Page 52 of Deep Feelings & Shallow Graves
She’s crying now, but it feels like a wound finally breathing air.
I hold her tighter. Let her feel the warmth, the promise. That I see her. That I choose her.
“This kill, Walter, it’s yours. I won’t step on that. But let me make it safe. If you freeze, I’ll be here. If you don’t, I’ll wait and help you clean up. Whatever you need.” I pull back just enough to see her face. “You want it close? I’ll bring knives. Distance? I’ve got a Beretta. You want him screaming? I’ve got restraints. Tasers. Rope. You name it.”
When the tears ease, she tilts her face up, lashes clumped and eyes raw. “You’d really do all that for me?”
“I will.” No hesitation. No apology. “Whatever it takes. And if this ends it, if Walter’s the last, then we walk away clean. And if he isn’t?” I shrug. “We refine the process. No more close calls. No more ‘me’s’ showing up with files and too many questions.”
She breathes slow, like she’s trying to memorize this moment. This us. “What do we do now?” she asks.
There’s a strange look on her face, vulnerability that snuck in through the cracks. Like she’s leaning on me without realizing it. That bastard Walter did that. He hollowed her out and she filled herself with steel.
Now I get to help her polish the blade. “We clean Derik’s DNA out of your SUV.” I pause and let a smile pull at the edge of my mouth. “Then maybe we get pizza. And more snack cakes.”
We get to work. Not in theory. Not in some vague future. Now.
She follows me back to my place in silence, headlights slicing the dusk. I pull into the garage; she parks in the drive like she belongs there.
We move without talking much. Just a nod here. A glance there. I hand her gloves and bleach and heavy-duty bags. She takes them like they’re tools for something holy.
And maybe they are.
Together, we strip the SUV down to its bones. Everything that can’t be cleaned gets bagged. Everything that can gets bleached until it gleams. Carpet scrubbed. Rubber mats torched with cleaner. Every inch of DNA erased like it was never there.
And when we’re done, we don’t stop.
I break out the wax. We wash the outside until the water runs clear, then polish the whole thing until it shines like her. Gleaming. Untouchable.
I’d already phoned in the pizza, it’ll be here in thirty. We’re wiping down the windows, laughing about something stupid she said about a bug that tried to land on her cheek, when I hear the crunch of tires.
Fuck.
It’s Cookie.
That nosy, meddling harpy of a neighbor pulls into her driveway like she owns the entire block but doesn’t even glance toward her own house. No, she beelines straight for us, beady eyes, tight mouth, judgment locked and loaded.
She stops two feet away, arms crossed, nostrils flared.
“I expected better of you,” she tells me, like Jennifer isn’t standing right there with a bottle of Windex in one hand and murder in her eyes. “You know she’s fucking that creepy mortician. And someone saw her handyman stumbling off this morning looking like he dicked her.”
“Lucky bastards,” I mutter.
Jennifer doesn’t miss a beat. “I’m not fucking Edgar. Yet. He found your pastries wanting, so we put it off until I have time to bake him something properly.”
God help me, I feel like a proud dad. A deranged, complicit, frosting-sticky dad.
And it’s good to know she’s not fucking Edgar. Yet. Not that it matters. Not really. I mean, she’s free to do what she wants.We’re not married. Just because we’re cleaning up murder together doesn’t mean I have a claim.
Cookie doesn’t like the grin I’m wearing. “Oh, don’t look so smug,” she snaps. “You don’t even like sweets.”
And then, because she can’t help herself, she zeroes in on Jennifer like a crow picking through roadkill. “If you thought you could out-bake me, you’d enter something in the fair. Put those basic-ass cookies where your mouth is. It’s lemon themed this year. Can you even zest?”
Jennifer’s smile turns predatory. Soft. Sweet. Like arsenic in a lemon tart. “I plan to,” she says, calm as can be. “I’ve got just the recipe.”
Cookie didn’t expect that. She huffs like she’s above it, then stomps off toward her porch, keys jangling like tiny, angry bells, heels clicking like a cartoon villain without the charisma.
Jennifer watches her go, then turns to me with a brow raised. “Was that an invitation to duel?”
