Held (31 page)

Authors: Kimberly A Bettes

BOOK: Held

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Sitting in the truck, sweating more by the second, I thought of all the things Billy had done for me over the years. Like the time he came out at three in the morning on a snowy night to pull my truck out of a ditch. Or the time my dad died and he sat with me every second of the day for over a week, trying to cheer me up. And then there was the time we went hunting and I forgot my gun at home. He let me use his, even though it meant he didn’t get to hunt. And all the times he’d given me his last beer from the fridge.

I could go on for days thinking of all the things he’d done for me, but there was no sense in it. I’d already changed my mind. I wouldn’t kill Billy. After all, I didn’t want to kill him. He was a good guy and my best friend. I couldn’t imagine life without him. And remembering all those times he’d been there for me was making me sad. No, I just couldn’t do it.

Billy opened the door of the truck suddenly, causing me to jump. I looked at him and he smiled.

“You’re jumpy. Daydreamin’ about your money?” he asked, tossing me a bottle of water on which condensation had already formed in the short amount of time it took Billy to walk to the truck. That was summer in the south.

I caught the bottle as it flew my way and answered, “Yeah, something like that.”

“Thought we might get thirsty later,” he said as he hopped up into the truck. I saw he’d bought himself a bottle of water too and had a plastic bag filled with goodies. “Candy bars, beef jerky, plus a couple more bottles of water. It’s hard work bein’ an outlaw. Work up a man’s thirst.”

“I hear that,” I said.

“Alright, Tommy boy. Here we go. It’s the last night. Let’s get this done.” He started the truck and pulled away from the station. “I’ll be glad when we’re done. I’m gonna sleep all day tomorrow. Then, I’ll spend the next day rollin’ around on all that money. The next day, I’ll buy that truck, drive it to buy the ring and house, and then just spend the next few months makin’ love to Casey in every room.” He smiled and shifted, grinding the gears.

I shouldn’t have cared. I should’ve been happy for him. But the knot in my stomach wouldn’t let me. It made me angry. I didn’t think I was jealous of him, but maybe I was jealous of how things were coming together for him. A house, though I had my own. A wife, though I also had my own. And all that money. That, I didn’t have. Well, I’d
had
money, every bit as much as Billy had, but I had something Billy didn’t. A gambling problem. My share of the money was gone. I’d already spent it, plus I still owed some dangerous people large sums of cash. And they wanted it. My problem was that I didn’t have it, and I didn’t have any way of getting it. Unless I took Billy’s share.

The moon was full and big and bright, hanging low in the sky. I stared at it out the window, through the trees, and wondered if I actually had the guts to kill my buddy. Or anyone for that matter. Did I have it in me to take someone’s life? I mean, killing a person wasn’t just ending that person’s life. It was also ruining the lives of all of his friends and family. Could I do that? Was I that kind of person? I just wasn’t sure.

When Billy turned off the highway onto the dirt road, he started whistling. I let him, though it annoyed me. I figured if he was whistling, he wasn’t asking me questions about money or telling me about making love to Casey. I didn’t want to talk about either.

I’d been there when the two had met at a party eight years earlier. Though I tried not to think of that night, it popped into my mind frequently. I’d seen Casey first. In fact, I pointed her out to Billy. She was beautiful then, and even more so now. But before I’d had a chance to talk to her, Billy had made his way across the crowded room to her, and I was left standing there talking to some asshole about what the air pressure should be in his tires. Damn my luck.

A few miles down the dirt road, Billy’s whistling had taken its toll on my nerves. When the urge to reach across the cab of the truck and slap him stupid became too much to handle, I asked, “Why are you so happy?”

He looked at me and smiled. “I’ve got a lot to be happy about.”

“Is that so? I wasn’t this happy when I bought a house.”

“I know. I remember. You were the saddest new homeowner I’ve ever seen.”

“All I could think about was all the stuff that went along with owning a house. Taxes, insurance, the mortgage, and the responsibility of fixing anything that went wrong. I couldn’t find any reason to be happy about it.”

“Then why’d you buy one? Why not just rent?”

“Because you know Heather, man. She wouldn’t let it go. She wanted to own a home, no matter how much it stressed me out.”

“Ah, yes. Heather with her white-picket-fence-two-kids-and-a-dog dream. And you gave it to her.”

“Yes, I did.”

“What a guy,” Billy said.

I said nothing. While it was true that I’d given Heather everything she’d wanted, it hadn’t made things between us any better. I still spent more time with my friends or by myself than I did with her, and she still kept herself so occupied with other things that she barely noticed me. I could’ve given her the world and nothing would’ve changed that. We were nothing more than roommates. Roommates that split the bills and just happened to have two kids together.

Before I could dive into that pit of self-pity for the umpteenth time, Billy turned off the dirt road and onto the old log road, meaning the trip from here on was going to be bumpy.

“Well it’s more than just the house,” Billy said. “Hell, it’s more than the truck
and
the house.”

By the reflection of the headlights through the windshield, I saw him smile.

“Well what is it? What’s got you so happy?”

He glanced at me quickly and said, “Everything.” Which told me nothing.

