The wheels protested as Gail turned another corner. The wagon carrying the dead body was heavy—much heavier than she’d expected. They’d already walked a good distance, zigzagging through dark alleys in an effort to err on the side of caution. She was exhausted, but they were almost at their destination and had only one more block to go. They needed to be long gone before the sun broke the horizon and people began their morning routines.
“Come on, Mom, you’re moving way too slow!” Gail looked over her shoulder, snarled out a whisper, and grumbled. “This whole shock-value idea was yours, and I really don’t want to live out the rest of my life in a six-by-eight-foot prison cell. Now step up your pace! I have to be at work in three hours.”
Janet Fremont followed a good fifteen feet behind her daughter and cursed. “I’m twenty years older than you, damn it. Have a little sympathy or maybe just slow down. Either way, stop yelling at me.”
Gail pulled off the sidewalk and made sure she and the wagon were tucked under the cover of darkness and the convenient low-hanging branches of a willow tree.
Janet’s sneakers squeaked on the concrete until she stopped inches from her daughter’s side and sucked in a few exhausted breaths.
“Mom, seriously? You need to keep up since it’ll take both of us to put Mr. Smith on the bench. I can’t do this alone.”
Janet eyed the wagon with a huff as she placed the man’s dangling and already discolored arm back under the blanket. “Okay, okay, I’ll try to keep up. I guess somebody has to make sure he doesn’t fall out of that damn wagon before we get to the park.”