Chapter 2: Getting Rid of the Evidence

David found the car right where Tony and Ellen told them it was parked. The car started on the first try and David drove it onto his property and into the barn without being noticed.

The car was a piece of shit. It hadn't been washed in several lifetimes, and the windows were so filthy that David could barely see out of them. David grabbed a trash barrel and began cleaning out the car. Obvious trash was going in the barrel; things of a personal nature were going into a small box.

Danielle walked over from the house and asked, "Why are you cleaning his car out?"

"I was thinking of dumping it in a shopping center parking lot and letting it get stolen," David explained. "It is so trashy that no self respecting thief would want anything to do with it."

They both chuckled, and Danielle pointed to the small box. "What's that?"

"Rather than simply throwing everything away, I thought I'd hang onto the personal stuff - we can always dispose of it later. I want to go through it carefully before we toss it."

"Makes sense to me. Can I help?"

"Sure, get everything out of the glove compartment and we'll go through it together."

Over the next 45 minutes they completely emptied the car. Most of the contents made a long overdue trip into the trash barrel. The few contents that were possibly worth keeping easily fit into the small box.

Once they had everything out of the car, David fired it up and pulled it out of the barn. Danielle got in and they drove to David's pickup truck, where Danielle climbed out and got into the truck to follow.

"Don't follow too close, I don't want it to look like we are together. You know where I'm going, right?

Danielle told David that she knew where they were going, and the two headed off of David's property, towards a medium-sized town about 90 miles away. They completed the trip without incident in less than two hours, and David abandoned the car - with the keys in the ignition - in a small strip mall in the bad part of town. It was almost dawn when they dropped off the car.

He walked to where Danielle had parked the truck, climbed in behind the wheel and started to pull out of the lot.

"I wish we had picked someplace a little closer," Danielle whispered.

"Why's that," David asked?

"I'm entirely too pregnant to be dealing with a manual transmission. I should have made you take a cab back home. My clutch leg is killing me."

"Jeesh, I get you the pet you've been asking for, and all I get is grief."

They snuggled all the way home, with Danielle eventually falling asleep on David's shoulder. The trip home was wonderfully uneventful, and they stopped for breakfast along the way. They were home by 9 a.m. and needed to start thinking about getting the two kids out of the root cellar.