Fools Rush In

by Lilliana Anderson

  The drug lord smiled. “Well, the next time you’re in that position, do me a favour and suffocate the bastard. He always was a cunt of man.”

  “Sure. I didn’t like him much anyway,” I said, and the guy laughed.

  “I like you,” he said, waggling his finger at me. “You’ve got fire in you.” He leaned in so close I could smell his breath. Ew. “But not enough to distract me from my task. Your husband owes us money for the fire that ruined our crop. Since he’s left this earth, it’s going to be on you to get that money to us.”

  “I’ve already told you, she’s not his wife,” Jasmine insisted. “She can’t give you anything.”

  Drug man smiled. “I don’t give a fuck whose wife she is. You’re the family matriarch. You work out how to get my money. In the meantime, Bruno.” He clicked his fingers, and Bruno tightened his grip and started dragging me towards the SUV.

  “What the hell are you doing!” Jasmine demanded, leaping to my defence before the drug dude put his arm out and stopped her.

  “Just taking a little collateral. I’ll return her to you unharmed when I get my money.”

  “How much do you want?” Jasmine asked in a hurry.

  “Considering how much revenue we’ll be losing, I think it’s only fair to ask for… all of it.”

  Jasmine gasped. I had no idea how much ‘all of it’ was, but judging by Jasmine’s reaction, it was a lot. I really didn’t want to be collateral while they worked that one out.

  “Is your name actually Bruno?” I asked the muscle as we neared the SUV.

  “Yes,” he said, his accent heavy. Greek, I thought.

  “I guess your career options were pretty limited, then.”

  “Why?” He totally didn’t understand that his name was a clichéd hired muscle name.

  “Never mind,” I said, twisting my body around with enough force that when my open palm hit against the base of Bruno’s big nose, I both felt and heard the bone snap. Blood started spurting everywhere and he stumbled back. But the motherfucker didn’t let go. He just opened his eyes wider, growled from the pain, then placed his big hand on the side of my head.

  “Shit,” I said, knowing in the microsecond before it happened that I was going to have an almighty headache.

  My head collided with the side of the SUV, pain slicing through my brain and blackening my vision. He tossed me in the back seat, causing more rattling in my head. I gasped as I tried to right myself, touching my head to check for blood as I blinked to clear my vision. “Ow.”

  As I sat, intent on trying to scramble out the open door while Bruno attempted to stem the flow from his nose, I heard a growl followed by a grunt. Bruno’s body arched backwards as a thick arm wrapped around his neck and yanked.

  Bruno may have been the drug dude’s muscle, but Sam was mine and he was bigger. Angels sang an exultant chorus, a big brass band blew trumpets and beat drums, the crowds cheered, all rejoicing in my rescue—although that noise could have also been the concussion, I was pretty sure I was developing.

  I jumped out of the SUV just as Bruno slid into a heap on the ground, passed out but definitely still breathing.

  “Samuel!” Jasmine’s scream came at the same time we heard the click.

  “He’d better not be dead,” the drug dick said, crouching to check Bruno’s pulse while keeping his gun trained on Sam and me.

  “He’s not,” Sam said, shifting me until I was slightly behind him. “Just sleeping.”

  “You’re out of your depth here, son. All I want is compensation. I won’t be going away until I get it.”

  “You won’t be getting it,” Jasmine said, her lips curling as she came up behind him. The moment he turned to address her, she raised her hand and plunged what looked like a pocketknife into the side of his neck.

  If I’d thought Bruno’s broken nose had sprayed a lot of blood, a knife to the carotid artery produced a waterfall. I’d seen the amount of blood that came out of a human body before, but never like this. I’d never watched a man bleed out before.

  “Holy hell,” I gasped.

  As he gripped his neck, Sam grabbed his gun and uncocked the hammer, shoving it in the back of his pants as he tried to use his body to shield me from the sight. Jasmine just stood there with the bloodied knife in her hand, staring at the douche as he tried in vain to stem the flow.

