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Right. Didn’t want to leave any evidence here, even though, a motel like this probably saw a lot of injuries from people who didn’t want to go to the hospital. Gunshot wounds, drug deals, all that fun stuff. I didn’t think we were in Eastcreek. Eastcreek was too small to have a shitty motel.
When he emerged from the bathroom, the duffel bag slung over his shoulder, I asked, “Was my mom home?”
“She was. Don’t worry. I told her I was picking you up from your friend’s house. She said she’s glad we worked out our problem so fast,” he said, flashing me a pearly white smile. Gareth didn’t often smile; usually it was a smirk, but I’d be damned if that smile of his didn’t make my stomach do a flip or two.
With what Alistair and Rick were going to do to the house… it’d probably make local news. Let’s just hope my mom was so lost in her own business that she wouldn’t remember dropping me off at that same house.
There was some hope; it wouldn’t be so unbelievable. My mom hadn’t seen the house. I’d made her stop at the base of the long driveway, and beyond that, my mom didn’t give a shit about anything that didn’t outright affect her.
“Ready?” Gareth asked, checking me out one final time. I bet he was thinking what a great job he’d done, picking out my outfit. I bet he was also thinking about the matching pair of panties and bra underneath my clothes and how he’d love to take them off.
I grabbed my phone, slid it into my pocket, and gave him a nod. Gareth started toward the door right when I said, “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
He froze and turned toward me, a single dark brow lifted on his face. “Are you sure you’re not still drugged up?”
“Uh, no, I feel fine. Why?”
The look he gave me was both hilarious and dramatic, though he acted completely serious about it. “That was a lame thing to say. I might have to kill you for it,” he deadpanned.
I stormed up to him, elbowed him in his gut, and told him, “Shut up.” It took everything in me to not laugh. What a jerk.
We walked out of the motel room, finding Alistair’s car parked in front of the room. Gareth pulled a key fob out of his pocket and unlocked the doors. He tossed the duffel back into the backseat and got in.
As we drove away from the motel, I couldn’t shake the uneasiness that crawled over me. Why did I have the feeling this wasn’t going to be the end of it?
Chapter Four – Alistair
When I made it back to the dilapidated house, Rick was waiting for me near the front door, leaning against the side of the house, his hands stuffed in his pockets. As he saw me pull up, he pushed off against the house, his mouth a thin line.
I parked the car and turned it off, slow to get out. I tossed Rick his keys back—old-fashioned keys. His car didn’t even have a remote start. Being the head sheriff and getting paid by me every now and then, he should be able to afford a new car easily, but I guess he didn’t want to advertise the fact that he was in anyone’s pocket.
“Did Gareth tell you we didn’t find shit?” Rick asked, running a hand through his brown hair. “Because we didn’t find shit.”
“Yeah, he told me.” I tossed him his keys back. “Need you to run to the store to get a few things. Best go out of town so no one recognizes you.” I gave him a list of things to buy; he didn’t write them down or type them out into his phone. This wasn’t our first rodeo together. “Go. I want to set this up before it gets too dark.”
Rick nodded, and he left, taking the car with him. That left me alone at the house, and I wandered inside. My feet took me to the living room area. Now that evening had fallen, it was getting harder to see inside the house with no electricity and therefore no lights.
Neo’s body lay where it had been before, untouched, all his blood pooled around him. I avoided the blood, stepping around him to see Brianna’s handiwork. The way the skin on his chest had been pulled back, almost like she’d skinned him herself, wasn’t something I’d peg her for.
Now, the face… where she’d started to peel back everything beneath the skin to get to the bones, that was much more like her.
Like her art, really. Brianna was fascinated with what dwelled underneath the surface, the bottommost layer. Still, as I stood there, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness as best they could, it was a pretty gruesome sight. I wouldn’t have expected Brianna to snap quite like this.
It just went to show you that you never could know what someone was capable of until they were pushed to the limit. Neo had pushed Brianna, drugged her up, made her next to helpless, and all she could do was try to seduce him. She’d succeeded, and then, as her strength had slowly come back to her, she’d had her fun with him in a way a clear-minded Brianna never would have.
Frankly, the death Neo received at Brianna’s hand was better than the death he would’ve gotten from me. After what he did to her, with how he had planned on killing her and framing Gareth for it… he put everyone I cared for in danger. A quick death, as messy and as bloody as it had been, was undeserved.
I would’ve made him last. I would’ve tortured the life out of him, taking my time while doing so. His screams would’ve been imprinted in my brain so I could hear them anytime I so chose. I would’ve broken his mind before breaking his body, made him a shell of the person he used to be, and then, when he finally begged for the sweet release of death, I’d give it to him. Slowly. Painfully. I’d make sure he stayed awake for all of it.
When Rick got back, we got to work. We made sure there were no fingerprints of ours or Brianna’s on the door to the house, on any of the light switches, and anywhere else she might’ve touched while out of it. We didn’t bother cleaning up the body, but we had to get the house ready. Stage it so that, when the firefighters came, we controlled the picture they saw.
They’d find a body in the same room the fire had started. It’d be charred beyond recognition, but there were clues they could find to assess who it was. They’d find Erin’s car in the detached garage when they went to investigate, along with a certain car that I was pretty sure belonged to Neo.
Rick would get called to the scene. His part in this would be perhaps the most important role he’d ever had. He’d have to guide the investigation, find clues… such as Erin’s cell phone, which we placed in the kitchen, near the sink. If any area of the house survived the fire, it’d be there.
With her phone and her car here, it’d be all too easy to have every finger pointed at Neo for her disappearance.
He’d have to look into Neo’s parents, question them, see if they had any involvement in this. I wanted to be a silent partner in this investigation. Rick would look into their backgrounds for anything that might point fingers at the Banks family, and he’d send any and all information to me for a second look.
