by Lucy Score
“Jameson, Jonah? Wanna help a guy out?” Gibson asked through gritted teeth as he tried to dislodge her.
“Oh, I’ll help you out,” Scarlett said, striding over and grabbing a fistful of Misty Lynn’s hair. “Now you listen, and you listen good, Misty Lynn. You ain’t never gonna be good enough for my brother. And now that your daddy and Jonah’s mama are gettin’ serious, you can’t try to lure him into your soggy sheets. You’ll be kin if they get married. Brother and sister.”
“It’s not true!” Misty Lynn howled. Even drunk, she at least had an idea of how genetics worked.
“Stop making a fool of yourself in front of the entire town and grow some goddamn self-respect!” Scarlett said, keeping hold of the other woman’s hair.
Misty Lynn took a swing at Scarlett but missed. Scarlett released her grip on the hair and watched her opponent sway.
“Y’all think you’re so high and mighty. But you’re not!” Misty Lynn slurred. “Your daddy was a murderer, and your mama was nothing but a loser. People feel sorry for you. They pity you,” she spat out. “And you know what? They’re all secretly scared that one day, someone is gonna push your buttons and you’re gonna snap. Just like your daddy.”
She did a slow turn around our circle until she faced me. “And you. Your daddy didn’t even want you. Yet here you are beggin’ for scraps.”
“Misty Lynn, that’s enough,” Shelby said coolly. She had a drink in each hand.
“Oh, I’m just gettin’ started,” Misty Lynn sneered. “I’m just gonna keep tellin’ the truth that everyone else around here is too scared to say. That Gibson always looks like he’s five seconds away from murderin’ someone. Or that Scarlett’s gonna wind up with a drinkin’ problem just like her daddy.”
“Misty Lynn,” Gibson said. His voice snapped out like the crack of a whip. “Hear me. We will never be together again. I regret every moment of my time with you when I was too young and too dumb to recognize that you were just a user.”
She stumbled back like he’d struck her. “You don’t mean that, Gibson Bodine.”
“You don’t even know what it’s like have real feelings for someone,” Gibson said, his face twisting into a mask of frustration. “You string that poor bastard Rhett Ginsler along just to discard him when you get bored. That’s not sexy. That’s not attractive. That’s fucking sad. You’re fucking sad. I tolerate you because you’re a Bootlegger. Because we grew up together. But you will never be anything more to me.”
“Well, fuck you then,” she shrieked. “Fuck all of you, dumb fucking losers!”
The music picked back up, and so did the conversations of all the witnesses. It wasn’t the craziest thing Bootleg had seen at a wedding. Not by a long shot.
Misty Lynn turned and stumbled out of the yard. Shelby sent me an apologetic look and set the drinks down on an empty table. She headed in the direction Misty Lynn fled.
Maybe a good psychological talking to would help. I doubted it. But Shelby didn’t like to see anyone in pain. Not even a man-eating monster like Misty Lynn.
I checked the front of the house first to make sure that Bowie and Cassidy were actually gone and didn’t accidentally run down a drunken Misty Lynn on their way home.
I saw my mother in an embrace with Jimmy Bob under the oak tree. Sheriff Tucker and Nadine were wandering up the walkway arm-in-arm. No newlyweds, no Misty Lynn.
I ducked around between the garage and the house again, not really wanting to be the one to break the news to the parents that Misty Lynn had just caused an epic scene.
“Dinner and a show,” Jameson said, appearing next to me. Like a good brother, he handed me a beer.
“Gibs okay?” I asked.
“Seems to be. He’s used to her freak-outs by now.”
I scanned the backyard for Shelby. I spotted her clutch on a table and the two drinks she’d left on another one.
“You lookin’ for someone in particular?” Jameson drawled.
“Shelby,” I said. “We’re ah, kind of an official thing. Like permanently.”
He clapped me on the back. “About damn time.”
“Aren’t men supposed to avoid commitment?” I joked.
