Page 87 of Boneyard HEA

“That was always happening. He helped.” I jerk my chin at Karsten, who smiles. “Now we need to get everyone happier, check for stuff we missed, and discuss what to do, while he is locked away somewhere safe.”

“With pleasure.” Aaron limps toward Karsten. “Just going to chain you to a wall for a moment, sir.” The sir is packed with irony.

“What? Tomás!”

“Not my call. If my friend doesn’t trust you enough, you can get locked away while we chat.”

“Fuck you all,” he mutters as he’s led away. “I enabled this. I got the equipment and made it all possible.”

“You damn well came here multiple times to rape girls.” Hoping for an excuse to punch Karsten, I pace after Aaron, and Rafael follows me. “Behave, and you get to leave.”

His glower is spiced with menace, but who cares.

I pause. “Would you ladies like to find some clothes, food, water?” I’m not sure what they want first. “Painkillers? I have a first aid kit.”

“Thanks. This is Georgia. We’ll find something.” Juniper nods. “I don’t usually get around naked. I’d do more stabbing of those fuckers, first, but it’d make it hard to clean up the mess.”

“Shit.” Bloodthirsty wench. Like I said to Karsten, muchos huevos. “Remind me not to annoy you.”

Georgia is smiling at that exchange, if timidly. I swallow, feel my jaw muscles ripple, and remind myself some women are tough critters too.

The bruises and cuts on them both are a thousand reasons for killing Karsten and burying him here. “Get Aaron a new pair of pants if you find any his size.”

“Will do.” Juniper gently places her hand on the other woman’s back as they set off down the hallway.

A quiet question from Georgia to Juniper reminds me this has become more complicated—not that killing two men ever could be. “Your friends aren’t police or anything, are they?”

“No. They aren’t.”

I lean on the doorway, watching as Aaron chains my so-called enabler to the wall then Rafael and I explore the layout of the house, to be sure we’ve missed nothing, with Aaron limping after us. It is strangely a normal house, apart from a few specialized fun rooms as Aaron informs us they were called. The rest has an abandoned air. Of the five bedrooms, only two were used by the men. I note where they’ve set up a dedicated desktop computer with multiple screens, as if for gaming. Knowing them, they screened their own homemade torture scenes.

Those files Karsten wanted erased, if they’re not copied onto external drives or on the cloud—highly doubtful—this is where they will be.

Satisfied that we won’t be ambushed or surprised by anything, we go to the dining room where the women are waiting.

The kitchen is behind the rectangular pine table, and already they’ve heated up a burger meal, which is probably what one of the men had left the house to fetch, plus found three untouched thick shakes.

“Would you like some?” Juniper indicates the neatly sliced burgers and piles of fries.

Rafael shakes his head. “Gracias, but no. I might go watch the front door, actually. Tomás?”

“Sure.” He turns and heads off. “I don’t need food either, Juniper.”

Rafael is probably feeling out of place in this discussion. Though he’s a friend, I promised to erase him from any consequences that might explode out of this unsanctioned murderous raid. That the property is supposedly owned by a shell company may make it easier to get away with what has happened. That blood he left on the wall will have to be scrubbed. The shotgun pellets. The flesh.

Could we burn down the house in a few weeks’ time, without being seen doing it?

“Tomás?” Aaron says.

“What? Oh? I was thinking.”

“Do you have a plan for how we get back to, well, civilization, without this all being discovered?”

I lean into my chair, rub the back of my neck. “I figure we need to see what Georgia is going to be happy with first.” She’s currently stuffing her face with burger, and I smile at her. “No hurry. You should take your time.”

“None at all.” Juniper puts her hand to Georgia’s shoulder.

She tries to chew and swallow fast, so I distract by mentioning the other problem.