Page 32 of (My Accidental) Killer Summer (Summers in Seaside)

thirty-one

. . .

Elle

“Did you just wake up from a nap?” she asks, setting the bag down.

“Kind of,” I admit.

“You’re all flushed and rumpled.”

“I almost fucked Noah to keep him out of the garage.”

Amy nods sagely. “That tracks.”

She hands me a paper bag. “Brought you food. Figured you might need something besides stress and vengeance, and apparently fucking, to live on.”

I peek inside. Tacos. “God, I love you.” I peel back the foil on the taco and take a bite so large it should be illegal. I moan. “I said almost fucked, not fucked.”

She waves a hand in the air dismissively. “Tom-ay-toe. Tom-ah-toe.”

I finish the taco in as few bites as possible and grab another. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was until just now.”

Amy grins. “That’s because you’ve barely eaten today, and you’ve been running on crisis mode, caffeine, and sexual deprivation.”

I chew, then pause. “And murder.”

“Right. Can’t forget the murder.” She leans back against the couch, eyes flicking toward the hallway. “How is Dougy-boy anyway? Still chillin’ in the garage?”

“Unless he crawled out and is watching true crime documentaries to critique our form.”

Amy stretches her legs out in front of her. “I also brought wine and a family-size pack of mini peanut butter cups for dessert. Plus, tequila to switch it up when we celebrate later.”

“Solid priorities.”

“Anything else happen while I was gone?” she asks, toeing off her shoes.

“Aside from almost fucking my ex-husband to keep him from finding the corpse I’ve hidden in the garage that I had a breakdown over in the shower. Nope.”

Amy doesn’t even blink. “So... a normal Tuesday.”

I let out a short, strangled laugh. “God, what are we even doing?”

“We’re improvising. Poorly. But we’re doing it together.”

My throat tightens. “I don’t know if I can keep doing this.”

“Yeah, you can. You’re just not supposed to do it alone.”

“He’s going to find out, Ames.”

“He’s not going to find out. Now, tell me what happened when happened after I left today.”

We open the wine, settle on the couch, and I tell her about meeting with the school and how I fell asleep on the couch, and then Noah came back wanting to get tools from the garage and work on the bathroom.

I bring my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them.

“I’ll be honest, Ames, I was kind of hoping you’d come back with a full plan. Maybe a backhoe. Or fake passports.”

“I called a guy about a wood chipper, but he didn’t call back.”

I laugh again, but it’s thinner now. The kind of laugh that only holds back the scream.

Amy refills our wine glasses and lines up her peanut butter cups like little edible soldiers. “You kind of side-lined me with all your talk of hot sex and composting. I haven’t told you my news yet.”

“You have news?” I ask.

“I texted you a million times.”

“Right,” I say nodding. “Your plan.”

“My perfect and brilliant plan.”

I motion with my hands for her to continue.

She sits forward on the couch, excitement lighting her face. “So, my plan is called, wait for it, Operation Concrete Slab!” She pauses for reaction. “That’s funny, right?”

I nod. “Lay it on me, sister.”

“Okay.” She sits forward, excitement lighting up her face. “You know how there’s those new houses being built over on Hyacinth Street?”

“Yeah, they look nice.”

“Right, well, they just started pouring the concrete slabs, but they haven’t finished all of them yet.”

“You want to bury him in a concrete slab?” I ask.

“Nooo,” she says drawing the word out. “That would be next to impossible.” She pauses for another sip of wine. “I want to bury him in the dirt underneath where they plan to pour the concrete slab.”

“Can we do that? Like, logistically? I mean, aren’t those spots all pounded down and leveled out?”

“I thought about that.” She points a finger in the air, illustrating her point. “How hard can it be to just re-level a Doug-sized portion of that?”

I hesitate—not because it’s a bad idea, but because it’s… a real one. Actionable. Dangerous. The kind of thing you only go through with if you’ve officially stopped pretending any of this is normal.

“Is this a test? I give up. How hard?”

“Ha. Ha.” She flops back to the couch. “I don’t see you coming up with any better ideas.”

“You’re right. I was just going to start digging a hole in my backyard at this point.”

“Okay, that still can be our back-up plan if for some reason the construction site doesn’t work.”

I feel myself getting excited now. Nervous, yeah. But hopeful too. It’s a good plan. Risky, but good. Better than the panic spiral I’ve been caught in since this whole mess started.

“I’m in if you are.” I glance at the clock. “Sun’s pretty much down.”

“We’ll want to go late enough that no one’s around, but early enough we don’t fall into a sleep-deprived delirium halfway through and leave a foot sticking out of the dirt.”

“Sound logic.”

Amy reaches into her tote bag and pulls out gloves, two shovels, a flashlight, and zip ties. “Just a few things I thought we may need.”

“You brought zip ties?”

“In case the tarp rips or we need to bundle him tighter.”

I raise an eyebrow. “What, no chloroform or duct tape this time?”

“Already in the car,” she deadpans.

“Alright,” I say. “What do we need to do first?”

Amy raises her glass. “Cheers. To questionable decisions and flawless execution.”

I clink mine against hers. “To disappearing a corpse.”

“This feels like the kind of thing your mom would have something to say about,” Amy says.

“She would,” I agree with a laugh. “And it would be something along the lines of”— I sit up straight and affect a better posture—“If the options are suffering or sinning, pick the one that comes with wine.”

“Well, shit,” Amy says. “At least we got one thing right.”