seven
Rumor Has It… The false queen who was ousted last year has fallen further than anyone knew. Has she sold her soul or just her body and dignity?
Dixie Powell
I sit in my car staring out through the layer of water cascading over the windshield, making the red glow of the receding taillights swirl like blood in my vision.
I should have stopped him.
I should have run her off the road that day I followed her here.
I should have known.
I did know. I knew something was going on when I followed her and Maverick here that day, even though I didn’t see anything. I thought, what a waste of time. I was sure I’d catch them doing something illegal, only to sit here in this very spot while they went into the local greasy spoon diner, a shitty little hole in the wall that Colt loves for reasons I never understood. But now I know it wasn’t just a date. They actually were doing something shady, something scandalous that I can post on the blog and ruin Gloria.
She’s a stripper. There’s no other explanation, no one else who would dress like that, in next to nothing but those heels that would send me pitching forward on my face if I tried to take two steps in them. There must be a back room at the diner, one where truckers go after their burnt coffee and sloppy eggs. She’s probably a hooker too. I can definitely make her out to be one when I post about it, anyway.
The thought holds no joy tonight, though. I already ruined her, and for what? I won. I beat her. I got the guy and destroyed the competition, and he still wants her. He still fucked her, right in the middle of the parking lot where anyone could see. He’s not even trying to hide it.
How long has it been going on? And before her, were there others? Maybe that’s why Colt loves this place so much. Not for the pancakes and burgers, but for the back-room entertainment, the things he does here when I’m not with him. I try to remember when he started taking me here, but I can’t recall. It all blurs together with the fury churning in my gut. It’s humiliating that he took me here in daylight, and then came back for the whores at night. Even worse is the thought that maybe he was showing me off to someone who would see us together, using his legitimate relationship with a respectable girl to make his secret mistress jealous.
Gloria’s Mustang starts up, the brake lights like evil demon eyes in the darkness. I should follow her, but I can’t make myself turn on the engine. It doesn’t matter anymore where she’s going, what she’s doing. I’ve already seen more than enough.
I wanted the truth, and now I have it, and I wish I didn’t.
I know the next steps, know what wives have been doing to get rid of mistresses since marriage was invented.
But she’s not the only woman who’s wronged me. Before her, there were others.
There’s no way the Dolces would let a literal whore in their circle, which means she started doing this after they gave her the boot. Colt’s been telling me he needs space and disappearing on me for years, since the very start. I shouldn’t be surprised that this is where he was going. If I’d known there was a whorehouse in town, I wouldn’t be. That New Years Eve when Crystal disappeared is burned into my memory forever. He fucked a hooker right beside me that night, like it was nothing out of the ordinary. For him, it wasn’t. So of course he’s been frequenting this place all along.
The only way to stop him is to get rid of his accomplices and then lock him down. Even now, I refuse to lose him. I’ll never forgive him, but I won’t let him go, either. I’ve invested too much, made him my perfect creation the same way the Dolces did Lo. Except they tossed her like the garbage she is when she crossed them. Colt isn’t garbage. He’s a king, and though I may be a queen, he holds the keys to the kingdom. Once I have them, I’ll be able to lock him inside so he never does this again.
Until then, I have to cut him off at the source.
When Gloria’s taillights have disappeared, I open my umbrella above the door and climb out of the Honda. My shoes are soaked the moment I step into the inch of water standing on the concrete lot, accumulating too fast to drain off. I hurry through the rain and throw open the door to the Downtown Diner.
The ugly owner with the twisted scar across her face looks up from the register, where she’s putting in a ticket.
“Help you, baby?” she asks in her sweet, southern drawl.
“I know what you’re doing here,” I snarl, marching up to the counter. “Where are they?”
“Where are…?” she asks, looking all innocent and confused.
“Where’s the strip club?” I yell. I know how to cause a scene, how to damage her establishment in seconds. I have that power. Even though only a couple tables are occupied, it’s enough. This is a small town, and people talk.
