Page 117 of We Are All Guilty Here

She pushed the whiskey toward him. “Help yourself.”

He knocked it back like a shot. Placed the glass gently on the bar. Hissed out air between his teeth. “You were flirting with me all night.”

“Do you rape every fifteen-year-old girl who flirts with you?”

Adam licked his lips again. He wanted more whiskey. “I don’tknow where you’re getting this bullshit. You talked to me after like you were fine.”

“I talked to you after because I thought you were going to kill me.”

“Fuck.” He laughed out the word. “If it was rape, you would’a told your daddy.”

Jude had never considered telling her father. Gerald would’ve been mad at her for sneaking out, for being drunk, for putting herself in such a vulnerable situation. “I didn’t even tell Henry until a month later. We were at the Falls. He wanted to beat the shit out of you, but I wanted to get drunk. I passed out and he went into the water. We didn’t find his body for six days.”

“Here’s to Henry, then.” Adam filled the glass with another triple, then gulped it down. “Your daddy managed to lock me up anyway. Framed me for murdering those girls. You know what they do to pedophiles inside?”

“So, it’s rape when it happens to you, but not when it happens to a fifteen-year-old child?”

“You still got that fucking nasty mouth.”

He filled the glass again, this time almost to the rim. His eyes stayed on Jude as he tilted back his head and gulped down the alcohol. He gave a loud burp. Started filling the glass again. His hands were shaking. Liquid sloshed onto the bar. Whatever he’d drunk before Jude had walked in was catching up with him fast.

“You need to hear me on this.” He scooped up the glass, pointed it at her. “I got nothing to do with that Paisley bitch. Why would I bring that shit down on myself?”

“But you had something to do with Madison and Cheyenne. Millie saw you with them.”

He tossed back the drink, slammed the empty onto the counter. “She only saw me with the fat one. I never touched her. Girl was still a child.”

Jude felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Eighty proof was a hell of a truth serum. “What about the skinny one?”

“Cheyenne. Now she was a piece of work. I’ll tell you that.” He wiped his mouth with his fingers. His eyes had turned glassy. “Every man in this town got a blow job off that bitch. Ain’t nosecret she was tricking herself out. Told everybody she was seventeen, but she acted like she was thirty.”

Jude kept her expression neutral. “How much did she charge?”

“Fifty a pop, but she never charged me. I hooked her up with some weed is all. She liked to talk. Said she was saving up the cash. Had big plans about leaving, same as you.” His words were slurring, but he sloshed more whiskey into the glass, drank it down. “She’d let you finger her if she was high, but I never fucked her with my cock.”

“You never traded her coke?” Jude asked. “I seem to recall you liking it.”

“Fuck no.” Adam went in for another refill. “You think I’m gonna get caught selling weight to a ninth-grader?”

He’d claimed not to know Cheyenne’s age just a minute ago.

“Fuck this shit.” Adam nearly missed the edge of the bar when he set down the bottle. “Shy’s the one that sold coke. And Molly. She was getting the hook-up from that weasel at school.”

“Woody?”

“Shhh.” Adam tried and failed to touch his finger to his mouth as he shushed her. He’d crossed over into full-on drunk. “Woody wasn’t wrapped up in none’a her other shit. He had Shy selling to North Falls kids, but that was it.”

“What was her other shit?”

“Fuck if I know.” He bypassed the glass and drank from the bottle.

Jude said, “I hear Woody sells out of the back of this bar.”

“Shit.” He tried to tap his finger to his mouth again. “What’d you say?”

Jude could tell the whiskey had hit the point of dwindling returns. “I said, I guess Penley left his sawed-off shotgun behind the bar when he sold the place.”

“You guessed right, darlin’.” Adam laughed as he pretended to reach for the weapon. “Tell me this: why would I kill that little bitch if I could catch a blow job off her whenever I wanted?”

---