CHAPTER 30

WILFRED LEE BOUNCED in his seat as his truck navigated the potholes leading to The Gentleman’s Club. He rolled down his window and spewed out a stream of tobacco juice. He slammed his fist on the steering wheel as he reflected on the events of the past week. It wasn’t supposed to go like this—not for him.

What Wilfred Lee wants, Wilfred Lee gets.

It seemed to be a proven refrain in his life.

Five years ago, he wanted to divorce his meddling wife and send her packing without a dime in alimony. One of his cronies overseeing the divorce proceedings refused to recuse himself and granted Lee’s wishes. Just to make sure that ruling remained intact, he paid off his wife’s divorce lawyer to ensure no appeal was filed.

Five years before that, he bullied his way into a competitor’s distillery and bought it—and then shut it down. The terms of the deal excluded the former owner from engaging in any distillery business or else it would cost him his sale price.

But it wasn’t always that way.

Lee snorted as he reflected back to a time when things didn’t go his way. He felt lost, out of control. And it was happening all over again. No matter how much power and influence he had, he feared this situation wouldn’t end well. Not that he wasn’t going do his best to stop it.

His truck rolled to a halt. He slid out of the truck, his feet hitting the ground with a thud. He grabbed his cane and hobbled up the steps of the porch and into The Gentleman’s Club. The moment he swung open the screen door, the banter ceased. Every eye tracked with Lee’s slow movements.

A grin spread slowly across his face. “Well, looky what we have here. If it isn’t Kelly Murphy, photographer extraordinaire. To what do we owe the pleasure of your company here with us this evening?”

He stared at her for a few moments and waited for her reply. Not that he’d have been able to understand her if she decided to talk back. The gag in her mouth appeared snug, pinching her cheeks. In front of her, Kelly’s hands remained bound. Other than turning to glare at Lee, she held fast where she stood.

“If only you could shoot bullets with those eyes—” he started. He rambled around the room before he lurched toward her. Leaning his cane against the table, he stroked her brunette locks and smiled. “It’s a good thing you can’t.”

Lee proceeded to grab a fistful of her hair and jerk her head backward. Kelly writhed in pain as her head snapped back. Lee cackled as she struggled to turn her head to see him. Her eyes had grown wide—so wide that Lee could see his reflection in them along with the fire that sparked behind him.

She whimpered as he thrust her head forward and released her. He shuffled around the table again before he stopped, this time forcing her head down against the table as he leaned down and put his face only a few inches from hers.

“I thought I told you to leave Millersville,” he said, his tone demeaning, his cadence measured. “But you and that worthless husband of yours ignored me. You’ve got no jobs, no prospects, and no future. Yet here you are—in my town, sticking your snouts where they don’t belong.” Lee mashed her nose for emphasis.

He stood up and remained in her line of sight.

“You just had to find out what was going on in Miller County. You just had to find out what The Gentleman’s Club was. You just had to keep doing everything we told you not to.”

Lee shuffled over to Sheriff Wilson and pushed him toward Kelly still lying face down on the table in the center of the room.

“Sheriff Wilson warned you, but you didn’t listen.” He shoved him away. “I told you. Steve even told you to stop—even though that man will dance on my grave if he outlives me. But you couldn’t leave well enough alone.”

He picked up his cane and drew it back with both hands over his head before crashing it down just above Kelly’s head. She jumped as it cracked on the table. The rest of the men roared with laughter.

Lee stood upright and motioned for one of the men. He whispered in his hear and the man exited the cabin.

“I think it’s time to teach this snoopy little picture taker a lesson, isn’t it, boys?” Lee chided. “She wants to know all about this place and what we do here, and I think we ought to show her—without letting her have a camera, of course.”

The man returned, rolling a barrel over to Lee, who used it as a stool for his right leg in order to steady his weight. Lee grabbed Kelly by her hair and slammed her face down again against the table, evoking a muffled scream.

“Now, Mrs. Murphy, I see everything that goes on around Miller County. You can’t scratch your nose without me finding out about it. So, when I heard that you were snooping around Lee Creek Distilleries—a crime, I might add—and taking pictures, I wondered what you found so interesting about a bunch of whiskey barrels.” Lee stopped and stamped his cane. “And then I realized what you’d really seen that piqued your interest: people exchanging cash while barrels were loaded onto the truck. A strange business practice, indeed, if you’re simply selling whiskey. But I don’t just sell whiskey, Mrs. Murphy. I sell what people crave to make them forget about their pathetic little lives. I don’t care what it is—booze, women, drugs. Makes no difference to me. The desire to escape the little prisons we’ve created for ourselves is always in demand. At heart, I’m just a simple businessman who likes to provide people with what they want. And I’ve figured out what people want.”

Lee paced around the room for a moment and took a deep breath.

“But Mrs. Murphy, you’re an outlier, an enigma. You’re the kind of person who throws a wrench in my otherwise perfect business model. What you want is something people don’t really need: the truth. There’s no need to go ruining our little fun here in Miller County. But you and that persistent little husband of yours are trying to sell something that I don’t think needs to be on the market here—or anywhere, quite frankly. There’s no need to remind people about the reality of our lives when they can escape it—for a price, of course. But, out of common courtesy, I’m not just going to tell you the truth about what goes on here. I’m going to show you. I’m going to show you what goes into these barrels. However, there’s a little piece of business we must attend to first.”

The men started hollering and making catcalls.

Lee hunched down next to Kelly, whose face remained plastered to the table. He whispered, “This is going to be very unpleasant—for you.” He then stood up and broke out into laughter. “Go get her husband. I want that imbecile to watch this.”