Page 146 of One of Us Is Guilty

I closed my eyes, lay perfectly still.

The trunk opened.

Even with my eyes closed, I could still sense a flashlight, maybe two, pointed right at my face.

‘Get out,’ said a voice. Male, older. Not a New York accent. A hint of something familiar, though. South African?

Dekker. And he was undoubtedly a pro.

I didn’t move. Waited for a few seconds.

No shots were fired.

That meant the guy with him was also an experienced killer.

Amateurs take no chances. They’d be worried that I might make a play and lunge for a gun, or make a run for it. Amateurs shoot you in the trunk. Safer. No chance for escape. But then they’ve made themselves a bigger problem. Now they’ve got to put their hands on me again, and manhandle my body out of the trunk, onto the dirt, and carry my bleeding ass to a place where I can be buried.

Amateurs carry bodies.

Pros make the bodies walk to their own graves.

‘Get out or I’ll put one in your knee,’ said the voice again, unmistakably Dekker.

I blinked, raised a hand in front of my face to shield the light.

It did no good. I couldn’t see a goddamn thing.

With great effort, I sat up. The nausea returned. I’d been hit on the head harder than I’d first thought. Probably I had a mild concussion. That didn’t help when I had to think my way out of eating a bullet in the next few minutes. I got up on my knees, threw my left leg over the lip of the trunk, found the earth with my foot then shifted and turned and got my other leg out, like climbing off a bike.

They’d left the headlights on in the car. I was in woodland. Thicktrees reached for the sky. A dirt track on the right cut through the forest. I could barely make it out, but it was there. I couldn’t see the men holding the flashlights. One flashlight was lower than the other, so I guessed that guy was shorter. The other, much bigger man had to be Dekker.

‘Turn around. Start walking, straight past the car. Don’t run. You’ll regret that,’ said Dekker.

I wanted to vomit. I couldn’t stand up straight. I had to lean on the car. My head felt like it was on fire. I looked around, hoping to see distant lights from a landmark somewhere. But there was nothing. Just black forest. Not even a sound. No birds, no bats, no animals. Not even wind.

The forest seemed like it was a dead zone. And it could be anywhere. I had no idea how long I had been in the trunk. We could be in Jersey, or upstate, Rhode Island or Virginia for all I knew.

I stared down at the car.

It was a dark blue Honda. Something disposable.

‘It doesn’t have to end like this,’ I said. ‘There’s got to be a way of working this out.’

‘You’re done. The only options you have left are whether it will be slow and painful or quick and easy. Do what I tell you and it will be quick and easy. Keep running your mouth, you’re gonna wish you were dead.’

I turned and walked along the side of the car, using it for balance. I couldn’t see far ahead. The flashlights blazing at my back threw my own shadow in front of me, long and dark, into the trees beyond the hood of the car. I glanced through the rear passenger window, saw a pick and a shovel lying across the back seat. They needed these tools, and obviously didn’t want to hand me either of them in the trunk. Same reason that they would take them out of the back and carry them to wherever we were going.

It was so dark they needed flashlights to see where they were going.

Dekker was the senior man. He would have a flashlight in onehand, his handgun in the other. He’s not the guy to haul the heavy digging tools. Or share the load.

But his friend? He would need a flashlight, and he would need to carry the tools.

So he had to put his gun away.

I knew when we eventually reached the spot they wouldn’t toss the tools to me and tell me to start digging either. Amateur mistake. Even if you have a gun, you don’t give the target a weapon, because they know the writing is on the wall and if you hand them a shovel, they’re going to use it to fight for their lives.

No, when we got to the gravesite, I’d be shot. And then I would lie quiet while they dug the hole for me.