“You bet it will,” There was a click and they all turned to see Lyndsey standing at the kitchen door, a gun in her hand.
Chapter Fourteen
For a frozen instant, no one moved. A gun, Frannie thought numbly. A quick squeeze of the trigger and any one of them would be gone instantly.
Josh blinked as though he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. “Lyns, what are you doing?”
“Move away from her, Josh,” Lyndsey ordered.
Frannie felt the quick rush of adrenaline. Not her son, she vowed, the numbness gone. If she had to physically throw herself in front of the bullet, she was going to make sure Josh came out of this whole.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Josh returned. “This isn’t the way. Don’t hurt my family.”
“It’s not like I want to.” She strode over to stand opposite them. “They’re making me. No way am I going down to the police department and turning myself in.”
“Lyndsey, you’ve got to. It’s going to be okay. You’ll get off with self-defense.”
She laughed. “Is that what they told you? Of course they did,” she answered her own question. “What else are they going to say? They want me to take the fall so that your mother gets off. But no way in hell is that ever going to happen.”
This matter-of-fact calculation was far more dangerous than fear or anger, Frannie realized.
And maybe Roberto did, too, because he stepped forward a pace. Lyndsey whirled to face him. “Don’t move or I’ll shoot you right now,” she threatened.
“No!” Frannie burst out in horror, starting up from the couch. Time broke into a series of images: flickering actors fighting on the television screen, Roberto standing, tension coiled in him like a spring, Lyndsey’s face pale, the gun in her shaking hands.
The gun.
And in that moment of fear, Frannie realized what she’d tried so hard to block.
She was in love with Roberto.
“Lyndsey, you can’t do this,” she protested. “What about your baby?”
The round circle of the barrel swung toward her. “Shut up,” Lyndsey snapped. “I should have killed you, too.”
Frannie felt rather than saw Roberto tense. “Don’t,” she said under her breath. He couldn’t put himself at risk, not now that she’d finally understood how much he truly mattered.
And what a desert her life would be without him.
“What are you doing?” Josh demanded.
“Don’t distract me, Josh. I’m doing what I have to.”
There was something in Lyndsey’s eyes, Frannie realized, not panic precisely, but more the wary look of some sharp-toothed creature that hid in its burrow and only came out at night. For the first time, she understood that they weren’t dealing with an entirely rational individual.
And her head became oddly clear. “We can work this out.” Frannie kept her voice even. “We’ll get lawyers. It wasn’t your fault.”
Say whatever it takes to get out of the room, whatever it takes to survive this so that you can tell him.
But Lyndsey wasn’t buying it. “There’s no way they’d let me go. Not after everything I’ve done.”
“What’s that?” Roberto asked.
She laughed. “Oh, we’ve been having fun.” She took a few restless steps across the living room. “I liked seeing you Fortunes worried. For once, you weren’t in control. For once, you were the ones who were scared. Like you’re scared now.”
“You were the one behind the fires and the notes, weren’t you?” Frannie asked.
Lyndsey laughed. “Give the lady an A plus.” Her face relaxed into the benign expression of a high-schooler talking about the latest download for her iPod. “I only did it for Josh and me. And for the baby. I’m going to call her Sarah, after my grandmother.”
“For the baby?” Roberto brought her back to the subject.
“Of course.” Impatient, she paced a few more steps. “Don’t look at me like that, Josh. You’ve got to take the big-picture view. I mean, how could we get married and start a family if your dad and your mom—” she shot a look of silky dislike at Frannie “—were in the way? I had to stop that somehow.”
“Josh is eighteen. He’s gotten his inheritance. What could his parents have done anyway?”
She looked at Roberto pityingly. “You don’t get it, do you? The Fortunes own this town. We didn’t have a choice. We had to put the screws to Lloyd. We had to scare him.”
“Who’s we?”
Roberto was pumping the girl gently, making her give details, keeping her going each time she stopped. If they ever got out of the room alive, Frannie thought, there would be enough to convict her for her crimes.
If they ever got out alive.
