A Fortune Wedding

by Kristin Hardy

  “Our son, who’s been kept from me for eighteen years. Don’t you understand, Frannie? It’s time to set everything right. I love you and I want us all to be a family together, the way we were supposed to be.”

  “That’s what Mom said about Lloyd…”

  He slammed his fist down on the table. “Goddammit, I am not Lloyd Fredericks.”

  “But you’re pushing me to do what you want me to do regardless of whether I’m ready or not,” she flung at him. “Is that how life would be with you after the sweet talk went away, Roberto? Everything by your rules, everything on your schedule? I keep telling you I need more time, and you don’t listen.”

  “I want to be there for you,” he exploded. “With you. Josh is my son. We should have been married years ago. We should be married now.”

  “This isn’t a square dance. I don’t just belong to whoever Josh’s father happens to be this week. We aren’t a package deal.”

  “Is that what you think this is about?” Roberto demanded. “Dammit, Frannie, it’s not just about Josh, it’s you. I love you. I always have. I never stopped, not once. Even when I thought you had sent me away.”

  He linked his fingers together on top of his head and looked at the ceiling. “Frannie, you’re not the only one who got robbed. I got robbed, too. We all did. Josh was robbed by not knowing who he was his entire life, by having to deal with a man like Lloyd Fredericks. I was robbed of watching my son grow. You and I were robbed of a life together. And I’m really angry and want to make it right. I want to get something redeemable out of it—we all deserve that. And the only way I can think that can happen is doing what we both want—to be together.”

  “I couldn’t do that right now even if I wanted to, Roberto,” she blazed. “And I don’t want to, not while you’re pushing.”

  “I’m pushing because we’ve already lost too much time. We’ve already waited too long.”

  “You won’t wait? You want an answer now? It’s no, okay?”

  “You don’t mean that. You know it’s right with us, you know it. You can’t walk away from this.”

  “Are you forgetting why we decided to stay apart in the first place? The murder, the police? There’s too much going on with that and Cindy’s accident, and the notes and the fires and—”

  The notes…

  One of the Fortunes is not who you think.

  “Oh my God,” she started. “‘One of the Fortunes—’”

  “‘—is not who you think.’ Josh,” Roberto added grimly.

  “They know. Whoever’s behind the notes and the fires and all of it, they know. It’s all connected.” She turned for the wall phone. “We’ve got to call Ross. Cindy has to have some idea about this, she has to.”

  “What we’ve got to do is go to the cops.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Frannie asked. “Go to the police? Tell them all of this?”

  “Frannie, we have to. It’s gone past us, now, don’t you understand? Don’t you remember that note after the second fire, ‘This one wasn’t an accident, either’? Someone set those fires and maybe that same person cut Cindy’s brake lines. She could’ve been killed. If this keeps going, someone will be, someone—” He stopped.

  “Lloyd.” Frannie’s voice was barely audible.

  They locked eyes with each other, the ticking of the clock very loud in the silence.

  “We’ve got to find out what really happened at the Spring Fling,” Roberto said. “We’ve got to find out what Josh knows.”

  “He doesn’t know anything,” she shot back. “He wasn’t your hoodie-wearing murderer.”

  Roberto caught her arms in his hands. “Even if he’s not, we still need to know what he knows. We can’t just keep dancing around this. It’s got to end, Frannie. We’ve got to talk to Josh.”

  “Talk to Josh about what?” a voice asked.

  And heart pounding, Frannie turned to see her son standing at the door that led in from the garage.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Frannie swallowed. “Oh. Honey, hi.” She turned to sit on one of the chairs at the breakfast bar. “How was the baseball game?”

  “Fine.” Josh gave Roberto a hard look, shutting the garage door. “What’s going on? What did you want to talk to me about?”

  “What happened at the Spring Fling.”

  “Roberto, this isn’t the time,” Frannie cut in, an edge in her voice.

