'Til Death (A Rebel Ridge Novel)

by Sharon Sala

  “I hope your aunt Tildy’s not ailing. I don’t know what we’d do up here without her tending to our ills.”

  “She’s fine. I came back to clear my name. And while I’m thinking about it, how did you come to be the person who called in the fire at my daddy’s house?”

  Fagan stared. He knew he should say something, but for the life of him he couldn’t think for wanting to puke. Meg’s dog growled, reminding him of where he was.

  “That was a long time ago. I’m not sure as how I exactly remember.”

  “You saw a house burning down and can’t remember calling it in?”

  Fagan’s mind was in free fall. What the hell was happening here?

  “Well, I didn’t actually see it. I was just passing on what Wendell and Prince saw when they went to visit Lucy.”

  “Oh, so now you’re remembering how you found out about the fire? Well, you should also know that’s a piss-poor alibi. Lucy wasn’t there, because of a family funeral, which you-all would have known about. Do you remember now?”

  Fagan felt himself losing ground. He’d come to grill Meg Lewis, not the other way around. It was time he made himself scarce.

  “I don’t need no alibi. I didn’t need one then. I don’t need one now. I reckon I will just get on home. Real sorry to have bothered you, Meg. Y’all have a good night.” And then he bolted for his truck, thankful the rain gave him the excuse to run.

  Meg and Linc stood on the porch watching until the taillights disappeared. Meg took Honey inside when they closed the door. They walked back to the kitchen and began clearing the dishes.

  He paused, watching as she wrapped up the leftover pork chops in foil and set them on the counter.

  “Why do I feel like everything that came out of his mouth was a lie?” Linc asked.

  “Because it was. Honestly, he looked like he’d seen a ghost when you gave your name. And was he really the one who called in the fire?”

  Linc shrugged. “Yes, according to the police report. As for seeing a ghost, I’ll probably get a lot of that in the weeks to come. I’m trying to figure out what’s so important about a piece of land where a dead dog is buried.”

  Meg frowned. “I have no idea, but that’s how I knew he was lying. I know exactly where that dog is buried, and I also know for a fact Bobby wouldn’t be selling the land, because it doesn’t belong to him. It’s the family home place. Yes, we were living there at the time, but it belongs to all the Lewis kids—Claude, Bobby and their sister, Jane. He can’t sell it.”

  Linc was watching her face, trying to judge her state of mind at the unexpected arrival of yet another White brother.

  “I don’t think he’ll be back, but I don’t mind staying the night—on the sofa, of course—if his visit made you nervous,” he said.

  “You couldn’t fit on the sofa, and I’ll be fine,” she said as she ran the sink full of hot water, then added some soap.

  He watched the running water making bubbles while contemplating the idea of reminding her that he would fit just fine if she gave him her bed. He could tell she was thinking the same thing by the quick look she gave him before thrusting her hands in the water.

  She washed. He rinsed and dried. When they got down to the pans, he offered another option.

  “I can live with leaving you on your own tonight, but we’re going to exchange numbers. All you have to do is call if you need me. I’m the closest help you would have.”

  “Yes, I think that’s a good idea,” she said.

  “Hang on a minute,” he said, then took out his cell phone and entered the number she gave him into his contacts. “This is my number,” he said, and quickly wrote it down on a pad by the phone.

  After that they finished cleaning up, flirting, touching hands even when it wasn’t necessary. The tension between them was palpable. All the while they were working, he could still hear the rain on the roof.

  Meg packed up the leftover pork chops and a good third of the cake when they had finished.

  “This is for you,” she said.

  “I won’t say no,” Linc said. “But there is one thing I wanted to ask you before I left.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Back before the fire, did you ever hear any gossip about Lucy cheating on my dad?”

  Meg frowned. “I don’t know...maybe. That sounds familiar, but it’s been so long... And I wouldn’t have paid much attention to anyone else’s love life, because I was so wrapped up in mine.”

