Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 34593 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 173(@200wpm)___ 138(@250wpm)___ 115(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34593 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 173(@200wpm)___ 138(@250wpm)___ 115(@300wpm)
“Stay back. You don’t want to see this.” I pull the knife out and roll the corpse over onto his dead face. I swipe the bloody blade against my pants and then tear a portion of the man’s T-shirt away to serve as a modified sheath. The blade goes in my pocket and another strip of the material covers my wound.
“Is he dead?” she asks.
“Yeah.” I don’t know how to approach it. Do I try to sound regretful? Because I’m not. “How’s the dude outside?”
“Um, I don’t know.”
“Okay. Stay here.” I don’t look at her, not wanting to see fear or disappointment in her eyes. The guy is still out cold. I fish him out of the floorboards and carry him inside, dumping his body onto the corpse. Guess it’s time to get rid of the evidence. The furnace out back will do fine, but Honey doesn’t need to know this.
Keeping my eyes averted, I take out my car keys and toss them to her. “I’m parked a half mile past the drive. Take my car back to the gym and sit with Randy.”
“Bear, why won’t you look at me?” She sounds hurt, maybe a little scared. I don’t know. She might have wanted me before, but fighting in a ring is a far cry from killing real people. She’s not one of those people who are into that. She’s too tenderhearted, too sweet, too wonderful for that.
I can’t bring myself to meet her eyes. “Get going or you’ll be here when the cops arrive, and that’ll mean a lot of questions we can’t answer. Paige needs someone to take care of her, so let me clean this mess up and I’ll meet you back at the house.”
“Is that why you came out here? For Paige?”
“For everyone, Honey. Now get going.”
There’s a prolonged silence while Honey’s eyes weigh heavy on my shoulders, but I keep my own gaze locked on the two men. Finally, she sighs and leaves. When the door latches shut behind her, I get moving. Out back, the furnace is cold. It’ll take hours for it to get hot enough to incinerate a body, and I find that now that my mad anger has passed, I can’t murder the other guy in cold blood. Instead, I doctor the evidence. I position the unconscious man slumped against the wall with the knife in his hand. The gun goes back in the dead man’s hands. I wipe down all the surfaces I’ve touched. My blood’s here, but there’s nothing much I can do about that. Hopefully, the police will look at this and blame it on the other guy.
I jog for a few miles to put distance between me and the house. Finally, light-headed from blood loss, I call Randy to pick me up. He doesn’t ask a question when he arrives other than, “You going to be ready to fight next week?”
I roll my shoulder. “Probably not.”
“I didn’t think so. Should I take you home after I stitch you up?”
“That’d be for the best.” I need to see if Honey has run off or if she’s still there, and if she’s still there, will she take me back? For the first time in my life, I feel real fear.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Honey
If not for Paige, I would have lost my mind by now. I’ve managed to keep myself busy since she got home from school. At this point, I’m pretty much going through the motions to pass time. I started out by helping her with her homework, and next I prepared dinner. Once I cleaned up, we watched a movie, and I put her to bed. The whole time I kept wondering when I’d hear from Bear. Each second felt like an hour.
I didn’t want to leave Bear, but I did as he instructed. I drove back to the gym to sit and wait with Randy. I was surprised when he only asked me a few questions. I hung around for about an hour before two men showed up having a hushed conversation with Randy before he instructed them to take me home to Bear’s and to stay put. I couldn’t make out much of what Randy was telling them, but from what I was able to overhear, the two men had been with Bear earlier in the day.
“Ms. Walker,” Jero calls out before he steps into the kitchen. I’ve resorted to cleaning to stay busy. So much has happened over the course of a few hours that I haven’t had time to process it. “There are two police officers here that want to talk to you.”
My stomach drops. My thoughts immediately conjure up the worst-case scenario. I close my eyes for a moment and take a deep breath, telling myself that Bear has to be okay. He was fine when I left. He looked to have the situation under control. He’d handled those two men like it was nothing, even after he was stabbed and I’m pretty sure shot.