Page 16 of What We Bury

Milo snaps his fingers. “I’ve got it.” He surges to his feet, dancing from foot to foot. “WeWeekend at Bernie’sthis shit.”

Silence.

“The movie,” he adds, like that clarifies anything.

“We know whatWeekend at Bernie’sis,” Holden says, shaking his head. “We’re just trying to figure out why you think a comedy about puppeting a dead body around is relevant to our current situation.”

Milo starts pacing. “Listen. If we get rid of the body, Brock becomes a missing person. If he stays missing, every finger points back to that party—and to the woman last seen leaving with him. She becomes suspect number one.”

“He’s right,” Holden says. “I don’t want her tied to this.”

“Me either,” Micah adds. “We need to protect her.”

“Okay,” I say, hands on my hips. “So how doesWeekend at Bernie’skeep our girl safe?”

Milo grins. “I love that you just called her ‘our’ girl.”

I roll my eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that. Finish your fucking thought.”

“Okay, fine—deny the multi-pronged love arrow that just shot straight through all of our black hearts. But anyway, the plan is, we make Brock look alive. At least until we can make it look like he left town.”

“How? He’s very dead,” I point out.

“He’s dead, yes. But his phone isn’t.” Milo jogs up the dune path to the SUV and comes back with Brock’s phone, holding it up like a trophy. “Fresh corpse means Face ID still works. We unlock it, change his passcodes, and build a ghost trail. ATM withdrawal here, one two towns over, another near the highway. Drive his car to long-term parking. Pack a bag from his place. Send a few texts. Make it look like he chose to leave.”

He’s grinning now. It’s the kind of grin that makes you wonder if he was always like this or if there’s something specifically broken in him.

We’re all broken, but Milo’s has a special flavor.

“People do it all the time,” he says. “Quarter-life crisis. Gone. Nobody panics because there’s evidence he’s alive and well.”

I look at the others. Holden has stopped pacing, which means he’s thinking about it. Micah is nodding slowly. Even Knox would see the logic if he were here.

“The wounds,” I say. “If anyone finds him?—”

“No one will. We bury him out in the desert. By the time anyone seriously wonders where Brock went, the trail will already be cold. He ghosted. It happens.”

It’s insane. It’s also the first idea tonight that keeps the girl out of the crosshairs.

Milo is vibrating. “We’ll need to plant more than ATM slips. We’ll need DMs, texts, a couple selfies of him wherever we ‘see’ him. Bonus points if it’s with another girl. Brock was a piece of shit, but he’s a vain piece of shit. People believe what matches the brand.”

“How the hell are you gonna get some girl to pose with a dead guy?” Holden grouches.

Milo shrugs, already typing on his own phone. “First of all, he’s a fresh corpse. We could totally play him off as drunk if we saran wrap his insides—the leaking would give it away. But long term we use deep fakes, dummy. I’ll put his photo into AI, generate some bar shots. No one ever checks the metadata. Bing, bang, boom.”

Micah nods. “I hate to say it, but I think he’s onto something.”

Holden finally cracks a grin, slapping Micah on the shoulder hard enough to sting. “Look at us. The best little crime club on the coast.”

I drag a hand down my face. A stress headache flickers behind my eyes. “All right, say we do this. We need to start tonight. Step one is getting his car and packing his shit without drawing attention. Step two is getting into his phone.”

“I’m literally already in there.” Milo’s nodding, fingers flying over Brock’s phone as he rapid-fires off some message.

I turn to Micah and gesture toward his arm. “You okay to drive?”

He glances at the open wounds—one clean cut and a decent-sized bite mark—then at me.

“Sure.”