My heart beat with a speed I’ve never known, like I’d taken a shot of pure adrenaline. I didn’t care if they came outside and saw me. In fact, I hoped to fucking God they did. I wanted them to know it was me who was telling them to go to hell.
I grabbed a freshly-rolled joint from my back pocket and held it in my mouth.
I picked up a rock from what had been the garden and dropped it into the envelope with the bills. I doused it inside and out with the lighter fluid, tossing the bottle to the floor when it was empty. I folded over the flap of the matches and lit the entire pack in one strike. Then I lit my joint, and I set the envelope on fire.
I let it burn, and when I couldn’t hold onto it any longer, I cocked my arm and launched their blood money through the front window of the Fletcher family home.
Fuck you, motherfuckers.
The window shattered. Bits of glass dangled from the broken aluminum window frame. I stood back and watched as the living room curtains caught fire, framing the window in flames and black smoke. This picture perfect house, the home of all the power in the town, was now going up in flames. Flames that I caused. Flames those bastards would eventually see again if they believed in any sort of hell.
I blew out my long-held drag, and then I heard the first high-pitched scream. It brought me a satisfaction that ten-thousand dollars certainly couldn’t. I didn’t run this time, and I didn’t look back. That would have suggested that I cared what happened next, and really, I didn’t care if their propane tank exploded and they were all blown to Kingdom Fucking Come.
These were the thoughts of someone with nothing left to lose.
Sheriff Fletcher was already standing next to the driver’s side door of Jake’s truck waiting for me. He stepped forward as I approached. I didn't see his right hook coming straight for my cheek. The fat fuck made contact with the side of my face, then managed to grab me by my shirt and shove me up against the hood so he could cuff my hands roughly behind my back. He snuffed out my joint. I didn’t see where it went, but it was a pretty safe bet he’d pocketed it.
He used his portly body weight, pressing himself up against my back to subdue me. He grunted. “You got some balls, Abby. I’ll give you that. What you don’t understand is that money was your final offer. From here on out, there will be no more money. No more chances. No more nothin’.” Then he started mumbling to himself. "If I had the chance again—between taking you home or digging a hole—let's just say I would have done things a little differently."
I knew Owen had help moving me. Even as small as I was, my dead weight must have been difficult to lift and maneuver. It didn’t surprise me that it had been the sheriff. It surprised me more that he hadn’t just let me die. It would have been less work on his part.
There was nothing the sheriff could say to me—not even the confession of his decision to keep me alive rather than let me die—that could have killed my adrenaline rush, my high. The Fletchers had brought my madness upon themselves. They shouldn’t have covered for Owen. They shouldn’t have protected him when it was me who needed the protecting. They certainly shouldn’t have thought that ten-thousand dollars would have bought my silence or in any way, would have made me whole again.
They didn’t know they were dealing with someone who’d never been whole to begin with.
The sheriff was right. He should have dug the hole and fucking buried me deep. No good could come of who I was becoming. Jake had once told me that the most dangerous people are the ones with nothing to lose.
I’d already lost it all.
***
“Miss Ford, protocol requires for me to ask you if you would like an attorney.”
Bethany Fletcher stood and tapped a long red fingernail on the scratched wooden table. We were sitting in a small room with no windows and bare green walls, stained with god only know what. My hands were cuffed to the chair behind me.
“Protocol?” I asked. “That’s funny. I’ll have to remember that one.” The woman had some nerve. She furrowed her brow in warning.
Owen had the same look.
With their green eyes and dark hair, they could almost be mistaken for siblings instead of mother and son. Bethany looked sharper though, like a knife with a new blade. She wore a fitted black power suit. Her heels were four inches of pointy, red patent leather.