House of Secrets

by Ramona Richards

  The image of Brent’s death flooded June’s mind and she fought against panic. Now was not the time. “Hunter—”

  “David…David, he just wanted to help. That’s what he said. He could watch for signs that the meds were off, make sure that no one else could tell.” His face contorted again, a split second of agony. “Nothing in return. Just the trust. JR, on the other hand—” Hunter paused, then turned to face her, abruptly turning the gun on her as if it were a laser pointer.

  June gasped, flinching, but Hunter continued, punctuating every other word with the barrel of the gun. “JR, now, he dreamed big. You saw what he’d made of the church, how he made sure it got plenty of publicity, plenty of new building programs.”

  “What’s wrong with—”

  Hunter erupted from the chair. “Because he did it with my mother’s money!”

  June shook her head, struggling hard to keep her anger under control. She pushed up on her knees to gain more height, but she was still afraid to stand. “He wouldn’t—”

  “He did!” Hunter started to pace, marching around the attic in off-kilter circles, dodging boxes and old furniture. “After he found the papers, my mother increased her donations to the church three times over. It didn’t look like a bribe or extortion because it went into the plate.”

  “Hunter—”

  “That’s why she killed him, too!”

  Ray focused on the road in front of him, and on the handling of the cruiser. The siren and lights cleared traffic out of their way, as cars and trucks shifted right to allow them passage. Ray veered the car off exit 117, heading west and south, and his familiarity with the country roads let him swing the powerful car easily through the tight turns and sharp curves. He cut the siren and the lights well before he hit White Hills, slowing and entering town at almost the posted speed limit.

  Daniel, who had been silent the entire trip, spoke evenly. “Are you sure he’ll take her to the parsonage?”

  “I’m guessing that he thinks the evidence is still there somewhere.”

  “Do you have a plan?”

  “To go in through the tunnel.”

  Daniel nodded his approval. “That’ll put us out directly on the second floor. A flanking maneuver.”

  “We’ll park on the street near the church, and we can enter the garden area near the spring house without being seen from the parsonage.” He turned the cruiser down a side street, then eased it into an alley behind the church.

  Daniel got out first. “I’ll get the vests.”

  Ray followed, double-checking his flashlight’s power, then his gun, as Daniel dug into the trunk. “I’m praying he’s not dangerous.”

  “Counting on a miracle?”

  “Almost every day,” Ray muttered, reaching for his own bulletproof vest. “I depend on them.”

  June choked and coughed, her chest and throat tightening as if Hunter had punched her again. “What?”

  Hunter kept pacing, making his frantic circles around the attic, staring at the floor in front of his feet. “Mother. You don’t mess with Mother’s affairs. She’s been a lawyer too long. Defense attorney.” He poked himself in the chest with the gun. “Me. I’m corporate. A politician. I know other politicians. I know businesspeople. Stab you in the back, sure, but with a fountain pen, their bank accounts, not in the side.” He shuddered and clutched the gun in both hands again. “Mother knows men who kill. Have killed. Did kill. David. And JR.”

  June sank back to a sitting position, her mind going numb. “No.”

  The hoarse cracking of her voice made Hunter pause, and he looked at her, his eyes shifting from frantic and crazed to sad. He dropped to his knees in front of her, and tears filled his eyes and spilled over, streaming down his cheeks. “I thought you knew.”

  June shook her head, the numbness spreading through her body as she stared at him. “It was a heart attack,” she whispered.

  Hunter dropped his voice to match hers. “Mother. She defended a pharmacist accused of poisoning a customer. He got her the drug. It looks like a heart attack. She put it in the water under the pulpit.”

  June covered her mouth with both hands, shaking her head.

  “I was there. I saw him fall.”

  “Why didn’t you stop her?” June whispered through her cupped hands.

  “I didn’t know until it was over.” Hunter’s right eye twitched again, and he hit the side of his face twice with the heel of his hand.

  “You didn’t know?” June dropped her hands away from her mouth, waves of grief and fear washing through her now as tears streamed down her face. “How could you not know?”

