Possibly while there was a bug in the room. Damn it.
“Did Dan ever tell you what happened to his friend Michael? His special friend.”
Otto shakes his head. They’d never spoken about it, although at least half of the story was in Dan’s file. Michael had been written down as having died in a car accident, conveniently right after Dan was sent to Aylewood. Otto’s never been under any illusions as to what actually happened.
“I shot him in the head,” Ronmin says, his eyes flat and emotionless like a snake’s. “With this gun actually,” he continues, pulling it from a holster underneath his jacket. “I don’t like it when people lie to me. I don’t like it when they disobey me either.”
Beside him, Dan suddenly stills. The scent of fear remains but when Otto glances over at him, his face is suddenly blank.
“Get on your knees, both of you,” Ronmin says.
And now there’s another scent of fear joining them: this time it’s Garrett.
Ronmin glances over at the other alpha, a flicker of irritation on his face.
That’s how it works, asshole, Otto thinks. Most people don’t like murder. There’s no such thing as a perfect henchman. Only psychopaths. And they want your job.
Beside him, Dan gets to his knees.
Otto doesn’t.
“You don’t want to die, do you?” Ronmin says, his eyes fixed on Otto’s.
Of course not, you lunatic. Otto keeps silent.
“I think I’m going to give you an option,” Ronmin says, his gaze flickering to Dan on this knees beside Otto. “You see, there seems to be a common denominator here. Someone who keeps causing trouble with my men. Maybe you’re not wrong, Otto. Maybe you’re just corrupted. Maybe we just need to get rid of the corrupting influence.”
Otto feels his blood run cold.
“You know what you have to do,” Ronmin says, holding out the gun. “You know there’s only one real solution here. You know that.”
Otto takes the gun.
He holds the gun to Dan’s temple, trying to ignore the nightmarish feel of holding something so deadly so close to someone that he loves.
Almost calm, as if he was expecting this and had accepted it.
Dan looks up into Otto’s eyes and smiles. “It’s okay,” Dan whispers softly. It’s the first time that he’s spoken since Ronmin got out of the car. “I know you don’t have a choice. Do it.”
Otto gives a small sharp nod, then he snaps the safety of the gun off. Dan closes his eyes.
Otto takes a deep breath, and then twists as fast as he can, and shoots Ronmin in the chest.
DAN
prints and plastic bags
The gun goes off with a bang that sends ringing through Dan’s ears.
Somebody says, “Oh fuck,” but it’s not Dan and it’s not Otto. It’s not even Ronmin.
Dan opens his eyes to see Ronmin on the ground and to find an alpha he doesn’t know seemingly having a complete panic attack.
“I’m not going to shoot you, man,” Otto says to him.
“Why should I believe you? You shot him,” the other alpha says, his voice still high and panicked.
“He was an asshole and he was asking for it,” Otto replies. “I’m not a murderer,” he says, despite the evidence to the contrary lying bleeding out on the ground in front of him.
The strange alpha stares from him to Dan to Ronmin’s body, then his shoulders slump. “Crap. Now what?”
Otto shrugs. He’s still holding the gun, but his hand has dropped casually to his side.
Prints, Dan thinks as he gets to his feet. That’s a murder weapon that Otto’s holding.
Technically, he should be reading Otto his rights and pushing this through a proper court, but they all know that’s not going to happen.
“Well, now what?” the other alpha says. He’s a giant of a man with dark hair and intense blue eyes that have hardly moved from the dead body at his feet. He’s probably in his early twenties, but the worry crinkling his face makes him look a lot younger.
“Now we get rid of him,” Dan says, feeling an eerie calm wash over him. He’d always believed that Ronmin would be death of him. He never thought it would be the other way around. “Actually, now I get rid of him. I’m the police. I know how to deal with a dead body. Or I do in theory anyway,” Dan says. “I’ve never actually done it before,” he adds.
“Well, that’s good to hear,” Otto says.