“We was my mom and me. We had it all planned out.”
“It didn’t work, though, did it?”
“I thought he’d be smarter,” she complained, beginning to cross the room again like an erratic pendulum. “The fires and the notes were to soften him up, but it took him a while to get it. And it was so simple. All he had to do was stop making a fuss about us, and Mom and I would keep our mouths shut. If he kept it up, we’d see that he lost everything.”
Josh frowned, looking from Lyndsey to Roberto. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Lloyd loved being a Fortune.” Lyndsey had an almost dreamy look in her eyes. “See, you guys are born with it. You don’t know what it’s like on the outside.”
“But you and I do, don’t we, Lyndsey?” Roberto said.
Say whatever it takes to get out of the room.
“I guess you would,” Lyndsey nodded to herself. “They say your families are friends, but you Mendozas get the short end of the stick every time, don’t you? Anybody who deals with the Fortunes does. They have everything.” Her voice filled with sudden venom as she glared at Frannie.
“But Lloyd was a Fredericks,” Roberto reminded her.
Lyndsey gave him a scornful look. “We both know that doesn’t count for anything anymore. But being a part of the Fortunes sure does. We had to threaten to take that away so that he’d behave.”
“But that would affect Josh, too.”
“You think I wanted to do this? I did it because I had to. I did it for us, Josh.”
“For us?” Josh repeated. “That’s why you burned my aunt’s barn down?”
“Of course, silly,” she said affectionately, missing his rancor. “Lloyd was in the way. And he was going to try to con money out of you, money that belonged to us and to Sarah. So I told him if he didn’t watch out, we were going to tell everybody the truth.”
“Tell everybody what?” Josh asked.
She made an impatient noise. “Jeez, Josh, how can you be so dense? He wasn’t your real dad.”
How do we tell him, Roberto had asked. Frannie had never in a million years imagined this would be the way.
Josh shook his head. “That’s nuts.”
“How can you be so sure, Lyndsey?” The question was out before Frannie knew she was going to ask it. Josh snapped his head around to stare at her.
“My mom’s a nurse. She worked in the clinic that did the testing. Cindy brought money, lots of it. When the test results came in, Mom just switched them. It was easy, she said.”
“I don’t believe it.” Frowning, Josh looked at Frannie. And then he seemed to realize that she wasn’t surprised.
“My mom used part of the money to buy this house,” Lyndsey continued, making another of her now-regular swings across the room. “Then my dad left. It got harder. I mean, look at this place. It’s a dump, now. You Fortunes all live in palaces. And here’s Cindy Fortune living the good life while Mom and I are scraping to get by.”
For an instant, pure hatred flashed in her eyes. And then, unnervingly quickly, she returned to sunny and serene. “My mom went back a couple years ago and asked her for some more money. Really reasonable, just asking one person to another, can you help?”
Blackmail, Frannie thought. Really reasonable
.
“You would have thought that Mom was asking her to open a vein. Cindy threatened to tell everybody. She said she’d make sure Mom lost her license if she tried anything. But we got her back good.” Lyndsey smiled in satisfaction. “A little snip here, a little snip there.”
“You cut Cindy Fortune’s brake lines?” Roberto asked.
Lyndsey looked positively beatific. “It was hard not to laugh, seeing her walk around all banged up after her accident. It’s too bad it didn’t work. That’s because you Fortunes always wind up on top. But not this time. It was fun to see you all afraid. You didn’t feel so important then, did you?”
“You’re talking about my family,” Josh ground out.
“Oh, honey, I don’t mean you. I love you. I can’t wait to marry you and get our own place and raise our baby together. Lots of babies,” she said smiling. “With your inheritance, we’ll be able to afford them.
“That’s all I ever wanted,” she explained. “But Lloyd tried to mess everything up. Lloyd and you.” Her mouth twisted as she stopped pacing and pointed the gun at Frannie. “You’re why we had to go after Lloyd. It’s your fault I had to be at the Spring Fling, telling him how it was going to go. I was going to fill you in as insurance,” she added to Roberto, “but Lloyd sort of changed my plans.”
