Page 8 of Corrupting Ivy

I’d never spend my well-earned money on that woman. She didn’t deserve it. I was in it for the long game. It was better for her to rot in her own filth and suffer than for me to put her in a mental institute where my money would benefit her. That’s why I lived in the lap of luxury while she could barely afford to feed herself. She deserved to live in squalor and terror every day.

“The sheriff is going to do it, eventually. She got into an altercation with my girl a few weeks back.”

The burning Tennessee whiskey scorched a path down my throat and into my belly, leaving a pool of lava sitting on the surface.

“Hmm.” It wasn’t the first time the sheriff tried. “You still got that bed in the back?” I didn’t want to talk about her. I’ve had my fill for one night.

Remy smirked, folded her arms on the bar beneath her breasts, giving everyone before her a view of her cleavage from the top of her V-neck shirt. If I were interested in women that were the same age as my mother, I’d take her to the back. But that was an idea that had my whiskey fighting its way up.

“You betcha.”

Remy was a beautiful woman, given her age. I’ll give her that. But life wasn’t easy on her, and you could see it in her eyes. Her fiery, red hair told of her heritage that wasn’t Texas, but a true displaced Irish girl who joined the honky-tonk lifestyle to escape the horrors from home.

People that moved here on their own accord perplexed me.

“I’m going to need it for a few days.”

I eyed the woman helping customers, soaking her up, then turning back to Remy.

“It’s yours when you need it.”

The conversations and laughter died down as everyone’s attention turned toward the door. I shifted my gaze, curiosity grabbing me.

Three government officials walked in wearing their traditional black suits. The woman wore a white blouse with a black suit jacket over it.

They looked around, finding an empty table in the back, where I followed them with my gaze.

“That’s the FBI,” Remy said, leaning close to me.

Damn. They didn’t mention that on the news. “Got any good scotch back there?”

She dipped down below the bar and pulled out a rich amber-colored liquor, then set it on the bar before me. “Will this do it for ya?” she purred.

The dusty white label read 15-year Macallan. “That will do.”

She grabbed a fresh glass while I swallowed down the rest of the beer, added a cube to it, then poured the liquor and handed it to me just as I placed the beer bottle on the table.

I took my tumbler and walked around the bar to the door that led to the back. The raven-haired woman’s gaze followed me as I disappeared into the stockroom where the bed lay up against the wall.

The exhaustion set in the moment I saw the mattress. I had scarcely any sleep in the last couple of days, and sleeping in a room next to Charity and Max was torture personified. Then, to make things worse, we had to make a split decision on little sleep to proceed without thorough surveillance.

If it were up to me, I would have let the kid die. She wasn’t worth giving up my life or Charity’s.

I plopped down on the foam mattress, thankful it wasn’t the same one from twelve years ago when Ma drove her truck into a tree trying to outrun her hallucinations. Sheriff Kennedy forced me to return and sign papers, releasing her back out into society. I should have let him make her a ward of the state. Maybe then I wouldn’t be dealing with her psychosis now.

My scotch created a sweat ring on the shelf as I slid my shirt over my head and tossed it on the end of the bed. Taking a sip of my scotch, I let it warm my belly, then laid down and placed my glass on my chest. The calm beat of my heart rippled the liquor in the glass.

The door opened, and in walked the woman I couldn’t seem to keep my eyes off of.

She scanned the shelves, blind to the predator sitting in the shadows, tracking her.

I laid still, slowing my breaths as she crept closer, her finger moving up and down on the shelves as she searched for something specific. One foot crossed over the other as she moved sideways, ever so slowly. She was so close I could smell her sweet floral shampoo, and see the sweat glistening on her skin.

What I would give to see her naked beneath my unforgiving touch.

If I slowed down, the painful itch just beneath the skin, warning me of impending disaster, would consume me in a suffocating blanket of fear.

I guess the good thing about having a serial killer investigation in a town so small was the influx of people it pulled in. The town had become so overrun with tourists who loved true crime, and journalists following the latest scoop, that I could pick up another job just to help the ill-equipped bar. Thankfully, there wasn’t a motel in this small town, or we’d have even more people and not enough hands to help.

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