House of Secrets

by Ramona Richards

  When Ray pulled into her driveway, June looked pointedly at the sheriff’s patrol car sitting across the street.

  “I’m not taking any chances, June. Not till after they’re arraigned and behind bars. I don’t want you hurt again.”

  “I’ve had worse.”

  “Not on my watch.”

  “What about bail?”

  He shook his head. “Not if we can make a case for first-degree murder. I talked to the D.A. while you were getting those tests done. He’s confident we have the case on both. But we still don’t know why they were so determined to steal or destroy David’s hard drive, or what they think you knew about what was in that house. Until then, you could still be in danger.”

  June nodded. “Okay.”

  Ray got out and walked around to help her out of the cruiser. She took his arm as he escorted her to the door, leaning heavily against him. Once on her porch, Ray bent and kissed her lightly.

  June smiled at him weakly, finally drained of her last ounce of energy. “I never want to say good-night without a kiss like that.”

  Ray chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  He waited until June had locked herself inside the house. She walked through her home in darkness, too tired to even turn on a light. Without undressing, she eased onto her bed, kicked off her shoes and fell into a dreamless slumber.

  The next day Ray arrived at the station refreshed and rested. He felt as if that morning’s shower had removed a month of grime, and he’d slept better than he had in weeks. Only one more thing to conquer: bringing down Virginia Bridges.

  He walked into the bullpen to find June already in a huddle with Jeff Gage.

  “Both of you come with me.” His hand on June’s arm, he led them to the conference room, which had been locked overnight to protect the evidence still spread out on the table. He closed the door and turned first to Gage. “What about the cadaver dog?”

  “The handler called about a half hour ago. She should be at the house—” he checked his watch “—in about ten minutes.”

  Ray nodded. “Good. Get over there and have them go over the grounds, the tunnel and the basement. Warn her about Kitty and David, so she knows not to let the dog get distracted.”

  “You got it.”

  “Then come back here. The D.A. is arraigning Virginia this morning, so they should be in front of the judge by nine-thirty or so. Then they’ll be back here for questioning. Daniel has gone to NorthCrest to get Hunter’s statement, and whatever Webster is willing to say.”

  June shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “What about me?”

  Ray pointed at the evidence on the table. “I want you to go through the box of photos and the date book again, see if you find anything suspicious. Anything. Virginia is a formidable woman and a powerful lawyer. I want all our ducks in a row before I go in there to accuse her of first-degree murder.”

  “You think she’ll try to get out of it?”

  “I know she’ll try to get out of it. Jeff, I also need the crime-scene photos of those shoe prints. I don’t want anyone doubting that Virginia Bridges not only master minded all this but was also on the scene.” Gage nodded and left the room, and Ray moved closer to June, touching her arm lightly. “You look disappointed.”

  She shrugged. “Not very exciting, going over evidence we’ve already examined.”

  “Catching the bad guys isn’t always about trying to escape from a moving vehicle. Besides—” he pointed to a set of blinds at the end of the room “—that’s one-way glass looking into the interrogation room where we’re going to question Virginia.”

  June perked up. “Really?”

  “Really. Just make sure the lights in here are off. And be quiet. If you have to talk, whisper.”

  He touched her cheek lightly, then left. Time to beard the lion, Lord, he prayed as he headed back to his office. Give us all wisdom and strength.

  EIGHTEEN

  Virginia Bridges had spent the night in jail, but when she paraded through the Bell County Sheriff’s Department three hours later, she looked as if she had just returned from the salon. Her red power suit remained spotless and unwrinkled, and her still-ebony mane of hair was tucked neatly into a tight chignon. Her stiletto heels popped against the tile floor, like a herald announcing the arrival of a queen. Tall and lithe, she towered over most of the people in the room. At seventy-two, Virginia Bridges was the unmistakable matriarch of the county and not intimidated by anyone or anything, not even the threat of the death penalty.

