The Fall(59)

I shook off the feeling and continued with the process. Next was the kerosene. While most people went ahead and used gasoline, dumbasses didn’t realize they could easily head to a camping store in the winter, pick up a reasonable amount of kerosene and not attract so much as a sideways glance. Shit is also more stable laying around, provided it didn’t get too close to a match, which was where it was heading today.

Her skin was shiny with sweat with her hair pasted against her face. The moonlight made the parts of her that were exposed shimmer like an oil slick. Which was sort of the point I guess, the match tossed in as I gave her one last look.

She burned.

Her skin tightened against her skeleton as it crackled and then dissolved, the fire consuming her from the outside in. I sat and watched the entire time, listening to the hiss of burning flesh, as the hours passed and she was reduced to bones.

Sofia didn’t come out. Whether she’d given up and gone to bed or stayed by the computer, I’d have to wait another few hours to find out. And part of me was annoyed that I’d even bother to care.

Problem was, it wasn’t just thinking that had been my problem the last day or so. It was a gnawing feeling deep inside of me which was giving me the scratch. Which is why I was forcing myself to sit outside until the end. Gather what was left and let that toxic smell of burn get so far up my nasal passage, hopefully my brain would kick in.

This was who I was.

This is what I knew.

Not soft and f*cking compassionate.

And I needed to remind myself.

Even if a part of me was f*cking twisted in wanting what I couldn’t have.

***

She was asleep when I came into the room. The lamp on the nightstand was still on, the pale yellow glow throwing shadows across the drywall as I moved. Even the sound of my boots dropping on the floor didn’t get so much as a twitch in my direction.

I’d had to wait until the barrel had cooled a little and with some help from some heavy-duty gloves, I retrieved enough of Cecile to pack into an old coffee can to repurpose as Sofia. I’d add some necessary DNA in the morning—make that later in the morning—so if old man Jimmy swabbed it with a who’s-your-daddy-DNA kit, it would show enough markers to convince him it was his dearly deceased kid.

I’d hit the shower, the stench so deeply ingrained I’d have to gargle a gallon of bleach just so I wouldn’t smell it anymore.

I didn’t bother with the redress, slipping into the sheets in my boxers. Sofia hadn’t moved, her body curled up on itself as she laid on her side facing the opposite direction.

Fuck, it was next level fatigue washing through my body. Like I hadn’t slept in a week and it wasn’t just physically. The f*cking gray matter up in my cranium was in a serious need of a reboot too.

Too wired to sleep, my head hit the pillow but my eyes stayed open. While I had been doing my burn-baby-burn outside, Jimmy had managed to funnel Sofia’s trust fund into my offshore account. Either that or he gave up totally and coughed up the total himself. Paying the grand sum of three point seven million dollars, which was exactly the amount Sofia had told me was in her account. Interest had been favorable which had inflated the initial figure, not that it mattered now. The money would cover her extensive hacker habit as well as get her a new identity, the falsified documents coming her way would stand up to even an FBI analysis.

“Is it done?” Her voice croaked, her body remaining in the same position.

“I thought you were sleeping?” My fingers linked behind my head, anchoring at the base of my skull.

“Off and on.” She flipped over, her bloodshot eyes needing a good dose of Visine. I doubted much sleep had happened. “Is she . . . all gone?”

“Yes.”

There was no point elaborating, and for reasons that bewildered the shit out of me, I didn’t want to. All part of that see-saw mind f*ck I had going on which seemed to get foggier the more time I spent with her.

She closed her eyes, absorbing the word as her face tightened under the tension. My head turned, studying the lines in her forehead as she lay there silently.

“Your dad came through on the cash too, so it looks like tomorrow will be show time. We can stall for maybe another day but that’s as far as we can push it.”

“Whatever we need to do.” Her lids slid open and she looked at me, those f*cking eyes nailing me from across the other side of the mattress. “If I’m dead, who will I be?”

“Sarah Lopez. Always good to go for a first name that is sort of similar so you maintain some recognition but not so similar people make a connection. And you also got a new nationality. Congratulations, your family is from Juarez, Mexico, but you’re moving to Toronto because you can’t stand the heat.”

“Wow, that’s pretty detailed.” Her eyes widened, clearly surprised the details had been fleshed out already. “I figured I’d have a say. I’m not trying to sound ungrateful, but I have to be this person for the rest of my life.”

Ordinarily I wouldn’t have bothered with the conversation. She didn’t have the luxury of choice. What she had was one f*cking lifeline, and if she didn’t like it, there was the door. But instead of telling her all of that, I shocked us both when my mouth opened and started talking. “Sofia, you’ll still be you inside. Does it really matter what your driver’s license says?”

“No, I guess not,” she sighed, my point made without the preamble. “How am I going to get new ID, a trip to the DMV is going to be out.”