The headlights cut bright swaths across the dirt, stretching our shadows across it. Vero poked at the soil with the tip of her shovel.
“Are you sure this is where we left him?” She pointed a few feet to the right. “I thought he was farther that way.”
“No,” I said, standing beside her. “This is definitely it.” I didn’t tell her I wasn’t one hundred percent sure. We’d been careful to leave the car on the gravel road this time, angling the headlights into the field rather than leaving another set of tread marks in the soft ground for the police to follow. Between the shrouding darkness and the eerie tunnel of light cast by Ramón’s car, it all felt a little disorienting. But we had to start somewhere. And this seemed close enough.
She cast a longing sideways glance toward the hulking yellow tractor in the next field. “Are you sure you don’t want me to bring in the heavy artillery? I watched some videos on YouTube—”
“We are not digging him up with a front-end loader!” The last thing we needed was a grand theft charge on top of everything else. “He’s not very deep. We can do this ourselves.”
Vero grumbled to herself as she stepped out onto the uneven surface of the field and thrust her shovel in the dirt. “Let’s get this over with. It’s freezing out here.”
I switched off the headlights. Better to work in the dark so no one noticed the light from the road. I ventured a few feet from Vero, closer to where she had pointed before, in case she was right. My blisters had hardly healed into calluses, but at least we had two pairs of gloves and two sturdy shovels this time. Between all the digging and Spinning these last few weeks, I felt stronger somehow, capable of hefting more. Our shovels cut through the soil with a steady rhythm, our two holes widening, converging somewhere in the middle. The loose dirt formed mounded piles around us that made us feel deeper in the ground than we probably were.
“Where are we going to move him?” Vero asked through a puff of blue fog. “To a cemetery? Like in your book?”
I choked out a breathy laugh between shovels. If we did that, this damn book would probably be the reason we ended up in prison. “No. We’ll hold on to him for a couple of days until the investigation wraps up, then we’ll put him back in the same spot. The police aren’t likely to get another warrant to dig up the same piece of land again. And the ground will be soft. Easy to dig. Easy to hide,” I added between huffs.
“A few days?” Vero leaned on the handle of her shovel and dragged her sleeve across her brow, her disgust clear, even in the dark. “Ramón is going to kill me when I give him back his car. Do you have any idea how bad a decaying body’s gonna smell? Cling Wrap may be a whole lot of things, but a giant Odor-Eater isn’t one of them.”
I drove the blade of my shovel deeper, the hole already up to our hips. “JCPenney is having a fall clearance sale on those big chest freezers. We can pick one up in the morning and put it in the garage.”
She chuckled darkly. “And to think you were worried about a damn shower curtain. Nothing says ‘serial killer’ like a chest freezer in a garage.”
“You have a better idea?” A thud resounded from the ground at my feet. I tapped it with the tip of my shovel and connected with something hard. Moving the shovel a few inches, I tapped it again, in case I’d hit a rock.
“Wait.” Vero wrinkled her nose as she poked the ground a few feet away from me. She sniffed cautiously, the air suddenly pungent and sickly sweet. “I think I found him.”
I abandoned my shovel for the flashlight in my pocket, aiming the beam at the ground by Vero’s feet. I turned away from the smell. “How bad is it?”
“Um … Finlay?” Her voice rose with an odd lilt as she knelt to clear away the dirt. “Harris wasn’t wearing jeans when we buried him, was he?”
I dropped to my knees beside her, frantically brushing dirt from a long denim pant leg. A Nike swoop appeared below it. “No.” I swallowed the urge to be sick. “And he definitely wasn’t wearing running shoes.”
“Then who the hell is this?”
“I don’t know, but it’s definitely not Harris.” Gingerly, I patted the pockets of the man’s jeans, searching for a wallet, but they were empty. Head craned away from the smell, I scooped handfuls of dirt from the dead man’s face. Saliva pooled in my throat. “Oh! Oh, no.” I buried my nose in my sleeve.
“What is it?” she asked, crawling closer to see.
The man’s eyes were clouded white, wide and open. His pale skin sagged, a hideous shade of gray, and his blue lips spilled dirt from the corners. A purple hole darkened his temple. “I think he’s been shot in the head.”
