“How much deeper do you think we need to dig?”
“You hit water yet?”
“No.”
“Then keep digging.” Ricky Breedlove had stripped off his long-sleeved t-shirt. He'd worked up a sweat despite the biting cold. The moisture shone on his darkly tanned skin in the moonlight.
Cal's shovel bit into the swampy soil beneath his feet as he scooped yet another pound of black dirt out of the ground. The hole they'd dug was well over three feet deep and easily twice as long.
Burying a corpse had turned out to be hard work. Cal's back and shoulders ached with every shovelful of dirt he lifted. His barely healed knee was burning from the strain of carrying the dead girl's body into the deep, dark depths of the swampland that surrounded Possum Creek.
As much as Cal was loathe to admit it, he was glad that Ricky was here with him.
He didn't know if he would have had the stomach to carry the dead girl miles into the underbrush alone. It took everything he had not to stop and stare into her dead eyes every time he scooped another handful of dirt out of the grave he was digging for her. He turned back to the corpse every time he heard a noise in the woods, certain that Addy had been wrong and the girl was alive after all. Certain that she would wake screaming from the dead.
Ricky didn't seem terribly upset by the presence of a corpse. As far as Cal knew, David's father had never killed anyone, but he seemed a little too comfortable playing grave digger in the night.
The site Ricky had chosen for the grave was not noteworthy in any way that Cal could identify. He suspected that he'd never be able to find the grave again after tonight.
“How much deeper do you want to go?” Cal asked Ricky, more to pass the time than anything.
“Give her another six inches or so,” Ricky replied. “We don't want her dug up by scavengers. Need to put her deep enough in the ground that the animals can't smell her.”
Cal shuddered and kept digging. He tried to lose himself in the work. He had to struggle not to think about how tiny the dead girl was or wonder what she had been doing walking alone through the trails on the wildlife management area behind David's house.
He tried not to wonder if anyone was looking for her yet.
He didn't want to know if her mother or father was sitting anxiously by the phone, wondering why she hadn't come home yet or called.
His own mother had called him twice already. He'd given her the short version of the story he and David had agreed on. He'd told her that Ian had messed up his truck on the trails and that they were going to go help him. She'd believed the story. She had no reason not to.
Gracie had called him as well. He'd wanted nothing more than to curl up in the cab of his truck and tell her everything that had happened, but he hadn't. Ricky had been waiting for him and the dead girl in the toolbox had to be dealt with. He'd been short with Gracie on the phone, but he'd make it up to her. The best thing about his relationship with Gracie was that at the end of the day, no matter how bad the fight had been, they always managed to make things right between them.
Of course, there were some things that just couldn't be made right. Things like burying a dead girl in the woods to save your friend from a DUI he probably deserved.
“I reckon that's far enough.” Ricky stopped shoveling. His voice jarred Cal out of his own thoughts.
“You sure?” Cal asked.
“Yeah.” He kicked the side of the hole they'd dug and then tossed the shovel out. It hit the ground with a hard clang. Ricky put his hands on the side of the hole and then vaulted out with the agility of a man 20 years younger.
Cal followed in his tracks, moving a lot slower. By the time he'd freed himself of the make-shift grave, Ricky had already picked up the dead girl's body. The older man walked carefully to the edge of the freshly dug pit and then dropped the body down into the hole.
The girl landed with a dull thump. Her hair was covering her face.
Cal used his shovel to pick up one of the piles of dirt that had just been shoveled out of the hole. He was preparing to toss it back in when Ricky stopped him with a shake of his head. “You're getting ahead of yourself, Calvin.”
“I thought we were burying her?” Cal asked, confused.
“We are,” Ricky confirmed. “But first we need to get rid of any evidence we might have left on her.”
“How?”
Ricky didn't answer as he pulled a large greasy bottle of lighter fluid out of the small backpack he'd carried with them from the house. He opened the lid and liberally poured lighter fluid down on top of the dead girl's body. When the bottle was empty, he pulled out a book of matches and struck one.
“You're never going to feel the same way about barbecue,” Ricky promised morbidly as he dropped the match.