brought actual body-removal bags, but left them in the backpack since we weren’t going to use them. If she’d shot them and we needed to keep the mess from spreading, we’d have needed them.
“Those thin gloves can sometimes leave enough of a print LEO can grab it, if the crime techs are good. Leave them on and put these thicker ones over the top.” I put a pair on as well, and then pulled a garbage bag from the box. “Assuming rigor hasn’t set, we’ll fold them in half. Ass goes in first, and then we can pull your garbage bags out.”
I reached for the IDs and called the control room with the app. “I need to know what kind of car these guys drive. Kitty and I can handle it without help. Just need to know which car to use to take out the trash.” I read off the names, date of births, and address.
“She okay?”
“Yes.” He’d been asking about her physical and mental condition, and we both knew it. The answer to both was that she was more than okay.
Three minutes later, he told me, “Black Tacoma, 2001. Grey Pathfinder, 2016.”
“Thanks.”
I disconnected, walked to the front window, and looked out. “Does the dad have keys on him?”
“Yeah.”
“Nissan?”
She dug them out of his pocket. “Yeah.”
“Unlock it.”
The lights blinked. Bingo.
“Put the IDs back in their wallets, and the wallets back where you found them. Keep any cash, leave the credit cards alone. We want to make this look amateur and not professional.”
I picked up a garbage bag and stood. “We’ll put the bodies in the van. You’ll drive the van, we’ll dispose of the bodies near their house, and then I’ll drive the Pathfinder...” I ran through the possibilities in my head. There was a chop shop east of town I could take it to, but could I stay away from traffic cams to get it there? I didn’t think so.
“Fuck. I don’t know. I guess we drop it in the hood with the keys on the dash and hope someone steals it. I’ll consider our options while we dump the bodies.” I ran my hand over my beard. “Please tell me you have an electric trimmer. I need to get rid of this before we get started.”
Kitty
The van wasn’t far from my front door, so it wasn’t far to take the bodies. Squatch carried the taller man, I carried the shorter. Both men were balled up into quadruple-bagged garbage bags, so they didn’t look like dead bodies. And Squatch and I are both stronger-than-human, so no human would’ve guessed we were carrying people in those bags, since we didn’t look as if they were terribly heavy. I’m sure an analyst would’ve known it by the way the bags hung, but I don’t think a regular person would notice.
I also figured I was overthinking it, but I was scared as fuck. No way would I allow myself to be taken into custody — even if it meant letting them kill me. I’d rather be dead than caged again.
Once we had the bodies loaded into the van, Squatch had me take my phone out of the sleeve and leave it on my bedside table.
He’d already shaved his head and face with the trimmer, so his hair and beard were about a quarter of an inch long. Now, he pulled something from his pocket, took his ballcap off and hooked it over his pinkie finger, put a flesh-colored knit cap on, and put the ballcap back on. He looked bald under the cap. Without his long hair and scruffy beard, even I wouldn’t have recognized him, just looking into a vehicle.
Standing before me though, I’d have recognized him with a paper bag over his head. His body, his size, his stance, his confidence. That, I’d have recognized anywhere.
We didn’t speak again until we were outside my apartment. He got me situated in the van, put a baseball hat on my head, tucked my ponytail into my shirt, and kissed me on the nose.
“The hoodie up will draw attention. Leave it off. Don’t look sideways at other cars. No eye contact. No singing. No picking your nose. Look bored. Drive like you have all the time in the world. Stay in the same lane. Don’t pass people. Don’t speed. Don’t do anything memorable.”
He climbed into the back of the van. “You’ll be driving it out of the parking lot again when we return to get their Pathfinder, so it’s best you drive it