Sam drove. After loading the bodies into the back of my van, hidden in surfboard covers with boards on top, we were on our way. Every car that followed us, every car that sat beside us at a set of lights, it all felt like they were looking at us, that they knew we had murdered two men.

“I don’t want to keep this van anymore,” I said after a while.

Sam reached over and took my hand. “We’ll get you a new one tomorrow.”

“Why did she do it?” Toby asked from the back seat. “Why’d she kill him? What did he want?”

“He wanted money,” I said. “He wanted any sort of insurance Nate had. Jasmine killed him because she believes they were behind the fire.”

He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I fucking knew something like this would happen.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “That they’d come looking for a payout, or that Jasmine would want revenge?”

He sighed so heavy that the weight of his thoughts filled the cabin. “All of it. The whole thing is fucked up.”

When he looked out the window, working his jaw as he bounced his leg, I turned back around in my seat and watched the road through the front window. For some reason, I kept thinking about what my dad said about seeing someone who looked like Sam leaving with Holland. Was it Toby? Was he trying to hide her because he knew the men Nate was mixed up with would come looking? It made sense. What didn’t make sense was that he hadn’t done the same with his family. He’d left the rest of us in harm’s way.

“Did you go see Holland to tell her about Nate?” I asked suddenly, never one to curb my need for an answer or to figure out a puzzle.

Toby frowned and shook his head. “I haven’t seen her since I got Nate’s car back for him.”

Sam seemed surprised by the information. “When did you do that?”

“Couple weeks after she left. Nate asked me to do that and give her all her stuff back. I was just a messenger.”

“I didn’t think Nate was talking to any of us then,” Sam said, glancing in the rear-view mirror. “Least of all you.”

Toby shrugged. “I guess we found some common ground.”

“Look out!” I shouted, slapping my arm against Sam’s chest as a kangaroo bounded across the highway, right in our path. He swerved, and there was a sudden pop that made the van fishtail as he hit the brakes and steered us into the emergency lane.

We jerked to a stop. The kangaroo bounced off, seeming unharmed.

“Did we hit it?” Toby asked.

“I don’t think so. That felt like a blowout.” With a sigh, Sam got out of the van and walked around it. “Rear left,” he said. “Gonna have to change it.”

“Fuck,” I said, knowing we didn’t have time for this. The look on Sam’s face told me he agreed.

With all of us piling out, I kept watch while Toby and Sam made quick work of the tire. I was grateful that we’ve gone to the effort to conceal the bodies in the first place, because without those surfboards covering them, retrieving the spare from the boot would have revealed our crime to any car passing by.

“You guys need a hand?” A man driving a courier van slowed beside us, his hazard lights on.

“We’re fine,” I said, my palms sweating as a prickling crept over my skin. “Just a flat. They’ve got it under control.” I thumbed towards Toby and Sam, who was swearing and sucking on his thumb.

“Clearly,” the guy said. “Why don’t I give you a hand? It’ll only take a few minutes.”

I smiled, insisting, “It’s really not necessary.” But he was intent on being the Good Samaritan. Great. Just what we need.

“What the fuck is this guy doing?” Toby hissed as I walked towards the van.

“Helping,” I told him, hooking my fingers on the open back door and pulling it down. The surfboards may have hidden the bodies from a distance, but close up it was obvious there was something more there.

“Fucking do-gooders,” Toby grumbled before putting on a false smile and giving the guy in question a friendly wave. “G’day, mate. We’re actually all good here.”

“It’s cool. I’m an old hand at this. Spend half my life on the road.” He kneeled next to Sam and asked if he could take over. Reluctantly, Sam handed over the tire iron. The guy flicked it around like he was a member of a pit crew and as promised, the whole thing took a couple of minutes.

Less time than it took that guy to die. I closed my eyes to push away the thought.

Once the jack was released, the guy—who was chatting away at a mile a minute about how hard it was to drive all night then go home to kids who were hyper and just wanted to play—collected the tools and headed towards the back of the van. Toby was quick to block his path and relieve him of his burden.

“I’ve got this. Thanks, mate. Appreciate it.”

The guy smiled and nodded, wiping his hands on the back of his dark pants. “Yeah.” He looked up at Toby, as if he was suddenly figuring out how tall he was. Then he did the same to Sam. “Wow. You boys are big, huh? Brothers?”

“We are.” Sam nodded. “Thanks for your help,” he said again, holding out his hand to shake the man’s, trying desperately and calmly to get him to leave.

The man shook his hand, then thankfully wandered back to his own van and left. I didn’t think I took a breath the whole time.

“My God, I thought he’d never leave,” I said, placing my hands on my face as Toby opened the back of the van to put the tools in. I walked to the front, swearing I heard him muttering to himself, something like “I knew this was a stupid plan. No retaliation if they thought it was an accident, my arse. No one gets out scot-free.”

When we got back into the car, I met Toby’s eyes. He held mine for a second and then looked away, clearly pissed.

“Are you OK?” I asked.