  As she entered the interrogation room with her entourage of a lawyer, a personal assistant and a stenographer, Ray stopped the D.A. at the rear of the crowd. “He gave her bail?”

  The young prosecutor shrugged, his face pale with resignation. “She convinced the judge we didn’t have a death-penalty case. Still, he made it one million. She posted right away.”

  Ray took a deep breath as he followed the crowd in. He was not looking forward to this.

  Virginia sat primly in a chair on the far side of the table, and a dark-suited man sat next to her, setting a briefcase on the floor between their chairs. Virginia started without preamble.

  “Sheriff Taylor, I will be representing myself. Mr. Morris will sit second chair, but please address your questions to me.” She paused, waiting for the stenographer to get settled, then nodded at the prosecutor. “You, too, although I suspect you’ve not had time for Sheriff Taylor to bring you fully up to speed.”

  She folded her hands on the table. “However, before we begin, you might want to check with Deputy Rivers. He’s at the hospital, is he not?”

  The D.A.’s eyes popped wide. “How did you—”

  Ray held up a hand to stop the prosecutor from letting his inexperience show any more than it already had, but he kept his eyes on Virginia. “Am I to assume he has news on this case?”

  “He does. Despite the fact that Deputy Rivers went there to take Mr. Bridges’s statement, you will find that my son is no longer in a position to offer any testimony against me. His wild claims obviously were made under duress. He was in the throes of the most severe side effects of withdrawing from some powerful antipsy chotic drugs. His statements won’t be admissible in court. Mr. Webster also will be unavailable for testimony.”

  She leaned forward, just enough to emphasize the power of her next statement. “Without them, Sheriff Taylor, you have not one shred of direct physical evidence connecting me to any of the crimes I’m supposed to have committed or masterminded. And by the time I get through with a jury, they will see me as a simple and caring mother taken advantage of by a powerful but mentally ill son. Tragic, but definitely not criminal.”

  Ray’s cell phone chirped, signaling an incoming text message, but he ignored it as he stared at Virginia Bridges, forming his response in his head.

  She motioned toward the phone, a smug smile settling on her face. “You should take that. It’s Deputy Rivers calling from the hospital.”

  Curious in spite of himself, Ray looked. The message was simple:

  D.R. 911

  “No one say anything else,” Ray commanded, then stood and left the room.

  “I really, really despise her.”

  Peering over June’s left shoulder, Jeff Gage agreed. “Lots to despise.”

  “Wonder what changed Hunter’s and Webster’s minds?”

  “Money, probably.” He stepped away and looked back at the evidence on the table. “Are you sure you didn’t find anything?”

  “Nothing. Nada. What about the cadaver dog?”

  He shook his head. “The handler did a quick survey with him, but he didn’t pick up anything. She said she’d go over every inch more carefully, then call me if she found anything.”

  June shoved one of the chairs up under the table. “There has to be something here.” She picked up JR’s date book, waggling it in frustration. She stopped, staring at it, and shook it again. It felt stiff in her hand, the back of it particularly unyielding.

/>   Gage watched her for a moment. “What’s wrong?”

  She looked up at him, puzzled. “JR always bought leather date books. The cover on this should flop like an overused Bible.”

  “Maybe something’s stuck to the cover.”

  June opened the date book and examined the back cover. Nothing stuck to it, but it still had an unusual inflexibility. She laid it flat on the table and pressed two fingers down on it at the top, the middle and the bottom. “Definitely something in there.” She looked at Gage. “Do you have a pocket knife?”

  He reached into his pocket, but stopped when the door slammed open, banging into the wall. Ray stormed in, growling, pausing to sling his cell phone across the room.

  June and Gage froze. “Ray?” she asked quietly.

  “She tried to get them killed!” Ray turned and hit the wall with his open hand, so hard the thud echoed around the room.

  “What?”

