The Departed

people rarely thought they’d get caught.
    Which meant she had more work to do—she had to do whatever she needed to do to make all of this stop. She had to do it for Tristan. For Ivy. And now for Mark, as well.
    * * *
     
    “HAVE another drink, man.” It was finally getting late enough to make this work. All fucking day , Brendan had waited. At least out here they didn’t have to worry about trick-or-treaters. Nobody lived on this stretch of road but Beau and his folks.
    Careful to keep the other guy from touching him, he pushed the bottle into Beau’s hand. The gloves were as thin and close to flesh-colored as he could find, but they didn’t feel like skin.
    “Shit, already gonna be sick,” Beau grumbled. “What the fuck went wrong, man?” He grabbed the bottle and lifted it to his lips, missed, and spilled half of it down the front of his shirt, adding to the stink in the car.
    They were in the garage with the door closed, the engine off, although it wouldn’t stay that way, not if Brendan got Beau drunk enough. The bastard was just too fucking erratic. You couldn’t trust somebody who went and did that kind of crazy shit. Hell, if Mark died, they were all screwed. All of them, because everybody who knew Mark would be looked at closely.
    That was why Brendan was taking steps now. Kyle would back him up, he knew. And Kyle could lie with the best of them, could do it under stress, too. He’d head over to Kyle’s in a little while, crash there. He already had the groundwork laid. His eye throbbed like a bitch and Beau’s right fist was swollen. It had taken some doing to get the drunken idiot pissed off enough to take a swing, but he’d managed. They’d had a good day, though, hanging out in town, messing with each other, flirting—Brendan knew how to make sure Beau stayed in a good mood, and that was what he’d done.
    Right up until it was time to get Beau in a bad mood, in a scared one—a worried one. The kind of mood that would make the boy want to grab a bottle.
    And that was just what he was doing now.
    When he was asked, Brendan would say Beau had been in one of his moods—they’d both been worried about Mark and, besides, they’d gotten into fights before. He’d say he’d gotten out halfway between their houses and hoofed it over to Kyle’s. Nobody would ever know.
    Everything would be cool. Whether Mark died or not. Because Beau wasn’t going to be around to screw things up. And even if Mark lived—once he realized the shit he could be in, he’d straighten the hell up. Otherwise, Brendan would find a way to finish the job Beau had fucking failed to.
    “Who the fuck is that crazy bitch, anyway?” Beau asked, his voice slurred and heavy. He looked at Brendan, his eyes glazed. “How’d she fucking know? She did know , right? How did she know?”
    “Beats me.” Brendan studied the bottle of Jack Daniel’s he held—it was only about a little over a third empty and he hadn’t had much more than a mouthful. Beau was a big guy, though, and he liked to party. He could drink. All Brendan needed was for him to drink himself unconscious, though. That was all he needed. “Hey. Quit bitching and just have a drink. We’re supposed to be forgetting about all this shit, right?” He pretended to take a swig and passed the bottle back to Beau yet again, watched as Beau eyed the bottle and sighed morosely.
    “Maybe somebody told her…”
    Narrowing his eyes, Brendan shrugged mentally. “Maybe so. Shit, then we’re fucked . What in the hell is going to happen? Man, you…your scholarship. Could you lose it?”
    Beau’s face paled and he upended the bottle, drinking long and hard. “Fuck that pansy Mark—had to be him. Should have just ran his ass clear over.”
    “Yeah. You know it was him.”
    Another drink. And this time, if Brendan hadn’t caught the bottle, Beau would have dropped it.
    “Fuck. What do we do, man? Don’t wanna go t’jail,” Beau mumbled. Then he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the headrest. “Shoulda listened to Tristan, y’know. Shoulda. He said this was fuckin’ nuts. Was right…”
    As Beau slipped into unconsciousness, Brendan narrowed his eyes, resisted the urge to brain the bastard with the bottle. Fucking Tristan—all these assholes, still talking about him.
    But he didn’t do what he wanted—he just watched. He just waited.
    And once he was certain Beau wasn’t going to wake up, he lodged the bottle between Beau’s legs