“Only the stupid ones. ’Round here, we all know there’s nothing better than pairing off with someone who’s willing to put up with your shit for the rest of your life. So you’re stickin’ around?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. Shelby, too. And my mom’s thinking she just might take up residency, too.”
“No, shit?” Jameson looked downright thrilled.
“Yep. She’s in talks with Clarabell about managing Moonshine.”
“Your mama?” Gibson approached from behind and joined the conversation.
“Yeah. Hey, have you seen Shelby?” I asked him.
“Not since she took off after Misty Lynn to soothe the she-beast,” Gibs quipped.
I felt something. A little frisson of nerves skating through my gut.
“I’m gonna try to find her. I don’t like her wandering around in the dark after what happened when she was on the bike.”
Gibson frowned. “Call her.”
“I’m probably overreacting.”
“Call her,” he insisted.
I pulled out my phone, dialed.
“What’s going on? You don’t think Misty Lynn would take a swing at her, do you?” Jameson asked.
I heard Shelby’s ringtone and felt a fleeting second of hope before I realized it was coming from her clutch.
Gibson stepped off the deck and picked up the clutch. Opened it. He froze, then lifted his steely gaze to me. “Jonah.”
I knew from the tone it wasn’t good. I was off the deck, snatching the paper out of his hand before I could even formulate a question.
It was a sketch. Charcoal lines of a woman who looked a hell of a lot like Shelby. A naked woman. Scrawled across the bottom were the words “See you soon.”
I started for the front yard, Gibson on my heels. Jameson on his. “What the fuck is wrong with you two?” Jameson asked good-naturedly.
That’s when we heard the scream.
Misty Lynn holding a hand to her head, blood seeping through her fingers and turning her peroxide-blonde hair pink, stumbled into the backyard. “Call the cops, y’all. He took Shelby!”
Sheriff Tucker, Nadine, and my mother burst out of the back door of the house as pandemonium broke out in the backyard.
“What’s the trouble?” the sheriff demanded.
But I was sprinting for the street.
55
Shelby
I had a two-bottles-of-wine headache, and the rest of my body felt like I’d gotten run over by the entire Bootleg Springs Fourth of July parade.
It smelled weird in here. Humid, close.
The garden shed? No. Good things happened in there. This was somewhere different.
So dark.
My head hurt.
Something was very, very wrong.
I tried to remember, struggled to fish out the memories. Jonah said he loved me. Bowie and Cassidy got married. Misty Lynn… something there. Something bad. She’d done something. But what?
I remembered the sound of glass breaking. Ah. She’d broken the window on Gibson’s truck and was digging around inside it. Vengeance for the truth he’d told.
I’d tried to stop her.
I tried to move my arms, to rub the daze from my eyes. That’s when I realized I couldn’t move them. But I was moving. Or rather my body was traveling through space. Movement.
A car? My senses slowly knit back together to deliver a still incomplete picture.
The pain in my head bloomed bright, and I knew it was no normal headache.
I could hear the rumble of an engine. Feel the rock of the vehicle as it traversed uneven ground.
I didn’t know what had happened or where I was, but I knew I was in trouble.
There was a tired squeal of old, abused brakes and the rocking stopped. The engine cut off, and fear
crawled its way up my spine.
I heard a metallic clunk and more screeching.
“Hello, Shelby.”
Oh, God. He found me.
* * *
I managed to stay limp when he lifted me out of the trunk. I needed time to figure out how I was bound, where I was. How to escape.
I was not the optimistic, fresh-out-of-college, naïve social worker this time. No. I was Shelby Thompson, dissertation and triathlon finisher, Jonah-lover, dog mom, and Bootlegger.
I would not go down without a fight.
It felt like a zip tie binding my wrists behind me, and I focused on the hard plastic biting into my skin rather than the hand that was caressing the backs of my thighs as I was carried.
There were footfalls on wood and then a long slow creak. A door of some sort?
