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the hard set of his jaw asking the silent question. Did something go wrong with the drop-off?
    “Just bored is all,” Oliver said with a shrug, shaking his head just the littlest bit for Micah’s benefit. No, everything went fine.
    “Ha. Don’t let Sabrina hear you say that. She’s spittin’ mad that you haven’t taken her out to celebrate your university thing.”
    “I know. I need to call her, but do you think I could borrow Micah for a sec? Just something I need to run by him real quick.”
    Just a little thing called five thousand dollars.
    “Sure, but see you don’t keep him too long, we had plans tonight.”
    “Plans. Yeah. It won’t take but a moment.” With that, Oliver tugged Micah aside, his arm damp with sweat through his shirt. They paused outside the auto parts store and the manager inside watched them while he closed up for the day, probably worried they were two no-good kids come to rob him.
    Don’t you worry, sir, we only rob the dead.
    Ugh.
    “What is it? You look like you been running all over hell’s half acre.” His gray eyes darkened and he glanced quickly toward Diane. “Everything okay with the, ya know, with our friend?”
    “No, Micah, everything is not fine .” How could he be so nonchalant about this? Oliver ran both hands over his greasy hair, puffing out a sigh. “Look, man, she wants us to keep going with this and now she’s offering more money. A lot more money. So much money that I’m afraid I can’t turn it down.”
    His friend went silent, rubbing his palm slowly over his goatee, staring at Oliver all the while. “Huh. Uh-huh.”
    “Is that all you have to say about this? I just don’t get a good feeling about any of this. What are those creeps even doing? What are they using those bones for?” It came out like “using those bones fah” and it made him sound exactly like his father, with his deeper, occasionally impenetrable Southern drawl. Sabrina was always teasing him about it. She said it sounded cute, but to him it sounded trashy. Low. He was getting away from the family business, from the thing that had kept generations of his family trapped and going nowhere before. And thinking about his father just made him think of that damn text message waiting for him and for the conversation waiting for him, and how had this day gotten completely away from him to spin out of control?
    Five thousand dollars. Nothing would be easy for that kind of cash, and here Micah looked like he was actually considering it.
    “We can’t say yes,” Oliver said before his friend could respond. “We just can’t.”
    “How much?”
    He didn’t want to say it. “Five thousand,” he muttered.
    “Five grand ? Are you shittin’ me?” Micah reeled back, rubbing his goatee faster now, his eyes all at once much brighter. Dancing.
    “Say no, Micah. We have to say no.”
    “You’re not interested in this? Not even a little bit?” He looked toward Diane, giddy almost, shaking his hands out like they had fallen asleep. “Five thousand is a lot. . . .”
    “I know it is.” Oliver turned away and took a fistful of his own hair, tugging. Maybe a little jolt of pain would set him to rights, put him back on the straight and reasonable path. “That shit we did is in the papers. Someone saw what we did. You have to say no,” he whispered.
    “Why me? Why do you keep saying that?”
    His friend was right behind him then, breathing down his neck.
    “Because if you say yes I’ll feel like I should, too.” Tired. So tired. He just wanted to sleep and wake up and for none of this to have happened. “Because I can’t let you do it alone, ya know? And because, God, I do need the money. I do. Damn it all, I don’t know what to do.”
    Micah’s hand fell solemnly on his shoulder and stayed there. “Don’t worry, man. I know what to do.”

 

M s. Marie Catherine Comtois lived in a white, ramshackle farmhouse set far back from the road on the route running between New Orleans and