“At least you’re specific,” I said sarcastically.

He laughed. “I’m not supposed to say anything yet, but I tell ya, it’s hard to keep to myself.”

I let it go. He couldn’t say any more about it, and honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what it was anyway. His happiness was becoming another rock in my shoe. And it was really starting to piss me off.

Chapter 3

When we came to the clearing, Billy stopped the truck like he had so many times before. I jumped out and did what I’d done so many times before. I cleared away tree limbs and old blocks of wood to allow Billy to drive into the woods on the road we’d made. When he drove past me, I put everything back the way it was to ensure that if anyone should happen to drive out here, they wouldn’t see our road. It looked natural. I then hopped back in the truck and rode with Billy the rest of way.

I did my best to think of anything other than Casey marrying Billy. Every time it popped into my mind, I reminded myself that it wasn’t my business. I shouldn’t care. I had no right to care. Casey was his girl and he had every right in the world to marry her. And if she loved him, she had the same right to marry him. They could live happily ever after and it shouldn’t concern me. It wasn’t my business.

Except that it was.

A surge of anger rushed through me. I pushed it down and stomped on it, determined to show no signs of being mad. I glanced at Billy to see if he had noticed my clenched fists resting on my thighs in the darkness, but he was watching the road and smiling, happy and content with his life. Seeing his happiness made it harder for me to ignore the anger, but I managed. Looking at him now, happy and carefree while I was all but seething about the very things that were making him happy, I changed my mind about things once again.

Billy was dying tonight.

I’d been back and forth about it all day. Hell, I’d been back and forth about it for a week now, but it was going to happen. It had to. Billy, though a great guy and my best friend, had a couple things that I needed. And though he might give me one of them, which I doubted now that he would, he was certain to keep the other for himself. And I couldn’t have that. So to get what I needed, Billy had to be done away with. I didn’t want to kill him, but I saw no other way.

Just as I’d made up my mind to stick with the plan and kill Billy and
not
change my mind again about it, Billy stopped the truck in the little clearing we’d made at the still site. We were here. Billy turned off the truck, opened his door, and hopped out happily. No doubt he was eager to get this done so he could get home to his girl.

“Here we go,” he said. He inhaled deeply, breathing in the lingering sweet scent of fermented mash. “Man that smells good.”

“Yeah. Smells like money,” I said.

Carrying the shotgun, I got out with far less enthusiasm than Billy and walked around the front of the truck. I took a long look at the still. This was the last time Billy would help me make moonshine. The last time he’d make a delivery. The last time he’d do anything, really. That tugged at my heart a bit, but it had to be done.

“We just have them two deliveries tonight, right, Tom?” Billy asked as he prepared to fire up the pot. He walked over to the propane tanks, hidden under camouflage netting from any eyes that may be in the skies looking for stills.

“Yeah. Just the two.” I laid the gun on the hood of the truck, walked over to the still, which was nestled under a roof that was covered with leaves and supported by 2x4s. I stepped over to the pot and pulled the box of matches from my pocket. I squatted, lit the match, and laid it on the pipes that ran from underneath the pot back to the propane tanks where Billy stood, hand on the valve. Then I got the hell back.

Billy turned the valve on the propane tank and orange flames erupted from the pipes, heating the pot and cooking our mash. Now we were making shine.

“I’ll be glad when this night’s over,” Billy said as walked over to the pot and checked the cap.

I returned the matches to my pocket, and nodded in agreement. But poor Billy didn’t realize that when the night was over for him, it was over for good.

We spent the next while checking the cap and pipes, changing buckets, checking filters, unloading empty jugs from the truck, and just making sure all was going smoothly. Though I was going to kill Billy, this was still a two-man operation. I couldn’t let him do the work alone. This wasn’t just some little backyard still, though that’s how I started out. This was a monster, with the biggest pot I’d ever seen on a still. It took no less than two men to get everything done. And we were working ourselves stupid to do it with just two. We’d considered bringing in another guy, but then we’d have to split the money three ways. We were a couple of greedy bastards so we decided we could handle it alone.

We were handling it, though as Billy said earlier, it was kicking our asses. It was a lot of hard work. A lot of nights spent in the woods with the still. A lot of hauling heavy bags of corn and sugar. A lot of sneaking around. A lot of loading and unloading jugs. Just a lot of everything. It was exhausting. It was definitely a two man job. I needed him.

And that made me feel even worse for what I was going to do to him.

While I helped Billy make moonshine just like always, trying to pretend this was just another night, I tried to harden myself against any kind emotions I had for Billy. I tried to remember all the things I didn’t like about him and all the times he’d pissed me off. But it was hard to do, because there sure weren’t many of either. Billy was great. Which made this that much harder.

About the Author

Kimberly A. Bettes was born in Missouri on Thanksgiving Day, 1977. Kimberly is the author of several novels and short stories. She lives with her husband and son in the beautiful Ozark Mountains of southeast Missouri, where she terrorizes residents of a small town with her twisted tales. It’s there she likes to study serial killers and knit. Serial killers who knit are her favorites.

Connect with Kimberly Online:

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Blog:
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Other Titles by the Author:

Novels

Novellas