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Swaying on my stool as if I was drunk, I leaned forward and took a small sip of the amber liquid, using every ounce of strength I had in me not to shudder as I swallowed it.
If this made me sterile, I was suing.
“You okay?” Lily, the chick behind the bar asked. The Sheriff had explained that he was tight with her dad, so he’d had the chance to brief her on what he needed done and she was up for it.
Cole, one of the Townsend cousins who had turned up earlier today, sat down beside me and slapped me on the back. Fucker probably enjoyed that.
“Man, you’re free of her,” he slurred loud enough for the drunk P.O.S. “You gotta drink up and smash it,” he punctuated this by swinging his arm around and smacking me on the shoulder ‘accidentally’.
I was totally keeping a tally of this, and I’d be kicking his ass afterward.
“You tokinbout Da-la Ferg-asss-un,” is what the drunk asshole slurred, exactly like that too.
How the hell did anyone marry this chooch, let alone hire him?
“You know her?” Cole shouted in my ear. I had the misfortune of sitting in between him and Nick so apparently the only way for one to hear the other was to bellow through my ear canal.
“Know ‘er? Bitchowsme!”he yelled, slamming his hand down on the bar.
It took me a second to translate it from basic asshole into normal English, but when I did I realized he’d said she owed him. Owed him for what?
“She steal from you too?” Cole yelled, making my head snap around to look at him in warning. We might be here for a reason, but there were people in this town who already judged her because of her mother. I wouldn’t let him say something even for this that would add to that.
Fortunately, the music was loud though, so no one seemed to be paying attention to our little group.
“Nah,” the asshole waved his hand dismissively. “S’her friends. Killed ma car. Killed ma job. Killed ma marriage. Y’know?”
Okay, the car I got. But the rest?
Nodding as if Cole had experienced this too, he took a sip of his beer – shit, probably should have gone with that instead of the gasoline bourbon – and then banged the bottle down on the bar, getting a glare from Lily.
“Feel you, bruh!” he yelled, thumping his chest. He looked like a basic twat doing it, but whatever.
“Gonna get it,” Nick muttered, sounding the most coherent I’d heard all night. “Gonna get it,” he repeated, and then got up and left.
Here’s where the shit comes into it – we had suspicions. We had coincidence and motive. What we did not have was definitive evidence to prove that he was responsible. His prints were on file and the detectives who had attended both sites hadn’t been able to lift any from the crime scenes. There was no proof. He also hadn’t said anything that would stand up in a court, and that’s what we wanted.
We wanted it to be an airtight case, so we needed to get more on him.
This just wasn’t enough.
Here’s something else, something I learned on my first day as a police officer – revenge makes people sloppy. It fuels their fires making them careless because they’re so intent on getting that revenge, that they act without thinking. Murders, robbery, assault, you name it – they become desperate and fuck up.
Walking out of that bar, still pretending to be drunk, and lighting up a cigarette as I wove across the parking lot toward Cole’s truck, I knew he would fuck up and soon. I just wish I’d known exactly how. If I had, I would have given Dahlia a gun, or I never would have left her side. That was something I would carry with me as a dark stain on my soul for the rest of my life.
Dahlia
The next day…
Well, this fucking sucks!
I was being held at gunpoint by the same asshole who had tormented me throughout high school. He smelled like he’d bathed in beer and cheap whiskey – or gut rot as my dad called it – and hadn’t seen soap or deodorant in a long while.
All I’d done was let the dogs back in while I was at Luna’s house, which was where all the women had gathered while the men were out doing ‘man stuff’, and the next thing I was being dragged by my hair down the path toward a filthy truck that looked like it was being held together by rust and on a wing and a prayer. I’d tried to pull away, but a gun had been pressed to my forehead, so I’d stopped.
I used to read books and think – if someone pressed a gun to my forehead, I’d swing my hand around and knock it flying. In reality, it was far different – especially when the asshole’s hand was shaking and his finger was doing the same thing on the trigger. That’s when you freeze and start to weigh up your options and think through about a thousand what ifs within the space of sixty seconds.
