“I know why you are on our side when it comes to him. But I want to know why that dare? Why not something else?”
“It was the only dare I could think of,” I answer honestly. “I tried to think of things that you had told me about, and I wanted to help Eli’s sister. I thought maybe there was some info on there that you could use. You could get him arrested …”
His soft laugh interrupts me. “His ass isn’t going to jail, sweetheart.”
“Then what …?” My words trail off as I understand. “You’re gonna kill him too?” I ask wide-eyed.
“Of course.” He snorts.
Death too must be earned. He had said that to me that day in his car as we watched Jerrold in his office. “You’re gonna get caught,” I say, fisting my hands.
“No, we won’t.”
“You didn’t even do a good job with Jeff.” I roll my eyes at his confidence.
He looks over at me for a quick second. “What are you talking about?”
“It took me twenty minutes to dig him up. It would take a full-grown man half that. You didn’t bury him very deep. And you weren’t very smart.” He opens his mouth, but I continue. “You left him dressed in the clothes that had your blood on them. You should be thanking me that I burned his body.” He shuts his mouth. “Plus, you buried him right next to where Eli’s sister is. Very poetic. But anyone who would consider someone close to her as a suspect, would go there first.”
I sit back in my seat and cross my arms over my chest as I look out the window, watching all the cars he passes.
“What would you have done?” he finally asks.
I turn back to look at him. He stares straight ahead. “Given the situation I was in, exactly what I did.”
He nods his head once.
“And if I wouldn’t have had the resources to set him on fire, I would have tied him to a couple of full dive tanks and dumped his body into the ocean.” His brows lift in surprise. “Sharks and other fish would have smelled the blood. He would had been eaten to nothing in a matter of days.” He nods to himself again. Slower this time. “But if I would have been part of it, I would have done it differently.” I’ve never killed someone but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t crossed my mind. The older I got, the more I despised Phillip. Every time he cornered me, I thought of killing him. Or at the very least chopping his hands off in a freak accident.
“Like what?”
“I know you’re into the fight.” He stiffens. “But if you didn’t wanna get your hands dirty, you could have poisoned him and tossed his body into an abandoned well and thrown sulfuric acid down there with him to dissolve the body. It takes a little longer than lye, but it liquefies the bones and teeth as well as the soft tissue.”
He whips his head over to look at me.
I give him a big smile. “I know how to cover my tracks.” I say the same thing I told him the night he tried to blackmail me. The first time.
And for the first time in the three weeks I’ve known Cole Reynolds, he looks utterly impressed and speechless. It’s awesome.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
COLE
SHE’S SICK.
She’s twisted.
She’s fucking perfect.
I sit next to her in a booth as she speaks across the table to Becky, and all I can think about is what she said to me in the car. How she would kill someone. How she would cover her tracks. And how she saved our asses by burning Jeff’s body. Had we been that sloppy? Had we not covered our tracks well enough? I would hate to think that Jerrold went to where he buried Aimee’s body and thought to look next to her. That he would have found him and seen him covered in our blood. Would he have suspected us right off the bat? If Eli were still alive, then I would say yes without thought, but he’s not.
But to suspect us? That’s not possible. We were careful. Deke and I had picked him up outside his favorite bar that night. Threw him in my trunk and met the guys on the Lowes estate to carry him up to the cemetery. He had taken a cab to the bar, so we didn’t need to mess with his car. As far as the police know, he got lost or mugged on his way home. Even this city has streets that you don’t go down alone after the sun sets.
“Cole?” Deke snaps my name.
I look up at him. “What?”
“You okay?” he asks softly so the girls can’t hear him. They’re in their own world talking about some shit girls talk about.
I run a hand through my hair. “We’ll be back,” I say to Austin and Becky before sliding out. Deke follows me without thought.
“What is it, man?” he asks when we walk outside.
I stop in front of my car and turn to face him on the sidewalk. “Do you think we covered our tracks well enough with Jeff?” I ask.
He snorts. “Don’t let Shane get to you, man. All that shit he was saying last night didn’t make any sense. He’s just scared …”
“This has nothing to do with Shane.”
He frowns. “Then what does it have to do with?”
“I was talking to Austin—”
“Austin?” he interrupts me. “What does she have to do with this? You think she’s gonna go to the police?” he asks.
I shake my head and take a step back from him, running a hand through my hair again nervously. Then I start pacing the sidewalk.
“Cole.”
I stop and look up at him.
He has a sly smile on his face. “She’s getting to you.”
“No, she’s not,” I say like he asked me a question.
He snorts and crosses his arms over his chest. “Becky was right.”
My teeth clench. “No …”
“She said that it’s more than you’re letting on.”
I roll my eyes. “Deke, come on.”
He steps into me. “It’s okay not to want to use her.”
I shake my head. “She is nothing more than part of the game.”
“You’re not in the game,” he says matter-of-factly. “You have your eyes on Austin a hundred percent of the time, and although I don’t have a problem with it, it’s blinding you.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I growl.
“It means you’re not seeing the big picture, Cole.” He sighs heavily. “Kellan is up to something. That night at the clubhouse, I baited him to see what he would do, knowing you would test him. And you did. Even though he didn’t fuck her right then and there, he still failed.”
My body tenses at the thought of Kellan wanting her in any way. “I know!”
“He may want to fuck her, but he wants her gone more. And when he realizes what I’ve figured out.” He smiles, and I want to slap it off his face. “That she means more to you. He’s gonna take you up on your offer to fuck her, and when you tell him no … He’s gonna make a move.” My hands fist. “Shane can’t decide what side of the fence he wants to be on when it comes to her. And Bennett … is just, well, Bennett. In his own world. He’s not a threat to her. Yet. But we both know that he would take her out without a thought if he felt she jeopardized—”
“I know all this,” I snap, interrupting him.