Vero jolted to a stop. She glanced down slowly, prodding the dirt beside her knees. “Finlay?” She brushed a handful aside, swearing in Spanish, her voice shaking when she said, “I hate to tell you this, but I just found another pair of shoes. And I’m pretty sure these aren’t Harris’s either.”
I pushed myself to my feet, the ground unsteady beneath them. The smell grew stronger. My eyes watered as we dug out two more pairs of shoes. Nick was right. Feliks was using Steven’s farm for business. As a dumping ground for bodies. “How are we going to find Harris in this mess?”
“I don’t know.” Vero sounded on the edge of panic. Her flashlight skipped to my face.
“Point that thing down,” I snapped, shielding my eyes. “I can’t see.”
“Point what down? I’m not pointing any…” The sudden break in her voice sounded all wrong. I held my arm above my eyes, blinking, but I couldn’t make out her face against the light. “That’s not a flashlight,” she whispered frantically. “Someone’s coming!”
We ducked, the shoes of the dead men digging into our shins as we peered out over the edge of the hole. Headlights bounced down the gravel road toward us. The lights were square and widely spread, the kind you never wanted to see in your rearview mirror at night.
“Crap! I think it’s Nick.” I should have known he’d be staking out the farm. There was no way he’d stand aside and let someone else take over his investigation without keeping one foot in it. He’d probably seen us pull in. He’d probably waited, biding his time until we were sure to be ass-deep in a hole full of evidence before swooping in to catch us. Hopefully, he hadn’t called in for backup.
“What do we do?” Vero croaked as Nick’s car rolled to a slow stop beside Ramón’s loaner. It idled ominously, exhaust drifting over us like smoke, its headlights aimed right at us.
“There’s no point hiding.” This was it. There was no way out of the hole we’d dug that wouldn’t involve handcuffs and a conviction. “He knows Ramón’s car. He already knows we’re here. I should turn myself in. Explain everything. I’ll tell him it was all my idea.” Vero hissed in protest, grabbing my elbow as I rose to my feet. I dropped my shovel in surrender, one arm shielding my eyes from the glare of his headlights.
Vero stood beside me, her hand shaking as she set her shovel on the ground. Arms raised, we waited for Nick to get out of his car and arrest us.
The car door opened. He left the engine running, exhaust chasing away the smell of rotting bodies as his boots crunched slowly over the gravel toward us. He paused in front of his car, his body silhouetted between the beams as he reached into his left pocket. Probably for his handcuffs.
The wheel of a lighter rasped once. Twice.
I lowered my arm, blinking against the headlights as the flame ignited and extinguished. The red cherry of Nick’s cigarette glowed brighter with his long, thoughtful drag.
“I didn’t know Nick smoked,” Vero whispered.
“He doesn’t,” I said in a choked voice.
Vero tucked herself closer to my side. The man exhaled a long white stream that melted into the bright glow of the headlights and the blowing exhaust. A puffy jacket distorted the outline of his upper body. But it was his legs that drew my attention, spread shoulder width against the light. They were sturdier than Nick’s, two solid tree trunks rising from the ground. My eyes climbed them, pausing at the
disconcerting length of his right arm, which was suspiciously longer than the one his cigarette dangled from.
“Finlay—?” Vero grabbed my hand as the barrel of a gun caught the light. My heart stopped as he pointed it at me.
“I can explain…” I said, hoping whichever cop I was staring at knew my sister, or maybe could be bribed with an autograph. The weapon issued a soft click and I shut up. He approached the hole, his gun aimed at us, his backlit face indecipherable in the dark.
“Get out.” His voice was low and rough, clipped at the edges like the rasp of his lighter.
“Aren’t you supposed to read us our rights?”
“I said, get out!”
Vero clung to my arm. On shaking legs, we climbed out of the hole, holding each other for balance.
“Turn around,” he demanded.
Vero and I turned toward the field. The officer’s headlights cast our shapes over the piles of dirt we’d dug up. Over the dim ghosts of a pair of filth-covered sneakers and the hazy outlines of rotting faces in the dark. My pulse raced as the officer’s shadow stretched closer.
