Waking Evil 02 (48 page)
Authors: Kylie Brant
The cell began to ring again as if in answer. And she recognized that she’d put this moment off as long as she could. Flipping the phone open, she said shortly, “What do you want?”
There was a moment of silence on the line, before the familiar voice sounded. “Well, well. Miss High and Mighty finally decided to answer my call. Guess I should be grateful.”
“I don’t have time for this, Luverne. Say your piece and get it over with.” As if the messages he’d left hadn’t been enough already. After the first couple, she hadn’t bothered to listen to the rest. She knew exactly what her brother was. She always had.
“Did I interrupt somethin’? Hope you’re takin’ it rough up the ass, you stinkin’ cunt.”
“As usual, your brotherly sentiment is overwhelming. You’ve got ten seconds. What do you want?”
There was a pause. She could hear him haul in a breath, as if to rein in temper. “You cost me a sweet li’l deal with that Realtor. You’re gonna have to pay for that.”
“Seems to me I was going to pay anyway,” she said drily. Sitting on the edge of the bed in the near darkness, spine straight, heart hardened, the sense of déjà vu was dizzying. It washed over her with an accompanying blanket of hopeless-ness.
She shook it off. “That’s my house. I bought it for Hilda. If she doesn’t want to live there, wants to milk it for the rent money, well I guess I’ll let that go.” She had a feeling that surprised him, as if they hadn’t suspected she knew what they used the property for. “But my name is still on the deed. How the hell did you think you’d ever get away with selling it?”
“Almost did. Would have if that dipshit Realtor hadn’t gotten it in his head to call after I convinced him right and proper.”
“Yeah, you’re real clever. That sort of theft would constitute a felony. A brainy move for someone only out of prison, what? Twenty-one months?”
“Wouldn’t a had to try it if’n you gave me money when I asked. You’re a tight-fisted bitch. You want your own family crawlin’ ’round on our knees, beggin’.”
“I’ve given you money,” she pointed out futilely. Luverne— for that matter her mother and sister as well—remembered only what suited them. “Got tired of throwing dollars down the same rat hole. I told you last time you wouldn’t be getting anymore so, true to form, you decided to steal it instead. There goes my faith in the rehabilitative nature of prison.”
“Oh, I think you’ll give me more.”
There was a tone in his voice, sneaky and satisfied. The sense of déjà vu returned. Stronger this time.
“I ain’t takin’ this layin’ down. You’ll give me money every damn month. Exactly as much as I say. Or I’m gonna have me a little confab with Reggie Masterson.”
The name was like a punch to the gut. It shouldn’t have been. Masterson and his buddies were in the past. A past she’d buried long ago.
A past that had a nasty way of rearing up at random moments to prove it still retained some power.
“He’s law down here, y’know. Sheriff, just like his daddy was. How’s that for a kick in the ass?”
She had to wait until her throat eased enough to force the words out. “Your ten seconds are up.”
“Wait!” A new note of threat entered Luverne’s voice. “You want to know what I’m gonna tell ’em? I’m gonna waltz right into his office and slap a paper on his desk with your address and phone number.”
There was no way to prevent the quick shuddering breath at the words. And no way for Luverne to have missed it.
“That’s right. I hear he’s still harboring a grudge over the way you shot that paint gun at his family jewels. And then tryin’ to get him in trouble with his daddy by cryin’ to the cops . . . well, folks ’round here still talk ’bout it sometimes. How you lured them boys into the woods, offerin’ to spread your legs for ’em, and then got all pissy when they wouldn’t pay for it.”
An unnatural calm settled over her. “Is that what they say?”
“Most do. ’Course there’s ’nother side to it that got spread ’round agin when Everett Grout was runnin’ ’gainst him in the sheriff’s race. Reggie won anyways, but he was mighty pissed it got told. I hear he has a powerful bitterness ’gainst you. The story is, you cost him one of his balls.”
The fierce stab of satisfaction at the words hadn’t lessened after all these years. “If you owned a pair yourself, maybe you could loan him one.”
Luverne’s voice went ugly as the leash on his temper snapped. “You listen to me, you smart-mouthed whore. You think you’re somebody now? You’re the same li’l tramp you was down here, shakin’ your ass for anyone who’d pay you for it. You ain’t
nuthin’
.”
nuthin’
.”
“Oh, I’m something,” she protested mildly. She was numb now, walled off from feeling. Maybe she wouldn’t feel anything at all anymore. It would be so much simpler. “I’m the one with the money, remember? And you’re still not getting a dime.”
The names he called her then slid harmlessly off her. She’d heard worse. Some from him. “Y’all think I’m kid-din’?” Rage had his words ragged. “I’ll do it. And maybe I’ll come on up to your place myself first. Pound some damn respect into you. Then I’ll let Reggie do the rest.”
“You might want to recall that I have the name of your parole officer. I’m sure the Realtor would be pleased to tell him how you tried to bilk me out of my property. And if you talk to Reggie, be sure to tell him and his friends that I don’t use branches and paint guns to defend myself anymore. I use bullets. And I’m a helluva shot. Come to think of it, you might want to remember that yourself.”
She disconnected the call, but then the strength seemed to leave her limbs. She sat there, knowing she had to move. Unable to. As if words would summon the energy she needed, Ramsey said, “I should be getting back to the motel.”
In response, Dev simply reached for the cell she still held and set it on the bedside table. Then, with one arm around her waist he repositioned her in bed, cradled close to him. “I don’t think so.”
