We Are Both In The Dirt Ch. 03

Mint is a man on a mission. Mira thinks to herself. As she watches he swipes at his cell phone screen, arches his eyebrows as he reacts to something he sees there. When she inquires about it, he shrugs it off.

She recalls their meeting because her first encounter with Mint had set the tone for the next ten years of her life. She nearly overdosed on his best friend's front steps. Montana Jones had been so unconcerned that she didn't even open her eyes in the ER to see him looking down at her, but Mint and a blonde girl with a nose ring and a cigarette propped behind her ear, poised to fall out at any moment. Mya. And Mya is dead now.

Mira removes two tumblers from a shelf over the kitchen sink. She pours three shots of Whiskey into each of their glasses and takes them out to the living room where Mint has abandoned his phone and is now removing the money from the bag, counting it out. She shakes a bit as she places the glasses on the solid marble coffee table. Another memory flashes through her brain, but she dismisses it.

"I want to tell you what happened, but I'm afraid you'll think differently of me."

"Mint, I know the worst of you, unfortunately," Mira says. She lights a cigarette and takes a long drag, something inside of her relaxes but she keeps her eyes on the door. She is not at all convinced that Montana won't come back.

"You think you do," Mint says. He rearranges himself in his pants and Mira ignores the wave of heat that passes through her. She hasn't seen Mint in three years. That is a long time to be away from someone for whom your heart beats.

"Spit it out," Mira says. She thinks of the notebook in her bedroom. She'd been brainstorming, trying to come up with an accomplice for what she'd planned. It is funny that Mint would show up when right when she is thinking of him, of her life so far.

"She found the note in the shotgun, and I think she was planning to fly here to kill you," Mint says. He lifts the tumbler from the table and throws the shot back. Mira picks up her glass but doesn't drink.

"Why do you think that?"

"Well, I got home and picked up her laptop to look up something, saw that she'd purchased at ticket here, and two tickets to Dubai."

"Maybe she was planning on taking me to Dubai," Mira says. She gulps down her drink and returns to the kitchen for the bottle. The liquor warms her shoulders instantly, and she remembers the way Mya used to laugh. Mya is a good person, had been a good person. They were all a little rough around the edges, preferred quick cash to 9-5's-but they were just normal people otherwise, at least that's how Mira thought of it.

"Glad you can manage to joke at a time like this," Mint says. He enters the kitchen behind her, pours Whiskey to the rim of his glass and drinks it. "Can I continue?"

"I'm sorry, go ahead."

"She found the note, bought those tickets and went out to tie up some loose ends, I imagine. I waited for her for hours. I thought maybe she was gone. I was too scared to call her, too afraid I'd get her voicemail or that she would tell me what I suspected. She got home at dark, she pulled a gun on me as soon as she saw me, and I ducked a slug that would've killed me or made me a vegetable. I didn't try to reason with her, I was livid, blind with anger. I got up, took out my knife and while she was fucking with her gun, which had jammed by the grace of God, I stabbed her in her left eye, then in the side of the neck. She writhed around on the floor for what seemed like hours, and I watched her without a thought in my mind or a feeling in my gut. Her blood got everywhere. All over the furniture, she coughed and some shot onto the ceiling. I watched her until she was done, and then I went through her cell phone. Two outgoing calls to Montana, one incoming from Montana, a moment before she came in the door."

"So, what are you saying, that you know where Montana is? Even though you came in here with a gun on me, asking me about him?"

"See the thing is, everything I've told you is what I surmised from the tickets, Mya trying to kill me. I wasn't sure that you weren't in on it. I had to see if you held up under pressure."

"And did I?" Mira asks. Mint smiles, pours himself another shot. "I can't believe you would ever have thought I'd be in on killing you."

"Mira, last I heard you were engaged to the guy, all the while you were supposed to be biding your time, waiting for me."

"Mint, you killed someone in prison, I didn't think you were ever getting out. Mya would call and say as much. I decided to move on. Plus, it seemed like you and Mya were reconnecting. I barely got a letter. It doesn't matter now anyway, but what do you think, think I'm still in on it?"

"No, I knew you weren't the moment I saw you, as beautiful as I remembered. As bad as I recalled."

"Focus," Mira says, "the tickets to Dubai were for separate flights, separate days. Do you think Montana is in the Middle East by now, waiting on Mya to join him?"

"Stranger things have happened."

"The money, Mya was going to come here, kill me, take the money, and head out to Montana. That's got to be what was going on."

"When did Montana leave?"

"Five days ago. August 15."

"That was one of the dates on the ticket. Montana's arrived, and is waiting on Mya."

"That would be best case scenario," Mira said.

"Worst case being?"

"Montana knows Mya's dead, and he's on his way to here to send us to meet her."