'Til Death (A Rebel Ridge Novel)

by Sharon Sala

The silence was as telling to Meg as their lovemaking had been. She had never felt more loved.

  * * *

  Lucy tried to roll over in her hospital bed and then groaned from the pain. She had four stitches in her head, two cracked ribs, a fractured jaw, and she was bruised over half her body. One eye was swollen shut, her lips were twice their normal size, and one nostril still continued to seep blood.

  The bruising on her face was turning a darker purple with every hour, and it even hurt to blink. She was miserable, but at the same time happier than she’d been in days. The only thing that would have made it perfect was if Wes would hurry up and die.

  The cop who had broken the news to her about the shooting hadn’t given her much hope that he would pull through. She’d wailed loud and long, and he’d been apologetic that he’d had to be the one to give her the bad news. What he didn’t understand was that she was crying because that bastard wasn’t already dead.

  On the plus side, the police had been at her house taking their report when Wes was shot. Without a ballistic test for proof of the specific gun, they did know that he’d been shot with the same kind of weapon she was claiming had been taken during her assault. It was the perfect alibi. She had told them that she and Wes had been arguing, and that he’d moved out of the house after a fight. And she’d already explained that the intruder had taken her gun from her, but that she didn’t know what else was taken because she’d been unconscious when the intruder left. The fact that she’d just received the news of the recent death of her brother gave an even bigger boost to her claims of grief. The only thing that she’d changed from what she and Prince had decided was the description of her assailant. When they had asked her what he looked like, she had opened her mouth to say a middle-aged, heavyset man with a salt-and-pepper mullet, but what came out was a small, fortysomething man with brown hair and a thin face. That description, except for the hair color, would have fit either one of her brothers. Even now she didn’t know why she’d done it, but it was her belief that the closer you stayed to the truth when you were being deceptive, the easier it was to make people believe you.

  The police guessed from the condition of her bedroom and the office that things must have been stolen but were waiting for her to give them a complete list of the stolen goods. It didn’t appear that the man had come to rob her, because there were bigger things in the house he could have taken. It appeared that he had turned robber on the spur of the moment, since his main target had been Wes.

  As she was waiting for the pain to subside, she heard a knock on her door. Thinking it must be one of her friends, she was arranging herself as she watched it open. A middle-aged woman was standing in the doorway.

  “I’m so sorry to disturb you, but are you Lucy Duggan? Wesley Duggan’s wife?”

  “Yes, yes, I am,” Lucy said, and then tried to sit up as the woman came toward the bed.

  “Please, don’t get up,” the woman said, and handed Lucy an envelope.

  Lucy moaned as she took it. “What is this?”

  “Divorce papers, Mrs. Duggan. You’ve just been served.”

  The woman pivoted quickly and left before Lucy could take a breath.

  “No,” Lucy muttered, and quickly opened the envelope and unfolded the contents.

  She couldn’t believe it. That sorry bastard had acted faster than she’d expected. Her hands were shaking as she scanned the pages, trying to read with only one eye. The words were blurry, but she saw enough to realize things weren’t quite as simple as they’d been five minutes earlier. Then another couple of pages fell out from the stack, separate from the divorce proceedings. She unfolded them, saw they were from their lawyer and began to read.

  Dear Mrs. Duggan,

  Since I am representing your husband in these divorce proceedings, you will need to retain separate counsel. You understand that even though I have been counsel for both of you in the past, I cannot represent you now. Also, please be advised that your access to all moneys and property will be frozen until the terms of the settlement can be reached.

  At my client’s request, I am enclosing a copy of a notarized letter he has sent to the sheriff in the county where Marcus Fox was murdered. A copy has also gone to the district attorney in the district where the trial against his son, Lincoln Fox, was held. Again, I urge you to retain counsel at your earliest opportunity. It appears you will be needing it.

  Sincerely,

  Dwight B. Simpson, Esquire

  Lucy read Wes’s statement in growing disbelief. When she got to the end, her heart slammed against her chest with such a thud that for a moment she thought it had stopped. She choked and then coughed as she struggled to catch her breath, her mind in an all-out panic. He’d confessed to lying on the stand, and said that when he’d confronted his wife to ask if she’d been telling him the truth about Marcus and Lincoln Fox’s relationship she’d admitted to him it was a lie. She didn’t know what to think, what to do. After everything she’d just endured, was she going to be too late to save herself?

  Should she run or play dumb? She was a damn good liar, but convincing a jury of her innocence, even though she had not been present when her husband was murdered, wasn’t going to be easy. Not when they found out she’d been fucking her husband’s best friend and he’d just admitted he’d testified to her lie and pointed the finger of guilt at an innocent boy.

  She’d worked so hard to climb out of the poverty into which she’d been born, and everything had been perfect—as perfect as she could ever have wanted it to be. Damn Lincoln Fox forever for coming back where he didn’t belong.

  The phone at her bedside began to ring. She didn’t know whether to answer it or not. If it was more bad news, she wasn’t sure she could take it. But it continued to ring until she finally picked it up. “Hello?”

  “It’s me.”

  A tear slid from the corner of her good eye and rolled down the curve of her cheek as she recognized Prince’s voice. She began to whisper her news in frantic bursts of information.

