Chapter 30

Chapter Thirty

Alison saw us stuffing my father's dead body into the trunk.

She had to have seen. It's dark out, but not that dark. And our porch lights are on, providing extra light. I don't know why I didn't turn the damn porch lights off. What's wrong with me? That's like Murder 101—turn out the stupid lights before going outside to stuff a dead body in the trunk.

But then again, maybe she didn't see. She's got her dog with her—a mutt who seems a lot friendlier than she is—and maybe she's too focused on picking up the dog's poop, or whatever dog owners do during walks. There's no guarantee she knows what we were doing. I mean, even if she saw everything, all she knows is that we were stuffing a carpet into the trunk. Maybe we're having the house re-upholstered.

Of course, if she hears my father has gone missing, she'll be able to put two and two together pretty easily.

"Hi, Alison," I croak.

Slug looks up sharply at the sound of her name. He stiffens but doesn't say a word. Under other circumstances, he would be nudging me and talking about how hot she is.

"Hello," Alison says tonelessly.

I sprint halfway across my yard to talk to her. It's too dark to see her face, which means I can't tell what she's thinking. Did she see us? Did she?

"Walking your dog?" I ask.

She looks down at the leash in her hand. "Uh, yeah ."

"Kind of late for that, isn't it?"

She lifts a shoulder. "Rufus will protect me."

As if on cue, the mutt starts growling at me. Great. The dog is going to maul me now. Just what I need.

"Shush, Rufus," Alison hisses at her dog.

The dog won't stop growling. He's really worked up, and now he's straining at the leash, hard enough to jerk Alison forward.

Except he's not going for me. He's trying to run past me.

"Sorry," Alison grunts. "I don't know what's gotten into him."

I don't either until Rufus dashes over to the Oldsmobile. Slug looks panicked for a moment, backing away from the car with his hands up, but the dog comes to an abrupt halt at the trunk of the car. And then he starts barking like a wild animal, all his energy directed at the trunk.

"You got any raw meat in there?" Alison asks us. "He only acts this way around raw meat."

I don't even know how to begin to answer that, because I am frozen in absolute horror, but then Slug speaks up, "Yeah, I was just grabbing some hamburger meat and hotdogs from Tom for a barbecue my family is having tomorrow."

"Well, that would do it." Alison tugs on the leash, trying to pull away a very reluctant Rufus. "By the way, Tom, have you had a chance to talk to Daisy?"

Please, not this—not now. "Not yet."

"But soon?" She peers at me through her thick glasses. "Right?"

"Right," I say tightly.

Satisfied with my answer, Alison manages to pull Rufus away from the trunk of the Oldsmobile, and once they're back on the sidewalk, the dog reluctantly continues on his way. Slug and I watch Alison walk away, both of us practically afraid to breathe.

"She saw," he says when she is for sure out of earshot. "She had to have seen."

I look over at Slug, who is staring off into the distance, where Alison is only a tiny dot. "I don't think she did. It's pretty dark."

"She knows we were doing something ," he points out. "And that damn dog wouldn't stop barking at the trunk. Once she finds out your dad is missing, she's going to put it all together."

"Maybe not."

"Come on. Are you really that stupid, Tom?"

I rub my face with the palms of my hands. "So what are we supposed to do about it?"

Slug is quiet. "I don't know. But it's a big loose thread."

I can't deal with this. I've already got enough to deal with. We still have a body in the trunk we have to get rid of. I can't even begin to think about Alison right now. "What are we going to do about the body?"

"I was going to say maybe we should throw him in the river. Make it seem like he got mugged and then tossed." Slug fingers the trunk of his car. "But now that Alison saw us, I'm thinking we should bury him. So they don't find him for a while."

Bury him. Like Brandi Healey was buried.

"Fine," I say. "Should I grab a shovel?"

Slug shakes his head. "I already got a couple in the back seat."

Of course he does.