Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.
-Benjamin Franklin

Chapter 1

No one moved a muscle. Not a sound could be heard. The girl was motionless. They all knew she was dead. “Okay, okay.” Rubbing his hand down his face, he had to think and think fast. Pointing to the photographer “you, go get a sheet.” The boy did not move. “Now damn it!” He jumped, and then rushed of to get the sheet. Everyone else was frozen in disbelief. How could this happen?

Lorna slowly approach Rorlo, her hands running up and down her arms, “she can’t be dead, she just can’t,” she was shaking, her voice barely above a whisper.

Turning toward her, “get a whole of yourself; this is no time to loose it. I’ll fix this.” His mind was racing. No one can know about this. No one.

Amber’s young body was gleaming under the lights. Her eyes were still open; shouldn’t they be closed? People eyes close when they die, don’t they? Maybe she wasn’t…the thought trail of as Lorna tentatively touched Amber’s arm.

“Oh gawd! Oh gawd!” jerking her hand away “How Rorlo? How are you going to fix this? She is dead!” Her frantic eyes searched his. His icy calm frightens her. Rorlo face showed no emotions.

The boy came back with the sheet. He called himself Jeff, not his real name; no one cared. They didn’t care that he is only 15 years old. The boy was a genius when he had a camera in his hand. He knew how to make pictures come alive. Rorlo wanted the best. The kid is the best. He didn’t care about his age. Beside, who would find out? He paid the kid too well for him to blab.

Pointing to Ray, who handles the lighting, “you, wrap her in this.” Throwing the sheet at him. Everyone will have a part in this he decided; it was the only way, other than killing them, to ensure that no one talked.

“No way man, no way!” voice quivering from the scene before him, Ray turned his back, started packing his equipment; he was getting out of here. A shot sounding like a firecracker split the air, Ray fell to the floor, and he was dead.

Pointing the gun at no one in particular, “anyone else wants to join him?” Rorlo asked softly, death was in his eyes. He was not going back to prison, not for anyone one. “I’ll say this only once. Looking at each of them, if word of this gets out, I’ll find you, I’ll kill you.”

No one moved. Their eyes were on Ray, lying in a pool of blood, dead. Still pointing the gun at the dead man on the floor “does anyone here doubt me?” he asked softly. No one did. They all knew he would kill his own mama if he had too. Rumor had it that he did.

Hearts were pumping and sweat beaded on foreheads. “Now,” still holding the pistol as if it was apart of his hands, “you,” he pointed at Jeff, “wrap the girl in the sheet.” Looking at Tiffany, the makeup artist, “you…get another sheet.” Wide eye and shaking like a leaf, she ran out the room.

Lorna still frozen in shock; began to visible tremble as if she was cold. A girl was dead from strangulation and he, looking at Rorlo realizing for the first time just how dangerous he really is, shot Ray to death without blinking an eye. Her eyes reflected the horror of it.

“Don’t look at me like that” he sneered. She quickly averted her eyes. Trying not to look at the bed where Amber once laid, staring at the blood still fresh on the floor where Ray, poor Ray she thought and closed her eyes. Tears silently streamed down her face.

With both bodies wrapped, Rorlo instructed both Dan and Jeff to put the bodies in the van. “We’re all going to take a little trip.” He pointed the pistol at Lorna’s forehead; there was a gasp from someone in the room. “Anyone move... anyone cry out for help, or if anyone so much as draws attention to us when we leave this building... I’ll kill her.” No one doubted him.

They all loaded into the van, each in their own thoughts wondering if they were on their way to their own funeral. No one spoke except Dan, who was driving; he needed to know where they were going. Rorlo sat across from him; arm resting on Dans' left thigh, the gun pointing down toward his most private part. Dan swallowed an imaginary lump in his throat. Rorlo smiled at Dan “to the dump my man, to the dump.” The smiled slowly fell from his face “we have some trash to put out.” There was death in his eyes as he pointly looked at each of them “let’s hope we don’t pick up anymore trash on the way.” The warning was clear.

Lorna sat next to Tiffany, silently praying. It was the first time she prayed in years. She did not believe in prayers. It did not do her any good in the past. She prayed anyway. She tried not to look at Amber and Ray, both their bodies wrapped in sheets, Ray’s stain with blood, but she could not take her eyes of the bodies. The van was silent as death.

At the dumpsite, Rorlo instructed Dan and Lorna to dump the bodies. She looked up, there were gulls flying above, lots of them. She will never forget the site she knew, looking at the two people whom she once shared smiles with now rapped in white sheets, one slowly turning red from blood, nor this day she thought as long as she lived.