  The words tore into him like knives, poking at his conscience, reminding him of what they’d lost.

  “Yeah...same here.”

  Suddenly she was uneasy all over again. If he kissed her now like he had before, her resistance would be nil.

  “Don’t look so worried,” Linc said, and then opened his arms.

  She walked into them without hesitation as he held her close.

  “This will work itself out the way it’s supposed to,” he said.

  She felt like crying. “I loved you so much.”

  His vision blurred. “I loved you, too. I’m sorry...I’m so sorry.”

  She leaned back in his arms so she could see his face. “We’re not kids anymore.”

  He nodded. “We lost eighteen years. You don’t know me now the way you knew me then, and I feel the same. I want to know everything there is to know about you. What makes you laugh...the music you like to listen to. I want your cold feet on my legs in the middle of the night and for you to know that when you cry, I will be there to hold you. I want you to trust me. I want you to look at me and know that I am an honorable man.”

  His words swept through Meg in a wash of emotion. It was a revelation to hear this. He had turned into a man worth keeping.

  “You know I always believed you were innocent.”

  He put a finger across her lips, then touched his forehead to hers. Her breath was soft against his neck. He could have held her that way forever.

  “The world needs to see me the way you do. You’ve already been tainted by other people’s actions. You don’t deserve to suffer that again, and I won’t ask anything of you that you aren’t willing to give, okay?”

  She sighed. “Can we both agree that tonight was the first of more good times to come?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She slid her arms around his waist and laid her cheek against his chest. The steady thump of his heartbeat against her ear was as reassuring as his strength.

  “I think it’s time I said good-night,” he said gruffly.

  “I’m so glad you came.”

  “Ah, Meggie...so am I, honey. So am I.”

  She carried his sack of leftovers as he put on his coat and hat. When he pulled out his car keys, she followed him to the door.

  Honey eyed them from her spot beside the stove, then let out a big sigh and laid her head back down.

  “Drive safely going home,” Meg said.

  Linc centered a hard, swift kiss on her lips.

  “Lock up. Set your alarms. Call me if you need me,” he said, and took the sack she handed him.

  Then, just like that, he was gone. She watched until his taillights disappeared, then set the alarm and moved about the house, securing it for the night. It wasn’t late, but she was suddenly exhausted.

  “I’m going to bed, Honey girl.”

  The dog looked up when she heard her name, then followed Meg down the hall and curled up on a rug beside the bed.

  When Meg crawled between the covers she took comfort in Honey’s soft snore. As she closed her eyes, the image of Lincoln’s face slid through her mind. She sighed, wishing it was him snoring beside her and not her dog.

  Eleven

  Fagan drove home in something of a panic. The windshield wipers swiped aimlessly at the downpour as he took the curves on two wheels, coming dangerously close more than once to running off the road. He was frustrated with himself for paying any heed to Prince and going to Meg Lewis’s house. He’d known it would be a disaster, and ye
t he’d done it anyway. Why, he wondered, was he made like that? Growing up, he’d been a shill for whatever Wendell and Prince wanted done. It had always been a case of tell Fagan, send Fagan, make Fagan do it. And he had yet to even contemplate what could unravel with Lincoln Fox’s return. What he knew was that the Whites were sitting on a powder keg and Fox had just struck the match.

  By the time he got home he was bordering on tears. In the dark and the downpour, the place looked like a Hollywood version of a haunted house. No matter how dark it got, there was no hiding how dilapidated it had become. It had been nice when Mama was still alive, but she was long gone, and the place was falling down around their ears.

  The hounds barked when he drove up and parked, and were still barking as he jumped out on the run, slogging through the mud and puddles to get to the porch.

  “Shut the hell up!” he yelled.

  They slunk off into the dark as he unlocked the door. He turned on the lights as he went through the rooms, turned up the flame on the heat stove, then stood shivering before it as he began shedding his wet clothes. His skinny shanks were a pale, pasty white as he bolted down the hall, knowing a hot shower and something warm in his belly would fix his immediate needs.