  He turned and looked at them, his face a stormy mask of fury. “Hunter Bridges and Stephen Webster.” He pointed at the demolished cell phone. “That was Rivers. The whole hospital is in chaos. The Springfield police are all over, and they’re calling in the TBI. On my watch.”

  “What happened?” asked Gage.

  Ray shook his head. “They don’t know yet. Some time during this morning’s shift change, they had four patients crash within a few minutes of each other, including Bridges and Webster. I’m going to kill her.” He started toward the door.

  “Ray—”

  He pointed a finger at her as he headed out. “Stay out of this, June.”

  June and Gage watched him go in stunned silence. After a moment, June moved first, turning back toward the young deputy. “Give me that knife.”

  Gage pulled it from his pocket and opened the largest blade. June took it, slipping the tip between the layers of leather at the bottom of the rear cover. They separated slowly, and June pulled one up so that she could get her fingers in the opening. Pinching the edge of a hard surface, June pulled, easing a computer disk out of the date book.

  It was labeled simply “Insurance.” They stared at it a moment, then both of them sprinted for Jeff Gage’s computer.

  Ray hesitated outside the interrogation room long enough to regain his bearings. He had faced evil a number of times in his life but never like this. Never in the form of a composed and sophisticated woman, a woman who had tried to murder her own child.

  Virginia looked at him with a hard stare but said nothing.

  “You tried to kill your own son to cover up your involvement in murder,” he continued.

  “That’s the difference between your interrogation and my day in court. You have theories. I have the facts.” She glanced at Mr. Morris, who picked up the briefcase and removed several blue-backed documents.

  Virginia continued. “For instance, I have affidavits verifying my alibis. Quite simply, I was somewhere else when all these tragic events occurred. I have a copy of the police report on my stolen convertible.” She paused, smiling slightly at Ray. “Which, by the way, we will besuing your department for destroying.”

  Ray opened his mouth to ask a question when the door behind him popped open and June was suddenly at his side with a set of papers in hand. “Look at these,” she insisted.

  Ray looked up at June, irritated, an emotion that was aggravated when Virginia spoke sharply.

  “Quite inappropriate for JR Eaton’s tramp wife to be in here. She is your only other suspect, is she not?”

  They both ignored her, but Ray glared at June. “Get out, June.”

  She shook her head, jabbing her finger at the papers she’d laid on the table.

  Puzzled, Ray glanced down. When he saw the document on top, his eyes widened and he looked back up at June. “Where did you get this?”

  She held up the disk. “It was concealed in JR’s date book. The papers he promised to destroy. He did destroy them. But he didn’t get rid of them. He scanned them. They’re all on the disk.”

  “What is it?” asked the D.A.

  June looked up at him, then at Virginia, then back at Ray. “It’s a list of bribes. Local, state, national. Judges, senators, lobbyists. The disk also holds the paper trails to back up the list. Bank accounts, some offshore. And more. Lots more. A trail of corruption that dates back to the eighties.”

  Virginia stood up, fully indignant. “You can’t possibly have—”

  June turned on her. “Thanks to your son, Virginia. There’s a note on one of the files. Hunter gave all this to JR to protect himself. He knew how dangerous you were. He even feared you’d resort to murder if things didn’t go your way.”

  June leaned over the table, glaring at Virginia. “Do you have any idea what it’s like for a child to know his own mother could kill him? I hope they put you under the jail and let you rot there!”

  Virginia’s cold response targeted Ray. “Get her out of here!”

  Ray stood, somewhat ashamed at how much he was enjoying this moment. “Surely you’re not bothered by the accusations of the woman you called ‘JR Eaton’s tramp wife.’”

  The D.A. crossed his arms. “Personally, I’d like to see Mrs. Bridges left in a room alone with June for about fifteen minutes. I think it would spare the county the expense of a trial.”

  “This is outrageous. We’re leaving.” Virginia started around the table, leaving Mr. Morris to scramble to his feet.

