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Her words trailed away when she realized they were no longer alone. Their bickering had attracted some attention. There were four men in billowing trench coats closing in on them from two different directions. They shone their bright flashlights into her face and the hole.
Sookie squinted.
Crap, crap, this isn't happening. We got caught.
Inside the grave, Jesse was still rambling on and on, totally unaware that they had been discovered.
"Jesse, shut up!" Sookie barked again. Oh God. How are we going to get out of this one?
The men stopped a few feet from them.
A thousand excuses ran inside her head and none of them was good enough to offer as a plausible explanation without implicating what she and her brother had done. She had a feeling what they had witnessed somehow was worse than desecrating the grave itself. Those men didn't look like cops or the employees of the cemetery. No, sir, they weren’t. The men were built like Mack trucks with menacing gaits and hardened faces. At this distance, Sookie noticed that they were packing. Flashlights weren't the only things they were holding. Sookie never would have guessed this was the day she would look into the barrels of guns. Her blood ran cold. Her heart froze in her chest.
Sookie was choked with fear. "Jesse!"
Her brother stopped dawdling. "What is it?"
"Put your hands behind your head and get up slowly," a burly man with a shaved head and sunglasses commanded her with a steely voice.
Sookie did what he asked. "I don't want any trouble."
Shaved Head seemed to be their leader. "Move away from the hole."
The other men barked an order to Jesse. Her brother startled at first, then grumpily climbed out of the hole, cursing under his breath. He saw the shaved head and murmured conspiratorially at her, "Geez, what kind of asshole wears sunglasses at night?"
Sookie stomped on his foot so Jesse would shut up. She drew a deep breath before she spoke to the shaved head, "Sir, we have a perfectly good explanation for this. My brother here accidentally stowed something in the expensive casket and we have to—"
"Shut it." The shaved head tilted his head and talked to one of his henchmen, who wore a long ponytail. "Is it open?"
"Yeah, they saw it."
"Nope, nope. We didn't see anything, hear anything or do anything. We aren’t even here," Sookie said quickly, hoping that these men would let them go.
Jesse seemed to realize that their situation was, indeed, dire and decided to be a good boy by keeping his mouth shut.
Shave Head narrowed his eyes. They were yellow. The fuck? Sookie shivered inwardly. Who the hell are these people?
Shave Head gestured with his gun. "Walk that way."
"But, sir—"
Sookie screamed when she heard a loud bang. Shave Head had fired a warning shot and the bullet had missed her by an inch. She pulled Jesse against her, shaking. But her brother’s body tensed, he was bristling. Jesse was rather attached to her. Once he outgrew her by a foot, he thought he was her protector. "No, Jesse," she hissed sharply. "Don't do anything stupid. Just do what he said."
"Like hell."
"Please, Jesse. Listen to me for once." Sookie turned to shave head. "We're cooperating. Don't shoot, please."
Shave Head gestured again, rather irritably. He seemed to be a man of few words.
Sookie tugged Jesse to start moving. Her brother didn’t budge until she pinched his arm. He cursed under his breath, trudging along grudgingly.
Behind them, the ponytailed man ordered the other two to fill the grave hole. He then joined Shave Head. The men herded Sookie and Jesse for a long walk to where they’d parked their car. A white van and a black Escalade flanked Sookie’s old Saturn. Sookie wondered how these men found out that the grave had been disturbed? Did they install security cameras or something? But I didn’t see anything resembling a camera when we were digging.
Jesse caught her eyes as a panic was settling on them.
She quickly shook her head. "Don't worry, everything will be all right," she whispered. "And please, don't do anything stupid."
Sookie knew her brother all too well. Jesse was toying with the idea of outrunning the men to their car. Just becau