  He shook his head, and he looked down at the floor, his eyes half-lidded. “She used me, June. Used my position. Used my illness. Used my…I never knew before. Only after. Never before. Not with JR. Or David. Or…or…” Hunter looked up again, staring at her, unable to say the name.

  “Or Rosalie.”

  Hunter jerked back from her, his eyes wide and wild. A ragged, grief-laden scream burst from him, sending a bolt of pure fear through June. She pushed backward and stumbled to her feet, backing into a table. She stared at one of the most tortured men she’d ever met, and an image flashed through her mind: JR in the downtown soup kitchen, how he’d handled men and women suffering from the same mental illness, homeless and desperate on the street. She saw those same people in a cardboard-box village, sitting among piles of old clothes and garbage, staring into nothingness, lost in their own minds. JR walking among them, helping, listening, offering hope.

  June took a step forward and commanded him to stop with his name. “Hunter!” The scream stopped, and he hesitated, staring at her. “She lied, Hunter. JR helped people. He didn’t hurt them. You told him, didn’t you? Told him what was in your head. You trusted him. Like you did Rosalie. They just wanted to help you. Not hurt you. They loved you.”

  Hunter blinked at her, his brow furrowed as he focused on her words. June realized he was staring at her mouth, so she said it again. “They loved you. They would have helped. Let me help you.”

  “Do you love me?”

  “I love you. God loves you. Let us help you.”

  Hunter shook his head, clutching the pistol to his chest. “You won’t shoot me?”

  Confused, June shook her head. “I won’t shoot you, Hunter. I don’t have a gun.”

  Hunter’s gaze shifted to a spot behind her. “They do.”

  Ray Taylor stared at the two people in front of him, using his last ounce of will power not to shoot Hunter Bridges.

  He and Daniel had heard Hunter’s ranting from the second floor and made their way silently to the attic. With every step, the rantings became clearer, and Ray’s anger ran deep, down to a place and time that he thought he’d long ago dealt with and moved beyond.

  As they entered the attic, he’d heard Hunter use his illness to turn June from an enemy, a captive, into a sympathetic caregiver, wickedly calling on the grief of her loss and the pain of her past to turn her to his side. To the core of his being, Ray knew that he was not listening to a mentally ill man off his medications. Instead, he was hearing a skilled lawyer preparing an insanity defense.

  With June as his star witness.

  June spun around, her eyes flaring wide as she saw Ray and Daniel, guns aimed and ready. She threw up both hands, palms toward them. “Don’t shoot him!”

  Ray’s throat closed off when he saw June’s injuries, and he struggled to maintain his calm…and his aim. Her right eye, swollen and darkened from a hard punch, was the centerpiece of a field of contusions and bruises.

  Daniel spoke first, his normal baritone low and gravelly. “Step out of there, June.”

  June shook her head furiously. “He’s sick, Daniel. Ray, can’t you see he’s sick? He’s off his medication! You can’t shoot him!”

  Behind June, Hunter stepped a bit closer to her, carefully putting her between him and the two officers.

  Ray tensed every muscle and held his aim steady. “June,
all I ask is that you listen to me like you’ve never listened to me before.”

  “Ray—”

  “Listen! Think about what Hunter just said to you. What he said, not how he said it. How logically it progressed to persuade you.”

  Some of the anxiety and worry drained away from June’s expression. Her eyes narrowed, and her jaw became more set.

  Good girl. You know where I’m going. “Now think about the people you knew in the street. The ones truly off their meds. How much sense did they make? When they tried to convince you of something, how grounded in reality was it? How organized?”

  June opened her mouth to answer, but Hunter reacted quicker, bellowing at her. “Don’t listen to him! He wants to kill me!”

  Startled, June jolted to one side and tried to turn, but Hunter grabbed her arm and kept her facing the officers. With one hand, he pulled her against his chest, wrapping his other arm around her neck and shoulders, pressing the gun against her shoulder. “He wants to kill me! They all want to kill me! June! Protect me!”

