Real Bad Things by Kelly J. Ford

Author:Kelly J. Ford [Ford, Kelly J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2022-08-31T23:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

GEORGIA LEE

Georgia Lee should’ve canceled the barbecue. She hadn’t felt right for a week. Not since she’d seen Jane. Since the memory. She’d called in sick at work. She still slept in the guest room. How could she sit with a bunch of cops, knowing that she had killed the man whose death they were investigating?

Georgia Lee glanced out the kitchen window at Rusty and the other guys in the backyard while she washed dishes. Trading “war” stories. Big talk about so-and-so getting in their face and how they got right back. Cheap jokes about shooting guns being better than sex even though the boys were right there. Laughing along like they were grown men. And Rusty let them. If they’d had daughters instead of sons, Rusty would probably have them in chastity belts. Pose with them in uncomfortably similar-to-wedding photographs after they made virginity pledges.

Not five minutes after the guys from the station walked in the door, Rusty had pulled out his new toys. The manufacturer name followed by his pet name for each gun: The Terminator, Rambo, John McClane, and Sweetie (named for her, he’d said that morning with a genuine smile). As if that were any kind of gift. As if their recent conversation had never happened. The cookout had been intended for the station only, but Rusty had invited several of his about-town buddies. Probably for the best—that way it didn’t look like Georgia Lee was trying to buy their support or endorsement, even though that’s exactly what she was doing. Only a handful of the station had made it. All but Benjamin silver haired and wary of unfamiliar or heavy spices. Spouses and girlfriends welcome, but none of them had shown—a relief. Most of them were at least twenty years older than her and about as fun as watching someone crochet a single-color blanket. That’s probably what they were doing right now while she entertained their should’ve-retired-by-now husbands.

What did any of them know about murder? Mayhem? They patrolled the streets of Maud, where the only excitement came courtesy of the occasional burglary or drunk and disorderly. They had no idea what it was like to get their hands dirty. To do something hard. Something that could come back to hurt them. They had no idea what women like her could do. What women like her had done. What women like her would do to keep men like them from learning what she knew.

She ripped open a bag of tortilla chips, poured them into a bowl, and noticed a text that had popped onto her phone screen. Susannah.

Where have you been?

I’ve been calling you.

Rusty said you’re sick?

Why aren’t you answering my texts?

It’s been over a week.

Another text. Christlyn this time.

Do you have mono again?

Georgia Lee swiped her phone off the counter, fully intending to lash out. Ask Christlyn, a.k.a. Lovelace, how long she’d been spreading rumors about Georgia Lee anonymously to Let’s Talk About Maud and if she’d sold her out to Benjamin for money or for free.

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