The Day My Family Left Me to Die novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Seth's Wire

Seth's POV

The recorder was the size of a lighter, and Heidi had taped it flat under my left arm with medical tape.

She'd done it in her hatchback with the dome light off, and her hands were shaking more than mine.

"If he finds it," she said, "you walk out. Promise me."

I told her I promised.

I was lying, and she knew it.

The morgue man lived over a tire shop on Harlan Street, up an outside staircase with a rotted rail.

I knocked twice.

He opened the door in an undershirt with a beer in his hand, and the bruise I'd left on his cheek had gone yellow.

"Draper," he said. "Well, hell."

"Let me in."

"Why would I?"

"Because the detective took your clipboard, and somebody's going to be left holding it," I said. "I want to know if it's me."

He thought about that.

Then he stepped back, because he was a man who loved to be asked.

The apartment smelled of fried onions and bleach.

A radio played on the counter, low, the same country station.

I heard it and I was back on a folding chair with my back against a door.

I made my face stay blank.

"Sit," he said.

I stayed standing near the table.

"Wingate doesn't answer my calls," I said. "The attorney's gone quiet and the pathologist's got rope fibers. You said it was a scare job. You said nobody got hurt."

"I said a lot of things." He grinned at the beer. "You got squeamish. I told you that you would."

"The girl died."

"The girl was always going to die." He said it easily. "You think they paid ninety thousand for a long weekend?"

I didn't move.

"Say that again."

"Miss Blythe had it all worked out." He sat on the arm of the couch, enjoying himself. "She's the smart one. She said the one sister had to stay gone, and she picked which. She said make it look real enough that nobody asks."

← Chapter 14 · All chapters · Chapter 16 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend