Page 4 of Price of Angels

“I got something I gotta do,” he said, without looking up.

“Hot date?”

“No.”

Undaunted, she said, “Well what are you doing after? Do you have plans for later?”

He made a negative sound in the back of his throat. Tension had crept into his fingers, as they worked the knife. There was a little twitch in his face as he reached for a fry.

“See, I was thinking,” she said, leaning in even closer, pressing her breasts into the edge of the table so they strained at her tank top. It was the most suggestive thing she’d ever done. “I live just down that way,” she said in a heavy whisper, pointing toward the room she rented down the block, even though he wasn’t looking, “and maybe, after you get done with, well, whatever it is you have to do, you could stop by. For a drink. Or for…whatever. I get off work at three-thirty. We close at three tonight, and we could meet here if you want, or you could come to my…”

His head lifted, face incredibly harsh under the lamp, his jaw locked tight. “What are you doing?”

Her pulse leapt to a choppy gallop. Her palms slicked with sweat in a sudden physical reaction, as fear flooded through her veins, the adrenaline spiking.

She wet her lips. “I – I’m inviting you to my place.”

“For sex.”

“Well…well, yeah.” She felt her face go scarlet. Months she’d spent, trying to cozy up to this man, the one she’d judged The One, her chosen killer, and finally, when she worked up the courage, it was a cold, flat disinterest he presented to her.

Holly kicked up her chin, so the lamplight could go sliding down her throat, giving him an exquisite look at the tops of her breasts. “Don’t you want to?” she asked, and heard the tremors in her voice.

He stared at her a moment, expression unfathomable.

Then he said, “No.” His head dropped again, as he speared fries with his fork and mopped up the extra gravy with them. “Bring me my check. Please.”

Holly felt the sting of tears in her eyes as she got to her feet.

Two

Matches. Michael kept innumerable packets of the things in his gun safe at home, all lined up in rows in a shoebox. Matches from restaurants and liquor stores, saved up over the years. Matches were the trick to this whole operation. He collected them like rare stamps. Because without them, he’d just be putting a body in a hole, and that was too crude and negligent to serve his purpose.

It always started with the digging. By-hand, with a steel-handled shovel, the earth set aside in an orderly pile. This one hadn’t needed to be as large as some of the others, so he’d kept it about five-and-a-half feet by two feet. Then, he’d laid a single layer of crackling brown packaging paper. That had then been soaked with lighter fluid. Next was a layer of wood kindling. Then a few logs, smoky-smelling hickory. If anyone caught a whiff somewhere, off fifty acres away, it would smell like a barbecue. Then, rolling it from its plastic, wrapped up like a tenderloin in more paper, the corpse was placed in the grave. More fluid. And then the match.

Whoomp.

Up in flames it went.

Michael left his shovel propped against an old weathered fence board and walked back to the truck, before there was too much smoke. Safely inside, all the windows rolled up and crusted with frost where the now-settling dew was already beginning to freeze, he let the fatigue and the soreness finally take hold of him, and he slumped back against the headrest behind him, letting his body go limp against the tattered leather upholstery.

Burying a person was hard work. And this had been a particularly unpleasant body disposal.

Last night, after Dartmoor had rolled up its sidewalks, and a few of the boys had settled at the clubhouse bar to drink and shoot the shit, Michael had been summoned across the common room by his president, Ghost lifting an eyebrow in silent command from the mouth of the hallway.

Michael had gone to him at once. “Yes?” He folded his hands behind his back, awaited instruction. None of his brothers, least of all Ghost, ever wanted to talk to him just to be social.

Ghost leaned sideways against the wall, eyes going across the common room, to the pool table where his son was lining up his next shot. Aidan and Tango were ribbing each other, laughing like they’d already had too much to drink, this soon after five.

“There’s one more loose end,” Ghost said, “out there dangling in the breeze.” His eyes came to Michael. Very sharp, dark eyes, that missed nothing. “That girl Jace and Andre knew. The one the boys tried to talk to,” he said, quietly, inclining his head toward Aidan and Tango.

Michael nodded. “I know the one.”

“She bolted after the boys paid their visit. Couldn’t find her anywhere. But she’s back, now. Jasmine said she ran into her. Said she was renting an apartment outside of town.” He extended a hand, a scrap of paper held in his palm. “This is the address.”

Michael had nodded again, accepting the paper, understanding completely what his president was asking him to do. In so many ways, that implicit trust, the way Ghost didn’t micromanage him, was a compliment unlike any he’d ever received. Ghost trusted him, with the most critical, highest risk tasks. And Ghost wasn’t the sort of man who put much stock in people, as a general rule. A compliment from the man was like ten compliments from some other schmuck.

“I’ll take care of it,” Michael had said, and Ghost had touched him lightly on the arm in thanks as he walked past.

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