  “He’s still alive, but he’d already confessed to his lawyer and filed for divorce. I was just served papers. They also a copy of his confession of perjury. It’s already gone to the sheriff and the district attorney.”

  The silence on the other end of the line was unexpected.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked, and then started to cry.

  She was shocked when the line went dead in her ear. But the moment it did, the fear she’d been feeling increased a hundredfold. The only thing Wes had ever known about the crime was the story he told on the stand. He had no idea who she was protecting. She was the only person not involved in the actual murder of Marcus Fox who knew the guilty parties and the reason why it had happened. Would her brother get rid of whoever else he needed to in order to keep himself out of prison, even if it meant killing one of his kin?

  In a heartbeat.

  Lucy closed her eyes and eased down against her pillows, willing herself to a calm she didn’t feel. There was still a way out of this. She just needed to figure it out.

  A minute passed, and then another. She could hear trays banging and people talking out in the hall, going about their daily lives as if nothing was wrong. How could such mundanity still exist when her world was crashing down around her ears?

  And then it hit her. It was so brilliant that if she hadn’t been so sore, she would have patted herself on the back.

  She looked toward the door and then began buzzing for the nurse. They needed to notify the police that she’d just received a threatening phone call from her assailant.

  Within twenty minutes her room was crawling with cops. One was standing guard outside her door, and detectives Kennedy and Tate, who were working both Wes’s shooting and her assault, were standing by her bed.

  Lucy knew she looked worse than she had last night when she’d been admitted, which put the cops in her emotional corner. And she’d been crying nonstop since the threatening phone call, which only added to her pi
tiful state. A nurse was standing right there, monitoring her blood pressure as they began to interrogate her.

  “Mrs. Duggan, just tell us what he said from start to finish.”

  She nodded, pulled a handful of tissues from the box and then dabbed at her eye. “It all began a few days ago with a visit from my brother Prince White. As you know, the police have been searching for his body ever since they pulled his pickup from the Kentucky River.”

  One of the detectives stopped her. “Yes, ma’am, but what does that have to do with your assault and the phone call today?”

  “I’m getting to that,” she said. “Anyway, as I was saying, Prince showed up at my house demanding money. He said the law was after him for stalking a woman named Margaret Lewis and he needed to get out of town. I told him to leave or I’d call the law on him myself. Then he told me if I didn’t help him, he’d hurt Wesley. I panicked. I gave him all the cash I had, which was over six hundred dollars, and he left. Then the police called me to say he’d drowned, and I thought that was the end of it.”

  She’d cried so long her whole body was shaking, so she stopped to take a sip of water. The simple act made her lip begin to bleed again, which emphasized the damage she’d suffered during the attack. Everything was going according to her plan. She could tell by the looks on their faces that she had the detectives in the palms of her hands.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled as she dabbed at a dribble of blood on her chin. “Last night I was still so terrified by what had happened to me, and then, when I learned what had happened to Wesley, I panicked. I wasn’t entirely truthful with you then, but now I’m telling you the rest of what I should have told you last night. I knew my attacker. It was my brother Prince. He isn’t dead. He faked his death, then came by to get more money from me, and when he found out Wes had moved out and frozen our bank account, he went crazy. He asked me where Wesley was, and I wouldn’t tell him. That’s why he beat me. My brother is the man who shot Wesley, and he’s the one who just called me and threatened my life. He’s crazy. When he finds out that I told you, he’ll kill me, too.”

  Lucy turned her tears into gut-wrenching, body-trembling sobs.

  “Why is this happening? I’ve spent my life trying to live down the family into which I was born, but no matter how hard I try, they’re always in the background, committing one ugly deed after another, and pulling me and my reputation down with them. I wish he’d killed me, too. I can’t go through all this without Wesley.”

  “But, ma’am, your husband isn’t dead. He’s still in intensive care. I don’t have an update on his condition, but while there’s breath there’s hope.”

  Lucy rolled over onto her side—groaning in genuine pain, though she would have faked it for effect if she’d had to—and covered her face.

  “That’s enough,” the nurse said. “She’s under too much stress. You’ll have to leave.”

  One of the detectives paused. “There will be a guard on her room at all times until we apprehend the accused.”

  The nurse nodded. “I’ll inform the head nurse and Mrs. Duggan’s doctor.”

  Within moments the room was quiet, except for Lucy’s sobs. The nurse came back and injected her IV with pain meds and a sedative. Lucy cried for a little while longer, just to make sure the guard out in the hall heard her, and then closed her eyes and gratefully let the meds take her away.

  Sixteen

  Lincoln was so focused on reading about the unsolved bank heist that he didn’t realize Meg was setting the table around him until she put the hot casserole on a trivet and he smelled the aroma of melting cheese. He stopped and looked up.

  “Oh man, that smells good.”

  Meg leaned over his shoulder. “What did you find?”

  He pointed to the article he’d pulled up on her laptop. “There were two armed men wearing ski masks and camo-style clothes. One had a handgun, one had a rifle. No automatic weapons, which makes me think it was amateurs...although this was a little over eighteen years ago, before automatics became so commonplace. Also...see here...they had a good description of the getaway car and even a tag number. All that and they still never solved it. Hmm, it was a Wisconsin tag. Probably not what we’re looking for, but we’ll mark it just the same.”

