Al was on his knees and digging before he knew what he was doing. Digging like a dog, with his hands.

"Al!" Lauren barked. "Stop!"

As if he were a dog that had been swiped on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper, he snapped out of his tail-chasing frenzy and blinked in the sudden darkness, having dropped the flashlight in his haste to begin.

"Al," Lauren said. "I know what you're thinking, but it's wrong. It has to be."

"What if it's not?" he cried. "What if it's Rachel under there? What if it's Joe?"

"If it is, then you've just implicated yourself, and can at least be charged with improper disposal of a body. The evidence is right on your hands. We have to stop and think about this."

The threat of jail time was enough to make him pause, at least for a minute. He grabbed his flashlight and illuminated the whole mound.

"It doesn't look long enough to be either of them," Lauren said. "Rachel's as tall as you are, and Joe would need a hole nearly twice that size."

"So... what?" he said, and then his stomach dropped. "What if it's a kid?"

"What if it's a pet grave," Lauren said, shaking her head. "That would be the more logical answer. Horses, not zebras."

"I have to know either way."

Lauren looked at it a moment, thinking. "We're going to need a shovel."

"I don't suppose you have one, do you?"

"There's one in the van. We keep it in case we get stuck in snow. You stay here so I can find my way back to you."

"Wait, are you sure that's wise? It's pretty dark now. I should go with you."

She smirked. "Chivalry is unbecoming of you, Al. I can take care of myself."

"I have no doubt about that. It's more that I don't want to be left alone in the dark."

She burst out laughing. "All right, all right. Maybe we can leave some breadcrumbs."

She ended up spraypainting a series of dots leading from the mound to the edge of the dig, and the pink ended up quite visible against the black dirt, especially when the flashlights made it luminescent. "There," she said.

"Ingenuity," Al said, and nodded. "Thanks, Lauren."

They walked in silence back around the edge of the dig, and when they reached the end of the street, they discovered the second surprise of the night.

The van was gone.

"What the fuck?!" Lauren squawked.

Al stared at the empty space where the van was, and suddenly started laughing. He couldn't help it. It was as if all the stress, anxiety and fear of the past couple of days needed a pressure valve to seep through, and this was it. His whole body shook with guffaws, and it scared him a little, because he was having trouble getting air into his lungs, and he leaned over, hands on his knees, while every muscle in his trunk spasmed with mirth.

It took Lauren slapping his face to make him stop. "Al!" she snapped. "Come on! You need to focus! Don't go losing it on me, okay?"

He took a deep breath, calmed down and looked up at Lauren, who only just seemed to be holding it together herself, chin quivering, eyes brimming. "I'm sorry," he said, gasping. "I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry I had to hit you."

"It needed to be done." He offered his hand to her. "Friends?"

She had none of that and threw her arms around him instead. She squeezed hard for someone so small, but Al didn't mind. He squeezed back just as hard, and he heard her sniffling into the nape of his neck.

After a minute, he said, "I think you're going to have to call your friend Joanie back and report a grand theft auto, or something."

Now she started laughing, and he could feel her body quivering in his arms. He was glad he was making her feel better. "She's not my friend," she reminded him. "And to report an actual crime I think we should go through the official channels and call nine-one-one."

"Are we both okay, now?" he asked.

"Yeah. I know what I need to do. We're going to need a ride out of here, too."

"Will you be able to contain your disdain if I call Sunny to our rescue?"

She sighed. "Yeah, yeah. Tell him to bring a shovel."

He blinked in surprise. "Wait, if we're calling the police, should we be bringing them to a place where we're going to be digging?"

She unlocked and said, "Let's call nine-one-one and then call Sunny. Hopefully the police can be here and gone before he gets here, and then we can dig unmolested."

The RCMP officer, not Sergeant Joanie, hadn't left before Sunny pulled in, but Sunny's presence was explained by the fact that he was their ride home. It took a while for Al and Lauren to convince the officer that they were in this place in the middle of nowhere because Lauren's husband was doing work here, and they were searching it to see if he was here. It took Al giving him the contact information of the Vancouver detectives working the missing persons case to sway him.

By now it was full dark. While they'd waited for the police, Lauren had had to break the news to her in-laws about the van. Then she'd had to call her own mom and ask her to pick up her kids from the in-laws, a prospect she dreaded because her in-laws and parents still didn't get along. "I'm just glad I don't have to be there to see them negotiate each other," she'd confided.

