AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I reached for my purse, taking my phone quietly as if making a noise would awaken Murphy. He wasn’t waking up. Ever.
I was bloody and dirty, and I didn’t want to stain the armchair in the corner of my bedroom. I tiptoed backwards, back into the safety of the tiled bathroom, sitting on the floor as I dialled Dornan on my regular phone with shaking fingers. He answered almost immediately.
‘Hey.’
I thought hearing his voice might move something inexplicable inside me, make me cry, make me realise the full impact of what had just happened. I just killed somebody.
Nothing.
I felt nothing. I missed Dornan. I wanted Dornan here, to help me.
‘What are you up to?’ I asked, my voice clear, my tone casual. I must be in shock, I thought. That’s got to be the only reason I can’t feel something right now.
I could hear commotion. He was at home. I heard his boys in the background, his wife. ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked me.
‘Who is that?’ I heard his wife say. My heart sank. Doubt flooded through my mind. He was with his wife. He’d go to bed with her tonight, and he’d wake up tomorrow morning with her, and he was never going to leave her for me, so what the hell was I doing, living like a prisoner, lying in wait six days a week only to have him on the seventh for a mere few hours? He’d told me that he didn’t sleep with her any more. He told me he didn’t love her, that he only stayed because of his boys. And I’d believed him. But was he lying? Did he still touch her? Kiss her?
‘It’s okay,’ I said quickly. ‘We can talk tomorrow.’
The ghost of a smile flickered across my mouth as I stared blankly at Murphy’s shiny black shoes. They gleamed as the bright bathroom light reflected off them, showing up tiny specks where blood had misted over them. It seemed to have taken forever for the flow of blood from his mouth to slow down.
‘Sounds like a plan,’ he said coolly, and he hung up on me.
I stared at the screen, chewing on my lip as I glanced up at Murphy.
What the fuck was I going to do with him? He was heavy. I contemplated getting my hands on a chainsaw and dismembering him in my bathtub. Too messy, and maybe a little too gruesome, even for me. Acid? I didn’t know what the bath was made out of, or even what type of acid to use. I was completely unprepared for my initiation into the killer club.
I racked my brain. If I could somehow wrap him up in something, then I’d be able to put him in a car and dump the body far, far away. But he was a DEA agent. His DNA was probably everywhere in my apartment, not just from the fact I’d blown a hole in his skull tonight, but from his previous visit where he’d tried to make it like a fucking dinner date. He’d touched everything in my kitchen, in my living room, the dining table . . . No, I had to somehow get rid of his body so it would never be found.
I snapped out of my daydreaming and stood, passing Murphy’s dead body as I made my way to the kitchen, leaving smudges of blood where I’d not wiped every smidge of blood from the soles of my feet. I was going to have to Lysol the hell out of this apartment, I realised grimly.
But that would have to wait.
I still had the enormous problem of a body to get rid of.
I opened the pantry and shifted a few things, finding the flour canister where I always left it. I set it on the counter and reached my hand inside, the blood left on my fingers mingling with the white powder to create globs of garish pink. I swallowed thickly as my fingers located the plastic ziplock bag I was rummaging for. Shaking free the excess flour, I unzipped the plastic bag, tipping the burner phone into my hand. I switched it on and navigated to one of the three numbers it contained.
* * *
He answered after two rings. ‘I thought you’d never call,’ John joked, and I could imagine the cocky grin on his face. It was true, I hadn’t used the phone to call him once, and he’d given it to me almost a decade ago.
‘I need your help.’
He must have heard the seriousness in my voice, because his response was devoid of the jovial tone he’d greeted me with.
‘What happened?’
‘I shot Murphy. He’s dead. He’s in my apartment.’ Might as well get to the point.
A long pause. Then, ‘Fuck, Ana. Jesus.’
He never called me Ana. Always addressed me by my full name. I guess murder cut the need for formalities.
‘Does anyone know?’ John asked quietly. ‘Does Dornan know?’
‘Nobody knows,’ I said, taking a bag of ground coffee from my freezer and kicking it shut again with my bare foot. Another surface I’d need to scrub clean. Great. I flicked the coffee machine on and left it to heat up, taking two mugs from the dish drainer and setting them beside the bag of Colombian roast. The small photo of lush Colombian jungle on the package taunted me, reminding me of where I came from, of where my son was. ‘John.’
‘Yeah.’
