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Bella grunted when she slipped into the boat with Chet's body landing on top of her. "Gross. I bet his spirit is here right now, planning this. He couldn't get on top of me while he was alive; he wanted to make sure he could do it while he was dead."
Joe chuckled as he hopped inside and maneuvered the curtains off of her, moving the body off of her. "You'll be rid of him soon enough." When he moved Chet's body aside, he helped Bella up onto her feet. "Now, find a paddle or something long. I want to get us out of here as quietly as possible, and that trolling motor will make it faster. I just need you to push the boat away from anything that could scratch it, like the dock."
"Alright," Bella breathed before lifting up the leather seats along the sides of the boat to look into the compartments underneath them. There were dozens of life jackets, towels, a trash can with garbage bags, a tool box, matches, sunscreen; they could've lived on this boat for the amount of things they packed into it. She shoved Chet's body away from the long floor compartments and grinned when she found a small wooden paddle among a number of fishing poles. "Found one."
"Get ready." Joe warned before lowering the trolling motor into the water and starting it up. The motor was a low hum, quiet enough not to be heard around the river, and it moved the boat faster than Bella expected.
She quickly moved to the edge of the boat and found buoys dangling from small notches where the boat's awning would be secured in place to block the sun during the day. "Hurry. It's starting to mist." Dropping back down onto the floor, Bella clamored to untie the knots securing Chet inside the curtains. As she pulled back the fabric, she froze seeing Chet's cell phone lit up with a number of missed calls and texts from Paul. "Shit."
Joe glanced back at her, but turned his gaze back to the water to focus on getting away from the other docked boats. "What's wrong?"
"Paul is blowing up his phone." Bella sighed before swiping her thumb across the screen, surprised when Chet hadn't set up a password or fingerprint to allow access. "I can text Paul though. It will look like Chet's still alive if he's texting his dad." She sent a couple texts to Paul assuring him that Chet was fine and that he was going fishing. When she saw a number of texts from the other football jocks asking how things went with her, she cursed again. "He told his friends."
"What did he tell them?" Joe asked before turning off the motor and letting the boat float with the momentum created. He quickly crawled over Chet's body to look at the phone with her. "Jesus Christ, Bella. He was planning on attacking you tonight."
Bella scrolled through the texts as her gut wrenched. "It looks like he was planning it for a while." She started pounding her fingers against the screen. "And, he's told them all that he's already fucked me."
Joe snatched the phone from her and held it out of her reach. "Let me handle this. I know how Chet talks to his friends. I say we dump the body first, because I'm afraid that you'll take your anger out on it. We don't need more broken bones than necessary."
"He'd deserve it." Bella huffed before meeting Joe's eyes. "You didn't have to do this, you know. What you did was to defend me. We can still back out. It would save you potential jail time if we're ever found out."
Joe leaned over and kissed her forehead. "I'm not letting Chet's death destroy your future. As innocent as we are, you know his dad will pull strings to make it look like something it wasn't. Besides, you seem really calm about all of this."
Bella smirked. "That's what happens when you're a child of the FBI." She nudged his side with her elbow. "What about you?"
"I was protecting you. I'd do it all over again, everything the same." Joe shrugged before jutting his chin towards the body. "Sparing his life for the sake of not killing someone is not good enough when he threatens to come after you. I meant what I said earlier. I came back for more than just to use my ticket."
Bella teared up as a smile curled her lips. "You shouldn't have done that. I'm not staying here."
"I'll go wherever you want to go." Joe stated, taking her hand into his.
"Even if it's off the grid forever, never returning to life as we know it?" Bella questioned. She hated skating around the truth, and her need to be direct with him was overpowering her mind telling her to keep up the act. "I haven't committed a crime, and I'm not running from the law. But, some things will come out that will make me guilty by association. Those things may change your mind about me." She caressed his cheek. "The life I'm choosing, it isn't normal. The traditional family with the white picket fence and the nine to five job is not what I want. It's not what I'm choosing. I've been your girl next door for as long as I've known you. I'm not that girl anymore."
Before he could say anything to try to convince her, she kissed him and stood. Crouching down on the deck, she wrapped her hands around Chet's ankles before looking back at Joe. "Let's do this."
