KAREN
It's been twenty-five years since I met a man so despicable that a single memory makes me shudder. The kind you pray never to meet, but when you do, and when he sinks his claws into your life, he cuts it into tiny pieces that you never quite manage to glue back together.
I didn’t lie to Josie—I did get dizzy. But it’s certainly not random.
It’s the anger and my blood boiling at the sight of the man in the news.
His picture. Smiling. Charming. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, they say, though this man could eat a pack of wolves in one sitting.
Burnville used to be the town where you left the doors unlocked when you went to bed.
I started locking every door when that man first showed up here.
I was hoping I’d never have to make this phone call. Well, at least not for this reason. I thought—hoped—that the letter I received recently was a false alarm. I forwarded it, of course. Plenty of people are responsible for what happened twenty-five years ago, though I am the one who paid for it.
There’s no choice now. Not when he’s back in the picture.
I pick up my cell phone and dial the number I know by heart. My call is answered almost immediately.
I don’t waste time with pleasantries. This is not that kind of conversation.
“Did you see the news?” I ask.
We both know there can be only one reason I’m calling for the first time in years.
“Yes,” says the familiar voice.
“We need to talk. As soon as possible. My place.”
I promised myself I’d never forgive the betrayal all those years ago. But the person I called is the only one who knows everything that happened that fateful night of the fire.
I end the call and feel the kitchen spin. With shaking hands, I find the back of the chair, take a seat, and close my eyes.
I will never forget the day I met him. Or the name. Derek Sickler. Fake. Just like his charming smile.
The name sounded harsh, cutting through the air of my bar one summer night, all those years ago.
I noticed him right away, despite the dozens of young men who’d just flooded Ma Shirley’s Tavern after the evening shift at the local factory. Never seen him before. He certainly stood out.
“Whiskey, neat, top shelf,” he ordered with a flick of a brow as if challenging me, as if I wouldn't have anything top shelf.
True that. Among the Yuengling and Rolling Rock drinkers, top-shelf whiskey wasn't a common choice.
I poured him Jim Beam—not exactly top shelf, but not Wild Turkey either.
Birdie had just brought clean glasses from the kitchen and was eyeing him shyly. Every woman in the bar had turned their heads in curiosity.
Dougie, the boy my Alysha had been dating all through high school, eyed him from across the bar. Then he strode up, his boots lazily scuffing against the floor, and leaned on one elbow on the bar counter, openly eyeing the new guy.
"What's up, Dougie?" I asked, walking up.
"Nothin' much. Another day, another dollar,” he said, sucking his teeth, his eyes never leaving the young man, chest puffed out like a peacock. Looking for trouble, as always. But the newcomer didn’t bite, he just sat at the counter with his chin up high, smug look on his face.
A knowing smile—he certainly knew how to assess a situation.
Didn’t bother glancing at Dougie, who was an inch too far into the man’s personal space.
“Off you go, Dougie.” I ushered him away. “Mind your own business.”
Everyone knew the no-fighting rule in my bar. And everyone knew Dougie’s “let’s take it outside” threat.
He listened, though. He knew better than to get on my nerves.
“Birdie!” he called out to my barback and motioned to his empty bottle, making her flinch. He was rough around the edges, except with my Alysha and maybe Victoria. But I never liked him around my Alysha.
“I got it,” I said, waving Birdie off. She was eighteen, a helper, and wasn’t allowed to serve.
Dougie knew that, but he pushed my buttons every single time, like he owned this place.
Just like his father, the mayor, who had the same notion about the entire town.
Big attitude, small brain—Alysha could’ve done better, though I knew his daddy being the mayor was part of the appeal.
Even small towns have a hierarchy of importance. Especially small towns.
A fresh cold one in his hand, Dougie sucked his teeth again, sniffled at the stranger, like a dog checking out a new male in his territory, fixed his baseball cap, pushed off the counter, and strode off toward his obnoxious gang at the pool table.
Just then the bar phone rang. I slung the towel over my shoulder and picked up the receiver.
"Heads up,” the voice on the phone said. “Liquor man is heading your way."
