The night was heavy and damp, and a light mist hung in the air like a heavy curtain, humid and suffocating. Three figures hurried clumsily through an alley carrying something heavy and awkward, their grunts and labored breathing inaudible over the ubiquitous humming of the city. They stopped briefly to rest and reconfigure themselves and were quickly on their way again through the alley, which was no more than two blocks long, but tonight felt as if it were the length of the entire city, stretching from river to river. The trio lumbered along and came at last to a black sedan parked at the end of the alley, just outside of a vacant apartment complex. “Open the trunk,” one of them said, nervous and out of breath. The other two held their bulky package while the third reached into his pocket with a shaky hand, pulled out the keys, and unlocked the trunk. Though it took only seconds, it felt like an eternity. “Finally,” a man’s voice said as they deposited the lifeless body into the trunk and slammed the lid.
Inside the car everything was silent. Not a single word was spoken while the passengers each absorbed the events of the last hour and began to appreciate the magnitude of what had just happened. Three identical pairs of eyes searched the darkness for a sign, some affirmation that what they had done was right, but they found nothing; only the usual sights and cast of characters that inhabit city streets on nights like this.
Finally, someone spoke. It was a female’s voice; fearful, but full of life and control. “At least that’s over with,” she said. The other two passengers nodded their heads in agreement. Their father had never been a kind man and would not likely be missed. He had made countless enemies in his life so the chances of his murder being traced back to his three children were unlikely. “What if someone finds out?” a male voice from the driver’s seat chimed in. “They won’t,” replied the other, much more authoritative male voice. “Besides,” he said, “Three may keep a secret.” They drove the rest of the way in silence, stopping the black sedan on a country road just outside of the city. The driver popped the trunk, and the three accomplices stepped out of the car in unison into the pitch black quiet. The two brothers wrestled their father’s carcass from the trunk and carried it to a large hole they had dug just a couple of days earlier. With a sigh of relief, they hurled the man who had brought them into the world into the ground. Not a single one of them saw any tragedy in his death. They could only imagine the millions of dollars that would soon be theirs as a result of his passing. Quietly celebrating, the three conspirators stood around the hole and gazed admiringly at their father’s final resting place. Without so much as a single word, the lone female of the group pulled out a gun and shot her oldest brother, killing him instantly, his body falling into the giant grave he had helped dig for their father. Bewildered, her surviving brother looked at her in shock. “What are you doing?” he cried, but her only response was a single bullet, placed appropriately in his heart. She slowly made her way over to her brother’s body, and, using her foot, casually coerced him into the grave. A slight smile began to form itself on her face, a wicked twisting of the lips. “You’re right, brother,” she said, “Three may keep a secret,” the smile growing wider with each syllable, “If two of them are dead.”