  He shook his head. “We can’t just keep pretending there isn’t a problem, not anymore. You spent two weeks in jail because you were afraid to mention it.” He turned to Josh. “We need to know whatever you can tell us about your…father at the Spring Fling.”

  Josh glanced down. “What do you mean?”

  “You had an argument with him.”

  He shrugged. “So we fought. We always fought. It was no big deal.” He walked to the refrigerator and got out a soft drink.

  “It didn’t sound that way to the people who heard you.”

  “Who heard?” he asked a little too quickly.

  “I did,” Frannie said. “You were right behind the tent I was working in.”

  Roberto watched Josh take a seat at the table, stretching out his legs, trying a little too hard to look at ease. The kid—his kid, he thought with inward amazement—concentrated on his Mountain Dew. An attempt to avoid eye contact or garden-variety teenager?

  Josh took a swallow of his drink. “Why the third degree all of a sudden?”

  “We just want your help, Josh,” Frannie told him. “We need to find the killer.”

  “It sounds like Sherlock Holmes here thinks I’m the killer.”

  Roberto walked closer. “I’m just trying to get information. Right now, your mother’s still the only one charged for the murder. That means until they catch the person who did it, she’s still at risk.”

  Josh’s faux relaxation vanished. “They can’t bring her back in, can they?”

  “Yes, actually, they can. There’s a big difference between being released on her own recognizance and having the charges dropped,” Roberto commented. “Maybe now you understand why I’m asking questions. And sooner or later, the cops are going to be asking questions about you because someone’s going to tell them about your fight. Not your mom, but other people. You were too close to the tents, too loud.” Roberto watched him closely. “And you threatened him.”

  “It wasn’t any big deal. It was just trash talk.”

  “Lyndsey got upset when I asked her about it.”

  He gave Roberto a sharp look. “You had no right to go over and grill her.”

  Interesting that that was what provoked a reaction. “She told you, then. I thought she might.”

  “Leave her alone. You got questions, ask me.”

  “Gladly. Do you know anything about your father’s murder?”

  “No.” The answer came out almost before Roberto finished the question.

  “Does Lyndsey?”

  He glanced away. “No.”

  “What does she know, Josh?”

  “Nothing.” Pulling off his ball cap, he scraped his hair back. He wasn’t sprawled out now, but hunched over the table tensely.

  “She’s hiding something. It’s pretty clear.”

  “Forget about Lyndsey, already, will you? She didn’t do anything.”

  And suddenly all the vague disquiet coalesced and Roberto knew. “It was her, wasn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t kill Lloyd Fredericks. It was Lyndsey.”

  Josh shot to his feet. “That’s nuts,” he said angrily.

  “It’s also true.”

  “Josh?” Frannie stood. “Is it?”

  His eyes skated to one side. “No way. She had nothing to do with it.”

  “She was there for the fight, wasn’t she?” Roberto probed.

  “I’m not saying anything.” Josh crossed his arms stubbornly, jaw set exactly like Jorge’s did when he was in trouble.

  “Stop taking care of her.”
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  “I can’t,” he flared. “You of all people should get that. You protect the people you care about.”

  “Yeah? Then how about protecting your mother and stopping lying for the person who killed your father?” Roberto snapped.

  The words hung in the air. The minutes stretched out in a humming silence. Roberto held his breath.

  “It was an accident.” Josh’s voice was barely audible. He looked from the tabletop to Frannie. “She only told me tonight. I swear I didn’t know when you were locked up, Mom. She’s been a little weird lately, moody sometimes, but I figured it was just…”

  “What?”

  Josh stared up at the ceiling and blew out a breath. “She’s pregnant,” he said flatly, staring from one to the other.

  “Pregnant?” Frannie croaked.

  “We tried to be careful. She was supposed to be on the pill, it’s just, you know…stuff happens.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Say something?” An edge entered his voice. “After you and Dad spent the whole last year trying to get me to break up with her? If I’d told you she was pregnant, all you would have done was say I told you so.”