He met my gaze, his eyes wild. “No, I’m not,” he said simply. It broke my heart. He was such a gentle soul, and now he had all this on his conscience.

“Let’s get out of here,” Sam said. “We’ve already lost enough time.”

* * *

“Go around back,” I instructed, pointing to where it was normal for the funeral home to receive bodies. I got out of the van first and went inside, deactivating the alarm before heading downstairs to open the dock from the inside. I pushed one of the wider trolleys we used for our larger clients, figuring it’d be big enough to put both bodies on.

Sam had already reversed the van into place, making the unloading much easier. He and Toby heaved the surfboard bags and the bodies inside them on top, and I directed them through to the crematorium.

“What do we do if there are already bodies in there?” Sam asked.

“We never cremate bodies at night. It’s a fire hazard, obviously. Someone has to be here to monitor the chambers.”

The doors all swung open to allow easy access when pushing heavy trolleys, but I held them open anyway, stopping once we got to the cremator.

“So we just throw them both inside?” Toby asked.

“No,” I said. “It’ll take too long if they’re in together. There are two cremators, so one can go in each.”

I opened the hatches on both, and they got the trolley into position in front of the rollers. “Now we slide one of them inside,” I said.

I stood to the side as Sam and Toby did just that. Bruno went first, although I couldn’t be sure. It was just that the first bag seemed a bit more bulky than the other. Everything was moving along perfectly until the bags caught and the remaining one twisted just enough so it started to slide off the trolley. Purely by reflex, I reached out and tried to catch it. But I was a tall skinny woman, incapable of catching a fully grown man. We both went down.

“Holy shit,” one of them said. Then there was a crash and the trolley shot across the room, hitting the wall on the other side with a crash. Bruno went down too, taking a swan dive off the rollers and joining me and Simon on the floor.

I couldn’t get up.

“There… th-there’s a-a b-body on me,” I stammered, my arms and legs flailing as I tried to roll or slide from beneath him. His foot was in my face, and with rigor mortis setting in, I couldn’t get it to move out of the way. “Get it off. Get it off.”

Within moments, Simon was removed from my chest and I could breathe again. Sam offered me his hand and a sympathetic smile. “You OK, peaches?”

I shook my head. “Not even a little.”

He touched my cheek with a commiserating look in his eye. Then he and Toby made quick work of filling the chambers before I started the cremation process. There wasn’t much left to do but wait.

I found some food in the break room’s refrigerator and made us all a light meal even though I didn’t think any of us were hungry. It was simply something to do. It sat in the centre of the table untouched.

“He needs to come back,” Toby said all of a sudden, his eyes taking on this faraway quality.

“Who does?” I asked.

“Nate,” he said, his lips drawn tight as he looked between Sam and me.

“Oh, Toby,” I said, reaching over the table to touch his hand. “Nate’s dead.” Poor guy. It must really be hitting him now.

Toby’s expression furrowed and he shook his head. “He’s not.”

“Excuse me?” Sam said, his eyes wide in disbelief. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing either.

“What the hell are you saying?” I demanded, struggling to comprehend what he was telling us.

“Nate’s alive.” Toby said it with closed eyes. “The fire. The body. It was all a ruse. He wanted out because he knew Holland couldn’t love him if he stayed in. So he faked it. I helped him.”

I guess that answers the question about who my dad saw.

Sam’s mouth twisted downwards. Then he stood and leapt across the table, punching Toby in the side of the head. Toby’s seat tipped back and he landed on the floor, out cold, arms out wide like he’d decided to sleep like that on purpose.

“Holy shit!” I covered my mouth.

Sam straightened up and shook his fist, hissing from the pain. “Fucking ow. His face hurt my hand.”

“I think your hand hurt his face.” I looked down at poor Toby. It must’ve been incredibly hard for him to help his brother chase a happily ever after with a woman he was in love with. My heart went out to him. But I also understood Sam’s position. We’d been crying for weeks. We’d attended his funeral, killed his enemies, and now we found out it was all a lie. Nate simply ran away.

Cartwrights don’t run, even when they want to. Arsehole.

“I’ll get you some ice,” I said, grabbing a pack from the freezer to put on his knuckles. I was sad to say that this wasn’t the first time it was required for the same reason. Sometimes death brought out the absolute worst in people, and we needed to be prepared for all situations.

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Sam said, pacing the room. “He’s alive? I just went to his fucking funeral. We’re killing people in his name. Fuck,” he yelled. “That fucking selfish bastard. Do you see what he’s done? Do you see? Did you… did you see what we… what we did?”

Sam’s hands went to his hair and he dropped into a seat. I sat right behind him and wrapped myself around him as best I could. “What do you want to do?” I asked, rubbing my hand up and down his back soothingly.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Find him. Drag him back. Make him clean his own goddamn mess.”

“Good,” I said, pressing a kiss to his temple. “I think that’s exactly what we should do. The last I heard, running wasn’t the Cartwright way. And we certainly don’t make our loved ones pay for our mistakes.”