A few people glance our way, and Scarlet shakes her head. “I don’t know what you’re on about, honey, but this is an eating establishment.”
“I just saw a stripper run out of here, so tell me where she came from, or so help me god, I will destroy you and your family and this diner and everything you’ve worked for.”
She must see how serious I am, how dangerous, because she sighs and nods toward the hallway toward the bathrooms. “Come on, I’ll show you in.”
She turns and walks away, and I follow. I’ll take down her stupid little diner that Colt took me to like a consolation prize right along with the strip club. She deserves it.
She opens an unmarked door and steps into a messy little office.
“Not your office,” I snap. “I may look young, but I’m not stupid. I’m used to being underestimated. You’re not going to intimidate me with lectures about how to behave in your diner or win my sympathy with some sob story about how you’re a single mother and it’s the only thing that keeps a roof over your family’s head. I don’t care. I know you’re covering for whatever brothel is operating out of the back room.”
Scarlet’s usual smile and southern hospitality drop away, and she looks at me with eyes as hard and smooth as sea glass. “Keep running your mouth, and then tell me again how you’re not stupid.”
“Don’t mess with me,” I say. “I’m in no mood. Just show me what you’re hiding. If you don’t, I have connections, and they can come down here and see for themselves. I’ve been on Local News with Jackie . I can go to her and blow this whole thing up to the media, and you’ll be shut down like that.” I snap my fingers, glaring at her so she knows I mean business. “Faulkner prides itself on its small-town charm. They won’t let something as seedy as a strip joint damage their reputation.”
“You been on with Jackie and them?” she asks. “I thought I recognized you. You were interviewed about some kid exposing himself at school, right?”
I nod, pleased that my fame precedes me, though I’m still wary, since I’m not sure if that’s enough to intimidate her. She looks a little amused.
“And I’ll go on about you being a madam too,” I threaten. “Unless you take me back there so I can deal with them directly.”
“Oh honey,” she says, giving me a pitying look. “You sure you want to do that?”
“Let me in, or you’ll be sorry,” I growl, not liking her tone one bit.
“It’s just through there,” she says, gesturing to another door.
“I don’t hear any music,” I point out.
She goes to the door and knocks three times before opening it and gesturing for me to go in. “This is the man you want to talk to.”
I hesitate, but this seems to be as far as Scarlet goes, the end of her sad little domain. It makes sense. She probably just gets a little kickback for hiding the real operation. I don’t know anyone on this side of town except Colt’s tattoo artist, and that’s against my will, but I’m perceptive. I get the sense that Scarlet’s life is empty aside from this place that stinks of fryer oil and pancake syrup, that after work she goes home to a run-down trailer alone, puts her feet up, and chain smokes cigarettes while watching true crime shows. The ring on her finger is undoubtedly a fake diamond she bought herself at Wal-Mart to fool people into thinking a man could want her even with a face like that. But she’s not fooling me.
I step inside a room that’s so white it’s jarring after the messy office and even the cheerful diner with its checkered tablecloths and jukebox and old-fashioned soda glasses. A man sits at a glass desk, waiting for me. He looks exactly how I’d picture the owner of a place like this, like a cross between a thinner, hotter version of Tony Dolce and Giancarlo Esposito. I’m reassured by the knowledge that I’m go good at predicting people.
The man watches me with expectant, predatory eyes, his face set in emotionless, marble lines.
“What can I do for you?” he asks in a voice tinged with a Latino accent, not moving a centimeter. You’d think the guy would stand to shake hands when someone important comes in, but then, he doesn’t know just how powerful I am.
Yet.
“You can ban my husband from ever setting foot in here again,” I say. “The diner too. Or, you can say goodbye to your little operation when I go to the news and expose y’all. I have a very popular blog and an account on The Tea with more than a million followers. I can have y’all shut down by midnight.”
“Those are my only options?” he asks, rubbing his hand over the bottom of his face as he thinks. The back of his hand is inked with the lower half of a skull that fits perfectly over his, so he’s staring at me with those calculating, cold eyes above a dead man’s eternal grin.