That was my whistleblower. He hung up right away.
When calls like this happened, there wasn't much time for chitchat, unless you wanted the Liquor Control Board to storm in and slap the hefty fines on you for having underage drinkers in your bar.
I took a deep breath and whistled as loudly as I could, the echo of it going through the bar, heads turning.
“All the chickens out!" I shouted. I pulled the lever of the antique fire gong on the wall, my ears instantly ringing. “All! Chickens! Out!”
No need to repeat it. Everyone knew the drill.
In a second, beers were chugged. In another, over a dozen people scrambled out of my bar.
Sure, serving to minors was a crime, but those days were different. Small town, grueling life. We knew everyone. The local cops back then didn’t give DUIs. They made you call someone you knew to take you home. Most cops knew either your parents or siblings.
Besides, the boys had just left a ten-hour shift at a factory.
If they were old enough to have workers’ comp, they deserved a cold one.
Things like this don’t fly these days, but back then?
Well, back then, we made our own rules. They were about to temporarily change, with the county fair starting next week and too many outsiders in town.
Next week, we would card everyone. But not tonight.
The young man at the counter didn’t move, his eyes on me, a mocking little curve to his lips.
I picked up the receiver and dialed The Old Rooster, Donna's bar a couple of miles away by the truck stop.
"Chickens out, " I said when she picked up.
I hung up and dialed O’Malley’s in the next town, said the same thing.
We had to do what we had to do. That's how we ran the area back in the day. We’d rather keep an eye on the young ones drinking at our bars and save them from trouble than lock them out and let them get plastered who knows where and do god knows what.
I scanned the bar, making sure anyone I knew who wasn’t supposed to be here had gone. I picked up my tumbler, shook a couple of ice cubes into my mouth, and crushed them between my teeth, feeling the soothing cool.
"Breaking the law?" the young man asked in a voice that, coming from anyone else, would hardly make me blink.
But his did. So did his cold gaze.
For a second, I thought he was a decoy, or the liquor man himself and I was too late. I studied him slowly, crushing the last piece of ice between my teeth.
"Need to see your driver’s license, young man," I said, though he looked like he was in his mid-twenties, but you just never knew.
“Now you do?”
His comeback made my nerves flare up just a tad. Nuh-uh, he wasn’t a usual bar dust bunny. He was going to be a problem. I sensed it right then and there.
He obliged, tossed his license on the bar counter.
Derek Sickler. New Jersey. Twenty-four, if you believed the document.
Well, now.
I set his driver’s license back on the counter and slowly pushed it back toward him, summoning all my inner politeness.
"Visiting or passing through?" I asked. Always good to know. We were two miles from the highway and the truck stop, so occasional drifters were no surprise. The Old Rooster by the truck stop was a hot spot though, attracting the traveling crowd.
The man gave me a sweetie-pie smile that I’m pretty sure worked well on young women.
He was handsome, no doubt about it. He knew it too.
Those dimples transformed his face in the most charming way.
But there was a coldness to him, in the sharpness of his features, the predatory sparkle in his eyes that cut right through me.
“That depends,” he said, taking a slow sip of his whiskey, his dark hawk-like eyes on me above the rim of his glass. “Depends on whether you have enough of the good stuff, for one.” He toasted to me in the air and set the drink down.
I should’ve dumped that Jim Beam right then and there. For many years afterward, I wished that I’d let Dougie talk to the man that night. Let him start a fight. Let him show the newcomer he wasn’t welcome and make him run.
But I didn’t. Didn’t say a word.
I peeled my eyes off the punk and went about serving others.
Only a minute later, I heard him talk to Birdie, who melted like sugar at his words, like many others soon would.
She wasn’t supposed to touch liquor, but she was too eager to serve him—this was his effect on most women. I knew that type well.
“Hey, beautiful, so…” he said as she refilled his drink. “What’s good to do around here?”
A nasty feeling started in the pit of my stomach. The feeling that only grew stronger day after day as he kept coming back. I knew he was in Burnville for a short while. I knew he was trouble. Especially with women.
I never could’ve imagined that he would ruin so many lives, including mine.