Drop Dead Gorgeous(59)

“I want to make sure you’re not only after the goods and agreeing to a date because I said no sex until we go out officially.”

How does he say things like that with a straight face?

Because just listening to him say it has me grinning like I’m a middle-schooler, swooning like a love-struck romantic, and squirming like a woman who just swallowed a mouthful and really needs a little release of her own.

It’s harder than I’d like to admit, but I do it anyway. “It’s not just the sex.”

Tension I didn’t realize he was holding releases in his shoulders. “I like you too, Miss Walker. Ya weirdo.”

Somehow, when he says that word, it doesn’t hurt. It’s funny, like we’re being weird together, even though he’s amazingly not only un-weird but normal.





*



We go to my house to look through the trash. Not because it’s a trailer but because it’s closer and I have gloves. I insist on those, and Blake is thankful and agrees easily. “Trash bags are one thing. Actual trash is another.”

That decided, we get to work. I spread out wrapping paper on the kitchen floor because I don’t want to do this outside where there are prying eyes, plus, it’s all I have. Still, I promise myself that I’ll be mopping after this . . . and that I’m going out to buy one of those big blue tarps just in case something like this ever comes up again, as unlikely as that may be.

We open the first bag, and the smell is . . . not too bad. Blake and I look at each other in relief and then with a sigh of resolve, we dig in. We make piles of what we find—possibly useful and totally gross. Mostly, everything goes into the totally gross pile until we have to make a third pile of ‘what the fuck is that?’

There’s a lot of food trash, including some spoiled chicken lunch meat that makes us both retch. We end up needing to pause to re-bag that container and set it outside on the porch.

Which is when Jacob comes in, pinching his nose, and recoils in disgust. “What in Satan’s taint hole is that smell?”

“Trash,” I answer, looking at a receipt. I’m long used to the smell now. And it’s not remotely as bad as post-mortem body scents.

Jacob isn’t. “I can see that. I guess I meant . . . why?”

I look to Blake as I try to decide how much I want to tell Jacob. Is this some top-secret mission? But I don’t keep things from Jacob. It’s one of the deals we have.

So I tell him the truth. “I had a questionable death. Jeff called the case closed, but I have questions. So I’m getting answers.” I hold my gloved hands out, indicating all the trash in front of me.

“How’d she talk you into this insanity?” Jacob asks Blake as though I can’t hear him.

“I’m sitting right here, you know.”

Jacob shoots me an empty-faced glance and then goes right back to Blake, giving him a chin lift of ‘whatcha got?’

Blake chuckles, probably used to this guy game shit. “This was actually my idea. We figured some stuff out—and when I say we, I mean her.” He tilts his head my way, and I’m reminded of the ‘we’ I used for the trash. We really have done this together . . . whatever this is. “We’re digging a little deeper, literally, to see what else turns up.”

Jacob stares at the trash for a second and then gives me a meaningful look. Throwing his bag to the couch, he sits down in the floor across from me. “All right, toss me some gloves and tell me what we’re looking for.”

And that’s how me, Jacob, and Blake spend the next hour going through Yvette Horne’s trash, piece by gross piece. Every ball of hair from a hairbrush, empty toothpaste tube, can of Slim Fast, and junk mailer.

“I found something!” Jacob and Blake say at the same time, though Jacob’s is followed with a groan of disgust.

“What?” I say, not sure which way to look and ending up trying to look both ways at once, which doesn’t work and just gives me a headache from my brain rattling back and forth.

“Smoothie mix,” Blake shouts, holding up a plastic container with every green vegetable in existence on the label. “We could have it tested?”

Jacob interrupts, “uhm . . . guys? Didn’t you say this chick’s husband has been dead for days? Weeks?”

“Yes, why?” I answer, turning my attention to him.

“Because I don’t think this is that old?” Jacob holds up a tied-off condom with liquid inside, turning away as he gags out loud. “Ew . . . ugh . . . cough-cough . . . sticky love juice load . . . ack . . .”

“Oh, my God . . . oh, my God . . . what do we do with that?” I’m scrambling, rambling, but I manage to get up from the floor, pull my gloves off, and grab a sandwich baggie. “Hang on, you can put it in here like evidence, but let me put on fresh gloves first.”

Instead, Blake takes the baggie from me with his gloved hands and holds it open for Jacob to drop the—blech—condom inside.

“Thanks, man. I don’t think I could’ve held that much longer.”

He does look a little pale. “Guess you won’t be going into the family business?” I tease.

Jacob shakes his head vehemently. “Definitely not. But pulling someone’s guts out for examination is way different from holding another man’s fresh spunk.”