5

Chapter 587 Hot Mess

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His plan to kill Bruce had been so easy. Dump gas on the back seats and toss a couple of matches inside. It all began to go to hell when he'd dumped the body. He didn't want to dump Carlos in the middle of nowhere. The man had a family who deserved to know their loved one was dead. He wasn't a heartless man like that bastard Carl.

To make sure Carlos got found, he needed to put him somewhere so he'd get found. On TV, discarding a body looks easy, but it's much harder in real life. Carlos wasn't bleeding anymore and the blood was drying so there was less blood to get on him, but Carlos wasn't a small man and he wasn't strong. To get him out of the car, he'd have to drag him and that would take time. Above all, he couldn't get caught disposing of the body because he'd end up in jail for killing him and then he'd have to explain what really happened because he wasn't going down for murder. As he knew from TV, guys like him didn't do well in prison. He thought that was probably true and either way, he didn't want to do any personal research on the subject.

He picked a road that was used enough for Carlos to get discovered but not so often, he couldn't get rid of the body. Turned out he'd misjudged the road and every single time, he thought the coast was clear and got out of his car, some car came along and he'd had to duck back inside. After thirty minutes, he realized it was never going to work.

While he waited, he'd tried to come up with a Plan B by coming up with another road. He drove to his next location and the same damned thing happened. He only needed five minutes and he couldn't even get five minutes to drag Carlos out of his car and leave him.

Leaving Carlos in Bruce while he torched him wouldn't work because it could tie him to Carlos' death. No he had no choice. He had to dump Carlos first and then burn Bruce.

He tried two more roads with the same outcome. Too much traffic. He could dump Carlos somewhere in the middle of nowhere, but he was still determined that Carlos be found. He owed him that much.

And then it hit him. He could dump his body out in the middle of nowhere and then call the police and tell them the location of the body. A little anonymous call and Carlos would be found.

Eric turned down a dirt road, pulled over and dragged Carlos out of the car and left him, but not before he took the money he'd given him that morning for the hit on Knowles and stuffed it in his own pocket.

He felt some relief to have Carlos gone. He took an old blanket and spread it in the back seat to hide the blood stains before driving around looking for a pay phone. It turned out that just like body dumping, finding a pay phone was also not as easy as TV leads watchers to believe. Damned cell phones caused the scarcity of pay phones.

After twenty minutes of driving around, he finally found a pay phone and discovered it didn't work. He thought of giving up, but even if Carlos died because he botched the hit on Knowles, he didn't deserve to rot in a field somewhere undiscovered. After two more attempts with the same result, he finally found a pay phone outside a convenience store near TM and called in his anonymous tip.

Next, he drove to get Chinese fast food. He wanted one final meal with Bruce before the execution. His eyes welled with tears at the thought of parting with Bruce. Bruce was his longest and best relationship.

After eating in the parking lot, he drove home. After a couple of hours, he crawled into Bruce's backseat for some special time. He cried at the thought of losing Bruce. He returned to his house and tried to console himself by looking for a replacement Ford Fiesta. He found a hunky blue metallic Ford Fiesta and knew he could soon grow to love Liam as much as he had Bruce.

Around 2 am, he grabbed the gas can he kept on hand for his gas powered lawn mower, some matches and headed out to kill Bruce. His eyes filled with tears as he drove to Bruce's final resting spot. They had shared so much together and now it was all going to be gone. He decided to leave the blanket with Bruce. It would have Carlos' DNA on it and he couldn't take it home now.

He poured the gas all over the seats and struck the match. For some reason, the seats didn't catch fire. He struck a second match, leaned in and dropped it. At that moment, the seats caught fire singeing his eyebrows and catching some of his hair on fire. He yelped, jumped back and slapped frantically at his hair. In the end, he lost most of his eyebrows, a little of his hair around the top of his head and burned his hands.

Burns hurt like hell and there was no way, Eric was going to walk two miles to his house. He walked a quarter of a mile and then used his burner phone to call Carl. He was afraid of telling Carl what had happened, but he hurt like hell and he needed both medical attention and a ride home. Carl was the only person he could call.

Carl predictably cursed and called him a bunch of names, but Eric had just killed Bruce and he hurt like hell so he grew bold. He told Carl if he didn't pick him up, he would call 911 for help. That got him out of his mansion in record time the bastard.

To say Carl was furious with him was putting it mildly, but Eric didn't give a damn about that. He'd dumped a dead body, killed Bruce whom he'd loved with all his heart and gotten his hair and face burned. There wasn't anything that Carl could say or do that would top what he'd just been through.

Carl had treated him and given him some cream to put on his burns, but there was a big problem; his physical appearance practically screamed he'd been burned. He had to report his car stolen and when they found it, it was going to be obvious that he'd burned it. He managed to buy some time by filling out a police report online, but he had to go to the police station the next day because the smoking remains of Bruce had been found.

And to top off this shit show, Carl tried to get out of paying him the money he owed him. Well, he had news for the high and mighty Dr. Namid, he was going to get the money he owed him no matter what he had to do to get it.

All he had to do was get through tomorrow when he went down to the police station. His make-up artist friend Petey from his porn days was going to fix his face and hands so the cops wouldn't be able to tell he'd been burned. Then he would file his claim with his insurance company.

Tomorrow night, he was going to get the money out of Carl no matter what he had to do to get it.