Page 37 of (My Accidental) Killer Summer

I just need to figure out what.

twenty

. . .

Elle

“Change of plan,”I announce.

“Did we have a plan to begin with?” Amy asks.

“Ha. Ha,” I say drily. “I think we should just put Doug in his truck with the other body and roll them both off a cliff. It’s the easiest way to get rid of Doug’s body.”

“I would agree,” Amy says. “But it’s broad daylight now. People will see when we move the body and get suspicious.”

“Duh,” I say. “That’s why you’re going to jump in Doug’s truck and drive it away. I’ll follow you and we’ll wait to move the body someplace private.”

“Why do I have to be the one to drive Doug’s truck?” Amy asks.

“Because I’m already driving my car.”

“I’m not super comfortable driving around with a dead body,” she says.

“What the hell do you think we’ve been doing all morning already?” I ask.

She thinks on that for a moment. “I’m not sure. But somehow, it’s different in my mind.”

“Figure out a way to un-different—” We turn the corner onto the street Doug left his truck and I slam the brakes so hard Amy nearly face plants into the dashboard.

“My God, woman,” she says, sitting up and fixing her ponytail, “was that really necessary?”

I point ahead. “Look.”

Doug’s giant banana on wheels sits in the same place, parked all wonky on the side of the road like it got drunk and gave up halfway through a parallel park. Except, the problem isn’t the truck—it’s the crowd of people around it. Civilians and cops alike, many sipping at their morning coffees and taking in the goings on like they’re watching some sort of Neighborhood Watch-sanctioned live murder retelling.

Amy leans forward, squinting through the windshield. “This is bad.”

She’s right. It is.

I pull up to the curb across the street and leave the engine running. I just want a peek. Maybe a scrap of info to tell me how fast I should be panicking. Like, are-we-bonfire-levels-of-incriminated or just a mild-mistake-and-some-therapy level of fucked?

And because the universe has the comedic timing of a coked-up ferret with a vendetta, the crowd parts and a man steps through. Pulling off latex gloves and handing them to one underling while barking orders to another.

Detective Noah Grant.

Tall. Built. Brooding. Hot in that “please ruin me emotionally and I’ll thank you for it” kind of way. Most of the women, and some of the men, watch him appreciatively as he ducks under the yellow tape, and strides toward a government-issued SUV like the fate of justice depends on him and his very chiseled jawline.

If it’s even possible, he’s gotten better looking in the last two years.

Amy groans. “How is it that he smolders even at a murder scene?”

“I hate him,” I whisper reverently, like I’m confessing a sin to the Church of Petty Ex-Wives.

“Oh. Yeah. Me too,” Amy agrees.

Noah’s face is all business, which is somehow worse. I can handle flirty Noah. I can even handle angry Noah. But Detective Grant—cool, composed, morally upright—is the guy who once promised he’d never stop loving me.

Clearly that was a lie.