The Bad Ones (9 page)

11

Fall was Dulcie's favorite time of year. She was a backwoods country gal at heart, she loved when the leaves would change. Loved the crisp air, the first frost. That feeling of waiting for school to start, for new beginnings, even though she was long done with school.

Not to say she didn't enjoy summer, either. That country gal wore shorts more than she wore pants, and warm weather was so much nicer on bare skin. June was turning into a scorcher, so she pulled out some old pants and turned them into cut-offs, preparing for the heat.

I always said I'd be stuck in this town
.

She supposed it wasn't all bad. She was twenty-one and she was the evening shift manager at a restaurant in a country club, only half an hour outside of town. Not too bad, and it paid well enough that she was able to buy herself a beater car to get back and forth. Paid enough to get her out of the shitty trailer and away from her mother.

Apartments weren't easy to come by in Fuller, and she didn't want to live in a trailer, either. She'd found an awesome loft space in an old warehouse – it was commercial, but the landlord hadn't been able to rent it out in over two years. Dulcie was able to sweet talk the woman into letting her have it. It was all open floor space, no rooms, and no kitchen to speak of; but there was a bathroom with a shower next to the elevator, and that's really all that mattered.

She bought a mini fridge, a microwave, a hot plate, and a queen sized mattress, and she moved in the moment she made the first payment. She put the mattress on top of pallets, right underneath big windows that still had their original glass. They faced the sun first thing in the morning – the whole room was actually lined with huge windows, though, so she got light from every angle. Even at night, the street lamps would flood the space with an orange glow. She was always illuminated.

Constantine would hate this place.

But his opinion didn't matter. Because she hadn't seen or spoken to him in almost three years.

They had killed a man. Then he'd taken her virginity in the front seat of his truck. Afterwards, they'd buried the body, then they'd gone back to his place and talked all night.

Silly girl, it didn't mean anything. Just because you shared a moment of darkness didn't mean it was forever.

Except, she thought it had. After Con left, Dulcie stayed behind. It was for the best. They had real lives, and really, if someone found the hobo's body, it wouldn't look good if the two of them had disappeared together. So Con went back to college and she finished high school.

He didn't contact her, but she'd been expecting that – she dealt with bullying from Frannie and looks of hurt from Jared. The two of them had apparently hooked up at the party after she'd left, and they started dating soon after, but it was clear Frannie was holding a grudge against her. Constantine had left the party right after Dulcie had left, after all. The two of them hadn't come back. The next day, Dulcie had been sporting some interesting bruises and hickeys. One and one aren't terribly hard to add up, even for a cheerleader.

Dulcie could endure all of it, though, because in her mind, Con would come back to save her. Maybe right after graduation. Maybe before the fall. Sometime. Two people didn't share what they'd shared and simply walk away. They'd made promises to each other. Bared their souls.

But he didn't come back. Fall came and went. By the time Christmas showed up, Dulcie was losing her mind. She dreamed about blood, all the time. Blood and darkness.

She tried to call him, but the cellphone number his friends had no longer worked. She hunted him down on social media, but he wasn't posting anything. Wasn't looking at messages, wasn't opening e-mails. She wrote letters, but they were all returned. It was like he'd disappeared.

Except she knew he hadn't – his father was still in town, after all. And Mr. Masters loved to brag about what a success his son was, about how Con had graduated from Ohio State with top honors and was looking into other options for grad school.

None of those “options” were even remotely close to West Virginia.

Fuck him.

Dulcie wouldn't be depressed, she'd decided. She'd killed a man and she'd fucked the high school heartthrob. She was a badass. She was goddamn invincible. She wouldn't cry over Constantine Masters. She would forge her own path. Her curtain had been ripped away – it was time to find out who she
really
was, with or without him.

So she got a job and she got an apartment and she painted her pictures and drew her drawings.

And sometime, late at night, when there was a full moon, she would walk along the train tracks and pray for something to come out of the shadows.

*

“I'm not putting up with this shit anymore, Dulcie. He keeps stepping on my toes, I'm gonna pop him.”

Dulcie rolled her eyes and looked up from her tablet. Her bartender was glaring at her, his arms folded across his chest.

“So do it,” she told him. He looked surprised for a second.

“I'm serious. Frank barrels around back here, fucking with my bar, talking shit to me and the waitresses. I'm gonna hit him one of these days,” he assured her. She nodded.

“You keep saying that. I've yet to see it happen.
Do it.
”

They had a bit of a stare down. David was twenty-six and when he'd been hired on as bartender at the Blue Rock, he'd had trouble adjusting to having a twenty-one year old as his supervisor. Eventually, though, he'd recognized Dulcie for what she was – a ball buster who didn't take shit from anyone and would do absolutely whatever it took to see a job done well. Being a like minded individual, he respected her. So he just laughed at her dare.

“You'd like that, wouldn't you. Just waiting for an excuse to fire my ass,” he teased her. She shook her head and went back to the tablet.

“No, I keep waiting for an excuse to fire both of you. If you start a fight, it'll solve my problem. If you're going to do it tonight, please wait till after nine. Usually most of the members are gone by then.”

He threw a dish rag at her face and they both laughed.

“When you gonna go out on a date with me, Dulcie?” he asked, for the hundredth time. She threw the rag back at him.

“I told you, when you leave this job and make a million dollars. Then I'm all yours.”

They laughed again, but she wasn't joking. Dulcie didn't date anyone. Boys were irrelevant to her. Just a means to an end. Young men were the worst, thinking they had something to offer her. Ridiculous.

