Gun Shy(39)

I don’t bother telling him that the Sheriff is probably already at my place right fucking now.

“Well, you already found my mother,” I reply, trying to keep a lid on my anger. “What else you need?”

“I was thinking, the other day when I was fishing in the creek,” Mayor says, all cocky. “Seems a little odd that you find one dead girl in your well, right next to your bedroom, and then another one goes missing the same week you blow back into town.”

I snort, sliding out from under the car with my wrench still in my fist. I stand up so that I’m taller than Mayor Carter, my frame towering over his. I was always tall, but prison changed me. It’s not the sinewy muscle from all the pushups I did beside my bed in the narrow cell I shared. I didn’t actually get any taller. It’s the way I stand. I don’t stand in front of someone like Carter anymore, I stand over them. For all the shit that happened there, prison made me ten feet tall and fucking invincible.

“Seems a little odd that I’d call the police if I killed a girl and put her in my well,” I reply, using my tongue to shift the wad of mint-flavored gum around my mouth. “Don’t you think?”

He stares at me with those beady little eyes, those fucking eyes that look at young girls when he thinks nobody’s looking.

“Shit, Carter,” I say, “Maybe you’re the one who butchered Karen up. I mean, maybe she knew something she wasn’t supposed to, right?”

“She was my cousin’s girl, you fucking cocksucker,” he spits, jabbing a finger into my chest. Phew. The rage particles rise again, like piranhas in a tank swarming toward human flesh, frenzied. I want to hit him. I can’t fucking hit him. Especially not now with Hannah needing me here.

“Kindly remove your finger from my shirt before I rip your goddamn arm off,” I say in a calm voice. I enunciate every word clearly and slowly. A deadly voice. I wonder if he hears the rage that I feel. I wonder if he knows how close he is to being fucking murdered by a kid wearing overalls.

“You gonna fix the car?”

I count to five in my head like the jail psych taught me to. Onetwothreefourfive.

“You said it was dented?” I ask.

Mayor turns around and starts walking back to the car, a newer model Caprice with leather seats and wood trim. I know the car because I’ve been in it before. Pike and I used to sit in the backseat and play with the electric windows while Carter visited our mother. When Hannah was born, he stopped coming around, made Mom go to him instead. The inconvenience of seeing your bastard handicapped child was too much for him, I guess. Hannah stayed with Pike and me, and we made sure she was safe while my mother climbed into his car and left her little kids alone, unsupervised, next to a fucking creek.

I can’t hit him.

Instead, I drop the wrench, selecting a claw hammer from the tools hanging on the wall as I follow Carter outside. Maybe I’ll cave his fucking chest in with the claw-tip.

He points to a small dent on the driver’s door. It’s so tiny you’d need glasses to see it if you were any older than me. Shit, maybe I do need my glasses. I never wear the things unless I’m trying to read engine numbers or order parts from one of those stupid supply catalogs where everything is printed in size zero font.

“Looks like someone opened their door against it,” I say. “What do you want me to do about it?”

He raises his eyebrows. “I want you to fix it, you stupid oaf. Jesus, what that Carlino girl saw in you I’ll never know.”

Cassie. He’s talking about Cassie. Now I know why I brought the claw hammer with me. I smile at Carter, and he looks taken aback. “Maybe you’re right,” I say. “Here, I’ll fix it for free.”

And I know, I shouldn’t, because I’ve been home what, a week?

But they think I’ve got something to do with Jennifer, I just know it, and something tells me I won’t be in Gun Creek for long before either Sheriff King or Mayor Carter find a way to push me back out.

And I’ve been in jail for all those fucking years, so violence is the answer to everything for me now.

So, yes. I know I shouldn’t allow myself to be provoked. Try telling that to the shark who smells blood in the water.

A look of confusion passes over his face as I pull the hammer back and swing as hard as I can, turning the tiny dent into the size of a small suburb.

“Shit!” he says, stepping back. “You wait till I tell your momma about this.”

I swing again and find purchase. It feels fucking good. “Don’t talk about my mother,” I growl, moving my aim to the driver’s side window and shattering the glass in one motion. I hope he sits his fat ass on the shards of glass and bleeds out through his femoral artery.

“You’re gonna pay for that, Bentley,” he says, backing up another step.

I can’t hit him.

“Get the fuck out of my garage,” I say, even though it’s not my garage at all. “I told you, we’re all booked up.”

“Maybe I’ll just take it off your momma’s bill next time I visit her,” he says, his eyes flashing with something akin to menace again.

I can’t hit him.

I hit him.

Luckily it’s with my fist and not with the claw hammer, because if it were the hammer, he’d be dead at my feet right now and Sheriff King would be on his way to gleefully escort me back to prison for the remainder of my natural life.