“Jesus,” she said, swiping hair off her face with the hand that held a small flashlight. “It’s hell getting back here.”

I stared at her, had a brief moment where I wondered if I was dreaming. Was Cal even here? I looked down, saw his body at my feet, dead eyes and a ragged bullet hole in the center of his forehead. My gaze flew back to Jenny, who was looking at Cal, too.

“You did it,” she said, voice even.

I croaked out something that sounded like yes.

“I’m guessing whatever reason he gave wasn’t good enough.” She barked out a laugh that held not even a single drop of humor. “I don’t even want to know. It’ll only make me angrier.” She handed me the shovel clutched in her left hand. “We need to bury him,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“Okay,” I said, slow and slurry. I felt the shovel sliding through my numb fingers and tightened my grip on the handle. I’d been calm earlier, focused, but now I couldn’t make any of the pieces fit together. “What . . . what are you doing here?”

Jenny bent down, set the flashlight on the ground. She grabbed Cal’s feet and looked at me until I got the hint and laid down the shovel, grabbed his hands. “I heard you and Zach talking. When you left, I followed you. Not all the way to your mom’s. You would have seen me for sure. I almost lost you when you got back on the highway and headed here. Took me a while to find where you’d parked.” She was still matter-of-fact, grunting slightly as we dragged Cal’s body deeper into the woods. “And then I waited until your mom showed up and dropped him off. It was a lot harder following his trail back here than I thought it would be. I got turned around a couple of times. But then I heard the gunshot. That helped. Wait a second,” she said, dropped Cal’s feet and ran back to grab the flashlight. She put it between her teeth and then took Cal’s legs again. We were quiet after that, other than the sound of breathing, dragging Cal through the trees.

“Here,” I said, dropping his hands. “This is far enough.”

Jenny took the flashlight from her mouth, peered around. “You think?”

“Yeah.” I couldn’t stand to touch him anymore, listen to his body scrape along the ground. And the fact was, they were either going to find him or they weren’t.

Jenny went back for the shovel, and we took turns digging, the other holding the flashlight. We worked without speaking, intent on our task. When the hole was deep enough, we paused, the scent of turned earth, dark, secret things thick in the air. We dragged him to the edge and rolled him in. I flinched when he hit, but Jenny didn’t. He was just the guy who’d killed her daughter. He’d never been the one who held that same daughter and rocked her to sleep, or gave her a bath and blew bubbles until she squealed. Jenny had never loved him.