Page 5 of Harvest Maze

Another grunted. “Yes, you idiot, but he will blow a fuse when he finds out you were the one who left the body here.”

“It was a joke!” skull tattoo protested. “Ivry gets wigged out in the haunted maze. This was just a prelude to the fun.”

“I don’t think that excuse will work on the don.”

“He doesn’t have to know,” skull tattoo grumped. “Keep your mouths shut.”

Zipping the body bag, his buddy looked up at him. “Did you at least get her reaction?”

“Sure did!” Skull tattoo pulled a rocking chair over and reached into the eaves. “I’ll be laughing my ass off every time I watch it.”

“We’re going to need to see that too,” someone chuckled and lit a cigarette.

Do piče. My hands fisted.

This was all some big joke to them! I memorized their faces, promising vengeance for messing with my girl. Killing the don would add a nice deposit to my offshore accounts. Their deaths would only sweeten the experience.

These mafiosos would cry for their mothers.

They had no idea the suffering that was coming their way.

I plotted as they lugged the bag to the van, and once the vehicle lumbered down the street, I returned to my original purpose. Focused on their villainy, I was temporarily blind as I picked the lock on the back door.

But the moment I stepped into her house, I was hit with an incredible scent. It was warm. Gooey. Sweet. It pushed away the rage pulsing in my chest. I took a good look around, fully in awe of my surroundings.

Blazing fake leaves draped from the tops of the kitchen cabinets. The towels hanging off the oven handle had cartoon scarecrows and pumpkins on them. Other little trinkets and baubles littered her counters, adding pops of orange, yellow, and brown to the atmosphere.

This was a home.

I swiped a hand through my hair and shuffled my feet. Svätých! I didn’t belong here. It was too nice. Granted, I’d been to some of the premier destinations in the world. Grand hotels, palaces, and embassies, but no dollar amount could capture what was too prettily laid out here.

I took my boots off. They were clean, but it felt sacrilegious to wear them in this hallowed space. I wandered deeper into her house, noticing the laundry spilling out of a hamper. I don’t know what kind of madness possessed me. I plucked a shirt out and sniffed it. The same spicy scent from the kitchen was washed into the clothes.

Huh, I didn’t know cinnamon could be used in laundry detergents.

I took the shirt to her room, where I found a hanger and hung it in the closet. That felt good. I’d helped her. Going back to the hamper, I grabbed the handles, hauled it to her bedroom, and began the mundane task of putting her clothes away.

Finally, a good use for my obsessive compulsion for cleanliness and order.

I didn’t stop with the laundry. I went to her bathroom, and when I wasn’t smelling the soaps, funny lumps shaped like leaves that crumbled into salt, and bottles of lotions shaped like pumpkins, I pulled out the cleaning supplies from under the sink. My pretty little neighbor had to spend the day with that horrid man after his rats left a grotesque joke on her porch; the least I could do was clean her house.

She’d been celebrating this morning.

What other reason was there to stick a candle in breakfast food?

I wasn’t great with computers, but I was determined to snoop on her social media again the moment I got back to my hideout to find out what she was celebrating. She posted regularly. Lots of faceless pictures and curated videos, as if she were documenting her life.

Once I was done, I searched her closet. Another hamper, this one only partially full, was tucked just inside the walk-in closet. I crouched and shifted through the items. A black, seductive slip of satin was still inside a pair of jeans.

A dark rush surged through me.

Without questioning my proclivities, I looped them over my finger, cradling them in my palm. And inhaled.

Her scent. This sweet, intoxicating musk was all her. It was sick and twisted of me, but I didn’t care. I carefully folded the treasure and slipped it in my pocket. I would enjoy them later. They would keep me content until I could have the real thing.

And I would have her.

I didn’t know if there was a higher power or if some strange force pulled the strings of the world. Call it fate or destiny, but either way, it had brought her into my life.