Page 35 of What We Bury

I stare at him via the rearview. “What is wrong with you, Holden? Boob tape is double-sided.”

Holden’s knuckles crack against the steering wheel. He does that when he’s calculating whether the prison sentence for murder is worse than the prison sentence for accessory to whatever the fuck I’m doing right now.

“You realize you were supposed to have his car dumped at the airport by now,” he says finally. “Phone trail running, you andMicah halfway to the desert with shovels. That was the timeline. Instead I’m usingmycar to drive us to a dive bar while watching you contour a dead man.”

“You’re watching mework.”

“Work faster. This feels way more risk than reward.”

I blend down Brock’s jaw one more time. “I’ll be done when it’s right, not when your spreadsheet says so. Geez. Micah is way more fun than you.”

“Then maybe you should have done this with him.”

“He’s got work. Just like we do. So, chill Detective Stick-up-your-butt. This is all planned out.” I set the sponge aside and work on making sure there’s the perfect amount of hair sticking out from the beanie. “You rush a disappearance, you get gaps. A phone in two places at once. A sighting that doesn’t line up. A grieving mother asking the wrong question of the right cop.” I pull the lip color from my kit. “Art takes time, Holden. Nobody rushed the Mona Lisa, and she’s just a woman with no eyebrows.”

“What happened to Plan A? The deepfakes.”

“That’s still happening,” I say. I smooth the lip balm over Brock’s lips, nodding when it turns them a healthier pink. “But when I put the plan to Loki, he said we needed to wait on Fenrir—like I couldn’t pass it off believably on my own.” I shake my head. “Still, we need something to post in the meantime, and they said they were fine if we had real photos. So, here we are.”

“Wait. Your backup plan is literallyWeekend at Bernie’s? I can’t imagine any of The Norse Gods okayed this.”

“They didn’t. And if you call them and make them stop me, Holden, I will never forgive you.”

He grumbles under his breath. “Your backup plan’s gonna get us caught.”

“My backup plan is genius.”

I think about the folding wheelchair in the trunk that I borrowed from the community theater’s prop closet. It’s got a squeak in the left wheel, but otherwise it’s perfect.

“We’re taking him on a tour. The story is we’re on a bro’s trip and he’s had one too many drinks. We wheel him around in a chair, put sunglasses on him, and generally make it seem like we’re having the time of our lives.”

“And when someone tries to talk to him?”

“Please,” I scoff. “As if anyone will speak to him when we’re around. We’re like a hundred times more attractive than him.”

“Great. So they can give descriptions of us as well.”

I roll my eyes. “Oh ye of little faith. I’ve got prosthetics and wigs, you fucker. No one will know it’s us.”

Holden mutters something under his breath.

I turn back to Brock and tilt his chin up to examine my work. Not bad. In dim lighting—and every bar worth drinking in has dim lighting—he could pass for drunk. Glazed expression, slack jaw, thousand-yard stare. I’ve seen living men look worse at last call.

I dig through my bag. I’ve packed it like a go-kit for the world’s worst field trip: sunglasses, makeup, tape, cologne (Dior Sauvage, because of course Brock wore Dior Sauvage), spare shirts in case of leakage, ice packs against his torso to slow decomposition.

Also a granola bar, because I skipped dinner.

“Where are we going?” I ask, pulling the scarf straight. One of the ice packs shifts against Brock’s ribs and I tuck it back into place under his shirt. His arm swings loose and slaps against the door panel. I grab it and fold it back into his lap. “Sit still! God. I’ve never known a dead man to fidget so much.”

“Murphy’s. It’s a dive down near Founder. Dark, loud, nobody looks at anyone too hard.”

“Perfect. Do they have food? I’m starving.” I eye Brock. “I’d kill for a steak.”

Holden doesn’t answer. I take that as a yes.

Murphy’s is perfect: dark, loud, sticky with spilled beer, and blessedly camera-free. Exactly the kind of place where a drunk Brock Davis could be seen without anyone looking too closely.

Getting Brock inside will be the hard part. Dead bodies don’t walk, which seems obvious, but movies really like to skip the logistics. A man with no muscle control is basically a bag of wet sand shaped like a person, and Brock is already stiffening enough to make every step a negotiation.