Strike
“Do you think he was telling the truth?” I asked as Skye untied us. I rubbed my sore wrists and glanced down at Charles’s lifeless body. He’d claimed in his last moments that he didn’t know who my father was. I wasn’t entirely sure I believed him.
With each name crossed off my list, the chances of figuring out the mystery I hadn’t known I cared about were growing slimmer and slimmer.
As long as it wasn’t Jason, I supposed. Or Mike Thornton, considering I’d almost dated his son. If he were my father… I brushed the gross thought away. It wasn’t Mike or Jason. If what Charles said was true—that my mom hadn’t deemed Charles handsome enough—then she certainly hadn’t picked Dourif or Thornton.
“No,” Sebastian answered, kicking the body. “I think he was too entangled in Elliott Bradley’s web. He was going to defend him till the death.”
“Was that too messy?” Skye cringed, handing my daggers back to me after wiping Charles’s blood and gore off them.
“Jason was worse,” I told her.
“Oh, phew,” she sighed in relief. “I thought it was too much. God, I’m an actress, but pretending to be on board with knocking you two out and stuffing you into his car was too much.”
Sebastian bent down and put his hands under Charles’s arms, lifting. “Let’s get him to the boat. He gave us the tools. Might as well use them.”
“The boat?” Skye asked, heading toward Charles’s feet.
I joined her, and we each took a leg as Sebastian lifted his torso. Together, we took his body over to the rowboat and rolled him over the top, dropping him inside with a loudthump. We followed Sebastian back to the wooden chairs we’d been tied to and grabbed the cinderblocks, returning them to the boat.
“Will this float?” I asked. “With all of us in it?”
Sebastian’s brow furrowed as he stared at the boat. Skye put her hands up and stepped away. “You guys go. I’ll stay on land and try to clean up. I saw which building he grabbed the chairs from. There was a hose inside.”
“Are you sure? I mean, this is your kill.” I felt guilty leaving her on shore while we disposed of Charles’s body, almost as if I were stealing this from her. “If you want to go, you totally can.”
“No, for real, you go,” she insisted, but the smile she had on didn’t meet her eyes.
“I’ll stay,” Sebastian blurted. “You guys take the body. I’ll make sure there’s not a single trace of what happened. Skye, can you row a boat?”
Skye’s face lit up, and she threw her arms around Sebastian. “Oh, yeah. We used to go out on boats at Bible camp. Let’s go.”
We climbed into the boat, and as Sebastian pushed us off the shore, I realized that arguing over who got to dump the body was such an odd thing to fight over. I smiled, holding in my laughter.What was my life these days?
“What’s so funny?” Skye asked as she rowed us toward the center of the lake.
“Nothing. Just…this entire night. One moment I was signing autographs. The next I was watching a guy turn into a human juice box.”
“Oh my God, okay, so you heard that too!” Skye said. “I swore it sounded like Sebastian had popped the tab open on one of his energy drinks. I got a little thirsty,” she giggled.
I stared at her, so bubbly and unconcerned over our current situation. She’d been so upset over Jason’s death. She’d claimed to be a lover, not a fighter, and yet here she was, having fought for me.
“I love you so much,” I laughed.
“Right back at you.” She winked, and a moment later, she stopped rowing. Falls Lake was a set, so it wasn’t very big. It’d only taken us about two minutes to get to the center. “Okay, let’s weigh him down like he’d planned to do to you,” she said in such a chipper tone, it was as if she were talking about hauling groceries instead of a dead man.
“Wait. I want that journal,” I said. I searched inside his jacket, retrieving the leather notebook. Then, curiosity getting the best of me, I dug through the rest of his pockets, finding his keys and wallet. I tossed the journal onto the floor of the boat, then Skye and I started the process of rolling him over the side and into the water.
“Holy shit. This is harder than I realized,” she groaned as we lifted. We’d tried headfirst but barely managed to get his head out of the boat.
“Do the cinderblocks first!” Sebastian called from the shore. We turned to stare at him. His hands were cupped around his mouth as he called to us again.
Skye and I looked at each other and nodded.
We pivoted, hauling the cinderblocks over the side. Charles’s body practically flew out of the boat and down into the water. It happened so fast, I let out a small yelp as water splashed into the boat and onto our faces.
“Whoa…” Skye said. “How did he know that would happen?” She gripped the sides of the boat, trying to steady us.
