deathtrap falling apart. Part of the poorly constructed porch had been attacked by termites. Darius had made a comment about it earlier. It took an idiot to build with wood in the desert. Gray was more concerned about the rusty nails poking out here and there.
“How are you coping with everything?” Darius stubbed out his smoke and pocketed the end. “You seem to be handling things well.”
Gray thought back on a lecture he’d been to in Seattle once. As part of research for a paper, he’d listened for two hours as an ex-convict, a police officer, and a former doctor spoke of the experience of taking a life. For the doctor, it had been an accident. For the police officer, it’d been during a robbery. For the ex-convict…well. But they all talked about guilt and a heavy conscience, something Gray hadn’t questioned back then. Because what the fuck did he know at that time? Now was different.
“My conscience is clear,” he said. “That’s what matters. I can process the rest when I get home.”
Maybe one had to be pushed to the extremes like Gray had—or seen enough evils in the world like Darius had… Either way, there would be no lost sleep over the lives they’d taken.
“Good. I’m proud of you.” Darius pressed a kiss to the side of Gray’s head on his way back inside. “Can you check the highway? Let me know when the road’s empty, and I’ll end Buck with his own gun.”
“Yessir.”
Gray and Darius spent the next couple hours erasing any traces of their ever having been in the house—and around the property. Darius went so far as to clear the tracks of the ATV and their boots in the sand around the backyard and a fair bit into the desert.
Jackie sat on the porch with a blanket around himself.
Darius had instructed him not to venture farther, just in case passing vehicles spotted him.
The sun dropped lower and lower.
In the distance, a pack of coyotes filled the silence with their howling.
“I feel bad just sitting here, Gray,” Jackie called into the house. “I know the plan by heart. I’ve rehearsed it to myself for hours. There’s gotta be something else I can do to help.”
Gray left the kitchen with some snacks from Warren’s grocery run and passed his body on the living room floor. Darius had covered it with a blanket for Jackie’s sake.
“You’ll have a big responsibility soon enough.” Gray set the tray on the table and inspected one of the rickety lawn chairs before taking a seat. He didn’t need to sit on a rusty wire or get bitten by a black widow. “Come get something to eat, buddy.” He didn’t want Jackie on the floor anymore. He could get hurt.
Darius joined them soon after, and he squatted down casually and lit up a smoke.
“I can get you a chair in the kitchen,” Gray offered.
Darius waved it off and slid his gaze to Jackie. “How you feelin’, kid?”
Jackie shrugged slightly, munching on a piece of bread. “I’m kinda blank at the moment. More focused on you two. The alibi thing—Gray told me you have to get home quick.”
“Gray and I will be fine, regardless,” Darius assured. “That said, the timing is a bit up to you. We will prepare everything down to the last second before we leave, and then your only job will be to throw a lit match into the living room.”
“And make sure you don’t stumble over this death porch,” Gray said pointedly. “The fire’s gonna spread quickly.”
Darius kept his contemplative stare fixed on Jackie. “What you have to decide is how long you believe you can stay here—by yourself—before starting the fire.” He paused. “Gray and I will be here throughout the night, so you don’t have to worry about being alone in the dark.”
Maybe he’d noticed fear or worry in Jackie, because once Darius told him that last part, even Gray could see how Jackie lost some tension in his shoulders.
“Let me get this straight,” Jackie said hesitantly. “The time between your departure and my setting this place on fire is what you have to work with—to get home, I mean.”
“Well…” Not exactly. Gray interjected, “If we push it, we can be home in twenty-four hours, but we don’t need that long. As a precaution, we only want to create some distance between us and here.”
“I understand.” Jackie set down his bread, thinking. “If I can sit out here and not have to go inside, I can wait until