  “I know it was you,” she ground through clenched teeth. “I know it was you who set that fire and killed my boy.” The drug man shook his head wildly, gurgling and choking on his own blood as he dropped to his knees. “How dare you come here demanding money and making threats. You think I wasn’t expecting you? You think I wasn’t ready? I didn’t become who I am by lying down and getting fucked over by miserable cunts like you. I know who you are, Simon Ferezis. I know where you live and who your friends are. And most of all, I know everything there is to know about your business. You underestimated a grieving mother, and now you’re the one losing everything.”

  He coughed on the ground, struggling to keep a hold of his life. It was taking way longer than in the movies. They took seconds while this was minutes. Not a lot of them, but still, minutes. Enough time for another car to pull into the driveway. Enough time for Toby and the twins to rush over and mutter things like “Holy shit” and “What did you do?”

  When it was over, and the drug man I now knew as Simon had lost his fight, Jasmine looked over to Bruno and pointed to him with her bloody knife. “He needs to die too,” she said.

  “Fuck!” Toby yelled. “Fuck.” Then he stormed over to Bruno, pushed him into a sitting position and kneeled behind him.

  Oh no

  Toby took three quick breaths, the fight evident in his face as he placed his hands on either side of Bruno’s head. I literally witnessed a piece of Toby’s soul crack, the sorrow and pain flitting across his face before he roared and twisted Bruno’s neck so far it snapped. He was dead—I heard the crack, saw the way his face went slack.

  Then I threw up on the ground.

  “What are we going to do with the bodies?” Kris asked as we sat around the table, each with a stiff drink in hand. The house was dark except for the light overhead, like we were in a secret meeting. In a way it was, the lighting fit the mood. It was one thing to steal, another entirely to take a life—well, two. Thankfully, the Cartwright property was secluded enough that no one could’ve seen what went down unless they were flying directly overhead, so witnesses weren’t our problem. Hiding the evidence was.

  “Someone’s gonna know they came here,” Abbot added. “Someone’s gonna come lookin’.”

  “And we’re going to say we never saw them,” Jasmine concluded. “We’ll dump the car into a gully, drop the bodies in the ocean for the sharks to get. No one will ever find out.”

  “Bodies have ways of turning back up,” I whispered, my shaking hands clutching the glass of straight vodka in front of me. I took a sip, making a slurping noise because all of my finesse was locked away in the numb part of my brain. “They bloat, animals find them and drag them free, they get hooked on fishing wire, caught in a boat’s propeller, eaten by a shark and discovered in its belly.”

  “Take them out far enough and deep enough, it’ll never be a problem. No one ever found Harold Holt,” Toby said.

  “Yes, but there are so many theories surrounding his disappearance. There may be no body to find,” I added.

  Jasmine pressed her fingers against her eyes. “Then what do you suggest?”

  “There’s only one real way to completely dispose of a body.”

  “How’s that?” Sam asked.

  “Fire. And not just any fire. We need to cremate them.”

  “And how are we going to do that?” Kris asked.

  “Yeah,” Abbot added. “We can’t just walk up to the funeral home and say, ‘Chuck this in with our brother, will ya?’ Get a three for one deal.”

  “You’re forgetting something,” Sam said, his eyes on me as his lips kicked up at the side. “Alesh
a’s family owns a mortuary. She has keys.”

  “And alarm codes, and working knowledge of the chambers,” I added.

  “I say we do it,” Toby said, downing his drink. “Kris and Abbot can deal with the car. Don’t dump it, take it to the chop shop in Sunshine and sell it for parts. They’ll take it no questions asked. Me and Sam will deal with the bodies. Jasmine and Alesha, stay here and bleach the driveway.”

  “I need to come with you,” I said. “The cremator isn’t just ‘push a button and it’s done’. There’s a whole process we have to go through that takes a few hours. We have to leave the place looking like no one was ever there.”

  Jasmine looked at her watch. It was almost 9:00 p.m. “Then you best be on your way.” On our way. Such a casual order to dispose of two bodies. It made me sick to think about what we had to do, but it had to be done. Had to.