  A short while later he came out in dry, somewhat-clean clothes and a pair of mismatched house shoes—one blue plaid and one a solid brown—because his dogs had chewed up the mates. He turned on the television and upped the volume so that he could hear it from the kitchen as he worked.

  As he dug through the pantry, it was apparent he should have shopped for groceries instead of hanging out at the bar all day trying to drink up enough courage to face Meg Lewis. The shelves were pitifully low on food.

  Once he had coffee brewing and a can of chili heating on the stove, he made a call to Prince, needing to inform his brother of the latest development on Rebel Ridge, but, like always, Prince didn’t answer and the call went to voice mail.

  “Call me, damn it! There’s trouble afoot.”

  * * *

  Long after Meg had gone to bed, she lay sleepless and staring up at the ceiling, going over and over the conversation she’d had with Fagan White. Why would he lie about something so trivial? How did a dead dog matter to the Whites, or the location of where it was buried? And did Prince’s behavior have anything to do with what Fagan wanted to know?

  She finally fell asleep, dreaming about Lincoln and cake and crying in the rain as he drove away, begging him to come back. When she woke it was already daylight and the rainstorm had passed. She threw back the covers and began to get dressed.

  The day after Thanksgiving was the beginning of Christmas shopping, which also meant it was the first day of the annual Christmas craft-and-quilt show in Lexington.

  Today was Saturday. She needed to be packed and ready to leave on Thursday morning. She would have to be at the fairgrounds on Friday before daylight to set up her booth, but it was part of the fun, seeing other quilters and crafters, and getting in a quick visit before the doors opened to the public.

  She got dressed, turned up the fires to warm the house back up and headed to the kitchen to make coffee so that it would be done when she came back from feeding the animals. As she was filling the carafe with water, she noticed the notepad with Linc’s phone number written on it and smiled, thinking of their days to come.

  * * *

  Linc went to bed with Meg on his mind, reliving every bit of conversation they’d had and, for the first time in years, feeling hopeful about his future. He’d nearly given up on ever having a wife and family, and was so elated from the evening he’d spent with her that he could hardly close his eyes. But he had a big day planned tomorrow and knew it wouldn’t be easy. Now that he’d seen the reports on the fire from the police point of view, he wanted to go back to the scene of the crime—to the place where his father had died. He thought he wouldn’t sleep, but once he closed his eyes he slept like the dead for the first time in months.

  It was the frantic sound of a dog barking madly that woke him up the next morning. It took a couple of seconds to remember he didn’t have a dog, and then he ran to the utility room to look out the window.

  The ground was white with frost, and three deer were grazing in the clearing where the old house once stood. He had been dreaming after all. The deer wouldn’t still be here if a dog had been barking that close to the house, although the sound had seemed so real.

  But now that he was up he shifted into mental gear. After a quick trip to the bathroom he built a new fire and started the coffee. He was having pineapple upside-down cake for breakfast, and at least a quart of coffee as a chaser to buck him up for the day ahead.

  Less than an hour later he was on the road and heading up the mountain. The sun had yet to top the trees, deepening the shadows in the underbrush. Lingering mist that had been low to the ground was head-high and rising, giving the trip a ghostly feel. Spindly strands of gray smoke spiraled upward from the chimneys of the houses as he passed. He thought of the families just waking up and breakfasts being put on tables. It was Saturday, so no school. He remembered watching cartoons on Saturday mornings and his mother telling him to come eat before it got cold. She’d died right after his ninth birthday, and he didn’t think of her often. Sometimes she didn’t even seem real. It had always been him and his dad, the man who was his safe place to fall. That people could ever have believed he would kill the father he worshipped was just as inconceivable now as it had been then.

