Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 76309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
I’m used to doing ugly, difficult jobs.
And I’m fine with tasking risks.
My whole life has been one long ugly job, and it can’t get any worse.
I need the money. Grandpop needs the money. Cancer treatments aren’t cheap, at-home nurses aren’t cheap, retirement isn’t cheap. Nothing’s free in this godforsaken hell hole. All I want to do is provide for him the way he’s been providing for me his whole life, give him a few good years here at the end, and now I might be screwed. I might get caught with this corpse burrito, and what will Grandpop think then?
It’ll kill him. I’ll be a murderer. Well, an accomplice to an actual murder, and a murderer of my own Grandpop. Because he’ll die the second he hears what I’ve been doing. The man I love most in the world, dead of a heart attack.
“Shit,” I whisper to myself, unable to help it. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“I hear you cursing,” the man says, voice pitched low and soft like he’s talking to an angry cat. “It’s okay. I’m not a cop. If you don’t let me in right now though, things might get really bad for you, and that’s not a threat. It’s more like a warning. Time’s running out.”
What the hell is he talking about? Things might get bad for me? I just spent the last ten minutes wrapping a dead body up in blankets and fully planned on dragging it out to my beat-up Subaru station wagon so I could drive it out into the desert and dump the body somewhere it’ll get devoured by coyotes.
Things are already terrible.
“What’s your name?” he asks, sounding way calmer than I feel.
And the weird simplicity of the question yanks an answer from me before I think to keep my dumb mouth shut. “Renata. Everyone calls me Ren.”
First rule of cleaning up a murder scene: don’t tell the strange guy knocking on the door your actual freaking name.
“Okay, Ren. My name’s Lanzo. In about ten minutes, this place is going to be swarming with police. If you open the door right now, we can get that body out of here together, and maybe you’ll walk away from this without going to jail for the rest of your life. You don’t want to go to jail, right? Jail’s not fun, trust me. Jail fucks you up. Jail really sucks. So open the door if you don’t want to get fucked up.”
I stare at the knob. Then back at the corpse burrito. Then back to the knob. “That stuff about jail isn’t helping,” I say, forcing my voice not to tremble. “I’m having a really hard time in here.”
“I’m not trying to help. I’m trying to get you to open up. Then I can help.”
“You’re freaking me out, talking about jail like that. Who the heck are you? Did Dimitry send you?”
Lanzo snorts like I said something funny. “He told you his name is Dimitry? That’s cute.”
“Who are you talking about? Who the hell are you?”
“Look, Ren, we don’t have time for this. The guy you’re working for is a very, very bad man, and I’m pretty sure he plans on pinning that dead body on you. It’s kind of his move, if I’m honest with you. If you want to survive, open the damn door and come with me.”
My mouth falls open. This can’t be happening. “Is this some sort of Terminator reference? Are you doing the whole come with me if you want to live thing right now?”
He’s quiet for a second. Then: “Yes, and I kind of hoped it would work.”
“It’s not working. It’s only making me panic even more. What kind of freak would make a movie joke at a time like this?”
He sounds frustrated. “Will you just open up? I’m trying to save you from a few decades of prison time and you’re making it really difficult.”
“How do you know what I’m doing in here? You sound absolutely crazy, you know that? Maybe you got the wrong room.”
It’s probably too late to bluff, but I’ll admit, I’m not at my best.
He sighs. “You should’ve said that from the start. Please open up.”
“Okay, good point, still not opening the door.”
I need to think. This guy obviously knows more about the situation than I do, but how can I trust him? There’s a dead body wrapped in blankets behind me and there’s a strong possibility I might end up the same way. I start pacing back and forth, brain working a million miles an hour but coming up with absolutely nothing.
“Ren, we’ve got eight minutes before the cops arrive. I need at least five to drag that dead body down to my truck. That leaves us three minutes to spare, which is cutting it real close.”
“How do I know you’re not the one who killed this guy?” I put my hands on my hips, feeling triumphant. This is a really good point I’m making. “How do I know you’re not going to do the same to me?”