I shiver.
Then I pull out my phone. No one who runs a place where slathering losers who can’t get laid stick dollar bills in junkies’ ass cracks is going intimidate me. “Yes,” I say, raising my chin. “So what’s it going to be?”
“Go on then,” he says, nodding to my hand. “Shut us down.”
I open my phone, only to see I have no service. My gaze flies to his. “Why don’t I have a signal? We’re in the middle of town. What did you do to my phone?”
“Your phone is functioning as it should,” he assures me, making a circular gesture with one finger pointed toward the ceiling. “As is this room.”
“You have signal-blocking technology?” I ask incredulously as I tap through my phone settings, unable to believe some shitty little backroom pimp on the trashy side of town has that kind of capability.
“It’s quite impressive, the things these tech bros come up with to combat every new technology that they themselves create,” he muses. “Almost as if they can’t decide if technological advancement is an asset to humanity or the tool leading to its inevitable destruction.”
“Unblock me!” I demand.
“It must be difficult to sleep with such questions weighing on one’s conscience,” he continues. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
I look up from my phone, gaping at him. Suddenly, my heart is pounding, and the room feels claustrophobic with all the white, like it’s closing in on us. Like I’m a fish in a tank with a shark, and he’s circling, getting closer with each pass, and there’s no escape.
Then I conjure a different image—sitting by Colt’s bedside in the equally white hospital room, determined to be the first thing he saw when he woke up, so my loyalty would be imprinted into his subconscious. I was always running a marathon while others did sprints and burned out, and I won’t give up when the finish line is so close I can reach out and rip through the ribbon.
This guy is just one more runner I have to pass to get there first.
“Money tends to make people sleep well,” I answer. “I doubt they’re lying awake battling their consciences.”
“Are you offering to bribe me?” he asks, eyebrows raised in amusement.
“Me, pay you ?” I say, shaking my head. “For what?”
“It sounded as if you were trying to buy a clear conscience,” he says. “My mistake. It appears you’re trying to shake me down.”
“My conscience is crystal clear,” I grit out. “And I don’t need your money. My husband’s loaded. Which is why I need you to stop him from coming here and wasting all our money.”
“That wouldn’t be a very smart business move on my part, would it? Especially if you’re not replacing the lost revenue with a… Donation.”
“I’m not paying you to do the right thing,” I snap, waving my phone at him. “Now, I told you the choices. What’s it going to be?”
“You’ve forgotten a few options,” he says calmly. He’s so still it’s putting me on edge, the way he’s barely moved a muscle since I came in. I expected him to jump up, throw me up against the wall, and threaten to cut my throat, but he’s just sitting there cool as a cucumber while we talk, like he’s not worried about the repercussions of crossing me at all.
“What options?” I demand.
“Yours.”
An icy shiver rolls over me, and I glance back at the door I came through. Scarlet still stands in the doorway, arms folded, a frown on her twisted face. Beyond her, Maverick sits on the edge of her desk, apparently having joined her while I was talking to the pimp. I suddenly know without a doubt that he’s there to stop me if I try to run, that he’s a hired goon for this guy, and I hate him more than I’ve ever hated him before. I knew he was scum, but knowing that his connection to Colt is about which hookers they’ve gangbanged together more than what ink Mav has put on him makes me hope he gets syphilis and dies.
“You think you can scare me?” I demand, wheeling back to the pimp. “You can’t touch me. My uncle is the mayor. My parents will have the cops out looking if I’m not home by midnight. I’m not some junkie hooker who no one cares about that you can make disappear.”
“We don’t bother with all that complication,” he says, casually adjusting his black tie over the buttons of his black shirt, his tone conversational but disinterested. “Punishments fit the crime.”
“You’re the criminal,” I cry.
“A snitch loses a tongue,” he says matter-of-factly, as if I never spoke at all. “If they’re lucky, they die of blood loss relatively quickly. Sometimes they’d rather be left outside the Serpent’s Nest, since they have what some would call a doctor, though I gather his only training took place on other inmates while he was in prison.”
