Oliver was beginning to sweat heavily in his sweatshirt.

It was the humidity, sure, but it was also the sounds. He listened to the scraping of Micah’s trowel as he dug out the corner grave in the cemetery. Try as he might, he couldn’t drown out the sounds—the shhesh-shhush as Micah made piles of the displaced dirt, the louder breathing as the heat and the work took its toll, the sudden bursts of loud, cackling laughter from a house down the street. . . .

“Are you almost done?” It was a stupid question. Oliver wasn’t foolish enough to think unearthing a coffin was a moment’s work. He shifted, trying to stay low enough to blend with the gravestones and mausoleums. With no trees and little shadow, they were completely exposed to the night and to whoever might come looking.

That smoky, unsettling barbecue smell drifted over the cemetery, mingling sickeningly with the heat.

Micah said nothing, continuing to dig.

“Listen, I told Sabrina I’d talk to you about this Diane thing. She’s not happy about it. Y’all are grown-ups and it’s none of my business, I know that, but like . . . Don’t you think with your family and everything it’s just not a great idea?”

“I wouldn’t exactly be bringing her around for supper.”

“That’s what I mean. Don’t you think that’s wrong?”

“Could you shut up? I’m trying to work here. . . .”

Oliver winced, turning to make sure nobody was watching them from the rear fence of the cemetery. Silence. Silence and then that sudden laughter and the smell of cooked, smoked flesh filling his nose . . . He tightened the muscles over his stomach, forcing down a wave of nausea. Closing his eyes, he visualized that two grand. He pictured getting his first tuition bill, setting up loans, trying to make this degree work with what little he could scrape together.

And anyway, Micah was taking the bullet, doing the worst of the work.

“Sorry,” he whispered, wiping at the sweat pouring off his temples.

He rested his arm against the stone of a stout, rectangular mausoleum, feeling the stone gradually warm against his overheated skin. With no trees there were no strange shadows to wreak havoc on his imagination, but without that cover he felt watched, and maybe he should. If all the mystic mumbo-jumbo Micah believed in was even half true then surely their actions were stirring up the dead.

Shivering even in the humidity, he grew still, hearing the trowel make a hollow cracking noise, bumping against more than dirt.

Micah mumbled something, maybe a prayer, and then Oliver heard a rusted latch giving way to metal snips. He had to wonder just how many tools of the trade Micah had in his bag; Oliver had never asked for a tutorial. If he knew how to break into a secured building or pick a lock, then he’d have no reason to bring Micah along on these jobs. He’d have to go alone, and that, he thought with a noisy swallow, was not an option.

He turned and knelt in the disturbed dirt heaped beside the grave. Micah hadn’t dug very far. Oliver wondered if maybe the hurricane had left the graveyard with less topsoil and therefore less to cover the grave. St. Roch’s had been under standing water just like everywhere else. The coffin was old, or maybe that was just what earth, wear and tear, and a flood did to a wooden box. Almost all of the other marked graves were above ground, corpses safely covered by stone or within the mausoleum itself, much smarter for flood country.

This grave, he noticed, wasn’t marked at all.

“Are you going to keep watch or help?” Micah asked, out of breath. He jammed the trowel between the lid and side of the coffin, wiggling it.

The lid began to give and Oliver felt his courage waver. “Keep watch, I guess. Um, let me know if you need help.”

But actually please don’t.

He swiveled, closing his eyes again as the sounds continued, painting almost as vivid a picture as if he were watching the robbery itself. His mind filled with sudden doubts. He really should have read up on the penalties for getting caught doing this stuff. Was it better or worse that they were stealing from a dead person? No injured parties, really, but trafficking in body parts couldn’t be nothing in the eyes of the law, either. Shit. Maybe he should have told Sabrina more about this. She was clever, clever enough to stay away from shady crap like this. . . .

But not clever enough to stay away from me.

“Bingo,” he heard Micah whisper. There was another sound, the worst one, listening to the quick, meaty chop as Micah severed the fingers from the hand. Flesh. Jesus, that meant the body couldn’t be that old. Micah winced, trowel scraping along the bottom of the box as he scooped up the bones.

“This is so disgusting,” Oliver hissed.

“There’s no blood or anything.”

“Not the point, man.”

“I’ve got what we need,” Micah said, ignoring him. “Let me cover this back up and we can—”

“Hey!” Oliver froze at the sound. It was a man’s voice, loud and clear, calling to them from across the yard and back toward the entrance gate. “Hey there! Is someone there? What do y’all think you’re doing over there?”

“Shit! Run!” Micah shoved the trowel and a plastic baggy into his backpack and took off running, closing the gap between the unearthed grave and the back fence of the cemetery.

Oliver tripped into a sprint, chest squeezing with sudden panic. They were caught. It was over. That guy would call the police and they would get picked up, bye-bye, Austin. . . .

“Faster than that, moron!” Micah whispered, dropping to his knee and motioning for Oliver to hurry his ass up. Oliver pumped his legs faster, listening to the man bang his fists on the iron gate, shouting at them still and getting louder. He didn’t hesitate, grabbing the closest bars and using Micah’s hands to vault over the tall, sharp points of the fencing. Micah landed beside him a second later and grabbed him by the sleeve, yanking him along a weedy, paved plot to cut diagonally back toward the car.

Was that a siren? Was his mind messing with him?

As they fled, Oliver took one last look behind him, breath lodging in his throat as he noticed the figure in the distance. Just a shadow, maybe, just a trick of the eye, but it looked like a tall silhouette stood over the unmarked grave, watching them run.