“Aren’t you going to ask what happened?” she asked.
Clay traded a wry look with Ezra—it was always the way; people practiced their lies for so long that they felt hard done by if they didn’t get to tell them. He turned back.
“No,” he said. “Not like I was going to vote for you anyhow.”
He closed the study door on her frown.
Chapter Three
Grade went through the dead man’s pockets.
He emptied out an iPhone with a broken screen, a single AirPod—the tiny sound of a streamed podcast still just about audible—and a wallet with a couple of credit cards and a bloodstained scrap of folded-up paper. He smoothed it out, glanced at the writing, and handed the claim ticket to Clay.
“If anyone asks, say he asked you to grab it for him,” Grade said. “You’re an invited guest, so no reason that should cause any suspicion.”
Clay laughed. “Are you kidding?” he asked as he tucked the scrap of paper into his pocket. “Have you met me? I’m enough reason for suspicion.”
Grade slid the phone and wallet back into the man’s jacket. The fabric was sticky as the blood started to cool. He stood up and snapped his gloves off.
“Just try not to be memorable.” He rolled Clay’s sleeves down and buttoned the cuffs. “Eye witness testimonies are notoriously unreliable. By the time anyone questions the coat check clerk, all he’ll remember is some guy in a suit.”
Clay leaned forward and grazed a kiss over Grade’s mouth. It was just a tease of warm lips and liquored breath.
“Hot guy in a suit,” he said. “Admit it. You want me.”
It wasn’t the time or the place, Grade tried to remind himself of that, but he still leaned into Clay as he tried to catch the kiss on offer. He caught himself and stepped back, his throat dry as he cleared it.
“It’s not like there’s a lot of competition,” Grade said. “It’s you or a guy I once saw chug a quart of used vegetable oil on a bet. So…”
Clay just smirked. He dropped his hand to the waistband of his trousers and flicked his thumb over the button.
“You want to fuck me in the suit,” he said confidently. “Just admit it.”
Grade narrowed his eyes in annoyance. There wasn’t time for this. He had to move twointactcorpses, clean the scene, and script a new death for both on the drive back into town. That would account for his time right into tomorrow. He couldn’t waste time denying the obvious.
“Maybe,” he said.
Clay snorted as he unbuttoned his cuffs. “Definitely.” He folded his sleeves back up his forearms deliberately.
“The ink, they’ll remember,” Grade said.
Clay just shrugged. “That’s OK,” he said. He pulled the ticket out of his pocket and held it up, pinched between two fingers. “I’m going to make Harry do that anyhow. Car theft is more my wheelhouse.”
That got Grade’s mind out of the gutter. More or less. He waved an exasperated hand at the splattered cellar.
“I need an extra pair of hands,” he said. “Unless you know someone else at this party willing to haul corpses around, that means I need Harry.”
“It’s a coat,” Clay said. “How long can it take him to steal it?”
***
Twenty minutes.
The dead woman’s heels bounced down the stairs as Grade got her under the arms and pulled her across the room. The tail ends of her hair trailed through the puddle of blood that had leaked out of the back of her head.
Twenty minutes, and—Grade let the body drop once they were clear of the stairs and checked his watch—counting. He wasn’t going to hold his breath. He had a feeling that Harry wasn’t exactly motivated to hurry back. So far he’d already managed to miss dealing with the mess of the man’s corpse, currently wrapped up like a plastic burrito and propped up in a seated position in the corner of the room. Drag it out another ten minutes and all he’d have to do was help carry them out to the van.
The second plastic sheet was already laid out on the floor, taped down at the corners to keep it neat. Grade put his foot against the body’s hip and shoved to roll her onto the sheet. She flopped onto it, arms and head slack, and ended up flat on her stomach, her face mashed against the floor. Grade manhandled her onto her back to avoid as much disruption to the already settled lividity as possible. It would still be obvious to a competent pathologist that she’d been moved, but the truth was most bodies didn’t get theCSI: Vegastreatment.