  He passed Aunt Tildy’s house, saw smoke coming out of her chimney and knew she was probably making biscuits and ham. He could almost taste them. She did have a way with bread. As he drove on farther he passed the house where Beulah Justice lived. There wasn’t any smoke coming out of her chimney. Maybe Beulah was the kind who liked to sleep in.

  When he finally reached the turnoff leading up to where his parents’ house once stood he tapped the brakes, then accelerated into the turn. It was immediately obvious that no one traveled this way anymore. Weeds and grass had grown up in the middle of the old ruts, and the trees that had once been saplings on either side of the road were so huge that their leafless branches had come together, turning the road into a wood-roofed tunnel. He hadn’t been back here since the night they’d taken him away in the ambulance, and his heart was racing. He caught a glimpse of something darting out of the brush behind him and glanced up in the rearview mirror just as a big deer disappeared into the woods. Then he caught sight of himself and quickly looked away. He wasn’t ready to see what he was feeling and knew it would be all over his face.

  All of a sudden he was out of the tunnel and coming up on the site where the house had been. There was no longer a yard, just knee-high brush and grass. The blackened timbers were nearly gone, long rotted away by time and weather. But the natural rock fireplace that had once been the entire north wall of the living room still stood, a sad monument to the family who’d lived and died there.

  He drove as close to the house site as he dared and then got out, minding his step as he walked through the damp, frosty grass all the way to the chimney. He stopped and then turned around, looking east out across the overgrown meadow into the sun just topping the trees, and that flash of light in his eyes brought back that night and the fire in a painful rush.

  * * *

  Fire! Oh, my God, our house is on fire! Dad! Dad! Please, God, don’t let him be inside.

  With adrenaline pumping, he got out on the run, charging toward the house. There was a dog—a hound—barking somewhere nearby, barking crazy loud like they do when they’re threatened.

  We don’t have a dog.

  He heard someone yell, “Shut the hell up!” and then the world exploded.

  * * *

  Linc stumbled and caught himself on the chimney before he fell. Now the weird dream he’d had this morning made sense. Knowing he was coming here had released a memory from the past that he’d forgotten. He’d been so concussed by the explosion and then in such complete shock at his ensuing
arrest that he’d completely forgotten he’d ever heard it.

  But he was getting the picture now.

  People on Rebel Ridge didn’t let their hunting dogs run free. They considered them valuable property that could be in danger of being stolen or sold. They usually kept them in the house, in a pen or tied up—unless, of course, they were hunting.

  Back then, their closest neighbor had lived five miles away, but someone had been here that night—someone with a hound—watching the evidence of their crime go up in flames. Even if it wasn’t the killer, he could have seen who did it. But if he was innocent, then why hadn’t he ever come forward?

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Linc was so stunned he was shaking. Another puzzle piece thrown onto the table, but where did it fit? So many questions. So many lies. And one man’s lies had sent him straight to prison. He was the one Linc wanted to talk to next.

  He walked to the truck with his head down and drove away—all the way down the mountain, straight into Mount Sterling. He stopped at a convenience store to get the location of the Ford dealership and then kept on going. When he pulled into the lot and up to the office, he killed the engine, then couldn’t move. He sat with his fingers curled around the steering wheel so tight that the knuckles were white, trying to get to a place in his head where he could trust himself to talk.

  Cars were coming and going around him, salesmen walking in and out with prospective buyers. The lot was full of bright, shiny cars and lots of colorful flags hanging from nearby poles. It appeared as if Wesley Duggan had done well for himself.

  When Linc could breathe without wanting to hit someone, he went inside and began scanning the little offices at the back of the room, looking for the man who’d betrayed him. When he finally spotted him in the last cubicle to his right, he took a step forward, only to be cut off by a smiling salesman with an outstretched hand.

  “Hey there, how’s it going? I’m Kevin Collins. What’s your pleasure today? Souped-up truck? SUV? Sports car? You want it, we’ve got it.”