How To Hide Two Bodies and a Bride-to-Be

Rule #1: We get rid of the bodies.

That was the easy part to say. The hard part was the logistics.

Because it turns out, Apartment 4B did not come with a “Hide Two Ex-Boyfriends and One Existential Crisis” manual. It came with a leaky faucet, a landlord who panic-zests, and a pregnant woman in a _Bride-to-Be_ sash crying into a bag of stolen Tostitos.

“Okay,” Lena said, still holding the second lemon Silas had handed her. “Step one. Is anyone here actually a criminal? Like, professionally?”

Becca raised her hand. Then lowered it. “I once returned a dress to Target after wearing it to a wedding. Does that count?”

“No,” Silas said. He was wrapping his hand in a dish towel. Not because of the blood. Because he’d cut himself zesting. “I’m a landlord. And a part-time bartender. My only crime is charging $2,400 for this place.”

“$2,400 for two corpses and a raccoon problem?” Lena gestured at the window. “You should be in jail.”

“Not helpful.” Silas looked at Derek. Then at the closet. “We need tarps. And bleach. And an alibi that doesn’t involve the words ‘we found him like this.’”

Becca sniffled. “I have trash bags. Scented. Lavender.”

“Because if there’s one thing this situation needs,” Lena muttered, “it’s the smell of a grandma’s soap drawer.”

Here’s what happened next, in case you ever need to know:

*6:13 PM:* Becca produced the trash bags. She also produced three more pregnancy tests. All positive. “Just to be sure,” she said. “In case the first three were lying.”

*6:17 PM:* Silas explained that he couldn’t help move Derek because he’d “thrown his back out doing CrossFit ironically.” Lena explained that she couldn’t help because she had “boundaries.” Becca explained that she couldn’t help because she was “carrying precious cargo” and then burped.

*6:22 PM:* Bear — no, wrong story. There was no Bear here. There was only Brad, in the closet, who was starting to smell like a mistake.

*6:30 PM:* Lena realized Derek still had her AirPods. Plural. One in his mouth. One clutched in his dead hand like it was the secret to the universe.

“I’m not leaving those,” she said. “They were a gift. From me. To me. For my birthday.”

“You want to pry open a dead man’s fist for Bluetooth?” Silas asked.

“You want to explain to the cops why he choked on tech you didn’t report stolen?”

Fair point.

*6:41 PM:* The prying happened. It was worse than it sounds. It sounds pretty bad.

*6:45 PM:* Becca threw up in the lavender trash bag. “Might as well break it in,” she said.

*7:00 PM:* They had a plan. A bad plan. The kind of plan you make when you’re 28, sleep-deprived, and your Tinder date turned into _Dateline_.

Step 1: Wrap Derek. Wrap Brad.

Step 2: Use Silas’s pickup truck. The one he swore was “just for Home Depot runs” and not “body disposal.”

Step 3: Drive to the reservoir. Silas knew a spot. “From fishing,” he said. Nobody asked what kind of fish.

Step 4: Don’t get caught.

Step 5: Tacos. Because if you’re going to become a felon, you should at least be a fed felon.

*7:30 PM:* Problems arose.

Problem #1: Derek was heavy. “Muscle weighs more than fat,” Silas said, struggling. “And ego weighs more than both.” Derek had been very into himself. And protein shakes.

Problem #2: Brad was in a closet that was now considered a _confined space_. OSHA would not approve.

Problem #3: Becca kept naming the bodies. “This is Derek. He liked Coldplay and lying. This is Brad. He called me ‘mommy’ once, but not in a hot way.”

“Can you _not_,” Lena said, “give them eulogies? We’re trying to commit a crime, not host a podcast.”

*8:15 PM:* They got Derek into a rug. It was a nice rug. Persian. Probably stolen. “He said it was from his travels,” Silas said. “Turns out his only travel was to IKEA.”

*8:32 PM:* The hallway.