Sunny's grey Prius was a welcome sight to the two shivering friends. He climbed out wearing his grubbies, old jeans and a paint-streaked sweater he'd obviously stained in the past doing a renovation.

After the officer left with all the details and their contact information, Sunny smiled and shook his head. "Why is it every time I see the two of you now, it looks like you're up to something?"

Al and Lauren looked at each other. "That's because we are," Lauren said. "Did you bring the shovel?"

He nodded. "An odd request. Please tell me we're not burying a body."

"No, but possibly digging one up," Al said.

Sunny blinked in surprise. "Are you serious?"

"Deadly," Lauren said. "You do remember our spouses are missing?"

Al grimaced. Lauren wasn't containing her animosity very well.

Sunny looked from Al, to Lauren, and to Al again. "Please, tell me they're not..."

"No, I don't think so," Lauren said. "But we need to know what it is. Maybe it will lead us in a new direction."

Sunny opened his trunk and drew out his shovel. "So, how in the world does your van get stolen in the middle of nowhere?"

"I wish I knew," Lauren said. "My brother-in-law did say they'd had some theft of material off their site. Maybe there's a thief in the area, and he found a more lucrative target."

Sunny looked around and said, "You know what, I think one of us needs to stay in the car, in case our thief comes back for another round."

"Good idea, Sunny!" Lauren said, too brightly to be genuine. "I'll stay here with the zapper, and you two take the flashlights and go dig."

Sunny looked at Al and shrugged. "We do only have the one shovel. There's no reason all three of us need to be there."

"Yeah, you're right."

Lauren looked almost disappointed. "I wasn't really serious, you know. I thought you'd put up more of a fight."

"Keep the doors locked," Al said.

They left her staring after them wordlessly as Al led the way back to the site.

"Is Lauren angry at me?" Sunny asked when they were out of earshot.

"No," Al said unconvincingly. "She's just... you know... on edge. Her van being stolen is just the latest bad thing to happen to her."

They walked in silence for a moment, and then Sunny said, "You and Lauren... I was joking back there about you being up to something..."

Al looked at him, puzzled. "Uh-huh?"

"But I still can't help noticing a different dynamic between the two of you lately."

"Well, it was a bit of a shock, waking up without any memory of a whole night, and then being told by your friend that you were acting inappropriately with each other. I think it's natural that we're a little shy around each other."

"That's not what I meant, actually. Even before you and Rachel married, Al, I noticed a kind of tension between the two of you; don't think I didn't notice the woman you chose to dance for you at the Paramount for your bachelor party."

Al chuckled awkwardly, pulling at his collar, which suddenly felt too tight. "That was..." How did he lie without making it sound like a lie? He was never very good at it. "I liked the way she danced on the stage, that's all. She seemed to be enjoying herself, even if it was probably an act. How come you didn't buy a dance, by the way? Does your religion forbid you from enjoying strippers?"

"If religion were the issue, then Catholic Joe wouldn't have gone off with that intensely physical policewoman. The only reason I didn't choose a dancer is that none of them could hold a candle to Tej."

"You're sweet, and now I feel terrible."

"My point is, I can't help wondering if that incident I saw hadn't been something you and Lauren were building up to for some time, and that whatever you might have been drugged with only stripped away any last inhibitions."

Al stopped in his tracks, and Sunny was a few steps away before he noticed.

"What?" Al breathed, stunned. "That's not... no. Lauren is devoted to Joe, and... okay, maybe I've had a few harmless fantasies about her, but I've loved Rachel since childhood, and I wouldn't threaten my marriage like that." He thought telling him Lauren was more interested in his wife than she was in him would have only confused the issue.

Sunny shrugged. "Lauren and I can both tell you how easily marriages crumble under the weight of affairs begun by people who never intended for them to happen. Just... be careful, okay, Al? The last thing I want to see is either of your marriages end, because that would mean the end of the LSDC, and I don't want to lose you guys again."

Al smiled at him. "Aw, I didn't know we meant so much to you, Sunny."

"Fuck off." But Sunny was grinning when he said it, and Al walked over and patted him on the arm.

"Don't worry," Al said. "All Lauren and I are concerned about is finding Joe and Rachel."

Sunny nodded, but he didn't look convinced.

When they reached the spray painted dots, Al said, "It's just this way." Their flashlights found the mound, and Sunny looked at it for a second.

Then he started digging. Tentatively, at first, small shovelfuls, just in case he hit something buried shallowly.

"Are you sure you should be the one digging?" Al asked.

"That's why I'm dressed like this."

