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For a beat, she stands at the bottom of the stairs out front, facing the driveway that curves around a damn fountain.
“Fuck, shit, bitch,” she grumbles under her breath. No other way she can get home but walk.
Walk to the other side of town. All the way from Rich Hill to the Sticks.
Two, maybe three hours.
Not like she can head to the Joint’s parking lot and jump in her truck. Her keys are in her bag… And her bag is at Grace’s.
So that’s where she needs to go.
Coddling the vodka like a newborn bub clutches a milk bottle, she stomps down the long gravel driveway to the golden gates. There’s nothing gentle about how she batters in the code to the keypad before the gates start their slow open.
And it’s slow.
The second the gap is wide enough for her frame (a bag of bones, Deputy Wade called her), she slips through and starts her lazy wander down the hill. Higher up the house, the more money the family’s got. Old money kinda folk.
Trevor lives up here too. A bit further down, but still on the hill.
His tribe (the Vanderbelt family) did their fair share in building Dosserport. Now, they practically run the law around here. Got a small firm here and one in the city. An uncle is a judge in the Big Apple, and he looks after him best since Trevor’s father used to be some hot-shot, but got hooked on the opioids and lost the firm in Charlotte.
Law, law, law.
That’s the life Preston chose. He’s finishing up his studies now, then he has to sit the bar, got a job lined up in the big city. Just likehisdaddy.
Why even work at all?
Billie wonders that sometimes. All the money in the world, built on the fishing empire that once survived here, and then what? Leave the town that made you rich to…work?
There’s rich, like the Maxwells, then there’sfilthy rich, like the Vanderbelts…Thenthere’s the Preston family. Elliot’s lot. That’s some serious old money there. That’sfilthyfuckingrich.
The Maxwells have got money, yeah, but they need to keep up the work to keep up the money. Guess that’s why Grace’s parents aren’t ever around. Even before Henry ‘went missing’ they stayed up at their condo in Charlotte most of the time.
Grace stayed down here.
Billie’s just guessing, but if Grace leaves Dosserport it’ll probably feel like she’s abandoning any chance of ever finding her brother. Almost like she’ll be abandoning Henry himself.
But that’s just Billie’s guess, nothing more.
She stays in that house, alone. Waiting for her dead brother to walk in through the door.
Wait—
Is her house a crime scene?
Or have the cops cleaned it up now, enough that Grace can stay there? Billie sure fucking hopes so. Because her best bet is walking the hour distance to Grace’s to get her keys, then another thirty minutes to Jim’s Joint to get her truck and back to the trailer park before sundown.
How far away is sundown?
The question wrinkles her face as she stomps down the hill and turns her squinting eyes up at the clouds masking the sun.
Time is alien to her lately. Well, since she started hitting the drinks harder, around the time of Henry, time got a bit wonky. Passing out all the time, time slipped away from her.
But these past few days…
She’s just grateful she’s still standing, really. But standing in a place of blood, death, and no time.
Bursting open her thought-bubble, a horn honks behind her. She flinches, the urge to cover her aching eardrums flexing her hands, but she keeps her grip on the bottle.
