Page 63 of Collect the Pieces

“Yup.” He nods. “Ghosts haunting the hallways or zombies popping out of coffins? Give it to us.”

“Okay. I have one.” Her voice lowers, the words hanging in the smoky air. “A good one.”

“Yes!” Rav claps his hands and briskly rubs his palms together.

Margot glances around the fire. Her eyes widen and cheeks flame when she realizes everyone’s watching her. Then a slow, deliberate smile curves her lips. “It’s really creepy though.”

A hush falls over the group, broken by the occasional crackle and pop from the fire.

“We can handle creepy,” Z says. “Give it to us.”

She shifts forward.

“No, come on up here.” Ravage slaps his hand against the thick log he’s been using as a chair. “Come take the storytelling seat.”

“You don’t have to,” I say against Margot’s ear.

“No, it’s fine. The smoke’s starting to irritate my eyes.” She flicks her hand in the air toward the smoke that’s blowing directly at us.

“All right.” I stand, hold out my hand, and pull her up off the blanket, then walk behind her until we reach Rav.

I casually thrust my palms against his shoulder, knocking him off the log. He lands in a clump of dry leaves with a satisfying thump.

“Dick.” He sits up and sweeps his hands over his cut and jeans, knocking the crinkly leaf particles loose.

“Oopsie.” I slap my hand over my mouth.

Margot bites her lip and shakes her head. I curl my hands around her waist and boost her up onto the log, then perch right next to her.

She squints into the fire, then glances out at everyone gathered in a circle. Rav climbs over the log and settles at the far end, facing us.

“So, this happened a few years ago, right after I graduated from mortuary school,” she says, her steady voice carrying over the crackling fire.

I brace myself. She won’t share the story of murdering that pedo, will she? No. There’s no way Margot would talk about that, even as a joke.

“We had a woman come to us who needed to bury her mother,” Margot says.

“This is already sad, not scary,” Dex says.

Margot nods at him. “Itwassad. Her mother wasn’t that old. She got disoriented at night and apparently drowned in the lake near their house.”

“This is gonnagetscary, right?” Rav asks.

From the woods, someone snorts and I squint into the darkness, catching a glimpse of Rooster’s light-blue T-shirt leaning up against a tree, Shelby at his side. I wave for them to join us, but he shakes his head.

“You asked, bro,” I say to Ravage. “Shut up and let her tell the story.”

Margot glances at me and raises an eyebrow, as if she’s asking if she should continue. I’m too curious to see where the story goes to stop her, so I nod.

“Well, we took the mother into our care. I was the one who met with the daughter to go over her wishes for the funeral.”

“What about the husband? He didn’t help out his daughter?” Murphy asks.

“He wasn’t in the picture as far as I knew. There was just the daughter, and she was an only child.”

“That’s so sad,” Heidi says.

“You’re bumming us out, Margot,” Rav says.

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