“You were the one who called about the meet.”
“Fooled you, huh?”
“Not really. The phone booth you called from was in this neighborhood, I looked up the number. What did Lloyd say after you told him his choices? Is that why you hit him?”
“He deserved it.” She paced faster, agitated. “He said I was lying, he called me all kinds of names. And then he knocked me over and I hit my nose on your danged vase.” She threw Frannie a malevolent look. “I thought I broke it. It bled like a stuck pig. But I showed him. It’s like my daddy always said, ‘you knock me down you’d better kill me because I’ll make you sorry.’ He never even heard me coming,” she added with relish. “I whapped him a good one.”
Frannie felt a chill.
“With the bar?” Roberto shifted his weight a bit. “That must have been hard. He was a lot taller than you. And stronger.”
“I got him from behind as he was walking away. There was so much blood,” Lyndsey said wonderingly, looking down so that she missed Roberto sliding one foot back to brace himself. “I didn’t think I hit him that hard. It hurt my hand.” She rubbed it against her jeans absently. “I had blood all over me, but I put on Josh’s hoodie and threw away the crowbar. I got a ride into town with a trucker.”
“It wasn’t self-defense at all,” Frannie said. “It was murder.”
“You think I wanted to do that? He made me,” Lyndsey snarled.
“Of course he did,” Roberto said. “I know how it is, having people tell you you’re not good enough for their family. It wasn’t your fault. You were only doing what you had to.” He eyed the arc of Lyndsey’s steps, calculating. “They don’t understand what it does to you to know that’s what they think, every day, every night, every time you look in the mirror. And what it’s like to not have enough. You and I, we know what that’s like, Lyndsey.”
“Yes,” she whispered, walking closer.
“It eats at you. And to be pulled into Cindy Fortune’s schemes and hardly get anything out of it?” He flicked a glance back at Frannie. “I’d have done just what you did. I would have been so mad. And that kind of mad makes you want to hurt someone, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Lots of people get mad,” Frannie interrupted, praying she’d read Roberto’s look right. “You don’t see them murdering people.”
“You bitch!” Eyes narrowed with fury, Lyndsey pivoted toward Frannie, bringing the gun up. And in that moment, Roberto sprang at her.
Noise and confusion, the tangle of limbs. Lyndsey fought Roberto for the gun with the adrenaline-soaked strength of the unbalanced. They rolled and wrestled on the floor as she screamed in fury, as Josh leapt over the coffee table to try to help pin the girl.
Frannie snatched up the telephone receiver on the side table.
“Nine-one-one operator, can I help you?”
There was the roar of a gunshot, the muzzle flash, the scent of cordite. And a choking fear as Frannie looked to see blood spreading on the rug.
“Come quickly,” she whispered. “Someone’s been shot.”
Roberto punched the button on the vending machine, watching the cup fall down and the stream of coffee begin. There was something about hospitals that seemed to exist outside of time. It seemed that he had always been here, waiting for word, that it was endless, like those nightmare moments in Lyndsey’s living room when she’d pointed the gun at Frannie and he’d felt his heart stop in fear.
“I thought I might find you here.”
Roberto turned to see Len Wheeler. He turned back. “Where’s your sidekick?”
“Writing up the initial reports. Don’t worry about him.”
“Wheeler, right now I can’t say I give a damn about either of you.” Roberto opened the little window and pulled out his coffee.
“I guess you have a right to feel like that.”
Roberto’s brows lowered. “Is that the best you can do? You lock Frannie up for two weeks, you sweat me down, the only way you find out anything is when we deliver it to you and all you can say is I have a right to feel like that?”
“I won’t apologize for being skeptical because that’s the nature of our business, but I saw the hoodie. You were telling the truth.”
“For all the good it did me.”
“For everybody who tells us the truth, there are twice as many lying.”
“Isn’t it your job to be able to tell the difference?”
