Keeper of the Peace (Graveyard Guardians #2) (25 page)

Hannah’s eyes widened, “Greg!”

He held his hands up, signaling her to stop.
“Enough. It’s the only way all of us are going to walk away from
this.”

“I’ll gladly turn myself in, but we have the
issue with the guns to work around. I could take Aiden’s gun and
tell them I used that.”

Aiden shook his head. “Nah, that would only
cause more questions, like how did you get my gun and now if I
testify as witness for Hannah, it links the two incidents.”

“See.” Greg spread his hands as if
demonstrating, “This is our only option.”

Hannah began to pace. “I don’t like it. This
whole fucking thing, from the Re … guy who attacked me to this
mess.” She flung her hand out. “It’s one thing for me to have a
dead guy on my conscious, but you all don’t deserve it. I’ll take
responsibility. I’m already a suspect, so it wouldn’t be a surprise
if I killed two more people.”

The entire room had gone silent, but it was
David who first went to Hannah. He stopped her pacing by grabbing
her hands and pulling her toward him. Every move sent pain flashing
throughout his body, but that was all right, they had to take care
of this issue right now. “Hannah, listen to me.” He reached up and
tilted her chin so that she was staring up at him. “I would never,
never let you or your family take the blame for anything I was
responsible for. Do you hear me, if anything happens, if we are
ever found out, I will come forward. I uphold the law, but this
isn’t about protecting myself as much as it is about protecting all
of you.”

“I don’t know. Covering it up is so
dangerous.”

He flicked his eyes over to Marcus’s body.
“They were dangerous. They would have killed me if you all hadn’t
arrived when you did. A minute more and I would have been the body
on this nasty rug.”

She closed her eyes, as if trying to block
it all out.

“Hannah?”

“I don’t like it.”

“None of us do.”

“Fine.” She opened her eyes and he stared
down into her big brown irises. “Let’s do it. God, when did my life
turn into a fucking crime show?”

David only grinned, his life was like a
fucking crime show, and most of the time … well, up until Hannah
ended up back in his life … most of the time he liked it that
way.

James stepped up beside David and tapped him
on the shoulder. “Sorry to interrupt bro, but that still leaves us
with the question of what to do with these guys.”

Jack had his thumb and forefinger to the
bridge of his nose. “Yeah … again, this probably isn’t the
suggestion anyone wants to hear, but … what about the
graveyard?”

Lucy turned to her man with her eyebrows
knit together. “Our graveyard?”

He nodded. “Yeah, it’s fucking perfect. You
bury people there anyway so who the hell is going to look for
missing people in a graveyard?”

Greg nodded. “It’s so simple its genius.
It’s ours too, so no one is going to go snooping around without us
knowing about it.”

It was true, taking the bodies and burying
them in a place no one would ever look was probably the simplest
solution. However, in his experience, simple usually meant easy to
figure out.

He ran over every possibility in his mind.
Every way that they could possibly make this better, but every
solution other than this one was one that would land one of them in
jail and he would rather cover this up than see one of these
innocent people go to jail for his fuck ups.

If he thought he would be the only one who
went to jail he would go to the cops right now and tell them what
happened. But he knew better. It wasn’t his gun that shot the two
men, and they would want the man whose gun it was.

Then it would link them to Hannah … and he
couldn’t have that.

Especially not that.

He rubbed his wrist where the cuffs had
been. “Okay. Turn all the lights off in here except the living
room. Where are the cars, are they here?”

Hannah shook her head. “No, we left them at
down at the recreation area and used the trails to get here.”

“Go get them, do you have one big enough to
hold these guys.”

Liv pulled her keys out of her pocket. “I
have my van. Come on, Greg, let’s go.”

He watched while Hannah’s brother and sister
headed out the side door and into the darkness.

Okay, now, this is so cliché, but I’m going
to grab a shower curtain and one of you needs to go out and get the
tarp from the woodshed, if it’s still there.”

Aiden rubbed a boot on one of the bodies.
“What about this carpet, it needs to go.”