Mr. Peterson from 4C opened his door. He was 87. He was wearing a bathrobe. He was holding a cat named Chairman Meow.

“Evening,” Silas said, calm as a funeral director. “Just helping Derek move.”

Mr. Peterson looked at the rug. The rug was shaped like a man. A man-shaped lump. “At night?”

“Derek’s nocturnal,” Becca blurted. “Like an owl. A very… dead… owl. Of sleep!”

Mr. Peterson squinted. “Is that a foot?”

“That’s a lamp,” Lena said. She kicked the lump. It grunted. No. That was her. She grunted. From effort. And guilt.

“Huh,” Mr. Peterson said. Chairman Meow hissed at the rug. Cats know. Cats always know.

*8:33 PM:* Mr. Peterson closed his door. “You kids have fun. Don’t do drugs.”

“We’re doing the opposite of drugs,” Silas called after him. “We’re doing _organization_.”

*9:00 PM:* The truck.

Silas popped the tailgate. “I usually use this for lumber.”

“Today it’s lumber and lumps,” Lena said.

They loaded Derek. They loaded Brad. Becca climbed in the back with them “for emotional support.”

“Is that legal?” Lena asked.

“It’s not _illegal_ if she consents,” Silas said. “I think. I’m not a lawyer. I’m a landlord who makes tacos.”

“That’s your whole personality now,” Lena said.

“It’s better than ‘accessory to murder.’”

*9:17 PM:* The drive.

Silas drove. Lena rode shotgun, clutching the lemon like a weapon. Becca rode in the back, between two rug-burritos, giving them a TED Talk about Derek’s red flags.

“He said his safe word was ‘blockchain.’ Who _does_ that?”

“He had a playlist called ‘For The Girls I Traumatize.’”

“He told me his mom was dead. His mom commented on his Instagram yesterday. ‘Have a blessed day, sweetie.’”

“Okay,” Lena said, turning around. “You win. He was the worst. Can we focus? We’re literally driving to dump your fiancé.”

“Ex-fiancé,” Becca corrected. “And don’t forget Brad. He was nobody’s fiancé. He was just… here. Like a bad smell. Or a subscription you forget to cancel.”

*9:44 PM:* The reservoir.

It was dark. It was quiet. It was the kind of place people went to propose or dispose. Silas backed the truck up to the water.

“Last chance,” he said. “We can still call the cops. Say Becca acted in self-defense. Say I found them. Say you were never here.”

Becca touched her stomach. “I’m not raising my kid on prison visits.”

Lena looked at Derek’s rug. At Brad’s rug. At her AirPods, finally back in her ears. Noise-canceling. Which felt appropriate.

“Do it,” she said.

So they did.

It was quiet. Too quiet. No splash. Just… gone. Like Derek’s personality.

*10:00 PM:* The ride back.

No one talked. Becca fell asleep. On the floor of the truck. Using a lavender trash bag as a pillow.

Silas broke the silence first. “So. Tacos?”

Lena stared at him. “You’re a psychopath.”

“I’m a realist with carne asada.” He glanced at her. “You’re still here. That says something.”

“Yeah. It says I need therapy and a new dating app. One that screens for ‘not a serial monogamist with a corpse collection.’”

Silas pulled into a 24-hour taqueria. “Rule #3 was dumb anyway.”

“Rule #3 was _don’t date a man standing over a dead body_.”

“And now you’re eating tacos with him after helping hide two.” He passed her a plate. “Face it, Vance. You’re bad at rules. You’re good at bad decisions.”

Lena took a bite. He was right about the tacos. Damn him.

Becca woke up. “Are we at the part where we swear a blood oath?”

“We’re at the part where we eat,” Silas said. “Blood oaths are after dessert.”

Lena looked at them. A landlord. A pregnant bride. Her, a woman who’d just helped dump her ex in a reservoir.

This was her crew now.

Outside, the ice cream truck rolled past. Or maybe it was sirens. In Apartment 4B, and everywhere else, it was getting harder to tell the difference.

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