  How did my life get to this point?

  Right, I married a thief. Fell in love with him and his family.

  And I’d do whatever it took to keep them safe.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Fucking Selfish Bastard

  Sam drove. After loading the bodies into the back of my van, hidden in surfboard covers with boards on top, we were on our way. Every car that followed us, every car that sat beside us at a set of lights, it all felt like they were looking at us, that they knew we had murdered two men.

  “I don’t want to keep this van anymore,” I said after a while.

  Sam reached over and took my hand. “We’ll get you a new one tomorrow.”

  “Why did she do it?” Toby asked from the back seat. “Why’d she kill him? What did he want?”

  “He wanted money,” I said. “He wanted any sort of insurance Nate had. Jasmine killed him because she believes they were behind the fire.”

  He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I fucking knew something like this would happen.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “That they’d come looking for a payout, or that Jasmine would want revenge?”

  He sighed so heavy that the weight of his thoughts filled the cabin. “All of it. The whole thing is fucked up.”

  When he looked out the window, working his jaw as he bounced his leg, I turned back around in my seat and watched the road through the front window. For some reason, I kept thinking about what my dad said about seeing someone who looked like Sam leaving with Holland. Was it Toby? Was he trying to hide her because he knew the men Nate was mixed up with would come looking? It made sense. What didn’t make sense was that he hadn’t done the same with his family. He’d left the rest of us in harm’s way.

  “Did you go see Holland to tell her about Nate?” I asked suddenly, never one to curb my need for an answer or to figure out a puzzle.

  Toby frowned and shook his head. “I haven’t seen her since I got Nate’s car back for him.”

  Sam seemed surprised by the information. “When did you do that?”

  “Couple weeks after she left. Nate asked me to do that and give her all her stuff back. I was just a messenger.”

  “I didn’t think Nate was talking to any of us then,” Sam said, glancing in the rear-view mirror. “Least of all you.”

  Toby shrugged. “I guess we found some common ground.”

  “Look out!” I shouted, slapping my arm against Sam’s chest as a kangaroo bounded across the highway, right in our path. He swerved, and there was a sudden pop that made the van fishtail as he hit the brakes and steered us into the emergency lane.

  We jerked to a stop. The kangaroo bounced off, seeming unharmed.

  “Did we hit it?” Toby asked.

  “I don’t think so. That felt like a blowout.” With a sigh, Sam got out of the van and walked around it. “Rear left,” he said. “Gonna have to change it.”

  “Fuck,” I said, knowing we didn’t have time for this. The look on Sam’s face told me he agreed.

  With all of us piling out, I kept watch while Toby and Sam made quick work of the tire. I was grateful that we’ve gone to the effort to conceal the bodies in the first place, because without those surfboards covering them, retrieving the spare from the boot would have revealed our crime to any car passing by.

  “You guys need a hand?” A man driving a courier van slowed beside us, his hazard lights on.

  “We’re fine,” I said, my palms sweating as a prickling crept over my skin. “Just a flat. They’ve got it under control.” I thumbed towards Toby and Sam, who was swearing and sucking on his thumb.

  “Clearly,” the guy said. “Why don’t I give you a hand? It’ll only take a few minutes.”

  I smiled, insisting, “It’s really not necessary.” But he was intent on being the Good Samaritan. Great. Just what we need.

  “What the fuck is this guy doing?” Toby hissed as I walked towards the van.

  “Helping,” I told him, hooking my fingers on the open back door and pulling it down. The surfboards may have hidden the bodies from a distance, but close up it was obvious there was something more there.

  “Fucking do-gooders,” Toby grumbled before putting on a false smile and giving the guy in question a friendly wave. “G’day, mate. We’re actually all good here.”

  “It’s cool. I’m an old hand at this. Spend half my life on the road.” He kneeled next to Sam and asked if he could take over. Reluctantly, Sam handed over the tire iron. The guy flicked it around like he was a member of a pit crew and as promised, the whole thing took a couple of minutes.