  “No, I wouldn’t have,” Frannie said vehemently. “My God, don’t you think I know what it’s like? I’ve been there, Josh. I know how scary and overwhelming it feels. I just wish you’d told me so you didn’t have to go through it alone.”

  “I wasn’t alone.” Josh raised his chin. “I had Lyndsey. We were together.”

  We were together.

  Roberto felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. He hadn’t been able to be there for Frannie all those years ago. They hadn’t been together. The reason why didn’t matter; the fact was that she’d endured it without him.

  The first of only many things.

  He shook his mind loose from the thought. “What happened at the Spring Fling, Josh?”

  Josh sighed. “I was taking that vase out to your car, Mom, like you asked. Lyndsey was with me. We were talking about the baby, and all of a sudden Dad was there. He went ballistic, yelling and saying stuff about Lyndsey—really bad stuff—and I don’t know, I just kind of lost it myself.” Defiance flashed in his eyes.

  “I know,” Frannie said gently. “I’ve never heard you sound like that before.”

  “I didn’t want him around Lyndsey—he was acting crazy—so I put the vase in her hands and told her to leave and meet me at the dance. But I guess she got worried and came back….” He raised his hands helplessly.

  “Anyway, I finally told Dad to go to hell and walked away, but Lyndsey was still back there. She said the vase was too heavy. She put it down under a tarp where it would be safe, but she saw Dad coming toward her and she got scared. There was this crowbar sticking out from under the tarp, and…she grabbed it.

  “All she wanted to do was walk past him, get back to where people were, but he wouldn’t leave her alone.” A muscle jumped in Josh’s jaw. “He was talking all kinds of trash about how he knew girls like her, girls who trapped guys, girls who spread their legs for money, just evil stuff, Mom, evil.”

  But it hadn’t been Lyndsey Lloyd had been talking to that night, Frannie understood. She closed her eyes a moment. “What happened then?”

  “He said he wasn’t going to let her trap me with the baby, so he grabbed her and put his hands around her neck and started to strangle her.” Josh looked at them both, misery in his eyes. “She hit him with the bar because she had to, Mom, she had to. He was going to kill her. She was blacking out. And when she woke up, he was dead and there was blood all over. So she ran away.” He put his head in his hands. Frannie walked over and put her arms around his shoulders.

  “If she and Lloyd fought, why didn’t anyone hear?” Roberto asked.

  “Are you trying to say she’s lying?” Josh raised his head to glare at him. “She’s telling the truth. He tried to kill her. And now she’s scared to death that they’ll find out and she’ll go to jail.”

  Roberto folded his arms. “Your mom can tell her what it’s like.”

  “Roberto.” Frannie shot him a look of warning, then turned to Josh. “Honey, if it happened the way she said, there’s no jury in the world that would convict her. It would be self-defense.”

  “Are you telling me to call the cops on her?” he asked incredulously. “I can’t turn her in. She’s going to have my kid. And I…I love her.”

  “Nobody’s talking about calling the cops.” Roberto took a seat. “The best thing for her to do is turn herself in.”

  Josh shook his head. “No way. She’s never going to do that. She’s too scared.”

  “What about if we go talk to her?” Frannie said. “The three of us. We’ll convince her and then we’ll go to the police together.”

  “She won’t listen.”

  Roberto rested his elbows on the table. “She’s got to, Josh, or else we have to call the cops. Unless you want to chance your mom going to trial for a murder she didn’t commit. We need to talk to Lyndsey. Now.”

  “Tomorrow,” Frannie corrected. “It’s after midnight. It’s too late.”

  “The sooner she turns herself in, the better it’s going to be for her,” Roberto countered. “And as long as we know and don’t act, we’re accessories. Her mother works the night shift, we can catch her alone. Let’s just go do it.”

  “She’s going to hate me for telling,” Josh said miserably.