Dan grunts, his mind racing. “I’ve got some trash bags in the trunk of the car. Help me wrap him up and get him into the trunk.”
“And then?” Otto says.
“And then I’ll deal with it. You two need to get back to Fort Gosford. What you tell everyone when you get there... I’ll leave that up to you.” That’s going to be the harder job, Dan thinks.
Otto gives a short sharp nod and heads over to the trunk of Dan’s car.
The wrapping of Ronmin’s body in trash bags is a lot harder than Dan would have thought. Not because the plastic is hard to deal with, but the body is still warm and something about that makes Dan want to retch every time he touches it.
The other alpha clearly has trouble with it too. Halfway through, he stops and runs off to the other side of the clearing to empty his stomach.
Finally, Dan picks up Ronmin’s feet while Otto takes the upper torso and they manage to tip him into the trunk of Dan’s car.
“Are you sure about this?” Otto whispers to him.
No, but what choice does he have? “Yes,” Dan replies. “Give me a call when you’re back and we can decide where we go next.”
Far, far away preferably.
“Yeah, I will,” Otto says. He hesitates then takes Dan’s hand in his. “I need to tell you something though before I go.”
“Sure, what’s that?” Dan asks, shutting the trunk, his mind racing through all the things he’s going to have to do to get rid of Ronmin safely.
“I love you,” Otto says. “You know that, right?”
Dan stills where he stands. He does know that. He hadn’t before, but Otto has just killed someone to save his life. It’s a peculiar way to show you love someone, but he can’t think of anything that shows it more. “Yeah, I do. I love you too.”
“Good.” Otto dips his face and brushes his lips against Dan’s. “We sort this out and then we go. We run so far that no one ever finds us.”
Dan squeezes his hand. “Be careful.”
Otto’s mouth curves up in a smile. “I will.”
The other alpha, who Dan hears Otto call Garrett, gets into Ronmin’s car and drives off, followed by Otto in his.
Dan feels his stomach flip over. This is the dangerous bit. Otto needs to get them back and then back to Dan without arousing any suspicion.
He gets into his own car and closes the door. He scents Ronmin even through the divide between the car and the trunk.
Proper scent blockers first, he thinks. They have a ton of them back at the police station. Then some bleach and more plastic. Once that’s done, he has to figure out where to hide a body where no one will ever find it.
It’s easier said than done. The Aylewood mountain range might be one of the biggest in the country but it’s also one of the most popular with hikers, wild wolves and alphas who just like playing at being a wolf.
Anyone of them would scent out a dead body unless it was in a very remote and out-of-the-way place. Unfortunately, those are the places that it’ll be particularly difficult for Dan to get to on his own.
He drives down to the police station, leaving the car round the back, then helps himself liberally to plastic sheeting, scent blockers, rope and even more scent blockers. He also grabs the spare bag of clothing that he keeps in the bottom drawer of his desk.
By the time that he makes it back to the clearing, the sun is starting to go down and he has to turn on the headlights on the car to see properly.
Ronmin’s blood has soaked into the ground, leaving a dark wet patch. There’s not a lot that
Dan can do to clean it up. He sprays it liberally with scent blocker, letting the chemicals strip apart the scent molecules.
He gets down on his hands and knees to test it, practically shoving his nose in the dirt. Nothing.
He scuffs pine needles over the patch with his shoes. This is one of the less popular hiker trails. In fact, hardly anyone even knows about it which was one of it’s attractions for Otto and Dan when trying to find somewhere private.
The chances of someone chancing upon the blood is minimal but Dan still feels a stir of unease. He sighs.
The body is the more dangerous option. That he needs to get dealt with as soon as possible.
Some random blood without anyone knowing who it belongs to is not a big deal, especially if anyone coming across it is going to call the local sheriff.
An actual corpse on the other hand, especially one of the most psychopathic pack leaders around? That’s going to be a lot harder to dismiss.
Dan steels himself before opening the trunk to the car, but it’s not nearly as bad as he fears.