  Less time than it took that guy to die. I closed my eyes to push away the thought.

  Once the jack was released, the guy—who was chatting away at a mile a minute about how hard it was to drive all night then go home to kids who were hyper and just wanted to play—collected the tools and headed towards the back of the van. Toby was quick to block his path and relieve him of his burden.

  “I’ve got this. Thanks, mate. Appreciate it.”

  The guy smiled and nodded, wiping his hands on the back of his dark pants. “Yeah.” He looked up at Toby, as if he was suddenly figuring out how tall he was. Then he did the same to Sam. “Wow. You boys are big, huh? Brothers?”

  “We are.” Sam nodded. “Thanks for your help,” he said again, holding out his hand to shake the man’s, trying desperately and calmly to get him to leave.

  The man shook his hand, then thankfully wandered back to his own van and left. I didn’t think I took a breath the whole time.

  “My God, I thought he’d never leave,” I said, placing my hands on my face as Toby opened the back of the van to put the tools in. I walked to the front, swearing I heard him muttering to himself, something like “I knew this was a stupid plan. No retaliation if they thought it was an accident, my arse. No one gets out scot-free.”

  When we got back into the car, I met Toby’s eyes. He held mine for a second and then looked away, clearly pissed.

  “Are you OK?” I asked.

  He met my gaze, his eyes wild. “No, I’m not,” he said simply. It broke my heart. He was such a gentle soul, and now he had all this on his conscience.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Sam said. “We’ve already lost enough time.”

  “Go around back,” I instructed, pointing to where it was normal for the funeral home to receive bodies. I got out of the van first and went inside, deactivating the alarm before heading downstairs to open the dock from the inside. I pushed one of the wider trolleys we used for our larger clients, figuring it’d be big enough to put both bodies on.

  Sam had already reversed the van into place, making the unloading much easier. He and Toby heaved the surfboard bags and the bodies inside them on top, and I directed them through to the crematorium.

  “What do we do if there are already bodies in there?” Sam asked.

  “We never cremate bodies at night. It’s a fire hazard, obviously. Someone has to be here to monitor the chambers.”

  The doors all swung open to allow easy access when pushing heavy trolleys, but I held them open
anyway, stopping once we got to the cremator.

  “So we just throw them both inside?” Toby asked.

  “No,” I said. “It’ll take too long if they’re in together. There are two cremators, so one can go in each.”

  I opened the hatches on both, and they got the trolley into position in front of the rollers. “Now we slide one of them inside,” I said.

  I stood to the side as Sam and Toby did just that. Bruno went first, although I couldn’t be sure. It was just that the first bag seemed a bit more bulky than the other. Everything was moving along perfectly until the bags caught and the remaining one twisted just enough so it started to slide off the trolley. Purely by reflex, I reached out and tried to catch it. But I was a tall skinny woman, incapable of catching a fully grown man. We both went down.

  “Holy shit,” one of them said. Then there was a crash and the trolley shot across the room, hitting the wall on the other side with a crash. Bruno went down too, taking a swan dive off the rollers and joining me and Simon on the floor.

  I couldn’t get up.

  “There… th-there’s a-a b-body on me,” I stammered, my arms and legs flailing as I tried to roll or slide from beneath him. His foot was in my face, and with rigor mortis setting in, I couldn’t get it to move out of the way. “Get it off. Get it off.”

  Within moments, Simon was removed from my chest and I could breathe again. Sam offered me his hand and a sympathetic smile. “You OK, peaches?”

  I shook my head. “Not even a little.”

  He touched my cheek with a commiserating look in his eye. Then he and Toby made quick work of filling the chambers before I started the cremation process. There wasn’t much left to do but wait.

  I found some food in the break room’s refrigerator and made us all a light meal even though I didn’t think any of us were hungry. It was simply something to do. It sat in the centre of the table untouched.

  “He needs to come back,” Toby said all of a sudden, his eyes taking on this faraway quality.