"Aren't you an officer of the court? If you're caught in something untoward like this, won't your career suffer, or couldn't you go to jail?"

Sunny paused in his digging and turned to him. "Won't yours? Couldn't you?"

"Yeah, but I don't have a family. You have more to lose."

"Your application to become foster parents won't be accepted if they find you have a criminal record."

Al blinked in surprise. He hadn't even considered the process he and Rachel were undergoing to foster a child. Unlike reproducing biologically, which should have required a license, the bureaucracy involved in fostering had all the joy of getting a passport; he wasn't surprised if they would next ask for one of his limbs. When he thought back to Mrs. Anderson, and how they'd begged her to foster Danny Trybek, he could only shake his head; they'd had no idea what they were asking, nor what a colossal inconvenience the older woman would have endured to do it. 

"We won't be able to until we get a new place, with at least one more bedroom," he said. "And we won't at all if Rachel is buried under here."

Sunny took another couple of shovelfuls, watching each as he dumped them beside him, searching for anything of note, before handing the shovel to him. He took another few shovelfuls before the shovel blade hit something with a hollow thunk.

Al and Sunny looked at each other for a moment. "Arrr, buried treasure?" Sunny asked, poorly mimicking a pirate.

"Or a coffin?"

"I think this is too small to be a grave," Sunny said.

"That's what Lauren said."

"We need to dig this out, now, I'm too intrigued to stop."

It wasn't that deep a grave after all. Certainly not deep enough to bury a body; animals would have gotten at it and brought it to light, risking it being found and triggering a police investigation.

What they dug out was a box, one of those old steamer trunks that Al remembered from childhood; Joe had showed them the one his dad had packed their lives in when they'd moved here from Italy. 

In fact... weren't those tags and stamps in Italian? He dusted some of the dirt from the top and sides and looked at the words and, yes, he thought they were, though he didn't know what they said.

"We need to show this to Lauren," he said. "This might belong to Joe's family."

Sunny took out his phone and snapped a few photos of it. "I'm photographing it in situ," he said, "in case there's a chain of evidence here. I'll take a few more of the area. Why don't you go get Lauren while I do that?"

"Will you be okay here by yourself?"

"Sure, why not?"

"I was a bit of a chicken earlier."

He chuckled. "Go, and be quick about it, or you're going to make me a chicken."

Al was finding it easier to find his way, now, being the fourth time he was skirting the dig. When he approached the Prius, Lauren saw his approaching flashlight and stepped out of the car. He saw her questioning look and said, "It's a steamer trunk."

Her brow furrowed. "What?"

"I think you should have a look at it. It might belong to Joe's family."

She locked the car and followed him. They were almost running now. When they returned to Sunny, and Lauren saw it, she said, "Holy shit, I've seen this before."

"Me, too," Al said. "When I was a kid, it was in the DiTomasos' house."

"Uh, yeah, and then Johnny took it when they moved. He liked it. So did Joe, but Johnny's the first child, so he gets dibs."

"So... do you think Johnny buried this here?" Sunny asked. "Is this something private of his that we just dug up?"

"Why bury something all the way out here, though?" Al asked.

"Because he doesn't want anyone he knows finding it," Lauren said. "That's the only possible explanation."

"This isn't his property, though, is it?" Sunny asked.

"Not that I know of, he's just building houses on the site adjacent to it. Maybe he was betting on no one developing this particular patch of land and discovering it."

"If this is Johnny's," Al said, "then this could have absolutely nothing to do with Joe and Rachel's disappearance. Maybe we should put it back?"

"Fuck that," Lauren said.

"Okay, good, I didn't want to either, but I was just going through the proprieties."

"It's locked, though," Sunny said, trying to lift the lid and gesturing to the built-in mechanism.

"That's never stopped me." Lauren opened her kit and drew out a small pouch, from which she retrieved a couple of slim, needle-like tools. These she inserted into the lock, and after a minute of manipulation, Al heard a click of metal, and then Lauren pulled out the tools, slipped them back in the pouch and the pouch back in her kit, then lifted the lid of the trunk.

The three friends stood there, looking inside the trunk.

"Jesus," Al breathed.

"Oh, no," Lauren moaned. "It's Charlie."

It was a pet grave after all.

See? The trunk made a reappearance after all. At least it wasn't their missing spouses, but poor Charlie. If you like what you just read, hit the "Vote" button and leave a comment. Let's take a break from this sad news and look back at the day Al and Rachel got married, which is the first chapter dealing with events in between the first novel of the series and this one. Click on "Continue reading" to see.