Gun Shy(83)

Don’t get me wrong, she was a beautiful girl. You think I’m a monster, but I cried when I watched Ray pour dirt over her dead body, down the throat of the girl who was broken and bleeding but who might’ve been saved if she’d gotten a good doctor, a hysterectomy and about ten bags of blood. Yeah. I know all about that miscarriage stuff. My own mother nearly died once, when I was four years old. She was almost dead when I found her in bed because she wasn’t up and pouring my Cinnamon Toast Crunch when I woke up. I went to her room to find her, my stomach growling with hunger, her hands and the blankets all covered in red. Her blood had soaked through the sheets, and there was a blue tinge around her lips. I thought she was dead, but she wasn’t. A good doctor, a hysterectomy and about ten bags of blood saved my mother, and at the same time, ensured I would be the only child she ever had. But that was different. It was so very different.

Jennifer fucking Thomas. She had to get pregnant, didn’t she? Pregnant and sixteen, and the bitch insisted on getting an abortion.

I pretended to concede to her wishes if she’d only let me take her to the clinic myself.

She wanted to let a stranger stick his cold metal speculum inside her womb and murder my unborn child so she could forget about it and go off to fucking college. I don’t think so, honey, is what I said to her when I dragged her up to the attic and threw her inside my wooden box, the same one I’m in now, bound and gagged and bleeding from where I’d punched her in the nose.

An abortion. That was never going to happen. As if, after everything, I’d just let some punk kid throw my baby away like it was trash.

I mean, I know, it was less than ideal. I’m not an idiot. The town sheriff knocking up a little sixteen-year-old cheerleader is bad fucking news. It’s technically not illegal — age of consent is sixteen in Nevada, don’t think I didn’t Google that shit to double-check as soon as I’d fucked her that first time — but a cop and a high school student? She could have ruined me. I’d lose my badge, my job. I’d lose my town, and most of all, I might just lose my Cassie.



Two birds and one stone. This time it was Jennifer and Leo. I promised Jennifer I’d give her the five hundred dollars for an abortion if she’d just do one small thing for me first.

Okay. Not that small. All she had to do was get some of Leo Bentley’s DNA. Not that hard for a girl so pretty, so seductive, so manipulative. Walk in the park. Or a drive in the forest, in her case.

“What’d you do with him?” I asked Jennifer, still stinking of sex after I’d picked her up from the road in front of her house.

Jennifer shrugged.

“Jenny.”

She squirmed. “I did what you said.”

I thought of Leo Bentley putting his dirty hands on the mother of my child and I felt nothing. I thought about Leo Bentley putting his dirty hands on Cassie and I wanted to smash the whole world until everything bled.

“You know I have to ask—”

“My panties,” she said dully. “I wiped his… stuff on my panties. There’s enough DNA there for— Jesus, I don’t know. There was a lot.”

“Mmm,” I said. “Eight year’s worth.”

She scrunched her face up. “You think he hasn’t come in eight years?”

I couldn’t believe I used to think she was smart. “Not inside a sixteen-year old’s cunt, no.”

She leaned back; she seemed stressed. “You’re not going to do anything bad with it, are you? His DNA?”

“Why?” I asked slowly. “Would that upset you?”

“Damon!” she said sharply. “You told me it was just to keep him away from Cassie.”

“Exactly,” I grinned. “Very far away.”

“But… how?”

Fucking idiot still hadn’t connected the dots. For a moment, I wondered if I wanted my offspring to have half her DNA, because how could she not understand what was happening?

“Never mind about the details,” I said, leaning across the center console of my car to press my forehead to hers. “What can I do to thank you for your hard work tonight?” And Jennifer didn’t melt into me like she always did, a girl with daddy issues as far and wide as the days she’d been alive. No, this time she gave me the look. I knew that look. It was the look that said, I’m done with you.

I knew that look.

I’d seen it on my father’s face.

I’d seen it on Teresa’s face.

I’ve seen it on Cassie’s face.

I’d been expecting the look from Jennifer, but I can’t say it didn’t hurt.

We’d spent many a night in my car, my fingers in her pussy, her mouth on my dick; but she’d never turned away from me before.

“You can thank me by giving me my money,” she said quietly, looking straight ahead. Her casual indifference — give me the cash so I can pay for our baby’s murder — made my eyes ache. But I had to make sure I didn’t scare her. There was still some small shred of me that believed, even then, that I could talk her into doing the right thing and carry that baby willingly to term.

I know; I was a fool. A blind fool.

“Why are you even asking me?” I snapped. “Poor little rich girl. Your daddy would carry more than that in his wallet any day of the week.”