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Merciless

Page 147

by Helen Hardt

Hazel moves toward the cart, but I catch her by the wrist. “Enough,” I say. “You’ve brought us this far. Now you tell me exactly how you know all of this.”

“I told you,” she says. “I’ve been here before.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one you have time for. You need to get rid of…whatever is in there.”

“You’re hiding something,” I say.

Hazel turns to the cart and lifts a canvas tarp from the back. “We need to get it loaded.”

I stare at her for another few seconds, but then I look at Ella and nod. Together, we maneuver Audrey into the back of the utility cart.

Hazel pulls the tarp over the chest.

I climb behind the wheel. “Ella, get beside me.”

“I know where to go,” Hazel says.

“You can tell me.”

Hazel huffs but agrees.

The path is narrow and uneven. Leaves scrape against the sides of the cart. The tarp rustles behind us, and each sound makes my stomach clench.

Darkness falls, and the headlights barely cut through it. Vexley House disappears behind us as I drive without speaking.

Hazel points once. Then again. “Left here,” she murmurs.

The path dips, and I move my arm over Ella instinctively.

After several minutes, Hazel points again. “Stop near the fallen oak.”

I slow down and stop the cart.

“This is it?” I ask.

Hazel nods.

I climb out first. Ella follows, and then Hazel.

“Shovels are beneath the bench in the back of the cart,” Hazel says.

I retrieve them. “You knew those were there?” I ask Hazel.

She nods.

“How?”

She doesn’t answer.

Fuck. Well, she seems to know everything, so what the hell? “Where?”

Hazel points toward a patch of earth near the edge of the trees.

I narrow my eyes. “Why there?”

“Because the ground has been disturbed before.”