Page 36 of Wait in the Truck
This is it. No turning back.
He hesitates. Just for a second. Just long enough for me to smirk.
“Well?” I ask, already grabbing my coat. “You coming, or am I running the wood chipper alone?”
Rhett groans, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Fucking hell.” But he follows like the good boy that he is.
With a final nod to Grandma Jo, we head out the door.
Time to clean up. Time to make Sage’s daddy disappear. Time for Ridge Everett to pay The Gambler.
We makeit back to the ranch as the sun is rising—the sky soft with pinks and oranges, the early morning light stretching long shadows across the land.
It would almost be peaceful—if not for the fact that we just spent the last several hours staging a fake suicide, scrubbing a crime scene until it gleamed, and hauling a dead man’s remains back here like a particularly unwanted delivery.
Rhett doesn’t say a word as he parks near the barn, and I don’t blame him. It’s been a long fucking night. His hands are locked so tight on the steering wheel that his knuckles are white, like if he lets go, he’ll lose whatever shred of sanity he’s clinging to.
I pop the truck door open and hop out, rolling my shoulders.
“This is where it gets fun,” I say, stretching my arms overhead like I’m about to do some light cardio instead of feeding a corpse through industrial machinery.
Rhett drags his hands down his face. He looks like shit. “Kade, there is something very wrong with you.”
I smirk. “That’s not breaking news, brother.”
His jaw twitches, but he doesn’t argue. Because we both know he’d be as guilty as I am if we get caught.
I move to the truck bed and lower the tailgate. The tarp-wrapped meat sack formerly known as Ridge Everett shifts slightly from the movement, his dead weight pressing toward the edge like he’s eager for his final ride.
I glancetoward the barn. The wood chipper sits in wait, an open-mouthed beast, hungry for flesh and bone.
I look back at Rhett and grin. “Ready to play funeral assistant?”
He exhales, shaking his head. “Jesus.”
I slap the truck bed. “Nah, just Kade.”
Unwrapping Ridge is a process. The tarp peels back in sticky wet slurps, revealing the mess underneath. His skin has gone gray, tinged with hints of deep purple where the blood has settled. His skull, caved in from Sage’s trophy swing, has started to ooze, the wound looking more like a crushed fruit than a human head.
A long, drawn-out squelch fills the air as I roll him off the tarp and onto the dirt.
Rhett dry heaves, and I sigh. “For fuck’s sake, man up.”
He gags again, covering his mouth. “I think I just saw his brain move.”
I glance down. He’s not wrong. Ridge’s softened skull makes a grotesque little shift, like whatever’s left of his brain matter is sloshing around inside.
I whistle. “Damn. That ain’t normal.”
Rhett gives me a look. “None of this is fucking normal.”
“Perspective, brother. Somewhere, right now, a guy is chopping onions at the local diner for minimum wage at five in the morning.” I gesture at Ridge. “This? This is art.”
Rhett stares at me like he’s trying to mentally detach from the conversation.
I grin and grab Ridge by the arms. “All right, let’s get to it.”
I drag him toward the open maw of the chipper. It’s a mean old machine—rusted in spots, missing most of its safety labels, and loud enough to wake the dead.Well… not Ridge dead.
