Page 60 of Not Quite Dead Yet

‘Let’s open it out this way.’ Billy pointed with one hand, wiped the sweat from his forehead with the other, adding a smear of mud. ‘Closer to the road, to where the killer would have approached from.’

‘OK,’ Jet said, following his lead.

The builders were all watching them now, sitting and standing around in an amphitheater of their making, paper cups in hands, following each rise and fall of the hammers with their stupid yellow plastic heads. Jimmy at the front, arms folded over his belly.

They found their rhythm again, the heat creeping up Jet’s chest, sweat creeping down, trickling, following that dip between her ribs. The same in her lower back. No, lower than that. Lower. OK, yes, fine, her ass was sweating too.

They cleared another three feet of width, a little easier now that they could chip away at it from the side. Checked the mud underneath, moved on.

Billy paused to take off his hard hat, throwing it over his shoulder. Then his jacket five minutes later, then his shirt five minutes after that, down to just the white T-shirt underneath, a see-through ring of sweat around his neck, the muscles in his bare arms straining and twisting as he struck the concrete.

Jet watched him for a moment, taking a break, catching her breath, but she caught something else instead: movement. Someone jumping out of a car, short buzzed hair, heading straight toward them.

It was Luke, breaking into a run now. Any chance he hadn’t seen her yet?

‘Jet Fucking Mason, what the fuck are you doing?!’ Luke screamed across the site.

Jet brought the hammer down, an island of concrete breaking free, falling to the bottom of the trench.

‘Jet, what are you doing?’ Luke yelled, voice pitching up, near-hysterical.

‘Construction!’ she yelled back. ‘Decided to go into the family business after all!’

‘Why are you smashing up my foundations?!’

Jet stole a breath; the air didn’t want to give itself up, her throat too tight.

‘Because they weren’t good enough – you need to start again!’

Billy looked at Jet. She nodded and he kept going.

Jet swung again.

‘Jet, stop!’ Luke roared, pushing past the rows of watching builders. ‘Why are you doing this?!’

‘Because I have to, Luke! Fuck sake, it is hard to do this and talk! God, my head hurts. God, I’m thirsty. This is what dying must feel like.’

Luke had almost reached them. ‘Give me that hammer!’ he roared, approaching the trench, fury staining his face red. ‘Now!’

‘Come any closer and Billy will hit you with a sledgehammer!’

‘I’m not going to hit you with a sledgehammer, Luke,’ Billy clarified, the only one not yelling. ‘What she means is that we can’t stop, and we’re very sorry.’

‘Jet!’

‘Luke!’ she screamed back. ‘It is important! And stop making me talk or you’re going to kill me off early!’

Luke’s hands balled into fists, scabs pockmarked across his knuckles. The scabs he didn’t get from tripping at a work site Friday morning, the ones he must have got sometime after the Halloween Fair, and then lied about.

‘I’m calling Dad!’ he shouted, unclenching one hand, pulling out his phone.

‘Fine, call him!’

‘And I’m calling the cops!’

‘No, Luke,don’tcall them!’

‘They’re already on their way,’ a voice pitched in from across the site.

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