18. Chapter 18
Jim Fuller yanked open the fridge and grabbed another beer, twisting off the cap with his teeth.
He spat the cap onto the linoleum, where it skittered under the counter and rattled against the wall.
He didn’t bother to pick it up. Katy would find it eventually, or she wouldn’t—he didn’t care either way.
He’d been in a bad mood all day, but now he was seething.
That nosy social worker had shown up right in the middle of dinner last night.
He hated that. Dinner was supposed to be his time, sitting at the table with his plate of food while the kids hovered in the kitchen, watching like hungry dogs waiting for scraps.
All of them had been doing chores, just like they should.
Sweeping floors, scrubbing dishes, hauling out trash—nothing unreasonable.
If one didn’t look too closely, the whole setup looked fine.
The kids weren’t bruised, weren’t locked up, weren’t barefoot.
Hell, if anything, they looked cleaner than most of the kids he saw running around the neighborhood.
But Jenny—that meddling busybody—looked too damn closely. She’d walked right past him, talking sweet like honey to the brats, asking them questions in her nosy, singsong voice. And then she had the nerve to take them outside. One by one. Asking things that weren’t her business.
And the little ingrates had talked.
Said they were hungry. Said they hadn’t eaten all day because they hadn’t done their chores right.
Jim took a long pull from the bottle, foam sliding down his chin.
He didn’t give a damn about the chores. The chores were just to keep them out of his way, and keep the house from looking like a pigsty when the social worker came sniffing around.
What he really cared about was the check from the state.
Every month, right on time, that money landed in his bank account.
Enough for a fridge stocked with beer, a decent bottle of whiskey every now and then, and enough smokes to keep him happy.
Now, it was gone.
Jenny had whisked the kids out of the house, emergency protection or some such crap. Said it wasn’t safe here. Said she “had concerns.”
Concerns, his ass.
Now Katy was stomping around, whining about how they weren’t going to get any more payments from the state. “What are we supposed to do, Jim? That money was everything! We can’t pay the bills without it!”
Jim ignored her, drinking his beer and staring at the darkened television. He didn’t give a damn about bills. He cared about his next six-pack. And now, thanks to that meddling woman, he was going to have to do without.
But maybe it wasn’t all Jenny’s fault.
Maybe the real problem was that crippled kid. Freddy.
Freddy with his sullen eyes, always acting like he was too good for the rest of them.
Freddy with his sharp little brain, sneaking into the kitchen at night and raiding the cupboards.
He thought Jim didn’t notice, but he did.
Jim had seen the empty bread bags, the missing cans of beans, the way the other brats got a little plumper in the cheeks while Freddy stayed skinny as a rail. He’d been sneaking them food.
And now? Now the brat had ratted him out.
He could see it plain as day. Freddy was the one who’d told Jenny what went on. Freddy, sitting there in his damn wheelchair, pretending he was helpless when in reality he’d undermined Jim at every turn.
Jim’s fingers tightened around the neck of the beer bottle until his knuckles popped.
If Freddy thought he could ruin him, thought he could go running to some do-gooder social worker and get away with it, he had another thing coming.
Jim finished the beer, slammed the bottle onto the counter so hard it cracked, and leaned back in his chair.
Maybe, it was time to be a real man. To take care of the problem at its source.
Freddy thought he could make trouble. Thought he could expose what went on in Jim Fuller’s house.
Fine. Jim would teach him a lesson he’d never forget.