“We didn’t know these bodies were here,” I sputtered. “My sister works for Fairfax PD. If we could just call—”
“Get on your knees,” he barked. This was it. He was going to cuff us.
“Look, I think there’s been a big misunderstanding. If I could just talk to—”
“I said, get on your knees!” He shoved the gun against the back of my head. I lurched forward, nearly tripping into the hole. Vero caught my arm, steadying me as I followed his orders and lowered myself to the ground. Resisting arrest was a charge we didn’t need right now.
Vero knelt beside me, her hand clutching mine, both of us shaking, waiting for the clink of his cuffs.
Instead, the cold steel of his gun pressed against the back of my skull.
My breath hitched. I squeezed my eyes shut, voice trembling as I asked, “Aren’t you going to arrest us?”
His gun shook with his deep, throaty laugh. It started low, then rose, climbing up the rough terrain of his throat and echoing back at us from the hole. He muttered something I couldn’t understand. Something that sounded a lot like Russian.
Vero’s nails dug into my skin.
Andrei Borovkov.
I looked down at the tips of the white sneakers in the hole. These were his bodies. This was his mess Feliks had been hiding. And we were going to be next.
“Wh … what are you doing here?” Were there more bodies in the trunk of his car? Was he here to bury someone else?
“You don’t listen so well. Feliks told you he would be keeping a close eye on you. Your policeman—the one parked near your house … he was not such a good bodyguard.”
Officer Roddy … Andrei had been watching my house. “You followed us here?”
I felt his shrug in the small movement of his gun. “I was curious to see what you were up to. And now I know. We were all surprised when Harris Mickler disappeared so suddenly. When he hadn’t returned the safety deposit box key after making the usual deposits, Feliks was sure Harris had fled the country with his money.” The small key from Harris’s key ring … Patricia had taken it the day she’d met me in Panera. She must have used the money to escape with Aaron.
Andrei sucked in a thoughtful drag. “Me? I had my money on my wife. Irina never liked Patricia’s husband. She said he was a disgusting piece of filth who deserved to die.” I held my breath through a long pause as he blew smoke past my head. “Maybe I won’t bother telling Feliks what you were doing here. I don’t like losing bets.”
My breath rushed out of me as he lowered the gun. Was he going to let us go? Was he going to blackmail us to keep us quiet?
I didn’t dare move as Andrei’s legs appeared beside me. He propped a foot on the mound of dirt at the edge of the hole, smoking as he peered down into it. A sinister smile curled his lip around the long ribbon he exhaled. “Looks like you’ve already done most of the work. That will make burying you much easier.”
Vero made a strangled sound and my stomach fell away. Andrei was going to kill us. Right here. Execution-style in the back of the head. I was going to fall into that hole on top of all those other bodies. On top of Harris Mickler. Nick’s boss would come with a warrant tomorrow and dig me up. My sister would have to ID my remains.
My head shook in silent protest. I’d had all I could take of Harris Mickler. There was no freaking way I was going in that grave without a fight.
Andrei took a last drag before flinging his cigarette butt in the hole, his shoe sending loose clumps of dirt cascading toward me as he turned away from it.
I stared down at my fist where it braced the ground. At the gritty soil dusting the top of my hand. I glanced up at Andrei through the blowing strands of hair that had come loose from my ponytail. The wind carried exhaust from his tailpipes over the hole. I watched as Andrei blew out the last of his smoke, angling his head so the breeze wouldn’t throw it back in his face.
I blew my first traffic stop when some punk dumped his ashtray in my face.
I eased my hand from Vero’s, sinking it into the soil. My fists closed around two dry handfuls of dirt, crushing them to a fine grit between my fingers. Andrei’s shoulders shook with silent laughter, his head shaking as if he couldn’t believe his luck as he turned back to face us.
“I’m ready,” he said. “Let’s make this quick.”
I threw my hands up, tossing them high. Grit swirled in the wind and sprayed across his face. He cried out, swatting violently at his eyes. The light from the headlamps glinted off his gun as he fought to scrape away the dirt with both hands. I waited for him to drop it, prepared to take his weapon and run, but he only held it tighter, the gun thrashing aimlessly while he shouted and swore at us. I ducked as it fired, the muffled shot scattering dirt beside my knees.
