Page 44 of Trip Through Your Wires

I lift my chin and ignore the weight pressing down on my chest. “Business is fine.”

He flashes me a smile that is neither sincere nor appealing. “You are so much like your mother. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“No,” I bite out, but it’s another lie. For as long as I can remember, folks have told me I am just like my Momma.

Everyone who knew Dawn Raylene Miller loved her. Runner up in the 1965 Miss Georgia pageant, she was as beautiful as she was tough, and had a smile that could light up a room.

While I had inherited her dark hair and blue eyes, I failed to channel any of her pageant poise. She could hold court with The Pope one moment, and tell someone to go to hell the next, all the while maintaining that gorgeous smile of hers that nearly won her the crown.

“Why are you here?” I ask crisply, not in the mood for any kind of pleasantries. I don’t like it when he’s here. The way he looks at me and my family like we are for sale draws an ire fueled by a lifetime of being looked down upon.

“Get down to business, hmmm.” He clasps his hands together and holds them in front of him. “Very well then. I assume you heard about the body they found on the beach last week?”

The moment he says it, my chest tightens and my throat pinches. “Yes,” I manage. “And?”

“Well, Royce’s mother believed that body could be her son. She was so convinced in fact, that she asked me to come down here and provide CCPD with a DNA sample so they could run tests.” He pauses for a moment and looks at me, and I do my best not to let him see me struggling to breathe. “I agreed,” he continues, “because she deserves closure. Every mother does. Sadly, she will not get that closure because the tests have come back and that body is not our son.”

A wave of relief crashes into me, and I fight the urge to clasp my hands together and shout up to the heavens, ‘Thank you, Jesus.’

I never really stopped thinking that body could be Royce, but I pushed it to the back of my mind because I believed Jake when he said it could not be. I always believed him. It was a gift he possessed. And now that I know he was right, I want to call and tell him he was.

But as profound as my relief, I also feel something deep in my core. Indignation. Ripe and righteous. The gall of this jerk, coming into my store and using words like peace when referring to his monster of a son.

“Tell me, Mr. Richardson.” I clear my throat and look him straight in the eyes. “What kind of closure do you think the families of those girls deserve?”

“I have spoken with the families Royce impacted,” he answers coolly “I have expressed my family’s condolences and compensated each for their loss.”

“Compensated?” I look at him in disbelief. “You can’t pay people off for destroying their lives. There is no amount of money that can replace their children or make right what your son did. He didn’t impact their lives. He ruined them.”

He looks down at me with cool indifference. “I am sorry you feel that way because as I said, I am here to give, not to take.”

My head jerks back; blood, powered by adrenaline, whooshing in my ears. “Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want it.”

“I am not selling anything, Ms. Miller. And if you meet with me, I will explain everything.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a card, extending it to me. I look at it with reservation. “I said, I don’t want it.”

“Take the card,” he encourages. “It will not bite.”

I want him to shove the card up his ass and leave. That’s the only thing I want. But realizing he is not going to until I take the damn thing, I yank the card out of his hand.

Gripping it between my index and middle finger, I look down at the card and see an address. “Where is this?”

“Old Route 12,” he says simply. “Be there today, three o’clock.”

“Why?” I flip the card over in my hand, the texture sending goosebumps down my arms. It’s smooth like silk, and the edges, fine.

“Never look a gift horse in the mouth, Ms. Miller. You never know when it may be your salvation.”

I look up, finding his calculating gaze on me, then without another word, he turns and walks out the door, leaving me in a cloud of cologne and colloquialism.

Chapter 9

Jenica

I’m sitting in the parking lot of a rundown gas station off Old Route 12 and like most things in these parts, what money did not favor, time forgot. The place looks like it hasn’t seen a customer in years. Its faded red gas pumps look like they have been dry for eons, and the glass behind the boarded up windows are broken.

Once upon a time this place must have done good business, back when this road was the only one that connected the swampland to the highway towns. But that was when small towns were the heart of the state. Now, they were nothing more than a dot on a map. Places to stop for gas and a cold drink when you were between where you’d come from and where you were going.

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