  June’s eyes widened again, this time in confusion. Ray had to make it clear for her, had to jerk her mind back to him.

  “Remember what we said in the conference room? You asked how I knew so much.”

  Hunter pointed the gun at Ray and Daniel. “Don’t listen to him! He’s lying!”

  “I know so much because of Anne, June. The disease isn’t violent. But the person can be.”

  June’s brows arched, and a light of understanding came into her eyes. “Let me go, Hunter. We can walk out of this.”

  Hunter Bridges’s voice changed in a heartbeat, from raving lunatic to coldblooded killer. “Not in this lifetime, sister. You are my ticket out.”

  In the next few seconds, Ray was grateful he’d never lowered his weapon, never dropped his guard. He barely registered the coming explosion in June’s eyes before she erupted. In a sudden flash of dual action, she shot her elbow backward into Hunter’s solar plexus and stamped down on the instep of his foot. He huffed from the pain and his grip on her loosened. June dropped to the floor, falling free and rolling to one side.

  And Ray Taylor, former sniper and excellent marksman, pulled the trigger.

  SEVENTEEN

  June stood, shivering slightly in the night air, watching the EMTs load Hunter into the ambulance. Her entire body ached, and she felt as if every muscle had been pummeled with a rolling pin. She knew the bruises on the left side of her face would get worse before they got better, as would the black eye. Even now, she could barely see out of it.

  She could hear fine, however, and as Hunter struggled against the straps on the gurney, he raised his head to glare, heaping a string of promised punishments at her. They stopped only when the ambulance doors slammed. She watched it pull away, her mind still filled with more questions than answers.

  Ray walked up behind her, draping a jacket around her shoulders. “I found this in the cruiser.”

  She tugged it around her, then slipped her arms into the oversized sleeves. “Thank you.” She motioned at the receding ambulance. “I thought you were going to kill him.”

  “No need. You were out of danger. Just needed to disarm and stop him.”

  June thought about that a second. “You want to see him suffer the humiliation of a trial.”

  “Me? Never crossed my mind.”

  June smiled up at him. “Lying is a sin.”

  He nodded, solemn-faced but with a light in his eyes. “So is taking revenge.” He gently touched her right cheek. “Although I admit to being sorely tempted when I saw what he’d done to you.”

  “It looks worse than it is.”

  “Hm.”

  June let out a long, exhausted sigh. “What now?”

  “First, we take you to NorthCrest to get checked out.”

  “Isn’t that how this whole adventure got started? I’m really—”

  “Don’t argue. I heard what you did trying to escape. And that black eye could be hiding a concussion.”

  June relented. “All right. Then?”

  “Home. We both need sleep.”

  “What about Virginia Bridges?”

  “Arrested. She’s not going anywhere.”

  “You have her in custody?”

  “Had her brought in for questioning when Brent took off with you. Gage said she’s pitched a fit from the time he picked her up. I just called him and told him to arrest her on charges of first-degree murder. We’ll get her arraigned tomorrow while the cadaver dog is going over this place. Then we’ll question her about Hunter and all that he claimed here tonight.”

  “I want to be there.”

  Ray shook his head. “I can’t let you question her.”

  “But I can watch.”

  “We’ll talk about it.” He tugged on her arm to turn her toward his cruiser.

  June followed his lead, looking back at the Victorian. “What about—”

  “Daniel will seal it off. It’s not going anywhere.”

  He opened the door for her, but June paused, looking up at him. “Before you talk to Virginia, I need to give you a statement about what Brent Carter said. He knew. That Hunter would kill him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “He was just so…resigned to it. Defeated.”

  Ray motioned for her to get in. “I have a feeling that working with Hunter and Virginia Bridges would defeat even the strongest of men.”

  The visit to the E.R. didn’t take as long as either of them expected. Fran Woodard and Nick Collins were on duty to take care of June’s scrapes and bruises. Nick suspected some underlying injuries, however, and sent her off for X-rays and other diagnostic tests.

