We ducked, the shoes of the dead men digging into our shins as we peered out over the edge of the hole. Headlights bounced down the gravel road toward us. The lights were square and widely spread, the kind you never wanted to see in your rearview mirror at night.
“Crap! I think it’s Nick.” I should have known he’d be staking out the farm. There was no way he’d stand aside and let someone else take over his investigation without keeping one foot in it. He’d probably seen us pull in. He’d probably waited, biding his time until we were sure to be ass-deep in a hole full of evidence before swooping in to catch us. Hopefully, he hadn’t called in for backup.
“What do we do?” Vero croaked as Nick’s car rolled to a slow stop beside Ramón’s loaner. It idled ominously, exhaust drifting over us like smoke, its headlights aimed right at us.
“There’s no point hiding.” This was it. There was no way out of the hole we’d dug that wouldn’t involve handcuffs and a conviction. “He knows Ramón’s car. He already knows we’re here. I should turn myself in. Explain everything. I’ll tell him it was all my idea.” Vero hissed in protest, grabbing my elbow as I rose to my feet. I dropped my shovel in surrender, one arm shielding my eyes from the glare of his headlights.
Vero stood beside me, her hand shaking as she set her shovel on the ground. Arms raised, we waited for Nick to get out of his car and arrest us.
The car door opened. He left the engine running, exhaust chasing away the smell of rotting bodies as his boots crunched slowly over the gravel toward us. He paused in front of his car, his body silhouetted between the beams as he reached into his left pocket. Probably for his handcuffs.
The wheel of a lighter rasped once. Twice.
I lowered my arm, blinking against the headlights as the flame ignited and extinguished. The red cherry of Nick’s cigarette glowed brighter with his long, thoughtful drag.
“I didn’t know Nick smoked,” Vero whispered.
“He doesn’t,” I said in a choked voice.
Vero tucked herself closer to my side. The man exhaled a long white stream that melted into the bright glow of the headlights and the blowing exhaust. A puffy jacket distorted the outline of his upper body. But it was his legs that drew my attention, spread shoulder width against the light. They were sturdier than Nick’s, two solid tree trunks rising from the ground. My eyes climbed them, pausing at the disconcerting length of his right arm, which was suspiciously longer than the one his cigarette dangled from.
“Finlay—？” Vero grabbed my hand as the barrel of a gun caught the light. My heart stopped as he pointed it at me.
“I can explain…” I said, hoping whichever cop I was staring at knew my sister, or maybe could be bribed with an autograph. The weapon issued a soft click and I shut up. He approached the hole, his gun aimed at us, his backlit face indecipherable in the dark.
“Get out.” His voice was low and rough, clipped at the edges like the rasp of his lighter.
“Aren’t you supposed to read us our rights?”
“I said, get out!”
Vero clung to my arm. On shaking legs, we climbed out of the hole, holding each other for balance.
“Turn around,” he demanded.
Vero and I turned toward the field. The officer’s headlights cast our shapes over the piles of dirt we’d dug up. Over the dim ghosts of a pair of filth-covered sneakers and the hazy outlines of rotting faces in the dark. My pulse raced as the officer’s shadow stretched closer.
“We didn’t know these bodies were here,” I sputtered. “My sister works for Fairfax PD. If we could just call—”
“Get on your knees,” he barked. This was it. He was going to cuff us.
“Look, I think there’s been a big misunderstanding. If I could just talk to—”
“I said, get on your knees!” He shoved the gun against the back of my head. I lurched forward, nearly tripping into the hole. Vero caught my arm, steadying me as I followed his orders and lowered myself to the ground. Resisting arrest was a charge we didn’t need right now.
Vero knelt beside me, her hand clutching mine, both of us shaking, waiting for the clink of his cuffs.
Instead, the cold steel of his gun pressed against the back of my skull.
My breath hitched. I squeezed my eyes shut, voice trembling as I asked, “Aren’t you going to arrest us?”
His gun shook with his deep, throaty laugh. It started low, then rose, climbing up the rough terrain of his throat and echoing back at us from the hole. He muttered something I couldn’t understand. Something that sounded a lot like Russian.