The only people Dulcie looked twice at were the visitors of the club. Part of the reason she'd taken the job there was because she knew the wealthy elite of the area flocked to the pristine golf course. Belonging to the club wasn't easy, membership was not cheap.

Neither was Dulcie.

She had rules to her little scam. No one young – only men over forty. They were easier to wear out, easier to manipulate. A young, hot woman paying them attention. Flirting with them. Flashing a bit of skin as she delivered their cocktails and meals.

No one staying at the club – she didn't want to lose her job if she could avoid it. She preyed upon guests of the members. Convinced them to take her to seedy motels off the highways surrounding the golf course.

No one single – she had to have ammunition, in case they got frisky and hunted her down, whether to look for more of what she had to offer, or to get her in trouble. She had to protect herself.

And most important – never more than once a month. Getting greedy is what got people in trouble. Slow and steady won the race. Opportunities like the one she had didn't come around often in her small town, and she was sure she couldn't compete in a bigger city.

So she stayed in Fuller. She worked at the country club. She lured men away, she fucked their brains out, and then she robbed them blind. Any cash, anything of value, it all went home with her. Most men didn't know anything had happened till it was too late. Pride and their positions kept most from saying anything, and the few who did dare to confront her, she would threaten them right back. She had no problem with telling their wives or girlfriends or partners exactly what they'd been doing with her.

So far, it had worked out great for her. She had a small nest egg built up, hidden inside her mattress. She was trying to save enough to move to Europe. Sure, life wouldn't be any different in the south of France. But the scenery would be a lot brighter. Maybe it would help keep the darkness at bay, because lately, it had been getting harder and harder.

“Did you hear me?”

Dulcie snapped back to attention and glanced at David. He was staring at her while he wiped down glasses.

“No, I'm sorry. What?” she asked. He narrowed his eyes for a second.

“Where do you go?”

It shouldn't have made sense, but she knew what he was asking.

“Somewhere you don't ever want to go,” she whispered. He looked a little surprised, and she cleared her throat. Shut the curtain in her brain, keeping the darkness in check. “I've just got a lot on my mind. We open in five, make sure those glasses are put away.”

Dulcie didn't particularly like her job, but it wasn't hard, she was good at it, and she'd found her second source of income there, so it wasn't all bad. When the doors opened, golfers began wandering in, looking to quench their thirst after eighteen holes in the hot summer sun. The tables began to fill up and food was carted out to hungry patrons. During the summer, it got so busy the restaurant essentially ran itself. There was no time for anyone to screw off, so she usually didn't have to even think much about being the boss once the placed opened.

That night, the hostess got sick. Not just a little, either – like
running-through-the-kitchen-and-barely-making-it-to-a-mop-bucket-to-puke
sick. She'd been battling the flu and had apparently lost. Dulcie sent her home, then took her position at the hostess station.

Again, not something hard. It had been her first job at the restaurant, back when she'd been nineteen, so she slipped into the role easily. The only problem was she now had to directly interact with every single person who came through the doors.

Whether she wanted to or not.

“
Dulcie?
”

She'd been looking down at the reservation sheet, trying to rearrange tables and times, and hadn't been paying attention to who'd approached her. When she lifted her head, she almost groaned out loud. Jared Foster was standing in front of her. The boy she'd left in the woods, right before she'd killed someone. The boyfriend she'd refused to sleep with, right before she'd had sex with someone else.

Not that she was necessarily shocked or surprised to see him. Fuller was a tiny town, they'd run into each other a lot over the years. He was always nice and polite, just like he'd been in high school. No, Jared wasn't the problem. The problem was his wife. Frannie Foster – formerly McKey.

The girl who'd been left behind in the woods, as well.

Frannie had
never
liked Dulcie. The universe had scripted their lives to be that way; Frannie had been the popular cheerleader, had dated the quarterback of the football team. Dulcie was the weird art kid who'd somehow captured the quarterback's attention. Frannie had made it a point to be a nasty bitch in school, and it had only intensified since graduation.

She and Jared had dated throughout their senior year. Dulcie could tell it wasn't really love, though; Frannie was just doing it to piss Dulcie off. Stupid girl – Dulcie would have to care before she could get mad about something.

Then just before the senior prom, a social-bomb hit the school. Frannie was pregnant.
Shocking
. Or least it was to a tiny town in rural West Virginia. Two weeks after graduation, Jared and Frannie got married in a small courthouse ceremony. Clearly, the right thing to do.

Dulcie couldn't honestly say she felt bad for Jared, because she rarely felt bad for anyone. But she could recognize that life had dealt him a shitty hand. There went his hopes for college. Instead, he got locked into a relationship with a girl who thought being a bitch looked good in any season.

Beats burying your heart in a shallow grave by some abandoned train tracks.

“Hey, how are you?” Dulcie said, plastering a smile across her face. Jared began moving around the station and she struggled to keep her smile in place. Then she remembered she was supposed to be normal, so she moved towards him and leaned into the hug he wrapped around her.

“Alright, I guess. Anniversary dinner,” he sighed after he finally let her go.

“Oh yeah? Where is the little woman?” she joked, then scanned the grand hall that sat outside the restaurant.

“Helping her parents, they're eating with us.”

Frannie's father was the second wealthiest person in Fuller, so it wasn't too surprising that he was a member of the club. Mr. McKey ruled over his daughter with an iron fist, and thus, he controlled her husband. Jared worked for Mr. McKey, lived in a house Mr. McKey had bought for them.

Yeah, actually, that grave does sound like a better option.