  Ray took her statement while they waited for test results, growing ever more somber as she described each moment of the day. She watched his rage stoke in him, searing and dangerous but under control. After all these months, June recognized the signs clearly. The more dire a situation became, the more military he got on the outside—calm and controlled. Inside, however, he smoldered. His neck grew increasingly red, and every muscle tightened like hardening concrete. His eyes narrowed, but the light in them became as bright as a reflected diamond.

  As he took down one of Brent’s final statements, June reached out and put her hand on his arm. He looked up from his notepad, startled.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. But now is the time you need to listen to me.”

  “June—”

  “Just listen, okay? Don’t write. Just listen.”

  Ray lowered his pad. “Okay.”

  Her hand tightened on his forearm. “Brent felt he had no choice but to do what he did. He admired you, not them—”

  “Then he shouldn’t have—”

  “Just listen!”

  Ray’s lips narrowed to a fine line. “Okay.”

  “When Hunter showed up, he was furious. I figured out pretty quick that Brent wasn’t supposed to take me to Kentucky. He was supposed to take me back to the parsonage. He took me to the vacation house to stall, to get Hunter out of Virginia’s range. He wanted to save us both. And if that didn’t work, taking me across the state line meant you could call on the resources of the FBI.

  “But none of it worked. Hunter had already started down that ‘I’m off my meds’ act. He planned to use that to get out of everything. Even killing Brent.”

  “Now we can keep that from happening.”

  “And there’s more. Brent died trying to save me.”

  Ray’s features softened. “How so?”

  “When Hunter couldn’t be persuaded, Brent tried to arrest him. Hunter just laughed, walked over and punched him right in the face. Calm as I’ve ever seen someone do it. Brent wasn’t prepared for that, and Hunter shot him with his own gun. That was Brent’s gun he had in the attic.”

  Ray’s shoulders dropped. “I see.”

  June took a deep breath, steeling herself for what she was about to say. “Ray, Brent’s not the only one who
admired you.” She blinked twice, then continued. “Admires you. I do. More than you know.”

  “June, what you’ve been through is—”

  She held up her hand. “Please let me finish before I lose my nerve.” She swallowed hard, and he waited, eyebrows arched with curiosity. June plunged in, her words picking up speed with each one that came out of her mouth. “When I was going through all that, all I wanted was for you to be there. To be able to reach out and grab you and hold on for dear life. I vowed that if I ever saw you again, that’s exactly what I’d do. I’d never turn my back and walk away from you again. I want to be with you. Always. I want to marry you, if you’ll have me.”

  She stopped abruptly, holding her breath. Waiting. Watching.

  Ray remained still a moment. “You’re proposing to me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Now. In the middle of all this.”

  “We don’t know how this will end, do we?”

  Ray slowly put his pen back in his pocket, along with his notebook. He cupped her face in his hands. “June, my love, if I hadn’t wanted to marry you, I sure wouldn’t have hung on for the ride this long. You are, without a doubt, the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He kissed her then, a soft, brief, loving kiss, a kiss to seal their love.

  When he released her, June realized she was still holding her breath, and she gasped, filling her lungs. “So that’s a yes?”

  Ray laughed. “That would be a yes.”

  He started to kiss her again, but Nick chose that moment to return with the results. Ray stepped away from her quickly, and June took another deep breath. Then another, until Nick looked at her with suspicion. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded vigorously. “More than you know.” She glanced quickly at Ray, which prompted Nick to do the same. He looked at June again, then at Ray once more, studying their faces. Finally, he shook his head. “You two behave.”

  Ray grinned. “What’s the verdict on the tests, Nick?”

  “Pretty much what I expected. You took a hefty beating, but it’s not as bad as it could have been.” He went on to explain that June showed no evidence of a concussion, but the test revealed torn cartilage in one elbow and a hairline fracture in her hand. Despite both Nick’s and Ray’s questions, June couldn’t remember exactly when they had occurred. Nick released her with a brace on her hand and instructions on taking care of her elbow.