The body is still fully wrapped and it’s not been long enough or hot enough for it to start to smell.
Dan hitches up his sleeves and gets to work.
It’s almost midnight when he’s done, and Ronmin is wrapped in more layers of plastic sheeting, a layer of scent blocker between each one.
Dan’s used the expensive stuff: the type he keeps on hand for the worst kind of scents. He’s only used this once before in a case where someone had died of natural causes and not been found for three weeks. It had done the job perfectly, and Dan’s kept it on hand ever since.
The can is almost finished by the time he’s done, but its worth it. His car smells like nothing at all.
He parks it in the secure lock-up by the station and goes back to the hotel. Tomorrow, he’ll work out what to do next because Ronmin can’t stay in there.
The manager’s quarters are still and dark when he lets himself in, although he can hear Elyse’s steady breathing as she sleeps. The clock on the wall reads almost two in the morning.
Dan strips off his clothes and shoves them into another garbage bag, then takes a long hot shower.
The water runs hot over his skin, washing away the day and the murder.
No, not murder. Self-defense. Or at least defense of someone else, Dan tells himself. He’s surprisingly calm considering the circumstances, he thinks.
Perhaps that’s because you don’t have Ronmin threatening your life for the first time in over a decade, he says to himself as he switches the water off.
The night is unexpectedly dreamless and he’s out the next morning long before Elyse even wakes up.
He’s set on a place to dump the body: on over the side into the ravine on a spot about five miles out of Aylewood. He’s not going to do it now. Overnight when it’s dark will be better, but he wants to drive out now to check the place is as he remembers it.
It’ll still have the same risks that it had before, but there’s no such thing as a perfect place to dump a body, only places that aren’t as bad as others.
He parks the car outside the station so it’s ready to go as soon as he’s had a chance to go inside and check his messages.
A familiar truck drives up and parks alongside it as soon as Dan stops.
When Gregor Winterstoke gets out of the car, he says, “You’re from Blood Moon originally, right? The town? With the Red Run?”
Why on earth is Gregor asking him this? “Um, yes? Haven’t been back in a long while though. Why?”
Gregor winds through a long story about the omega who’s been staying with them and the mating run that his brother has agreed to go on in Blood Moon.
Finally, Gregor says, “Look, I don’t have a whole lot of time. I have to leave in the next half hour—” he checks his watch, “—twenty minutes if I want a hope of being there on time.”
Dan raises his eyebrows. “So, when you said a day trip, you meant—”
“Right now,” Gregor admits. “I know. It’s not ideal.”
Dan stares at him. He’s not sure if this is luck, serendipity or even if that luck is good or bad.
Blood Moon. He hasn’t been back there since he first took the bus out with his suitcase on his knees almost two decades ago.
Blood Moon: the town in the middle of the desert that has hundreds of strange alphas descend on it at this time of year. The town hundreds of miles of way that Dan grew up in and spent his boyhood roaming the most remote parts of the desert.
A body left there will be destroyed by the sun, wind and coyotes within days, and even if bones were found, so many strangers come through at this time of year that no one will think to look towards Aylewood.
It’s thirteen hours’ drive. That’s a long time with a body in the trunk. A body that is so soaked in scent-blocker that it’s not going to start smelling for weeks.
Dan bursts into laughter. “You know what? Why not? I could do with getting out of the house. Give me a minute to lock up again and make sure the deputy knows she’s on call.”
Gregor opens his mouth.
“I know. Twenty minutes. And we take my car.”
“Deal,” Gregor says.
And just like that, Dan’s on his way to Blood Moon with a corpse in the back of his car.
OTTO
pre-packaged lies and a burger on the road
“Go over it one more time,” Otto says as they wait for the burgers at the truck stop on the way back from Aylewood.
Garrett had said he wasn’t hungry, but that’s not a good look. He can’t do that now. The next few weeks are going to be crucial. Anything that Garrett does to raise suspicion might ruin everything.
