Chapter 11
The air was far sweeter in Barratt County than anywhere Dwayne Yunderhall had ever lived before. He’d always thought that. Even when he’d been stupid teenager twenty years ago, stuck in fucking Value with no hope of getting out. He had—but not in a way he ever wanted to think about again.
Fifteen years. He’d been in the state prison for fifteen fucking years of his life. He’d been twenty-three when he’d been convicted—twenty-three when those fucking Hillers had robbed him of everything.
He forced a breath, trying to calm himself down like the therapists he’d been stuck with had told him to do.
He’d had trouble adjusting to prison life at first, they’d said—no shit—but he’d eventually learned to play the game.
Did what they wanted him to do so he could have what limited freedoms he could in general pop.
But hell, he’d gotten so used to someone telling him when to eat and when to shower and when to shit—he almost didn’t know what to do with himself on the outside.
He had no damned family to stay with. He had almost no money—just what he’d had in a bank account before he’d been sent away.
He’d managed to put back a few thousand since he’d walked free, after he’d bought his fucking truck.
Dwayne spent most of his time lately putting some part or another on that piece of shit.
If he wasn’t able to stay in a four-plex that made a point of taking in ex-cons on the outskirts of town, he’d be living in that truck.
Place was a run-down hellhole, but it was a solid roof over his head.
That he could actually afford on what he made picking up other people’s trash.
This was what he’d become—the local trash collector. Garbageman Dwayne. He’d come so far.
Well, his own daddy had told him he wouldn’t amount to much. Guess he’d lived up to those expectations, hadn’t he? This hadn’t exactly been what he’d planned for his life when he’d been young and stupid.
He and Kev—they’d had big dreams. Number one was just getting out of Barratt County, and away from all the shit people knew about them back then.
Now…hell, none of them in this shithole town even recognized him at all. They’d forgotten him.
Well, he recognized them. Those fucking Hillers—not like they’d changed all that much.
He remembered them, all right. Walking around with all that fucking money, lording it over the people like him and Kev.
Taking them in to do their civic duty to the less fortunate.
Bullshit. They’d just liked having the power over boys like them.
Yeah, Dwayne and Kev had had a roof over their heads.
All they’d had to do was share a bathroom and help around the ranch.
Treat the Hiller kids—all younger than them except those fucker George and Gene—with respect. And that was it.
He hated people like that. Thought they were better because of their bank account.
He sat there in his booth in the diner, probably smelling like other people’s garbage, while everyone in the room talked about some attack at the hospital. Who the hell cared?
This small town was always gossip. He didn’t even know why he’d come back here.
Except…he didn’t really know anywhere else.
And he and Kev…they’d had money put back.
In that old cabin up on the corner of the Hiller Ranch.
He’d already been up there, grabbed it. Damn, they’d been stupid.
Thought six hundred bucks was a lot of money. It wasn’t nothing.
Wouldn’t even buy him three weeks of rent around this place now. Not like he could afford that fancy complex just outside of town. And it was getting close now. He was one paycheck away from being on the streets. The landlord had already given him one warning. Another, and he was out.
He was sitting there stirring his coffee—he hated that shit, but the diner gave it out for free to city workers—when he heard the waitress talking to the cook about what had happened at the hospital to that Genny Hiller.
Hiller. He listened.
It always came back to the Hillers.
If it hadn’t been for Max and Gayle Hiller, Kevin would be alive—and Dwayne wouldn’t be living like this.
It was all the Hillers.
Fuck them all.
They’d get what was coming to them someday.
He just had to wait.
For now…the girl. There was so much he wanted to do to her now.