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But it’s good tips when the Vipers come by (the town’s resident gang who mostly just cook meth and run it through other towns). And Billie needs a way to pay the rent on the trailer that her mom never seems to remember, keep the heat and lights on too, put gas in her truck, food in her mouth—and her moonshine.
Used to be a vodka gal, but that shit’s expensive.
“B,” Carmine’s voice is a mere whisper.
But it’s a whisper sharp enough to crease a frown on Billie’s face as she lifts her gaze back up to meet her friend’s worried eyes.
“You should come see this.”
That hollow pit in Billie’s gut can’t get any wider, so instead, it twists like clothes fresh from the wash being rinsed out. She swallows back a burn of bile, maybe some sick, as she pushes up from the sofa.
Her legs are wobbly beneath her—and she knows the moonshine’s to blame for that. Might have had too much in the shower.
Leaving her water bottle on the chipped coffee table straight outta the 70s, she follows Carmine out the front door and onto the porch.
Carmine doesn’t turn for the stairs—just four steps—to the left, but rather grabs the cold metal railing on the right and looks ahead. Her shoulders are straight, posture pristine, as always with her, but Billie senses the tension in her muscles—and notices her grip on the railing being so tight that white spots are blotched all over her knuckles.
Billie comes up to her side. A tight squeeze for them both to stand there, but she presses up against the door to fit, and looks out at the wide dirt road leading all the way up this row in the trailer park.
The first thing she notices is the cop car just three trailers up.
Then, the others. At least another four cop cars littered up the way. Looks like the whole damn Sheriff’s office is here. Those awful brown uniforms and wide-brimmed hats moving aroundtheirterritory.
Cops don’t come down this way much. Even when someone at the park needs them,callsthem, the police don’t come.
Still, Billie’s unfazed. Her shoulders slump with a sigh as she shoves all tangled panicked thoughts from her mind. The drink adds to the blank expression slipping over her face. “The cops? So what?”
They might not visit the park too much, but still—this is the place of trouble and snitches. It’s not a complete shock to see them around here.
“They’ve been moving through here since before dawn,” Carmine whispers. “Got to my street about an hour ago.”
Carmine only lives some rows down from Billie in the park. Cutting through lawns, it isn’t a long walk.
As Billie’s about to ask, ‘What took you so long to get here?’, Carmine gave the answer—
“We were questioned,” she tells her. “Dad and me. They’re moving door to door, questioning everyone.”
“Why?” Billie turns her frowned mouth to the side as she tilts her head, eyes glued to the nearest cop who knocks his fat fist on Mrs. Lewis’s trailer. Old timer, lives alone, has done all her life, and it’ll take her a damn good while to get up outta bed to answer that door.
“Cletus.”
That one murmured sound hooks Billie’s attention. She turns to look at Carmine—Dosserport’s very own beauty queen, a natural blonde and natural knock-out, but as weak as those romance novels of hers made her, weak enough to believe in the beauty of the world like the world believed in the beauty of her heart-shaped, so fucking sweet-type face.
Naïve. That’s what Kate calls her.
Billie prefers ‘airhead’.
“What’d he do?” Billie asks with a lazy shrug.
“He died.”
She blinks. Her hands loosen on the metal barrier and start to slip from the pole.
“His brother, Randy, found him this morning,” Carmine adds. “Butchered.”
“Okay,” Billie’s drawl hitches with the inflection of a question.
How is that a bad thing? A dead Cletus takes some secrets to the grave—secrets that have to stay buried. To Billie, that’s a damn win if there ever was one.