“Yeah,” David agreed. “After we get them
moved let’s just roll it up. We can move it tomorrow.”

James took off one of his gloves and
scratched his neck. “We have a machine at work that will munch that
thing up. I’ll bring it over tomorrow, tell them I’m doing a
remodeling job. We can rip a bunch of stuff out and toss it in
there. Probably best to burn the segments with blood on them
though.”

“Thanks James, that would be great.”

Liv glanced around. “I’m going to clean some
stuff while we wait. Those guys probably touched all kinds of shit
in here.”

“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “Let’s all help with
that.”

David watched everyone start in on various
jobs, knowing that he was the one ultimately responsible for this
and his stomach sunk. He felt Hannah’s arms wrap around his waist
from behind. “If I’m not to feel that way, then neither are you. We
are all in this together now.”

“I know,” He told her flatly.

“Do you really?”

“I’ll get used to it, I guess.”

“It’s going to be all right,” she told
him.

He turned, so that they were face to face.
“It’s not going to be all right until you are cleared. How are you
out anyway? Bond?”

“Yeah. The family posted it. I have a good
lawyer and we are going to trial. Aiden is going to testify as
witness to the murder.”

At least she was out of the jail and could
prepare for the trial with her lawyer as a free woman.

“I have to get that shower curtain.” He bent
down and painfully placed a kiss on her lips and then pulled out of
her arms. “Oh,” he turned back, “I just have one more
question.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Why are you all wearing black hoodies and
gloves?”

She laughed and shook her head. “We knew you
were in trouble and thought it best to come prepared.” Then she
followed him down the hall and told him the whole story of how they
found him.

CHAPTER

25

HANNAH

Back at the Estmond property, with only
their headlights to give away what was taking place, they traveled
up the narrow cemetery road until they reached the oldest part of
the graveyard.

Hannah sighed with relief the minute they
rolled to a stop. The sooner they got these guys buried, the sooner
she could rest a little easier. She was just glad she could get out
of the van. She had been crushed in the back between a guy wrapped
in a shower curtain and another in a tarp. Normally, dead bodies
didn’t bother her, but these two unnerved her. They had all the
windows open and the dead guys weren’t stinky yet, but she
desperately wanted to be out in the fresh air.

As soon as Liv set the van to park, she slid
the side door open and hopped out into the night. With a long
breath, she gratefully inhaled the crisp September air. Everyone
else exited the vehicles quickly too. All of them were tired
already, and they still had a big job ahead of them.

She took a good look around. David was the
only one of them who didn’t carry a shimmering aura. The silver
light of the Keepers glittered, mixing with the red illumination of
the Reapers. She sighed, the auras were so beautiful and should be
a badge of honor, but it was a real pain in the ass when you didn’t
want to be seen by either. Both the keepers and the Reapers could
see the auras of both factions, and occasionally a sensitive caught
sight of one, but for the most part, it was only the guardians of
souls and the takers of the souls that could see them.

“Well,” Jack rubbed his hands together,
“let’s get this over with, shall we.” With that, he threw open the
back doors of the van and hefted the feet of the dead guy in the
tarp.

“Good God,” Liv covered her face with her
hands in frustration, “My van is going to need professional
sterilization. I have to deliver
food
in this and now it’s
been contaminated with dead people!”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “Yeah Liv, we heard
you bitching all the way here. We get it.”

“Shut up. Would you want your muffins
delivered to you in a hearse?”

“I told you, we get it. Okay.”

James and Aiden reached in and extracted
four shovels. “This is all the shovels,” James told them with a
frown. “It would go so much faster if we had more.”

Greg took a shovel. “We’ll take turns. That
will make it go by quick, since we can just hand it over when the
other gets tired. He accepted another shovel and they started out a
bit further, beyond the last of the headstones and markers in the
old section.

Jack, Aiden, Dan and James carried the
corpses to the chosen spot and dumped them onto the soft earth.
Greg started the first hole with Liv, and then Jack and Dan started
the next. “You guys rest up cause you have the next shift,” Dan
told them, hefting a hunk of dirt out of the ground.