A silencer. He was using a silencer. No one would hear the shots. No one would come to save us.
Heart pounding, I grabbed Vero’s hand, dragging her alongside me as I scurried for cover behind Ramón’s car.
Andrei hollered, shrieking in pain, his boots stomping wildly against the ground as he dug at his eyes. Another shot. Vero and I huddled close behind the bumper, our hands pressed to our mouths, our arms wrapped tightly around each other. Another bullet pinged close to the hood. With a yelp, we scrambled to the far side of the car and crouched behind the back wheel, clutching each other’s hands as Andrei flailed and screamed at us.
If we could make it into the car, maybe we could escape.
I reached over Vero for the passenger-door handle. Another shot rang out. I ducked, throwing my arms around Vero instead. A heavy thump came from the direction of the hole.
Then silence.
We pressed against the side of the car, waiting for him to fire another.
But the shooting had stopped.
The only sound was the soft hum of Andrei’s idling engine. The wind rustled the cedars behind us. Shaky breaths steamed from our lips. Neither of us dared to move.
After a long moment, I peered around the hood of the car. Exhaust from his tailpipes blew over the hole. Andrei’s legs sprawled on the dirt at the edge of it. The rest of him disappeared inside of it, as if he’d fallen in.
Vero clutched the back of my hoodie, hugging me like a shadow as I crept cautiously toward his body. Andrei’s gun glimmered, limp in his hand. I lowered myself into the hole, towing Vero behind me, trying not to think about the sticky dampness soaking through the thin knees of my yoga pants as I crawled toward him. As we inched closer, we both flinched. Andrei’s face had been blown clean away, a dark puddle fanning out from what was left of his head.
I took a deep, shuddering breath, fighting the urge to be sick. “He shot himself.”
“On purpose?” Vero sputtered.
I blinked down at the gun in his hand. He’d been waving it around like a lunatic, thrashing and clawing at his eyes between his blind shots in our direction.
It hur
t so bad, I couldn’t think straight … I was lucky I didn’t kill myself.
“I don’t think so. I think it was an accident.”
“What do we do now?”
The pile of bodies Andrei had buried loomed in the shadow of the hole. On top of them, the cherry of his abandoned cigarette dimmed and burned out.
“Turn off his car,” I heard myself say as I patted his pockets, fishing out his wallet and stuffing it inside my coat. “Don’t leave any fingerprints.”
Vero scrambled out of the hole and ran to Andrei’s car. The field went dark as she killed the engine. I took a moment to think. To breathe. To process what I knew, as my eyes adjusted to the moonlight.
The police were going to dig up this field in the next twenty-four hours.
They would find all of Andrei’s victims inside it. Harris, too.
Nick had already assumed Feliks was connected to Harris’s death. As far as they knew, Harris was just one more body.
“We’re going to leave Harris here,” I said, infusing the words with as much confidence as I could muster.
“Leave him?” she whispered, as if she were afraid he might hear us. “We can’t leave him!”
“If we take him, the police will only keep looking for him.”
“But if they find him with Andrei and all the others—”
“They’ll probably assume the mob killed them all.” It was a gamble, but moving Harris seemed far riskier. “Help me put Andrei with the others.” I grabbed his corpse under the arms, Vero grabbed his boots, and with a grunt, we lowered the rest of him into the hole. When the police came tomorrow and found a mass grave, they would find his freshly smoked cigarette and his gun. It would look like someone—probably Feliks—had met Andrei here, watched him bury the bodies, then executed him and dumped him with his victims, ridding his organization of the sloppy enforcer who kept thrusting his dirty business in the public eye.
Nick wouldn’t be here to take credit for the bust, but he would get the satisfaction of knowing he’d solved the case that finally put Feliks Zhirov behind bars. Patricia and Irina would be free of their husbands, Patricia and Aaron could come out of hiding, and Vero and I could get on with our lives.
Finlay Donovan Is Killing It Page 28