He flipped me over, placing me in a chair. Fear and adrenaline had my entire body trembling.
“I know you’re awake, Shelby,” the voice said calmly. And then suddenly there was light.
He pulled the hood off my face, and I saw him in the dull yellow light of a single bulb. He was older now and—God help me—even bigger. He’d always been a big kid. Now he was a big man.
We were in a cabin, a shack really. There were gaps in the walls and mismatched furniture that had seen better decades. It was hot and stuffy inside.
It stung when he ripped the tape off my lips. Lips that had said “I love you.” Lips that had kissed Jonah and made promises just hours ago.
“Hello, Christian,” I said quietly.
I paged through my rusty memory banks. Christian Harrell. Patterns of aggression, delusions, paranoia, and obsessive behaviors.
His family had been one of the first that I worked with fresh off my bachelor’s degree. Diagnoses aren’t usually made in the teens, but Christian had been showing early symptoms of schizophrenia. His diagnosis had been made officially at the mental health facility he was remanded to after he attempted to fatally stab his caseworker. Me.
Guilty but mentally ill. And as a juvenile, he’d been remanded to a hospital until he turned eighteen. My family thought I’d put the whole thing behind me, tucked it into a box and wiped my hands of it.
I preferred that they think that. But I’d kept tabs since. That’s what you did when someone who tried to end your life still existed in the world. You watched, and you waited.
He’d moved with his family to Illinois where he saw a therapist regularly, and his medication was monitored. He worked in a grocery store. And now he was squatting in front of me, toying with a knife.
He liked knives.
“You’ve been a bad girl, Shelby.” I flinched at the voice. He’d been a kid the last time. But he was a man now. “Hiding from me. Whoring yourself out. I’ve been watching. You know what I’m gonna do when I’m done with you?”
I didn’t answer.
“I’m gonna find your roommate.” He traced the tip of the knife down my cheek. “He thought he could take you from me.”
“How’s your mother, Christian?” I asked suddenly. Keep him talking. Distract him from the knife. He’d always been close with his mother. She was his protector. “Does she know where you are?”
Did anyone know where you were? Where we were?
“Mom’s stealing from me. She’s taking money out of my room.” He scratched the back of his head with the hand that held the knife.
Delusions. He’d always had trouble with thoughts about people taking things from him.
“Mom’s stealing,” he repeated.
“Does she know you’re here?” I pressed.
He laughed, an unhinged, inhuman sound.
“Did you bring your medicine?” I asked.
He stood abruptly, shoving into my space, his forehead pressed against mine. “It’s not medicine. They’re trying to control me,” he hissed.
He was sweaty and shaking, and I felt the first lick of despair. I couldn’t talk him down from this. Couldn’t appeal to him or make him let me go. I was going to have to fight for my life. He was mentally ill. And I was going to have to hurt him if I wanted to see the sunrise that was just starting to change the light through the shack’s dingy window.
Something flickered outside. A shadow. Something moving.
Crap on a cracker. Were there bears up here? Was I going to have to fight off Christian and then a bear? Could a girl not catch a break?
He backed away and slashed the air with the knife, ranting incoherently.
Okay, deep breaths. He’d bound my hands but not my feet. That was a good thing. The zip tie was good, too. But I needed to get that knife away from him long enough for me to break the tie and unlock the door.
Difficult. Yes. But not impossible. I’d completed a damn triathlon today… yesterday? I was faster now than I was when I was twenty-two. Stronger, too.
He’d tried this before, and I’d won. I had to win again.
Dawn was breaking. The soft light chasing the dark.
I needed the light so I could see where I was running. Focus on getting out of the cabin, I told myself.
“We should have been together, Shelby. But you made me do this. You made me hurt you. And now it’s too late,” he raged.
He hit me with a backhand, which I’d always detested in movies. It felt insulting, degrading. It was both in reality, and it hurt like hell. My face stung.
