Busted in Broken Hearts Junction

by Meg Muldoon

Pastor Phillips. Out in the woods, the bow and arrow pointed at Fletcher. Then the arrow digging into my neck. And then blacking out after trying to get away.

  The vague feeling that I’d been lying down in a car going down a bumpy road.

  And now, we were here. Back at the chapel.

  I had to get out of here. I was running out of time. The pastor was using me only so long as I was useful to him.

  And I had a feeling that the timer on my usefulness would be up soon.

  And that I’d be facing something much worse than just a swollen face.

  I sat up, scrambling to my knees. I felt dizzy and sick to my stomach, but I pushed through the pain.

  I glanced around. The chapel was shrouded in darkness, but I could remember enough of it from the years I spent between these walls to know where the front door was.

  I slowly crawled down the aisle, trying my utmost to be quiet. The floorboards buckled beneath me, but didn’t squeak.

  I held my breath, pushing myself across the floor.

  The front door was near. Just a few more feet, and I could sneak out. Run like hell through the snowy fields surrounding the church until I made it to the highway. From there, if I was lucky, I’d be able to flag down some motorist who could call the police.

  I was close enough to see the door. I stood up quietly.

  I made a break for it, moving quickly across the old floorboards.

  Thinking about Fletcher.About being back in his arms. About all of this being behind us. Just an ugly nightmare we stumbled into. An ugly nightmare with a happy ending. Something that—

  My heart stopped dead in my chest.

  I gasped.

  Pastor Phillips’ cold and unfeeling eyes drilled into me as I came face to face with him.

  Chapter 67

  “Now where do you think you’re going?” he said, stepping toward me.

  I couldn’t breathe again.

  The look in his eyes sent blistering chills through me.

  All those Sundays spent here, listening to this murderer talk about the glory of God and forgiveness.

  The whole town was fooled.

  I realized he was carrying a fat duffel bag in his right hand. The contents of which were clear.

  It was that stolen money. Most of it probably Jake’s share of the robbery.

  This whole time, he’d been living behind this nice little front. A preacher in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Hiding the money in his church. Sitting atop a house of lies.

  The perfect front.

  But it was all crumbling around him now.

  Meaning he was no better than a wild animal cornered, facing captivity.

  My usefulness had to be on its last legs. He had his money. And I was nothing but dead weight to him now.

  And he was a killer.

  I swallowed hard, my throat feeling thick and full as he looked at me with murderous eyes.

  All I could do was stall the inevitable.

  And hope that I had one last card to play.

  I took in a deep breath.

  “What happened to Marie, Eddie?” I said, my voice quivering like the leaves of an aspen in a wicked autumn breeze.

  He didn’t flinch one bit at the mention of her name.

  “Why, you know where she is,” he said. “She’s buried at the Broken Hearts Cemetery. She died of cancer a few years after we got here. Everybody in town knows that.”

  “Did you love her?”

  He stepped closer to me. I backed away down the aisle of the empty church. A place that had been so full of joy only a few days earlier at Beth Lynn’s wedding. Now cast in darkness and despair.

  “I wanted her,” he said. “And I got what I wanted. And all of Jake’s money with it.”

  He smiled.

  “Jake was a damn fool, and that’s no way to conduct business. If I hadn’t killed him, he would’ve been arrested and turned me in. I had to do it. There wasn’t any other way. You can’t leave loose ends like that.”

  “So you didn’t love Marie,” I said. “But you stole her from Jake anyway?”

  He shrugged.

  “Nobody can steal anybody who doesn’t want to go,” he said. “Besides, none of that matters anymore. They’re all dead.”

  “Clay’s not,” I said.

  “Yes, I know,” he said, letting out a short sigh. “I was out of shape on that. Him arriving here in town took me by surprise. Didn’t give me much time to practice my aim.”

  I shuddered at the thought of that deadly aim of his having been so recently on me and Fletcher.

  “Now, I think I’ve satiated your curiosity, Loretta,” he said. “It’s time to move on from all this. I wish things could turn out differently for you. But there are consequences when you cross the line. It’s a harsh world, Loretta, honey. Didn’t I always tell you that in my sermons?”

  He set the duffel bag down on the floor.

  There were black leather gloves on his hands.

  He started coming toward me again. I backed away as far as I could, my heart thundering like a jackhammer in my chest.

  If I was gonna play that card, now was my last chance.

  I started laughing. Pushing the wind through my lungs, twisting my lips into a desperate smile. Chuckling like a lunatic off her meds.

  The pastor looked at me with a strange expression on his face.

  “What’s so funny?” he said, stepping toward me with more ferocity. “You cracking, girl?”

  I kept laughing, forcing the sound out of my throat. Everything inside me wanting to scream instead.

  The pastor looked angry now.

  “What?” he said. “What’s so funny?”

  “You have no idea why Marie ran away with you, do you?” I said, meeting his reptilian stare.

  “I don’t particularly care,” he said, coolly. “Let sleeping dogs lie, I always say.”

  “She ran away with you because she felt guilty,” I said. “Guilty for what she did to Jake.”

  “Like I said, I don’t much care why she came away. And the way I see it, neither should you at this juncture.”

