Breeder - Redneck

After that she was gone. There was no one else in the room with us, no one else had heard.

I’d given it a lot of thought, whether or not I should share the information with the cops. The police report had said that it was a hit and run. She’d had a flat on a deserted stretch of road in a small town on her way to visit her parents.

A car had slammed into her while she’d been parked on the side of the street trying to call for help. She’d got out of the car disoriented and fell in the middle of the road, bleeding out. The driver of the other car had not stopped and no one had reported an accident on that road. There was no doubt that he knew what he’d done, whoever he was. He’d just not cared.

After I buried my family, I took leave from work and hid myself away with a bottle for a good week and a half. It was then I got the idea to take matters into my own hands. The cops were no closer to finding out who was responsible, but I had one piece of information that they didn’t.

I’d gone back to that town and researched her steps. I put in a few calls and got access to any CCT cameras in the area. And that’s how I found him. The red Mercedes just as she’d said. The owner had no idea that he was about to commit murder, so he hadn’t hid his face or his license plate. I lucked out there.

It was obvious as he left the store that he was drunk and that just made me even more pissed off than I already was. With his license plate it was easy to find him. I should’ve passed the information over to the cops, but a deep search of the asshole showed that he was one of those guys who could and had bought his way out of shit.

The more I learned of him, the more I hated him. The decision to destroy him was an easy one, the only thing left was how. Then I’d come across a picture of him and his family and my eyes landed on his daughter. There was a right up in the paper for her eighteenth birthday. Daddy’s girl they’d called her.

The report had talked about his love for his daughter and all the things he’d done for her birthday. A birthday my own daughter will never have. The seed had been planted and from there I’d put my plan in motion. I’d asked for an extended leave, bought this place and set about getting things ready.

Now here we were. I’d achieved all that I’d set out to do but it was leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. I had no doubt my wife would not approve. She was soft hearted and kind where I wasn’t so much of either. She would’ve wanted me to go to the cops and let them take care of it. But that wouldn’t have given me back what I’d lost.

I wanted to make him bleed from within the way I was. I’ve been following the news and knew that he was indeed suffering. The next phase of my one-man operation was already in the works and should bear fruit by tomorrow. I’d forwarded evidence of his insider trading to the SEC and knew that tomorrow was the day his world would implode.

He’d lose everything, including his wife who I knew from hacking into her shit already had one foot out the door. I’d sent her a nice little message telling her to ask her husband what he’d done to cause his daughter’s disappearance.

I knew she had, you could see the strain between them in the latest interviews they’d done for the cameras. He wasn’t looking too good himself but I didn’t give a fuck. So why was I feeling this guilt? Why now that everything was just as I’d hoped was I feeling like I’d crossed the line?

I rested my head against the tree and looked up at the sky, for the first time hearing the cry of the birds as they flew overhead. I felt as if I’d been walking blind for the past year and a half, like the sun had been hidden behind the clouds all this time.

“What have you done Royce? Fuck! My wife always did say my anger was going to get me in trouble one of these days. It was too late to turn back now, she was carrying my child. In that moment I missed her more than I’d ever missed anything in my life.

I should hate that, hate that I couldn’t be away from her for more than a few minutes before feeling that pull as if there was an imaginary string holding us together. I saw her little face all the way back to the cabin and was running by the time it came into view.