Heat fumes rose from the car as I opened the door, followed closely by a hot stench. Holy shit, that smell. My grandpa used to fish with chopped chicken livers. Kept them in a fridge he had out in a work shed by the pond behind his house. The power cut out during a lightning storm once and everything in the fridge spoiled. When we came out the next day, the work shed was buzzing with flies. Insect buzzards looking to lay baby worms. When we opened that cooler in the dank summer heat of Alabama, the meaty smell that bloomed out caused my eyes to water and made me heave so hard I nearly got a hernia. My grandfather made me help him dump those coagulated containers of chicken guts into a garbage bag and the smell stayed with me for days, like it had soaked into my skin.

This was that smell. Rank and beefy. I closed the door and looked around, making sure I was alone. Then I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered in through the window. It was too dark inside to make out much. But I didn’t see what I was looking for. Namely, a dead body, or parts of one. I moved to the back and looked inside. Empty seats; empty foot wells. Which meant the smell must be coming from the trunk. My key fob had a trunk release button, but I didn’t know if I wanted to see what was making that smell. Stuck in there stewing in the summer heat. Couldn’t be Caspian. The decapitated head I had seen in the drainage culvert must have been a prop, because I had seen him alive and well – well maybe not well – in the police interrogation room, being grilled about my disappearance. Which I would soon clear up. Maybe Kevin, then?

Surely not someone more familiar. Not Cassie or Rox.

I checked my pockets again, hoping to find my phone, but they were empty. Even if I’d had my phone, I’m not sure calling the cops would have been such a good idea. How would I explain a dead body in my trunk? Where would I start and how much would they believe? None of it, most likely.

Cringing, I popped the trunk, holding my breath as heat waves rolled out. I lifted the lid, and expelled all my air in a gust of relief. Aside from my guitar case, a flat soccer ball that had never been used, and a torn camping tent I’d been meaning to return to REI, the trunk was empty.