  I laughed some more.

  “It’s just, it’s just all kind of funny in a way,” I said. “Her choosing a dumb fool like you over Jake. And you not giving two thoughts to as why.”

  He creased his forehead. He lifted his hands, reaching for my throat.

  “If this is the way you want to spend your last moments on earth, be my gues—”

  “Clay Westwood came here to Broken Hearts to avenge his father’s murder,” I said, holding my ground. “But you know what happened instead?”

  “Yeah,” Eddie said. “I shot him.”

  I smiled.

  His pudgy fingers clamped down on my throat, and I started trembling.

  I looked up at the wooden ceiling above me and prayed silently. This time, for my life.

  Then I looked dead into his face.

  “That’s right,” I choked. “You shot your own son.”

  I watched as the pastor’s eyes inflated to the size of harvest moons.

  Chapter 68

  “Liar,” he said, loosening his grip on my neck and peering deep into my eyes.

  I shook my head.

  “No,” I choked out. “Clay Westwood is your son. You shot your own son, you son of a bi—”

  “There’s no way you could know that,” he said.

  There was fear in his eyes. I could see it, plain as day.

  I had a small window. An opportunity.

  And my life depended on making the most of it.

  “Jake knew,” I said. “Marie told him. The fact that Clay was your son and not Jake’s destroyed her. That’s why she left Jake. She couldn’t live the lie any longer. You were just a convenient out.”

  He shook his head.

  “She would have told me,” he said.

  I smirked.

  “She was ashamed. She never loved you, yet you’d been the one to father her child. She couldn’t liv
e with it. She couldn’t live with you for very long, either, apparently.”

  He glared at me hard, that murderous look in his eyes again.

  But there was fear and pain there too.

  Maybe he had loved her after all.

  I scanned his face.

  Then, I went in for the kill.

  “You almost murdered your own son, Eddie,” I said. “Your own son. Do you think God will forgive you for that? Because I tell you, I don’t think—”

  I let out a gasp as Eddie’s hands found my neck again. He squeezed down. I punched him as hard as I could, but he just closed his eyes and took it.

  “You shut up, now,” he said, his voice cracking. “You shut up with those vile things. You liar. You good for nothing, lying wh—”

  I thrashed, struggling for air. The world around me slowly fading.

  There was nothing but his big hands clutching my neck and squeezing. Nothing but the pressure of those fat, thick fingers cutting off my windpipe.

  Nothing but his eyes, burning like hot coals now.

  Brimming with tears.

  This was how it ended.

  Me, dead at the altar.

  I might have been entertained by the irony of it. The matchmaker of Broken Hearts Junction, being strangled to death at the altar where so many of her clients had been married.

  It might have been funny if my life wasn’t bleeding away from me with each passing second.

  “You liar,” he repeated, shaking me like a rag doll. “You good for nothing, bit—”

  Fletcher, I thought as the world around me faded. Fletcher, I love you. I love you so much, you’ll never know just how much. You’ll never know that you’re my moon and stars. That the sun rises and sets with you. That I’d die like this, a million more times, just to hear you call me your little Bluebird. One last time.

  Fletcher, I love—

  The world around me went black.

  The last thing I heard was an earsplitting crack from the church door.

  Chapter 69

  “No, please, no.”

  His voice was frantic as I felt his hands slide under my back and lift me up to him.

  I felt him shake me lightly.

  “Dammit, Hart! I told you to hang back, and you shot him instead, you son of a bitch.”

  I heard the ghostly wail of sirens in the distance.

  Fletcher didn’t answer. He held me tightly.

  “Loretta?” he whispered, desperately.

  He brushed my cheek with his hand.

  I forced my eyes open as I struggled for air.

  I felt as though my windpipe had been rolled over by a tractor.

  I looked up into his shining blue eyes.

  He smiled, a look of pure relief sweeping across his face like an ocean wave.

  “Bluebird,” he said. “I thought…”

  I squeezed his arm.

  “Fletch, I—”

  My voice came out raw and ragged.

  “Shh,” he said, shaking his head and smiling. “Don’t talk.”

  I gazed back up into his eyes.

  I had never felt so safe.

  Chapter 70

  I awoke to the sound of a car backfiring in the parking lot.

  I opened my eyes and looked around the room. The walls were a faded beige. The white sheets on top of me felt cheap and rough against my skin. A pitcher of water was on the nightstand next to me.

  None of it was familiar, but I didn’t feel scared in the least.

  Because Fletcher was asleep in a chair in the corner. Dressed in the same clothes he’d been wearing at the church.

  I felt a shadow pass over me.

  I looked to my left and saw a man standing by my bedside, looking down at me.

  A very pale, gaunt-looking man with bloodshot eyes.

  But a man whose heart was still very much beating.

  He met my eyes and in slow, painful movements, took a seat in the chair next to the bed, pulling the stand of fluids attached to his arm closer to him.

  Clay Westwood leaned in close.

  “I’m sorry for all of this,” he whispered slowly, taking in a deep breath.

  I started shaking my head, but found that my neck ached something awful.

  I sat up as best I could.

