dark outside. The house was alight inside with a golden hue, and I could see Runa sitting at the kitchen island cradling a mug as Denali colored in Raff’s already colorful tattoos.
They were why I had to make sure I did the job right.
They were why I let myself in through the laundry room door, stripping out of my clothes and tossing them in the wash along with Runa’s clothes from before, adding yet more bleach, and running the cycle before I crept upstairs unseen, taking the long triple-wash shower I’d made Runa do—even though I’d been wearing gloves and a trash bag as PPE.
I changed into pajamas before taking myself back downstairs, smelling something spicy and tomato-based cooking in the kitchen.
“There he is,” Raff said. “How was your walk?”
“Daddy!” Denali called, turning to beam at me, but staying where she was—bent over Raff’s arm to color in what looked like a chuckwalla tattoo. Apparently, chuckwallas were neon green and bright pink.
“Hey, princess,” I said, touching the back of her head as I passed by. “Are you cooking dinner for us?” I asked her.
“I am doing the dirty work, but I am under very strict instructions from Chef Denny,” Raff declared.
“It smells great, honey,” I said as I moved behind Runa, wrapping one arm around her upper chest and the other around her stomach as I leaned down to press a kiss to her head. “You okay?” I whispered.
She gave me a tight nod that I knew she didn’t mean, but we both had to play our parts for Denali while she was still awake.
So we hung out while Raff cooked.
I introduced Crow, Colter, and Dylan.
We ate dinner as Raff mostly held up the conversation—telling Denali about all the animals they had in Shady Valley until she was so excited she was begging to visit one day.
After dinner, there was a bonfire—Denali’s request. But it conveniently worked as an evidence disposal system once she went inside to take a bath.
Anything I didn’t bury in the hole—meaning anything that I was wearing or that might have my or Runa’s DNA on it—got burned up while I took Denali up to bed.
Toys were arranged.
Books were read.
Then, finally, her eyes were closed and her breathing was slow and deep.
I crept out of the room and back downstairs, finding the Shady Valley crew in the kitchen, having cups of coffee.
“Where’s Runa?”
“By the fire,” Dylan, Colter’s woman, explained.
I looked out, seeing her wrapped up in a blanket, staring at the flames.
She needed me.
But first, I needed to know that everything went to plan.
“How was the house?”
“Luckily, down a dead-end road, so there was no one around to see us,” Colter explained. “There were no cameras and I scrolled his call log to find that he called the local diner a lot for dinner. So I called there and hung up.”
“I sense there’s something you’re not telling me.”
“He had an obsession room,” Dylan explained. “Lots of pictures of Runa and Denali. I went ahead and took those with us.”
“I appreciate that. Anything else?”
“A lot of expensive electronics and jewelry,” Colter said. “We took the jewelry, because, fuck him. But left the electronics. We could go back for them, if you want. Up to you.”
“I’ll think on that. I think so long as nothing points to Runa as a person of interest, it should be fine.
There are no signs of a struggle at his home.
If anyone even misses him, he will just get filed as a missing person.
I can’t imagine this small-town police force would dedicate too many hours working on something like that. ”
They all nodded at that.
“You got yourself a family since the last time I saw you,” Raff said, giving me a smile.
“I hear congratulations are in order for you, too. Finally got Lula to give you a chance.”
“How could she not? I’m a catch.”
“We’re going to go settle into one of the ten extra bedrooms this place has to offer,” Colter declared. “We can regroup in the morning. Go take care of Runa. She’s going through it.”
With that, they made their way out of the kitchen, and I walked back outside, immediately hearing the far-off howl of coyote pups.
“Hey, baby,” I said, dropping down in the Adirondack chair beside her and reaching for her hand.
“Is Denny asleep?” Those were the first words she’d voluntarily said in hours.
“Out like a light. Talk to me. It’s been a rough day.”
“I don’t know what to say. I’m a little… numb.”
“That’s not unusual. You almost died today.”
“All I could think about was Denny. And you. I knew I had to win that fight to get back to you.”
“Denali is a powerful motivator.”
She glanced over. “And you. I didn’t want to die without telling you…”
“Telling me what?” I prompted when she trailed off.
Her gaze flicked up to my face, and the look there was so intense it made that stitch start in my chest again.
“That I think I love you.”
“Yeah?” I asked, squeezing her hand. “That’s good. Because I know I love you.”
Her hand squeezed mine back.
“What now then?” she asked, glancing all around the ranch, then back at me.
“Anything you want.”
“We,” she clarified. “Whatever we want.”
“And what do we want tonight?”
“For you to hold me.”
“That,” I said, reaching to pull her until she curled up on my lap, “I can do.”
She snuggled into me as the wind kicked, making the campfire scent surround us.
The bad guy was gone.
Our daughter was safe and peacefully sleeping upstairs.
And I had the woman I loved in my arms.
I couldn’t want for anything else.