I shook my head to clear my vision. The shadow was back at the window. But this time, it wasn’t just a shadow.
It was a face peering cautiously through the dirty glass.
Henrietta VanSickle.
My heart lurched in my chest. I wasn’t all alone. It wasn’t up to just me.
What was she going to do? What was I going to do? I needed seventeen plans for all the contingencies. Was she calling for help? Was she creating a diversion? How did people in movie action sequences always manage to communicate their intentions?
God, my face hurt.
My thoughts were scrambling, and I did my best to slow them down. I needed to disable Christian temporarily, break the zip tie, and make it out the front door. That meant I couldn’t be gentle, and I couldn’t miss.
“How did you find me, Christian?” I said loudly. If things went bad, at least Henrietta would have a name to give authorities.
“The man,” he said. “The man. The man.” He was chanting it now.
“A man told you how to find me?” I didn’t know what was delusion, what was truth.
“Why are you doing this?” I whispered.
“Why? Why?” he roared. “Because you always were mine, and you just kept fighting it. You couldn’t just accept it.”
He was back in my face. The knife pressed against my throat this time. I felt the tip of it prick my skin, felt the hot response of blood. He dragged the blade slowly, shallowly across my neck. I held my breath. One false move and—
The window shattered.
His head swiveled on his neck, the knife thankfully moving a few scant inches away from my flesh. I acted on instinct that would have had my self-defense instructor standing up and applauding. Leaning back, I snapped my head forward, connecting with Christian’s face.
Oh my god. That hurt. If my head ever stopped hurting, it would be a miracle.
I lashed out with my foot. Where the hell were my shoes? It wasn’t a good, clean shot. But it did the trick, sending the knife skittering across the floor.
My next kick was to his groin, and as he fell, I rose from the chair. My legs were jelly. But I managed to step out of his reach and cross to the door. “Run!” I screamed to my hero Henrietta through the broken window.
I reached for the knob, only remembering I was still bound when nothing happened.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it.” I hinged forward, watching as Christian came up on his hands and knees. He howled like a wounded animal. I didn’t know if I should kick him again to buy more time.
But I needed to get the door open.
I gritted my teeth and raise
d my wrists away from my back. Any shoulder flexibility I’d had previously was hindered by debilitating stiffness. I brought my wrists down against my back hard. God that hurt, and it didn’t work.
Christian spit blood on the floor and started to crawl in my direction.
I slammed my hands down again, this time breaking the tie. My shaking hands made a mess of trying to unlock the front door, but I managed to open the door and slam it behind me.
I heard him hit the door a second later.
“Run!” I yelled again in case Henrietta was still in the area. I took off, jumping the two steps to the ground. My feet hit the ground as the front door burst open behind me. I didn’t stop to look.
I just ran.
* * *
Q. Do you have a favorite Bootlegger?
Henrietta Van Sickle: While favoritism is not oft encouraged in relationships with friends, I would certainly be remiss if I did not mention Gibson Bodine. Neither one of us minds a good silence. He has a warm heart beating under the layers of gruffness and antipathy. You can count on him. And in the end, that’s what matters most. Consistency. Loyalty. Gibson is the definition of always.
56
Shelby
I did not recommend running barefoot through unfamiliar woods with a mad man chasing me. Zero stars. Both thumbs down.
I had started down the drive but worried that Christian would appear in the car—the same damn car that had toyed with me on Mountain Road. So after about a hundred yards, I scurried off the path and into the woods.
Branches whipped me in the face, and I hoped to God I wouldn’t have escaped only to lose an eye.
There was nothing ninja about my escape. It was either stealth or speed, and I opted for the latter. I barreled through the forest sounding like a herd of wildebeest.
“Someone help!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Literally anyone!”
I could hear him behind me. He wasn’t as fast as I was, but the brush was getting thicker, and I was slowing down.
I dodged back in what I hoped was the direction of the drive. If he was on foot, maybe I could beat him on even ground.