  “Bookmark the site,” Meg said. “We’ll send it to the sheriff and let him read it. He can always get more details for us.”

  “Good idea,” Linc said, and closed the laptop and pushed it aside. He eyed the food she had put on the table and then grabbed her hand. “Is this a preview of what I can expect for the rest of my life?”

  She kissed his ear and then gave him a hug. “It is if you want it to be.”

  He pulled her into his lap and kissed the hollow at the base of her throat.

  “God, you are a stunning woman.”

  She rubbed her thumb along the curve of his lower lip. “Well, thank you very much,” she said softly, then kissed the spot where her thumb had been.

  There was a knot in Linc’s throat that made it suddenly hard to speak. He coughed to clear his throat and said, “You asked me what I want. I want to be happy, and live to be an old man with a whole lot of kids and grandkids, and I want you standing right beside me until I’ve taken my last breath.”

  “Oh, Lincoln. You always took my breath away, and you just did it again.” Tears welled as Meg buried her face against his neck.

  The faucet at the sink was dripping into a bowl of standing water. The soft plink, plink, plink was like a metronome, marking off the timing in their lives. They’d lived, loved and lost once. Finding each other again and shooting for the same goal was scary as hell.

  Honey barked once. It broke the tension of the moment as Linc looked up.

  “What does one bark mean?”

  Meg smiled. “Bird. Squirrel. Rabbit. Some critter too close to her territory.”

  He chuckled. “So now I’m forewarned that you will know my bark as well as you know your pup’s.”

  She laughed. It broke the tension of the moment so that they got to the food without any more tears. Linc was spooning the hamburger casserole onto his plate when Honey began barking in earnest.

  “Not a bird,” Meg said, and got up to see who was there. A quick glance out the window and she called back, “It’s Quinn. Set another plate.”

  Lincoln’s heart skipped a beat. He’d heard enough from Meg about Quinn’s recent history to know that he would be the most suspicious member of the family. And yet he had helped Meg do that research. He sighed. First one-on-one with a family member and it would be the hard-ass.

  When he heard a male voice in the living room, he turned around to see Meg coming back with Quinn at her side. She was smiling, but he could tell she was anxious on his behalf. There was no way to get over this other than to get through it. He went to meet Quinn with his hand outstretched.

  “Quinn. It’s been a long time,” he said.

  Quinn blinked, then grinned. “Damn, man. Talk about growing up. I hope you’re through or your head is gonna go through the roof.”

  And just like that, the tension was over. “Yeah, I’ve been getting that a lot.”

  Quinn handed Linc a folder. “After I gave Meg that list, I thought you should have these, as well. They’re printouts of the crime reports.”

  Linc’s expression brightened. “Thank you! We were going to take the list to Marlow after we ate and get him to do this. You just saved him and us a lot of time.”

  “I should have thought of it before,” Quinn said.

  Meg poured another cup of coffee and set it on the table, then dished up some casserole for her brother.

  “Linc. Tell Quinn your news.”

  “I hope it’s good,” Quinn said as they sat back down.

  “It was for about three minutes, but now I’m not so sure.”

  Quinn frowned. “I don’t follow.”

  Linc repeated what he’d told Meg about Wesley’s confession, then explained that he’d been shot and was in inten
sive care, and that Lucy had been attacked in her home at around the same time.

  “Holy...” Quinn shook his head. “I am stunned. All these years, they knew it was a lie and let you go down for it.”

  Linc shrugged. “I’m not sure Wesley knew until I confronted him the other day. And I’m sorry to say I don’t believe for a minute that Lucy is innocent in what happened to Wes.”

  Quinn nodded. “Yeah, considering he just sold her down the river with his own confession, I can see why. At least this gives the authorities a new starting point. If you are no longer a suspect, they have to look elsewhere and...” All of a sudden his eyes widened. “Is this why you wanted these reports? But how does—”

  “I’m not sure yet, but my gut tells me there’s a connection. The White family’s home was in foreclosure until two weeks before Dad’s death. All of a sudden the place was paid off and they began fixing it up.” Linc repeated the rest of the story, down to the fact that Fagan had called in the fire and the other two had been on the scene to help fight it.

  Quinn chewed and swallowed. “But they were Lucy’s family.”

  “But she wasn’t there and they knew it.” Linc explained the dynamic between his dad and the Whites.

  “Okay. That changes things some.”

  Linc nodded and took a bite himself, then rolled his eyes.

  “This is really good, Meg.”

  She smiled as she dug into her own supper.

  “Don’t brag on her too much,” Quinn drawled. “She’s already got a big head about her cooking.”

  She gave him a hard stare. “I so do not.”

  Linc laughed, remembering the sibling squabbles. “It’s gratifying to know some things never change.”

  By the time they were down to dessert, Quinn was more than impressed with what Lincoln Fox had done with his life. The family would be thrilled to know about Wesley Duggan’s confession, as well as the fact that Lincoln was solvent and a business owner.