Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
I listened for a minute, then heard the raised voices of a man and a woman from a distance.
“Yeah…”
“That’s his parents. He wants to get away. Money is the only way to do that.”
“He a street kid?”
“No. He mostly just sits in the hall listening to music.”
He said nothing else, just stood there listening to our own breathing and Joel’s parents’ unending arguing, just waiting to see if the kid returned, or if he was out selling us out to the cops.
But, not ten minutes later, we heard the dragging sound out in the hallway before the door flew open, and there was the kid. Pulling a black garage tote with a yellow lid, the whole thing covered in cobwebs.
“Is it big enough?” he asked, kicking the door closed, then eyeing the body.
“It’ll do,” I said, nodding. “Thanks. You should really go now,” I added. “You’re implicated enough.”
“I got nowhere else to be,” he said. “I can help.”
I wouldn’t lie. A tub full of a dead body was heavy as fuck. And as strong as Cinna was, the man outweighed her. She’d be helpful carrying out the tub, but I could use some extra hands.
My gaze slid to Cinna.
“It’s your choice, love.”
“Just this once. And just to get the tub in a car. Then you go back up into the hall, and pretend nothing ever happened, okay?”
“Yeah, alright,” he said. I heard a hint of something in his voice that Cinna must have missed, but there was too much to do now to worry about small shit like that.
“Help me drag him up,” Cinna said to me, pointing to the body.
“What for?”
“I want to get a picture. But if he’s on the ground, he’ll look dead.”
Couldn’t argue with that logic.
So I helped her drag him up, sitting him against the fridge, wincing at the blood that would need to be cleaned up as Cinna reached out, pulling his eyes open, then grabbing for her phone and snapping a few pictures.
“Okay,” she said, nodding. “Let’s get to work.”
With that, we did.
Gloves were found.
Hair was tied back.
The tub was wiped down of fingerprints. The body was stripped, then cleaned, just in case of trace, even though we were going to find somewhere to bury it where it wouldn’t be found.
The floor and fridge could be dealt with later.
Getting the body out was the most important part.
“We need a car. Preferably an SUV,” Cinna said.
“Your crew doesn’t have one?”
To that, Cinna shook her head. “I don’t drive,” she admitted.
“No shit,” I said, brows shooting up at learning this new fact.
“Never leave the city,” she admitted.
“I’ll have someone drop off my SUV.”
“You drive?”
“Yeah. Spent a lot of time driving the previous boss around when I was young,” I admitted.
“Okay. Good. Then…”
“One step at a time,” I said, reaching for my phone, and shooting off a text. “Your guy down on the street… he gonna mind his business?”
“That’s what he’s good at,” Cinna agreed, nodding. “Even if bribed.”
“Trust me, he doesn’t need anyone’s money. Unless someone was fronting him a couple hundred grand in cash, he won’t have anything to say.”
“I’m starting to see why you live here,” I said, then looked around. “But you could actually move into this place.”
It was a nearly empty space, save for the hideous couch, a coffee table that had likely been picked up off the street, given the scuffs and carvings on the surface.
No window treatments, save for the cheap plastic blinds that likely came with the place. No carpets. No art on the walls.
The only proof of Cinna around was the expensive-ass coffee machine on the counter.
“I’m never here,” Cinna said, shrugging. “It has everything I need,” she added.
“Does it happen to have any winter gloves?” I asked, looking down at the white gloves on all our hands, knowing it wouldn’t exactly look inconspicuous if we passed by anyone other than the dude out front.
“I have my pair…”
“I have some,” Joel said. “I can grab them.”
“I’d appreciate it. A pair for the two of us.”
Joel nodded, but looked immediately tense at the prospect of going back into his apartment.
I felt bad for the kid, but the situation was too desperate to insist he didn’t have to.
“Are his parents abusive?” I asked when he was gone.
“I’m not sure. All they do is scream. I imagine if he is in there, he gets screamed at too.”
We both shared a look, our mutual past traumas on display for just a moment.
But then Joel was back, looking paler than a moment before, but he had the gloves, and that’s all that really mattered.
“Ah, Cinna?” he said.
“Yeah?”
“You might want to change…”
Cinna’s gaze moved down, looking at the blood on her shirt and pants.
“Right. Yeah. Okay,” she said, moving down the hall into the bathroom.
I went under the sink cabinet, grabbing the beach and then the cleaning bucket before moving into the bathroom, this time without knocking, finding her stripped down to her bra and panties, scrubbing at her stomach where the blood had seeped through the fabric of her shirt.