They’ve taken a table outside away from the other customers and are doing their best to ignore the sun beating down on their heads.
“Ronmin said he had something to take care of,” Garrett replies, “and that it was none of my business. He got out of the car at the stop between the Happy Chicken diner and the car wash on seventh.”
Otto nods. Good. It’s one of the few places in Fort Gosford where there aren’t any security cameras. Ronmin would know that. Garrett wouldn’t. It would be a perfect place for Ronmin to get out if he had some secret mission that he wasn’t going to tell anyone about.
“And what were you doing in Aylewood?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me that either. I’m the muscle. He doesn’t tell me anything. We went through to the police station. He went in. I stayed in the car and then he came out again.”
The waitress approaches with a tray and they both fall silent until she goes back inside.
“Okay, that’s it,” Otto says, picking up his burger. “Keep it simple. That’s the whole of the story. You don’t know anything else. Here’s a tip that’ll help: believe it. All the way back in the car, imagine it in your head. Visualize Ronmin getting out of the car at the car wash. See how he does it and how he moves. Make that the story in your head.”
Garrett nods. His food sits in front of him untouched. “This is going to be bad, isn’t it?”
Otto stares at him. “No, it’s not. The worst is over. The rest is uncertain but it won’t be the worst. Ronmin was insane. I don’t know who’ll take over, but as long as you stay out of it and keep to the story, it’ll be fine. I promise.”
They drive back in convoy and when Otto gets back, he goes straight to his quarters and shuts the door behind him.
He checks his phone but there are no messages from Dan. Otto feels a twinge of guilt and worry. Otto shoots a man and Dan is the one left with the clean up.
Otto strips off and gets into the shower: the too big shower that was his reward for betraying the Winterstokes. He takes his clothes in with him, letting them pool at the corner so they can rinse off any scent in case he doesn’t get the chance to take them to the laundromat in the morning.
He estimates it’ll be at least a few days to a week before Ronmin’s absence becomes a problem. The ma
n had a habit of not telling people what he was doing and disappearing for days at a time. This time that absence is going to be permanent, but it gives them a few days’ grace.
Otto massages shampoo into his head and immediately regrets closing his eyes to do it.
Every time he’s blinked since this afternoon and closed his eyes, he’s seen Ronmin’s shocked face the moment he turned the gun on him.
What did he think Otto was going to do?
The damned fool handed him a gun and tried to force him to kill someone. Did he really think that Otto wasn’t going to make a choice as to who that was?
Otto always knew that Ronmin was going to try make him murder someone sooner or later. It’s one of the biggest reasons that he’s wanted out.
The fact that that person turned out to be Ronmin should feel like karma.
It doesn’t. It just feels like shit.
Otto rinses his head under the shower head and watches as the shampoo and soap swirls down the drain below.
He’s not always liked the labels he’s been given: thug, henchman, wrong, but all of those seemed manageable. It’s going to take a long time before he feels comfortable with murderer.
He sleeps badly, tossing and turning throughout the night as Ronmin’s shocked face swims through his mind accompanied by the sound of gunfire.
He wakes late to the sound of his phone ringing. He reaches for it through a headachy fog.
“Yello.”
“I’m going to Blood Moon,” Dan’s voice says.
Otto blinks, trying to get rid of the fog of sleep. “What?”
“Blood Moon. Gregor Winterstoke’s taking a trip. Now. I’m going with him.”
Otto wonders if he’s still asleep and dreaming. It feels like the kind of conversation that dream Otto would have. He rubs his eyes and tries to make sense of it.
“What about—” the body.
“I’m dealing with it.”
“How? Actually, never mind. Don’t tell me.”
“Got to go.” Dan says. “I’ll call you when I get there. I love you.”
“Love you too,” Otto replies without thinking.
It’s only when he hangs up that he remembers the bugs that he’s always known are there. Is anyone listening? And if they are, who are they reporting to?
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