Page 184 of Unwrapping Deviance

The whole Sheriff’s office is saved from watching me climb this man like a tree when Brewer ambles over. His gaze takes us in with resignation and mild annoyance.

“I thought you folk would already be on your way back to wherever you came from.”

“You said I could talk to Lucy,” I retort.

The Sheriff’s broad shoulder lifts and drops. His gaze lands on Margaret who is still pouting in her chair.

“She’s already gone.” He rubs a meaty paw over his withered face. “Word got out about the girls. Mayfield sent a transfer bus early this morning and picked her up before the whole media circus heads our way.”

I can only stare at him, his words refusing to register.

She’s gone? After all that, she gets whisked away to safety?

“She’ll get a trial, baby,” Daniel murmurs. “She’ll get sentenced and do time.”

It’s not enough. A few years, a slap on the wrist. She’ll get out. She’ll hurt more people.

It dawns on me in that very second as the roar of blood pounds between my ears that I don’t want her to do time. I want her dead. I want her buried with the worms. She does not deserve to live in comfort.

It also dawns on me why I wanted to see her. I thought initially it was to rub it in her face, to show her she hadn’t won. I thought I wanted to see her face knowing her brothers were dead and she was going to be someone’s bitch.

I was wrong.

None of that shit matters to me.

I think I wanted to kill her. The how is unclear, but I’m not horrified by the thought, so it has to be true.

But they took that from me.

This whole town is going to get away with everything they did because it’s going to get covered up. They’ll paint Lucy as a saint who was forced by her brothers to do horrible things. Her lawyer will get her off and she’ll be free to start her life somewhere else.

Or come after my boys.

Without the tethers of Jefferson containing the evil, she’ll be free to try and take them. She’s already tried once to kill me.

I can’t allow that.

If I can’t kill her, I will dedicate my life to making sure she never sees the light of day.

“How did you not know?” I blurt at the sheriff. “You watched them grow up. You saw the kind of people they were. How did you not know what they were doing?”

“They were good folk. Part of the community. There was never—”

“They jumped Christian and Daniel. They nearly died. You knew they were not good people. You just didn’t want to do your job.”

A deep, burgundy tinge colors Brewer’s face. It puffs up his cheeks, making his mustache twitch.

“You will watch what you say next, Miss. I understand and sympathize for what you went through, but this is still my office and my town, and—”

“You’re right,” I cut him off, a wave of calm washing over me as a thought takes root at the back of my mind. “This was all out of your control, obviously.” Without taking my eyes off the bemused man, I reach over and slide my arm through Daniel’s. “Thank you for your time, Sheriff.”

Neither Christian, nor Daniel stop me when I guide them from the Sheriff’s Office. None of us speak until we’re seated in the truck, strapped in and ready to leave.

“Mi?” Daniel murmurs.

I don’t answer. I reach for the bag I’d left on the floor of the truck and drag it into my lap.

He doesn’t press. Maybe he’s as anxious as I am to put this shithole in the rearview mirror, but he’s pulling away from the parking spot.

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