  Ray blocked her path, facing her eye to eye. “I don’t think so.”

  “You have no right to stop me. I’m out on bail.”

  “For murder. You’re now under arrest for soliciting a bribe and conspiring to defraud. Turn around.”

  “I will not submit to this ludicrous—”

  “Turn around!” Ray’s tone left no doubt in anyone’s mind who was in charge. Including Virginia Bridges. Slowly and without any loss of dignity, she turned her back on him, allowing him to handcuff her.

  “I can take it from here,” murmured the D.A.

  Ray nodded. “One of my officers will help you.”

  He watched as the prosecutor and a deputy escorted Virginia Bridges and her team from the station, then slid his arm around June.

  She took a deep breath. “Is it wrong to say how much I enjoyed that?”

  Ray shook his head as he gazed down at her. “No. It should always feel good to save the day. And you did. I’m proud of you.”

  “Thank you, Ray. That means the world to me. So. Do you think things will calm down now?”

  Ray kissed the top of her head. “No.”

  “No? What do you mean?” June asked, looking concerned.

  “Well,” he replied, “you have a wedding to plan, after all.”

  EPILOGUE

  In typical June fashion, the wedding came together almost overnight. She found an open date on the church calendar, booked it, then engaged a wedding planner who handled everything from the invitations to the catering. She found a dress on sale at a shop in Nashville and used the same store for the bridesmaids’ dresses. Within two weeks, she’d completed all the arrangements.

  The biggest decision about the wedding, however, didn’t involve any of the arrangements. After an emotional discussion with April, June stepped out on a limb and invited their sister, Lindsey, who’d been estranged from them since their mother had died. Being with Ray, and enduring what they’d just been through, made June desire to bring what was left of her family back together. June said a little prayer the day she dropped the invitation in the mail, leaving the rest to God…

  …who, of course, came through. June actually squealed when Lindsey accepted the wedding invitation, even offering to help cater it. June, who had her own plans, insisted on Lindsey being in the wedding party, intentionally pairing her with Deputy Jeff Gage.

  When that bright summer day dawned, June met Ray, resplendent in his dress uniform, at the altar of White Hills Gospel Immanuel Chapel. She couldn’t remember ever being quite as happy as the moment they retreated down the aisle,
arm in arm, and headed for the reception, which was set up on the lawn of the freshly repaired Victorian parsonage.

  June, the train of her dress looped up over one arm, flitted from one cluster of guests to another. As if she’d just awakened from a three-year-long sleep, June embraced her new future with grace and enthusiasm. Ray stayed mostly with a group of his deputies, but June knew all too well that he seldom took his eyes off her the whole day, sending a radiant beam of joy through her entire being.

  June, determined to spread the wealth on her wedding day, found repeated reasons to throw her arms around Jeff Gage and Lindsey, until Lindsey, laughing, whispered in her ear, “Do you want me to get to know him or not?” Grinning, June squeezed her one last time and stepped away, leaving her younger sister alone with the deputy.

  Adjusting the train of her dress again, June turned back toward the house. When an unknown guest caught her eye, however, the flitting bride came to a complete halt. June watched the woman closely. Tall, willowy and blonde, the elegant lady in her early fifties picked up a cup of punch from the end of the reception table and stood silently, gazing up at the Victorian with a strange look in her eyes.

  June’s brows furrowed as she focused on the newcomer, a total stranger who looked incredibly familiar. Recognition came slowly, and June’s mouth went slack as she realized that the last time she’d seen that face had been in a photo. A photo of Rosalie Osborne, with her father, Montgomery, seated in a wheelchair beside her. It was the same jawline, the same brow, the same wide-set, gorgeous blue eyes.

  June approached her slowly, as if the woman were a dream or a skittish wild animal that would bolt when she saw June. Instead, when the woman shifted her gaze, she smiled and offered her hand. “You must be June Eaton.”