  “Don’t,” I said, my voice raw and scratchy. “It’s not your fault.”

  “I didn’t want to drag you two into this.”

  “You didn’t drag anybody into anything, Clay,” I said. “Besides, Fletcher and I wanted to help. We wanted to find…”

  I trailed off, realizing that I had no idea what happened in the church there at the end. My memory only seemed to go as far as hearing Fletcher and Raymond’s voice. Nothing more

  I searched Clay’s face.

  “What happened to the pastor? I mean, what happened to Eddie?”

  A flash of anger came across Clay’s eyes at the mention of his name.

  He looked down at the floor.

  “Fletcher shot him in the chest,” he said. “The son of a bitch is gonna pull through, though.”

  He bit his upper lip.

  “Wish I could have gotten to him first,” he said. “I wouldn’t have given that bastard any mercy. Now he’s gonna be sitting pretty in jail for the rest of his life. Don’t seem fair, does it? At the very least, it seems he should get as good as he gave my dad.”

  My dad…

  I sighed, remembering the awful truth.

  I wondered for a split second if I should hold back. Not tell Clay who his real father was. Let him go on thinking it was Jake. Thinking that he’d gotten some revenge for Jake Warner during his time here. Even if it wasn’t exactly the kind of revenge he’d been after. Let him sleep soundly at night.

  But after a few moments of contemplation, I realized that I couldn’t do that.

  Because it wasn’t my secret to keep.

  Maybe I’d been given those visions for a reason. For a purpose. Maybe Clay hearing the truth was part of that purpose. No matter how hard it might be to hear it told.

  I sat up in bed, then reached for his hand.

  “I have something I need to tell you,” I said, taking in a deep breath. “Something… something real hard.”

  But my words didn’t seem to impact him. He looked back at me, unafraid.

  “I already know what you’re gonna say,” he said slowly.

  “I don’t think you do.”

  He nodded.

  “You’re gonna tell me that Jake wasn’t my real dad.”

  Whatever I was going to say next slipped my mind as I stared back at him in shock.

  “But, how…?”

  “I never knew for sure,” he said. “I suspected as much, though. I never looked anything like the photos my aunt had of my dad.”

  He sighed.

  “I can guess what that means,” he said, looking at me.

  “Eddie didn’t know about it,” I said. “Your mom never told him.”

  He shook his head.

  “Doesn’t matter much if he did or didn’t,” he said. “He’s a bastard who deserves a lot worse than he’s getting.”

  I squeezed his hand, and Clay let out a sharp sigh.

  It must have been terrible – having nearly been killed by your own dad.

  “I know Jake was mixed up in some bad things,” he said. “But he was a good man, Loretta. He didn’t deserve to meet his end the way he did.”

  “I know,” I said. “Jake was an honorable guy.”

  We sat like that a long while. Watching as the sun came up out the hospital window, lighting the buttes in the distance on fire.

  “I thought I’d feel better when I brought Eddie to justice,” Clay finally said. “But you know what?”

  He sighed again. A deep, mournful exhale that made my heart ache.

  “It feels worse,” he said. “A lot worse than I could have ever imagined.”

  He stood up slowly.

  “I should’ve never come here,” he said. “Some
things, you just can’t fix.”

  I watched as he walked slowly out of the room, opening and closing the door quietly so as not to disturb Fletcher’s sleep.

  Then I looked up at the ceiling.

  And I cried for a long, long while.

  Chapter 71

  She watched him through the window blinds as he stood on the cracked pavement below, getting soaked by the rain.

  He just stood there, looking up like he could see her. Even though she was relatively certain that he couldn’t, that she was hidden behind the yellowed blinds in the old apartment.

  She backed away from the window. She crossed her arms, pacing the carpet.

  The nerve, she thought. The nerve of that man.

  She thought back to the month before. To the hours she spent in the hallways of that dingy little hospital, waiting to hear news about him. To the hours she spent down in the cafeteria, hoping he’d come to his senses and let her come into the room. Let her talk to him. Let her hold his hand and stroke his hair and read to him. Let her play him some music.

  But he never did come to his senses. She traveled almost 2,000 miles in the winter only to be told that he wouldn’t see her.

  And now… now he was here, down in the street beneath her window. A few moments earlier, having been in the hallway outside her apartment, having told her that he loved her and that she was the one he’d been after all this time. And that he’d been too dumb to see things clearly all this time.

  She had scoffed at him and slammed the door in his face.

  That was just like him. Crawling back to her when life had knocked him off his feet. When he wasn’t big shot Clay Westwood anymore. When instead, he was recovering and sickly Clay Westwood. She’d nurse him back to health, and he’d just end up leaving her for some bimbo blonde as soon as he got better and had another hit.

  “That’s not how it’s gonna be, Alissa,” he had said from behind the shut door. “I’m not messing around anymore. I don’t have the time to. It’s always been you, Ally. And it’s always gonna be you. Please, just open the door.”

  But she hadn’t been able to find it within herself to reach for the knob and pull.

  She didn’t know how long he’d been outside her door for, waiting for a response. All she knew was that two hours later, she saw him down in the street, looking up at her window.