Page 22 of Deep Feelings & Shallow Graves

Grief hits me like a rake to the shin. My garden was thriving. I had tomatoes, dammit. Heirloom. Organic. Better boyfriend material than Derik. Now I’ll be digging it up like it’s a crime scene. Which, I guess, technically it is. But can I save the lavender? Maybe the mint? God, please let me save the mint.

Inside, I’m fingering shovels, trying to decide which one will be gentlest on my spine while also being hosed clean of DNA.Because wood? Wood holds evidence. Wood’s for Girl Scouts and guilty consciences.

“Sure do go through a lot of trash bags,” Leonard, the store owner, says like he’s the mayor of Fucking Nosyville.

I smile like a lunatic. “I’m spring cleaning. For charity.”

He makes a noise, somewhere between a cough and a scoff, that clearly says,bitch, I was born in the dark but not yesterday. He watches me like I’m about to build a dungeon in my backyard. “What’s the shovel for?” he asks.

“Digging,” I say. “You work in a hardware store. Shovels are for digging, Leonard.”

If he asks me what bleach is for next, I’m putting him on the list.

He scoffs and walks off like I’ve personally offended his decades of retail knowledge. In his defense, I have bought a suspicious number of contractor bags from him lately. But in my defense, he’s a gossiping little shit with a sad mustache.

It’s amazing, really, that I haven’t redirected my talents toward removing rude townspeople. But I have standards. All heroes do. You start knocking off nosy neighbors and the line between vigilante and supervillain gets real thin, real fast.

Leonard rings me up without further commentary. Silent judgment: my favorite flavor.

But just as I’m leaving, I hear it, low, like they think whispering means I can’t hear them.

“That one ate lunch with Edgar and smiled about it,” Leonard mutters to the woman who was in line behind me.

“Oh yes,” she replies, voice syrupy and full of bullshit. “Had Cookie make them breakfast. She’s practically fucking him.”

I freeze halfway through the exit.

Well. Damn. They got my number on speed dial.

Also, rude as hell.

At home, I waste no time organizing the essentials into two piles. One for Derik’s place, just in case he decides to go full greaseball and two, the stuff I need to transport bodies from my property to the funeral home without leaving a goddamn trail of femurs behind me.

When I crack open the case Edgar gave me, I have to pause.

Oh my god.

First, there’s an apron. Not like my cutesy “Bless This Mess” one, it’s heavy-duty, rubber or some industrial shit. One hundred percent something he wears to keep blood and viscera off his tidy little mortician cosplay. There are gloves too, same material. It’s the kind of practical, serial-killer-romantic gesture that makes me genuinely stop to consider, if I get down on my knees right now, is it to suck his dick… or propose?

But then I see a single white orchid, in perfect condition, nestled like it’s not the most deranged little bouquet this side of an evidence locker.

And my breath? Gone.

I don’t let myself linger. I drop it in a vase like a normal woman and get back to the task at hand: digging up ex-boyfriends like they’re heirloom potatoes.

There is absolutely nothing cute about exhumation. I start with the oldest ones, because I’m a lady and I respect seniority. But holy shit, these garden beds are rooted. I’m sweating like a nun in a dick museum and I’m only three corpses in.

Upside? The bones are just bones. They don’t smell any worse than the rest of my compost. I bag them up, haul the sack to the SUV like a damn pro, and move on to the next section.

The next guy? Hoo boy. He smelled like gym socks and sour beer when he was alive, now he’s basically man soup. No saw needed. I just scoop and gag and thank Edgar, who is probably my soulmate, for the gloves.

But the next is fresh. We’re talking wet.

So there I am, sawing through this asshole like a goddamn lumberjack in an ‘80s horror flick, fully expecting banjo music and a clown to jump out of the shed behind me when I hear my name.

“Miss Jennifer?” Blake calls.

I whip around, dragging a trash bag over the mess like that’s going to help. “I’ll be right there!”

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