“Yeah, the day I get to be perfect at it, I’ll let you know.” Wheeler fished in his pocket for change and stepped over to the machine.
“How about you skip that and just tell me what the hell is going on? I saw you hauling somebody out in handcuffs when we were in the E.R.”
“Donna Pollack. Lyndsey’s mother. McCaskill questioned her.” Wheeler smiled faintly. “She takes a dim view of the Fortunes.”
“Not nearly as dim a view as the Fortunes take of her. How’s the daughter? Josh will want to know.”
The coins jingled as Wheeler fed them into the slot. “I talked to the doc. They’re still closing up, but he said the surgery to remove the bullet is done. Her leg should heal up with no problem.”
“And the baby?”
“They think it’s going to be fine.”
“Tell Josh.”
“Already did. Stopped in to see him and Miz Fredericks just before I came to find you. He still wants to stay until the girl’s out. Not that the staff is allowed to tell him anything because of privacy laws.”
“But you’re going to keep him posted, aren’t you, Wheeler?” Roberto asked with an edge to his voice. “Don’t forget, we handed this case to you gift-wrapped.”
Wheeler pulled his coffee out of the machine and walked to the little ledge that held sugar and creamer. “We had to wake up a judge to sign the search warrant, but McCaskill went through the Pollacks’ garage. Found the same accelerants used for the arson fires and a pair of clippers with what looks like brake fluid on them. ’Pears that everything Lyndsey Pollack told you is true, maybe down to Josh Fredericks’ parentage. Hell of a thing.” He shook his head. “Hell of a thing.”
“Yeah. Enjoy your coffee.” Roberto turned for the door. Time to get back up to the O.R. waiting room and back to Frannie.
“Hey, Mendoza,” Wheeler said. When Roberto glanced back, he gave him a level look. “I’m sorry everything worked out so crappy.”
“You and me both.”
Hell of a thing, Roberto thought as he rode the elevator to the surgical unit. The words weren’t adequate to the occasion, but then again, he couldn’t think of any that were. It seemed unimaginably long ago that he and Frannie had discovered Cindy’s initial machinations to
keep them apart. The shock of that seemed like nothing compared to what this day had brought.
If he let himself stop and think, he’d be reeling over it, and he was an adult. What was it like for a kid like Josh to discover that everything he believed about himself was a lie? Eighteen wasn’t old enough to deal with that; hell, thirty-nine wasn’t.
Roberto stepped out of the elevator car and turned toward the little waiting area at the end of the hall where windows looked out at a landscape now coming gradually into view with the approach of the day.
Josh sat in one of the chairs before the window, bent over his thighs, staring at his hands dangling between his knees. Next to him, Frannie leaned in to smooth back his hair and murmur something. Everything about her posture spoke of exhaustion, and yet still she found the strength to reassure, to support.
I feel like I’m in a cement mixer that just keeps turning, she’d told Roberto in a conversation that seemed like it had taken place a million years before. But right now, she wasn’t paying attention to her own turmoil. She was focusing on taking care of her son. Their son. It was something he should have been a part of, Roberto thought in frustration, something they should have done together.
As he moved to go to her, Josh suddenly turned to lean his head into Frannie’s shoulder. She slipped her arms around him in a gesture of such tenderness that it brought an ache to Roberto’s throat.
And suddenly, he understood what she’d been trying to tell him all along. It didn’t matter about him. Maybe it didn’t even matter about them. What mattered was her taking care of Josh.
Give me time and space to deal with everything, she’d begged, but Roberto hadn’t listened. He’d wanted, needed to make something happen between the two of them, to change what had gone before. But that wasn’t important right now.
Despite how shattered she had to be, right now Frannie’s only thoughts were of their son. That was the thing he’d missed, that loving someone meant putting aside your own wants to give them what they needed—even if what you wanted was to take care of them. In some alternative universe, he and Frannie and Josh might have been the perfect family. In this one, Roberto had to accept that here was maybe something he couldn’t help. His steps slowed to a stop. Maybe here was something he finally needed to let go.
A Fortune Wedding Page 15