Chapter 12
Valeria was really getting tired of this. Everyone had been talking about that stupid Harper for weeks now. Couldn’t they all just forget about her and get on with their lives?
She just kept watching customers as she rang up two gallons of milk, four cans of corn, and a six-pack of light beer for the customer.
That bitch Hagan was back. Great. Hagan was in here like almost every day.
Hagan had always had a real problem with Valeria, ever since they had been kids. It had never made sense. Hagan was older—she’d always been a bully where Valeria was concerned.
Hagan was one of the ones who had turned all the other girls against her in school. She’d just always done it behind everyone’s back, so no one could ever prove it was her. But Valeria knew; she remembered.
Hagan had been really mean like that—probably because she hadn’t really had a family to love her or anything. Hagan was a very jealous person. She’d always wanted what someone else had. Why wouldn’t she? Hagan had grown up dirt poor, with a dad who was nothing but a drunk and a loser.
But everyone believed Hagan. Even Julian.
Julian should have known Valeria better than that. It had taken her a long while to forgive him that, but…she had.
She’d always wanted to take care of Julian, since what had happened to his dad. It had hurt Julian so much…
She’d always felt really bad about that and everything. It was her first real exposure to death and grief and everything. It had been traumatic, no denying that.
Hagan was going around Helery County, acting like she was big and bad because she carried a gun now. Everyone could see right through her.
Hagan had to know she looked completely stupid, right? Maybe Valeria should tell her? Give Hagan the heads up, so the girl could have some dignity, right?
Valeria had heard they’d even had to have someone hem Hagan’s pants for her deputy’s uniform. She’d kept tripping over them or something.
Hagan was such a joke. More than that, she was pathetic.
Valeria rang up her Uncle Ted’s frozen pizzas and donuts next.
It was the second time today he’d been in—everyone who worked in town ended up eating from the deli on a regular basis, the food was halfway good and everything.
She saw him almost every day at the store.
He asked her if she was behaving herself, and sent her that look that told her he’d be angry with her if she was a bad girl again.
It was a game they’d played for more than ten years now.
He reminded her he’d pick her up when her shift ended.
Then he turned and said something to Hagan that Valeria missed.
Hagan kind of paled, though.
Hagan didn’t like Ted. Kind of hard to miss, really.
Damien, the deputy who followed Uncle Ted everywhere and had for like a million years now, said something to Hagan, too.
It was probably sexual—Damien was a real pervert, and Valeria’s brother had told her that Damien was really hot for Hagan, too.
All of the guys at the sheriff’s office made fun of Hagan, though.
Valeria’s younger brother was working there now that he was twenty-one.
Uncle Ted had gotten him the job and was going to send Jamie to the academy soon, so he could be a cop, too.
As an assistant deputy or something. Valeria wasn’t really sure what Jamie did, just that he bitched it wasn’t enough money sometimes.
Jamie had a lot to say about Hagan Lindhour. Mostly sexual stuff he would do to Hagan if he could when he was talking to his buddies and didn’t think Valeria heard, but still—no one liked Hagan there. Except as the ho she was.
So why did Hagan even do that job?
Girl cops were so stupid sometimes. Always trying to prove they were men or something.
Every girl cop that Valeria had ever met was that way. There was that one from ten years or so ago—from the next county north—who had given her mom a hard time once. She was always busting her mom for drinking, too. Telling her that she could do better for her kids.
Her mom had done the best she could to make sure Valeria and her three brothers had what they needed. That cop bitch hadn’t had the right to say she hadn’t. She’d even gotten social services involved once, but Uncle Ted had fixed things for her mom back then, too.
Uncle Ted always fixed things when Valeria’s family needed it. He and her mom had been close for like thirty years or something. Probably been sleeping together for that long, too. He wasn’t her dad, though.
That would be too gross.
Hagan was in the grocery store where Valeria worked now.
It was the only place she’d been able to get a job after high school.
Valeria had had two offers to play softball, but they had been for the local junior colleges.
Valeria could have played Division 1—she wasn’t going to waste her time on JUCO, when she should have played for the best of the best. Oklahoma or Texas or Tennessee.
The top. She had been good enough too. Everyone knew that.
She just hadn’t gotten the grades to go D1 because she hadn’t cared about school that much—not with the teachers all hating her the way they did. It was really their fault she hadn’t made it to a major college on a scholarship or anything. They’d been against her since kindergarten.
But Valeria was doing the best she could now.
Hagan was supposed to be that good, too. Hagan had played college ball, because the high school had given Hagan fake grades and everything. Hagan had just done JUCO, though. She hadn’t been able to cut it or something. Hagan was too small to play college softball; she shouldn’t have even tried.
But she was looking at Valeria now. Like she knew Valeria knew she was watching. Valeria sent her a smile and turned away.
She was so sick of dealing with people like Hagan every day.
Valeria watched the guy bagging the groceries for a moment.
He was new and a few years younger than she was.
He’d probably gone to Helery Springs, though.
Most people in the county did. Only people in Buckbert had been stuck going to a ridiculous school like she had.
She had hated Buckbert Community Schools.
And they had never liked her.
There were a lot of people in Buckbert who didn’t like her, and never had.
They’d all been jealous. Because she was so good at what she did.
That’s what her mother had always told her—and it made sense.
Valeria had been the star of the Buckbert High School softball team, from the time she’d first stepped onto that rinky little field behind the school.
She’d played basketball and run track, too.
But she’d really loved softball the most.
It hadn’t even been a real field. The school had held its games at the complex. Where there were four fields that had actual dirt and weren’t overgrown with grass like the practice field behind Buckbert Community School.
She shuddered, just remembering those days.
Remembering the principal of the school and his bitch wife.
That woman had always been on Valeria’s case.
All the time. That woman’s older sister had been the assistant coach of the team.
Hagan had even lived with that coach for a little while when Hagan’s dad had kicked her out or something.
It hadn’t been easy. But Valeria had stuck it out.
Valeria was pretty and smart and athletic, but the principal’s wife had really hated her. It hadn’t been fair at all.
If she stayed where she was, and didn’t marry someone rich or anything, she would probably own this grocery store someday. And the one in Helery Springs, too.
Why not? People would always have to eat, right? That was what Luke had said, too.
It would make enough money to take care of her for the rest of her life. She’d talked about it with Ted. He agreed it was a good plan.
She just rang up Hagan’s stupid hot meal from the deli and pretended they didn’t both know that the only reason Hagan was in there at all was to watch Valeria. To spy on her. To pretend Hagan really was a cop or something.
Hagan knew her secrets. Valeria suspected she always had.