Page 1 of Boneyard HEA

1

Juniper

(Find a Glossary of Australian terms in contents)

I’m not a stupid person. Or at least I hope I’m not.

I pause in the shoveling, dig the metal blade into the ground beside the makeshift grave, take a few deep breaths, then wipe my forehead with my shirt. One thing Australia has is sweat and heat in summertime, even at six PM…or whenever the fuck this is.

We also have a lot of spare land where few people go, but most of it is hard to reach. I would’ve loved to have dug this somewhere more discreet, but it is not easy to accomplish that. Male bodies weigh a ton. The mixture of sand and soil here makes digging less problematic.

Which is why I’m digging a grave beside this small gravel road that runs off the highway. Raising my head to listen for traffic, I only hear a distant hum, and the screen of trees is thick enough to conceal my nefarious activities.

“Deep enough?” I mutter at the tarpaulin-wrapped corpse as if the asshole can hear me. I wish he could, because then I could kill him again. “Fucker.”

Escaping a rape charge was simply a matter of lawyering up for him. Me? I’ll be in prison if or when I’m caught. The tension in my jaw, the aching, reminds me of my anger. My anger problem, some might call it.

Though I hope the body is never found, I’m prepared to go to jail to get the men who messed with Riley. This is a new decision.

I wrap my hand around the shovel, wriggle it to free it from the soil and glance at the remains of Nathan De Brit. The blood hasn’t seeped through the canvas.

If he wasn’t the victim, he’d probably laugh at what I’ve done today. Then he’d do something to me, same as he and his friends did to my friend. Raped her, then pretended it was consensual. He stood up in court and said he’d done nothing wrong.

They didn’t even have the other men. The cops never figured out the others were there, holding her down. Neither did she. The drugs messed up her memory.

“That video. I don’t know when or how you found it, and now I can’t ask you.” Not anymore. “Shit.”

I jam my eyes shut. Blaming myself will not help.

I don’t know their names, but I will.

There is a chunk as I push the shovel deep, biting the dry earth.

I killed a man today. I don’t feel good about that, but it feels right. Satisfying. Vengeance is mine?

Yesterday, I was staring at a future that was possibly going to be okay, with therapy, if minus my friend, but I had a plan. I sniffle, wipe my nose and wet eyes with the back of my hand, then keep digging.

If only he hadn’t lawyered up and been found not guilty.

If only Riley hadn’t killed herself. My heart drops. The world stops. As it always does.

Fuck.

I encountered him at the beach, in the small parking lot high above the sea. It was late, with the sun almost gone and no one else around—not even on the beach below. No cars, no other people, just a late seagull flying overhead and a crow in the tree.

A crow. Those are harbingers of death.

He laughed at something on his phone as he walked to his Porsche. Me, I was staggering a little, with my arms full of things. Rolled-up shelter. A bag with two books, goggles, and sunscreen, and the shovel I used to get the beach shelter properly set up. I’d accidentally dropped my phone at home and smashed the screen, decided to not bring it in case the waterproofing was fucked. I had a towel over my shoulder and was wearing one-piece swimmers. They were still wet, so the fabric clung to me.

He turned and smiled, staring, his gaze crawling down my chest like a slimy creature. Revulsion shuddered in—then recognition—like a cold fist jammed into my stomach.

I remembered him.

With my broadbrimmed hat squashed floppily on my head and wet hair clinging to my face, he clearly did not remember me, the friend of Riley. I’d sat in court, firing laser eyes at him and his brother and friends, who’d come to offer support.

The tear streaks might’ve disguised me on those days. Or the anger.

Therapy had subdued the anger, but not enough. Bad luck. For him.