None of them felt right about leaving the
others, so the ones who weren’t digging just milled around, waiting
for their turn. Except David, who leaned against the side of the
van with his arm across his ribs.

About twenty minutes later, a familiar voice
popped up. “What on God’s green earth is going on here?”

Hannah stopped pacing around the shallow
graves and straightened her shoulders. She looked to her brothers
and sisters, who also suddenly wore worried expressions, but kept
up what they were doing.

They all knew their dad would find them out
there sooner or later. What ghost wouldn’t be able to see the mass
of sliver and red in a graveyard? “Hello? Any of you want to clue
me in on why you’re digging graves and there are two dead bodies
here?”

Still, no one answered.

Their father had fully solidified and the
sparkling blue of his soul illuminated the area for the Keepers and
Reapers. David was the only one who couldn’t see or hear him. His
expression was to be expected, he looked utterly pissed. Not
worried or upset, but straight up pissed.

Hannah glanced at David and then back at her
dad. “So, those guys were the only ones you think might come after
you?”

“Who knows,” David shrugged. “Julian has
lots of delivery boys, but these two were his most trusted.”

Gregory Sr. shook his semi-transparent head,
“I need more than that sweet heart. And also, what the hell is he
doing here?” He pointed at Aiden. “That bastard kidnapped Lucy and
knocked Greg upside the head with his gun.”

Aiden glanced at Jack, but kept on digging.
“Um, Lucy, will you walk back to the house with me for a minute,”
Hannah asked.

David squeezed her hand. “I’ll go with you,
no need for Lucy to go.”

“Oh, uh, I just wanted to talk to her about
something.”

“Yeah,” Lucy nodded, “something
personal.”

“Bring beer.” Jack tossed a shovel full of
dirt out of the hole he was in.

Not to be outdone, Dan tossed his own shovel
of dirt and added, “And Whiskey.”

Their father palmed his face with his
shimmering left hand and closed his eyes. “If I wasn’t dead
already, you all would give me a heart attack. I swear.”

David knit his brows together, obviously
sensing that something was up. He was a detective after all, they
notice things like that. “Well, if you’re sure.”

“We’re sure,” Hannah and Lucy said in
unison.

“Let them go.” James tossed his shovel out
of the hole and climbed up beside it.

Hannah gave David one final glance before
leaving him with the others and taking off into the darkness,
heading for the trails that were illuminated by the dim lamp
posts.

“Jeez Dad, you know you can’t do that! We
can’t talk to you when other people are around.”

He had followed them to the trails and spoke
as they walked. “Really now, you can bury a body … or two, with
him, but you can’t talk to your dead father with him around. Oh the
irony.”

“Seriously, Dad!” Lucy scolded him. “It’s
hard enough doing what we’re doing out there.”

He stopped, as did Lucy and Hannah, and
narrowed his eye brows. “Speaking of which, why don’t you go ahead
and explain all that to me and then you can tell me why that other
Reaper is out there helping you dig the goddamn holes.”

Hannah and Lucy took turns telling him the
whole story, all the way back to when Hannah killed the Reaper at
the rodeo grounds. There was no avoiding it, and really no reason
not to tell him now. She had to go to trial, but things were
looking in her favor so far.

Even though he wasn’t technically breathing,
when they finished, he appeared to draw in a long breath and then
released it. “Okay. All right. Wow girls, this is one hell of a
shit storm you all got yourselves into here.”

“We know,” Lucy agreed. “But, we’ve taken
care of it and things are going to be fine now.”

Greg Sr. nodded and then shot a glance back
to where the rest of his children were busy digging holes for dead
delivery boys. “I think you need to tell David about you.” He
directed the statement to Hannah.

“But, wha … you mean about the family
business?”

He nodded. “Yes, if he loves you, he needs
to love everything about you and that means he will understand this
part of you, as well as the rest.”

“Dad, I don’t know if I can tell him.”