I swallow hard, my heart racing as I check the door again. Maverick is leaning back on his hands now, watching through hooded eyes, an expression of bored detachment on his thuggish face. He’s probably a regular at the Serpent’s Nest, a roadside biker bar halfway between Faulkner and Shallow Creek that my parents cautioned me to never even drive by. I’ve heard the stories though, people disappearing without a trace, speculation that they were trafficked or brainwashed into joining a cult or chopped up and sold for parts on the black market.
When I look back, the sophisticated psycho pimp is on his fancy computer, apparently having finished with our conversation.
“You’d never get away with it,” I say. “My uncle—”
“ Was the mayor,” he says, not even bothering to look my way. “He’s no longer in that position as of a few months ago. He was accused of taking bribes, si? How apropos.”
“You’re lying,” I say, though the tremor in my voice betrays my fear. “You don’t know who I am, and there’s no internet in here for you to search.”
“The wireless signal is blocked,” he says, his voice distracted as he scrolls his tattooed finger over the sleek, white mouse. “A wired connection is primitive but effective.”
“You’re going to kill me?” I ask, making my voice small and pathetic. I stare at him, not blinking, summoning the tears that work so well when nothing else does. If I can’t power my way through a situation, I can always cry my way out.
“What gave you that idea?” the man asks. “I’m simply making conversation.”
“You’re threatening me,” I cry, relief welling inside me as the first tears swim in my vision.
“Threatening?” he asks. “Of course not. I’m not even warning you. The parents of a girl with such a privileged, sheltered upbringing would have already warned her about the Serpent’s Nest. Not to mention the tales you’ve surely heard at school. It’s said that this doctor once put the severed tongue of a snitch inside her and sewed her closed. The rumor, if you believe such things, is that she died a fairly unpleasant death. Sepsis or an infection of some sort if I had to guess, though I’m not the medical professional that he is.”
“Let me go,” I whisper, trying not to be sick at the gruesome details he revealed.
“No one’s stopping you,” he says, his brows raising in surprise. “You came to my office and asked to see me. You’re free to go whenever you like. If you’d like to continue this discussion, you know where to find me.”
My legs are trembling and my back is stiff as I turn to the door, sure that at any moment he’ll jump over the desk and grab me. I barrel towards Scarlet, not bothering to wipe away the tears I conjured. I’m too scared to pretend anymore, to manipulate or try to get my way. I just want to get out.
Scarlet pushes off the doorframe and retreats into her office to let me pass. “I’ll let Jackie know to be expecting you,” she says in her sweet southern drawl. “We been best friends since we were knee-high to a grasshopper. There’s nothing in this world she wouldn’t do for me. You say hi for me when you see her.”
“Walk her out?” Mav calls toward the white office, his boots swinging lazily as he looks me over with obvious distaste.
“She seems like a smart girl,” the pimp drawls from behind me. “She found her way here on her own. I’m sure she can find her way out the same way.”
I’m shaking so hard I nearly trip over my feet as I rush down the hall and out the front door, only remembering that I left my umbrella when the downpour drenches me. Nothing on earth could compel me to go back in there, so I run for my car. I don’t want to get in and show them what I drive, in case they’re watching, but since they seem to know who I am already, I’m sure they could find my car within seconds anyway.
I sit behind the wheel, my teeth chattering with fear and cold. I can’t go to the police. These thugs will find me and cut out my tongue. I can imagine the pimp doing it with as little emotion as he showed the entire time we talked, like he’s more statue than human. Then he’d throw me to some gangster chop shop that would kill me in an unspeakably gruesome way. I can’t go on Local News with Jackie and expose them because apparently she’s besties with the lowlifes on this side of town.
As I begin to warm up and calm down, my heart flips for a new reason. They knew who I was. Even on this side of town, people know my name.
No one ever said fame was easy or safe. Now that my name is getting out there, I just need some protection. And in this town, there’s no better protection than a big name with big pockets.
It’s time to seal the deal.