Fiona completely froze. Her mind went blank, and she had no idea what to do. All she could do was turn her head stiffly and look at Lip.
Lip was barely holding it together himself, his thoughts racing.
One second. Two seconds.
Lip glanced at Frank and made a decision.
They absolutely could not let Tony's partner call for backup. If that happened, there'd be no way to clean this up.
So… Frank would have to be the sacrifice.
Let that piece of trash go to prison.
As for what would happen to the Gallagher family after Frank got arrested…
One step at a time. Deal with one thing at a time.
"Tony, since you don't mind the trouble, then go ahead and dig," Lip said, visibly calmer now that he'd made up his mind. "Fiona, give him the shovel. Saves us the hassle."
Fiona heard him, but she hesitated badly. After several seconds, she forced herself to steel her nerves and handed the shovel to Tony.
Things had already come this far.
Tony didn't know what to say, so he said nothing. He took the shovel and started digging.
After more than a dozen shovelfuls—
It was all solid, compact dirt. No signs of a burial at all.
Tony stopped and let out a silent sigh of relief.
Standing by the edge of the pit, Fiona did the same.
"Hey, there's nothing down here. No signs it's ever been dug up—the soil's solid," Tony called out to his partner, who was standing on guard nearby. "That asshole who called it in was probably pulling a prank. You wanna come take a look?"
Tony's partner blinked, thought it over for a moment, then moved. Staying alert toward the Gallaghers, he walked over to Tony.
At the edge of the pit, using the beam of Tony's flashlight, he examined it carefully.
After looking it over, he glanced at Fiona, then said to Tony, "Nothing in the pit. It's possible the body hasn't been buried yet. We need to check the yard and the house."
The moment Fiona heard that—
Lip, who had just started to relax, immediately snapped back, clearly irritated. "You guys are really something else. Fine, you wanna search? Be my guest. Check whatever you want. Hell, if you can clean the place while you're at it, that'd be great."
Tony's partner wasn't Tony, and he wasn't about to indulge the Gallaghers. Hearing the tone in Lip's voice, he curled his lips into a cold smile. "Lip, right? Since you've agreed, I'll be doing a very thorough search. I sincerely hope there's nothing illegal in your house."
Sensing his partner was getting pissed, Tony sighed helplessly. "Lip, just shut up."
He stopped Lip first, then tried to smooth things over. "Alright, alright. Why get mad at a kid? Let's take a quick look and get out of here. It's freezing, and it's the middle of the night."
Tony's partner didn't say anything, just shot Lip a hard glare.
Then—
They began the search.
No body in the yard.
No body in the house either.
Of course, thanks to Tony stepping in, his partner didn't do a full, invasive search of the Gallagher home.
About half an hour later—
Once they were done, Tony apologized to Fiona before leaving. "Sorry about all this. It's just my job. Thanks for understanding. We'll head out now—try to get some rest."
After all that time, Fiona had finally calmed down. She gave a faint smile. "It's okay. Drive safe."
Soon after, the police car pulled away.
Fiona let out a long breath of relief. Without wasting any time, she went back to digging.
She dug until midnight.
The hole was already pretty wide and deep.
Still nothing.
Fiona checked the time. Since she still had to go steal a body from the morgue, she had no choice but to call Carl and Debbie over to keep digging.
"Carl, Debbie, I'm gonna need you guys to help out a bit longer," Fiona said. "I'll buy you something good tomorrow, okay?"
Neither of them objected.
Honestly, digging up bones sounded exciting—Carl had been itching to do it.
—
Stealing the body went smoothly, but it took a lot of time.
By a little after two in the morning, Fiona, Veronica, and Kevin finally managed to get the ice-cold corpse into the Gallagher house and lay it inside the stolen coffin.
"Fiona," Kevin said. It was the middle of the night, the dead of winter, and doing something this creepy was really pushing him past his limit. He collapsed onto the couch and spoke up. "I know this isn't something you ever wanted, but I still have to say it—this kind of thing, or anything like it, cannot happen again."
"Frank is a bottomless pit. One more time like this, and none of us would survive it."
Hearing that, Veronica immediately smacked Kevin on the leg and said apologetically to Fiona, "Fiona, don't listen to him. He's just exhausted."
Fiona looked completely worn down, like a middle-aged woman who'd been wrung dry by life. She forced a bitter smile. "It's okay. You guys really went through hell tonight. Thank you. Go home and get some rest. I'll handle the rest."
Kevin didn't bother with polite back-and-forth. He stood up. "V, let's go. I need to get home and wash this dead-body smell off me."
Veronica was exhausted too. She pushed herself to say a few comforting words to Fiona, then left with Kevin.
Barely holding herself together, Fiona saw them off. The moment the door closed, she collapsed onto the couch, overwhelmed and helpless, tears pouring down her face.
She cried for a short while.
Then she remembered Carl and the others still working in the backyard. With no other choice, Fiona took a deep breath, wiped her tears, clenched her teeth, and went back outside.
Even though more than two hours had passed, Carl and Debbie were still young and didn't have much strength. The hole hadn't gotten much bigger.
When Fiona arrived, she took the shovel and started digging again.
Another hour passed.
The pit was now extremely deep.
But Ginger's remains were still nowhere to be found.
"Frank! Are you absolutely sure it's right here?" Fiona asked, her whole body aching.
Frank had long since fallen asleep in his wheelchair, wrapped in a blanket. No response.
Looking at him like that—
For a split second, Fiona genuinely had the urge to just bury Frank in the hole instead. She had to take several deep breaths to force herself to calm down. "Carl, go wake Frank up."
Carl didn't say a word. He did it.
Frank woke up.
Fiona asked the question again.
Frank rubbed his eyes groggily. "It should be around here… I think. But it's been twelve years, and back then I was high when I buried Ginger…"
"Maybe… maybe it needs to be a little to the side?"
The words hung in the air.
Fiona: "?????"
Carl and Debbie: "?????"
Ian snapped. "Fiona, forget this! Let him go to prison! You can apply to the court to be our legal guardian!"
Lip was furious too. "Fiona, Ian's right. I've actually thought about that option. Stop digging. Let's go back inside and let him rot."
The moment Frank heard that, he was wide awake. He started screaming. "You heartless little shits! I'm the one who—"
Watching the scene unfold, listening to his words—
Fiona finally couldn't hold it together anymore. Her hand went slack, the shovel hit the ground, and she broke down sobbing.
3:30 a.m.
The Gallagher family went back inside the house. No one said a word as they went off to sleep.
Covered in dirt and sweat, Fiona lay on her bed and cried herself to sleep.
Fiona had a dream.
In the dream, none of this was real.
In the dream, Fiona was just an ordinary girl from a normal family.
—
9:30 a.m.
Dexter left his hotel and headed toward the Gallagher house.
He wanted to see how things had turned out after the anonymous tip and the police call.