She wanted to struggle, but the feat was beyond her. So she lay there. Listening to the steady and solid sound of his heartbeat, and waiting for her knees to stabilize enough to hold her upright again.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You don’t have to.”
Did he mean he wouldn’t press or that he’d heard enough of the conversation to piece it together? It didn’t matter, she thought wearily. It had all ceased to matter once she’d left Cripolo, Mississippi, behind. Maybe time had taught her she couldn’t carve away the past with the precision of an emotional surgeon, but it was over. She was often grateful for that.
Minutes melded into an hour. They laid there awake, motionless, save for the hand Dev brushed soothingly over her back. Sleep would have been as impossible to summon as the strength needed to head back to the motel.
“Maybe you ought to give your brother’s parole officer a call anyway. Save yourself some headaches,” he suggested in a murmur.
She gave a little shake of her head, her hair brushing his chest. “He’ll land back in prison soon enough. I’ll keep that as an ace in the hole.” Black humor filled her. “With Luverne, it always pays to have something to fight back with.”
“He should’ve protected you.” For the first time, she identified the tone in his voice, and she felt a jolt of surprise. Suppressed fury. “He’s your brother, and he should have been watchin’ out for you back then.”
“Familial loyalty isn’t a cultivated Hawkins family trait.” The note of humor she tried for came out flat. “We were trash, Dev. The sort you have here in town, too, I imagine, who everyone pities or looks down on. My mama was never too proud to take charity. We were so low that the people I envied were the ones who lived in the double-wide trailers on the other side of the park. The ones with the decks and porches built on. Compared to us, they lived like kings.”
“You’re a long way from the trailer park now.”
She didn’t dispute him. Not even as she recognized the trailer park was a big part of who she’d been. What had formed her. Was part of the darkness that lived inside that had once threatened to swallow her whole.
“I knew what everybody in Cripolo thought of my family,” she whispered, eyes burning. “Had a hard time looking anyone in the eye because of it. It took Masterson two weeks to even get me to return his hellos. But he was persistent.”
And she was stupid. Her eyelids slid shut in pity for the naïve fifteen-year-old she’d been. Kids these days seemed wiser, didn’t they? Older than their years. But she’d grown up in a hurry once Reggie Masterson had taken an interest in her.
“A month later he convinced me to let him show me the prettiest place in the area to look at the stars.” And she’d been young enough, dumb enough, to daydream that their first kiss might ensue. “Turns out he had something else in mind. A little naked hunting in the woods, followed by a gang rape. First one to hit me with the paint gun was first on, I guess.” She shrugged. “They ended up with a bit more than they could handle.” But not before they’d terrified her with a scene that, if she were honest, still lived in her nightmares.
“And his dad was the town cop.”
“He was the sheriff. And since it was county land, that’s who we were sent to.” Hilda Hawkins had marched her into Sheriff Masterson’s office, still bruised and weeping. But Ramsey had been thrilled, in some tiny part of herself, that her mother was acting like a parent. Taking her side.
“My mother accepted eight hundred dollars from the sheriff to forget all about it. I got labeled as the town slut. She bought two new chairs for her beauty parlor and a fancy dryer. And it all went away.”
“Holy Christ, Ramsey.” His arm tightened around her, making it difficult to breathe. The weight of it warmed something inside her.
He went up on one elbow, still holding her close, his face near hers. “You’re the strongest woman I know. Too strong, I thought sometimes. I can admire that about you while hatin’ like hell how that strength was formed.”
His kiss was soft as gossamer. It shouldn’t have had the power to heal, just a little, the tangle of raw-edged emotion she carried inside.
“I don’t want you to matter.” Her voice was a whisper, but when he stilled, she knew he’d heard it. “It’d be so much easier if you didn’t.”
“It’d be easier if you didn’t feel,” he countered. “But you do, Ramsey. You can pretend differently, but you do. And none of us can will ourselves to not feel a certain way.” His hand moved from her waist to stroke her hair, the gesture tender. “All I’m askin’ is that you not run away from your feelin’s. Least not ’til you give yourself the time to figure out what they are.”
She pressed her face closer to his chest. Her eyes were dry, but they still stung.
All I’m askin’ is that you not run away from your feelin’s.
He had no idea what he was requesting. If she could find a way to get through life without feeling at all, she’d take it in a heartbeat.
But the risk here wasn’t in the suggestion he made. She knew that even as she tried to reject it.
The real danger lay in how powerfully tempted she was to forget a lifetime of defenses and do exactly what he asked.
He stepped through the woods, his footing sure despite the almost absolute darkness. Kathleen Sebern’s personal belongings were shoved in the backpack he wore. It was time to get rid of them before someone found them. Leaving loose ends was just sloppy.
The sound at his side had him bringing his rifle up in one smooth motion. “Who’s there?”
Only the sounds of night creatures surrounded him. But he wasn’t fooled. With one hand, he reached up and fitted the night vision goggles over the eye slit in the face mask. The interior of the woods took on a ghostly green glow. He saw a coon do a fast waddle to a nearby bush, and he breathed a little easier. But still he stayed motionless for a few more minutes. Watching.
He didn’t tolerate carelessness. Not from others. Not from himself.
When he didn’t see anything suspicious, he continued walking again. Hadn’t gotten more than a couple steps before the words were hissed behind him.
“Yer bad. You made her scream, and I’m gonna tell.”
He whirled around, the gun raised again as he scanned the area. He saw no one. Just brush and trees and yellow eyes blinking at him. “Who’s out there?” Squinting at the trees above him, he wondered if someone was lodged in one nearby.
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