  Frannie touched his cheek. “You’re trying to help her, honey. Eventually, she’ll see that. Sometimes you have to make difficult choices in life. That’s what you do for people you care about.”

  The minutes stretched out. Josh sat in silence, staring at his hands. Finally, he raised his head. “Being an adult sucks.”

  “It has its moments,” Roberto agreed. “So what do you say?”

  Josh nodded. “Okay.” He swallowed. “Let’s roll.”

  The yellow bug light at Lyndsey’s house cast a faint amber glow over the uneven boards of the porch. Josh had given Lyndsey a call on the way over. Now, he gave Frannie and Roberto a sickly smile and knocked on the door.

  It opened immediately. “Come in, quick,” Lyndsey demanded, “or old lady Quinson across the street will—” She stopped, staring at Frannie and Roberto. “What are they doing here?”

  There was none of the indecision of earlier that day, Roberto noticed. The look in her eyes was downright hostile. And she wore the black hoodie.

  “Let us in, Lyns,” Josh said. “We need to talk to you.”

  “My mom’s going to be really mad if she gets wind of this. I’m not supposed to have people over when she’s working.”

  “I’ll talk to her,” Frannie promised. “We’ll only be here for a few minutes.”

  She’d been watching television, Roberto saw as they walked into the living room, Romeo and Juliet reset in what looked like modern-day Miami. An open soda sat on the coffee table by the couch. In what looked to be long-standing habit, Lyndsey and Josh sat next to each other. Frannie chose the remaining chair; Roberto just leaned against the wall by the entryway.

  Lyndsey muted the television. “Why are you back here?” she asked Roberto.

  “Same thing as this morning—the murder of Lloyd Fredericks,” Roberto said.

  “And like I said to you this morning, I don’t know anything about it.”

  “It’s okay, Lyns,” Josh said gently. “I told them.”

  She blinked. “Told them? You told them what?”

  “What happened between you and Dad.”

  For a moment her expression turned absolutely livid, then it relaxed, so quickly Roberto couldn’t be sure he’d seen it. “Nothing happened with me and your dad.”

  “Lyndsey, it was self-defense,” Frannie said gently. “If you turn yourself in to the police, that’s what they’ll say. You won’t have to go to jail.”

  “Of course I won’t. I didn’t do anything.”

  “It’s not that easy. They have forensic evidence,”
Roberto gambled. “Your blood on the vase, your fingerprints on the murder weapon. The best thing you can do is turn yourself in. It’ll work in your favor, especially if the self-defense angle holds up.”

  “Of course it will hold up.” Josh’s voice held equal parts anger and protectiveness. “You didn’t see my dad that night. He lost it completely. She’s lucky she’s alive.”

  At that, Lyndsey’s eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t mean to. I thought he was going to kill me.”

  Josh slipped his arms around her. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “I’m afraid,” she whispered. “What if they put me in jail?”

  “They won’t.”

  “Lyndsey, you can’t live with this hanging over your head forever,” Frannie said. “You have to confess. It’s for the best. There will be a trial, but we’ll all testify for you.”

  Lyndsey chewed on her lip. “Do I have to decide now?”

  “The sooner you do it, the better,” Roberto said. “We all know now, Lyndsey, and there’s no way we can cover it up. Just turn yourself in. Everything will be fine.”

  Lyndsey swallowed. “All right,” she whispered. “Just let me go call my mom and tell her.”

  She walked past Roberto and through the swinging door that led to the kitchen. And he could hear her let loose the tears she’d been holding back. They all could.

  Josh stared down at his hands, looking sick. “I did this. It’s my fault.”

  “You didn’t do anything.” Roberto wanted to squeeze the kid’s shoulder, do something, but it wasn’t his place. Yet.

  Instead, Frannie rose to go sit by him. “Sometimes things just happen.” Her voice was soft, reassuring. “It’s going to be okay, you’ll see. It’ll all work out.”