THIRTY-ONE
Amber lay in bed. Stared at the ceiling. She was in a hospital room that looked nearly identical to the one she’d been in after she was shot.
She had no idea how long she’d been here. She could recall only bits and pieces of everything that had happened since she’d arrived. Her clearest memory was of meeting with a doctor after her surgery. He’d told her she was lucky to be alive.
She didn’t feel lucky. Didn’t really feel alive, either. Whatever medication she was on made her feel dazed and tired. Like she was in a dreamworld. She vaguely recalled speaking to a police detective at some point. He’d asked her a number of questions but she couldn’t remember what he’d asked or whether she’d actually been able to form responses. She was just too tired to remember much of anything.
In a way, her grogginess was a positive: she was so exhausted that nothing that happened yesterday truly seemed real. Ross was dead. She’d shot him. She remembered that much, but it just wouldn’t register that he was gone. Everything would sink in at some point, she figured. Just not now. Once the drugs wore off, she’d probably be able to recall with total clarity everything that had happened, and the full weight of it all would come crashing down on her. After that happened, maybe she’d be able to numb the pain. Convince herself that the man she’d killed wasn’t the real Ross, the Ross she loved. That he was someone different. Someone who was out of control. The way he was acting, it was inevitable that he would get himself killed. She’d only prevented him from hurting anyone else on the way out.
Not only was Ross gone, but her life was over, too, she knew. There’d be no happy ending for her. Ross was dead and she was looking at years in jail for the bank robbery. No way she was getting out of that. If she was convicted of murdering Ross on top of the robbery, she might spend the rest of her life behind bars, though she figured a jury might view it as self-defense.
There was a pinprick of pain in her stomach. Not too intense, but even through the haze of the medication, she felt it. She winced. Closed her eyes. Tried to ignore the pain. An image suddenly came to her. The face of the woman involved in all this. Karen. And her son. Couldn’t remember his name right now. Amber wondered what had happened to them. Wondered if they were safe. Wondered if they’d survived. She hoped so.
If nothing else, she hoped that at least someone would have a happy ending.
Karen drove out of Hawkeye Wildlife Management Area. Back onto the gravel roads. It’d be faster to get to her destination via the highway, but she wanted to avoid any and all major roads. Something bad could happen on a major road. A distracted driver, an accident, the police arriving to look at the damage and wondering about the smell coming from the trunk.
She drove on, tires crunching over gravel and kicking up rocks. She occasionally encountered a truck heading in the opposite direction but she was mostly by herself. She constantly looked back at the car trunk in the rearview mirror. A dead body was back there. A dead body she was about to dispose of. It was all so unbelievable.
Driving on the gravel roads was slow going, but after what felt like an hour, she arrived at an area that was perfect for what she needed to do. She parked on the side of the road. All around her was farmland. No cars, no houses. Cedar Rapids was just visible in the distance, ten miles away at least. Just a few feet off the road was the Cedar River, the biggest river in the area. Even with the cold temperatures, it wasn’t frozen over. Just a few chunks of ice floating in it.
Isolated and right next to the river—the spot was ideal. She grabbed the bag of clothes and walked over to the grassy marsh beside the river. This close, she could hear the noises of the river, the flowing, the movement. She threw Joshua’s clothes, one by one, into the river, then wadded the garbage bag into a ball and threw it in. She watched the current carry everything away. There was no telling how far they’d go. The river eventually met up with the Iowa River, then the Mississippi River. From there, they could end up anywhere.
She walked back to her car and stood outside the trunk. She scanned the area around her, looked back and forth. Nothing. Still no one and nothing nearby.
It was time.
Her heart was hammering. She hit a button on her key fob and the trunk popped open a few inches. She opened it all the way and was hit with a musty smell that was a little more intense than it had been earlier. She turned her head to the side and held her breath as she reached into the trunk. She wrapped her arms around the body and lifted it out. Flopped it onto the ground.
A final quick look around. Nothing. No one.
She grabbed the body’s arms and dragged it off the road. Down into the roadside ditch. Across a few feet of land that separated the road from the river. There was no time to waste. She felt as though she should say something, some final apology, but she remained silent. It seemed so cold and heartless, what she was about to do, but she just didn’t have a choice. She just couldn’t leave the body in the forest, just waiting to be discovered, like a ticking clock, counting down.
She bent down and shoved the body out into the water. The river was shallow at the edges and the current wasn’t strong. The body just stayed there, barely submerged in water. She took off her shoes and socks and walked out into the river, submerging her feet in the icy-cold water, and pushed the body toward the center of the river.
Eventually, the current picked up the body and it started floating away, down the river, away from her.