Hannibal stood between the trees as Joe and Bella hopped off the boat and onto the dock where she had parked Ray's car. He frowned though when Bella didn't turn back to Joe. As soon as she was off the boat, she kept walking, yanking off the hat and gloves and shoving them into her sweatshirt pocket. While she walked back to the car, Joe turned back to the boat and pushed it back towards the center of the lake. They'd set up the boat well. A fishing seat sat on the deck with crushed beer cans lying around it and a fishing pole. Before he pushed the boat away, Joe had grabbed a stuffed black garbage bag from the deck and discarded it in the large blue dumpster that was overflowing at this point.
He took off his own hat and gloves and walked back to the car solemnly. Bella had started the car before he was in, and she didn't wait for him to buckle up before she took off back towards Ray's house.
There was time for questions later.
Once inside the farm truck, he started it up and turned around, dialing Clarice's number with his burner phone. It rang endlessly, and he half thought she wasn't going to pick up until the ringing finally stopped and her voice filtered through his speaker. "Hey."
Her voice was hushed, and Hannibal could only imagine what dog and pony show they were putting her through when the agents were the ones that lost Bella. "Hello, Clarice. I am calling to let you know we are headed back now. They should be at the party in five minutes. I would choose that time to suggest Ray's name."
"Thanks for letting me know." Clarice whispered before the line went dead.
Clarice wasn't surprised to step out of the bathroom and find Delia waiting just outside the door. As much as she wanted to question Hannibal about the night's events, it wasn't possible with three agents in her house. The burner phone was back to hiding underneath her sweater, and her normal cell phone was clutched between her fingers. "Excuse me."
"Who was that on the phone?" Delia asked despite Clarice's push past her to the rest of the house.
"A friend of mine at the school. He said that he would check around to see who was having a party tonight." Clarice said as she marched into her kitchen. "You and your team certainly aren't finding her."
"She doesn't exactly want to be found." Delia reminded her best friend. "Your daughter ran away from two federal agents to spend time with an ex-boyfriend when there is a serial killer after her. Is there anything between you two that I should know about? Troubles? Problems? Rebellions?"
Clarice scoffed as she pulled out a meal Bella had made earlier that week. "Bella and I are best friends. There is no reason for her to not want to come home. I was her age once; I get where she's coming from. It's misguided, but she's in love with a boy. That boy just happens to be back in town looking to get back together with her. I knew my chances of her being happy to come home were slim." She slid the plate into the microwave before turning back to Delia. "People do crazy things for love."
Bella didn't wait for the car to shift into park before she was unbuckling herself and opening the door, leaving Joe in the passenger seat. The gloves and beanie hat were tossed into the trash can as her feet carried her back to Joe's car to retrieve her things. But, her movements to call back Clarice were squashed when Joe rushed over to her. "Can we just talk this out? Go somewhere private."
Bella sighed, but nodded. He quickly grabbed her hand and led her inside the house, upstairs, and back towards one of the bedrooms that hadn't been touched by a couple quickly trying to remove clothing. Once they were inside, Joe closed the door and turned to her. "I don't know why you're leaving, and, honestly, I don't care. All I care about is you, because I want to be with you. Picket fence or not, I'm with you."
"You don't know what you're saying." Bella groaned with frustration. She let her phone fall onto the nightstand before sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Joe, I'm disappearing forever. I'll probably be wanted by the FBI or the CIA. It's a life on the run. It's not a 'let's travel the world' kind of life. I'm doing this because I know I don't belong here. This world feels like it's suffocating me, always trying to hide my true self."
Joe gulped before kneeling down in front of her. "Did you ever hide yourself from me?"
"No," Bella whispered, "but I can't ask you to give up everyone you know, everyone you love, just to run away. You have dreams and aspirations that you could never fulfill where I'm going."
"If I stay, I still have to give up you." Joe stated. "You broke up with me to let me live a normal college life. I may love my classes, but I fucking hate my life outside of those few hours. Because, every girl I meet doesn't compare to you. Not to sound like a douche, but I see you everywhere I go. I don't care if I lose everything else in this world. You are my constant."
Bella shook her head, blinking away tears that threatened to blur her vision. "I can't take you with me. You may feel this way now, but you'll resent me for it someday. Growing up, you wanted to be the architect who went to play catch with his kids in the park every Saturday morning. You wanted to drive cross country and learn the history on your own terms. God, you wanted to save up enough retirement to buy a bungalow in the Caribbean. I can't give you that."
Joe cupped her face in his hands. "And, none of them are things I need." He kissed her hard, and Bella nearly sobbed as her arms wound around his neck. "I'll show you somehow. I promise."
"Don't make promises you can't keep." Bella whispered against his lips before he crawled over her, laying her down on her back and moving between her legs.
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