by Sandra Brown
“Why have you kept this from me, Lisa? As recently as this week, when I came to your office and asked if you thought Dad was capable of committing the crimes, you talked around it, you dodged. You surmised. Conjectured.”
“Arden despises liars,” Ledge said.
“If I’ve lied,” Lisa shouted at him, “it was to protect my sister from the ugly truth.”
“It’s a lot uglier than you’re telling it,” he said.
“You’re a son of a bitch.”
“And you’re a liar.”
Arden divided a frustrated look between them. To Ledge, she said, “What is she lying about?”
He looked hard at Lisa.
She sucked in a harsh breath, wheezing as she exhaled and said to Arden, “Dad wasn’t the burglar. I was.”
Chapter 38
That night in 2000—Lisa
Hey, Ledge, why do you think it is that Joe doesn’t do his drinking here? Why doesn’t he give your uncle Henry his business? Do you reckon he thinks nobody knows he’s an alky?”
Rusty’s taunt was the last straw.
Refusing to give him the satisfaction of her coming back with an angry retort, Lisa opened the door behind the passenger seat where he sat. After getting out, she slammed the door hard, hoping that the impact would shake loose his teeth.
She resented like hell having that prick lording it over her. She figured he knew how much she hated it, which was why he never passed on an opportunity to rile her.
But really, what had she expected when she agreed to participate in this misadventure? Courtesy and respect? She’d sunk to the level of Rusty Dyle, that witless accountant, and a juvenile delinquent. If she hadn’t been desperate…
But she had. Her father had become increasingly inept and unreliable. He hadn’t held a job since being fired from Welch’s store. Judging by the number of calls and mailed notices from bill collectors, she knew their financial situation was rocky, but she hadn’t known the extent of their indebtedness until Rusty had enlightened her. With insufferable smugness, he had disclosed exactly how dire her family’s situation was.
He’d approached her on a windy weekday afternoon. After picking Arden up from school, she had dropped her at the public library to browse under the librarian’s watchful eye while she ran some errands. She’d been returning for her when Rusty had materialized out of nowhere directly in front of her, blocking her path on the sidewalk.
“Hey, hotshot.”
She hadn’t seen much of him since she had graduated high school, but of course she recognized him. One couldn’t miss that ridiculous haircut, and it was impossible to ignore someone as obnoxious as he. He wouldn’t allow anyone to ignore him.
“Hello, Rusty.”
She’d gone around him, but he’d fallen into step beside her. “How’s college?”
“Fine.”
“Gee, you’re almost halfway through already.”
“After this semester.”
“I’ll bet you’re making straight A’s.”
“I’m holding my own.”
“Must be tough, keeping up your grades and making that commute every day.”
How he’d known that she commuted was a mystery, but she hadn’t wanted to prolong the conversation by asking him for an explanation. “Nice seeing you, but I’ve got to dash.” She’d lengthened her stride in an attempt to outdistance him, but he’d kept pace.
“Heard your old man got canned again.”
That brought her to a halt. “What do you know about it, and what’s it to you?”
“Ouch! The claws come out.” He’d curled his fingers and pawed the air like a scratching cat.
“You always were and always will be an asshole, Rusty.”
She’d tried to continue on her way, but he’d caught her by the elbow. “Don’t turn your back on me, smarty pants.”
She’d yanked her arm free. “I don’t care if your daddy is the damn governor, I’ll scream this town down if you ever touch me again.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” He’d made an elaborate show of taking several steps back. “I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot with you. Not since we’re going to be business partners and all.”
“Business partners?”
“That’s right. We’ve got a lot to talk about, you and me.”
“Guess again.”
“Your first meeting with me is tonight.”
“Are you out of your mind? I’m not meeting you tonight or at any other time.”
“Oh, you will. You will tonight. You can’t afford to miss this meeting.” He’d leaned to one side to look beyond her toward the library. “You must’ve kept her waiting too long. I made note of the time when you dropped her off.”
Lisa had turned to see Arden standing just outside the entrance to the building, the librarian watching from behind the glass. Arden had been holding a stack of books against her chest. She’d waved. Lisa had waved back, but it had been a conditioned reflex. She was thinking about Rusty’s last statement. When she’d turned back to face him, he’d given her an insolent smile.
“Nine o’clock tonight. On the bleachers of the football field. That should be a nice and nostalgic spot for you, Miss Homecoming Queen.” He’d moved in closer and whispered, “Your little sister is gonna be a looker. She’s already as cute as all get-out.”
Then he’d turned away and sauntered off down the sidewalk.
The inflection in his voice when he’d referred to Arden had turned Lisa’s stomach. For the rest of that afternoon, she’d tried to dismiss the comment and chided herself for paying any heed to it. Like father, like son, Rusty was reputed to be crafty and manipulative. He knew which buttons to push. She wasn’t about to let him bend her to his will.
Nevertheless, at nine o’clock sharp, she had joined him on the bleachers.
He’d begun with irrelevant chitchat. “When Joe worked at Welch’s, you were in and out of there quite a lot, right? You must’ve learned your way around, saw the operation of the store from behind the scenes.”
“What is this about, Rusty?”
“It’s about a lot of coin.” He winked.
Then he’d told her his plan.
“I know what you’re going to ask. Why enlist me? Well, see, Lisa, I need you to verify information provided by Foster. You know Brian Foster? The schmuck your dad tangled with the day he got fired? Him. The pussy.
“Don’t get me wrong. Foster’s smart with numbers, and he’s sincere enough, but I need a guarantee that he’s not feeding me faulty information. It would be awkward if alarm bells went off while we were hauling bales of cash out of there.”
She had listened in disbelief. In spite of herself, she was amazed by his audacity and amused by his conceit. “You’re talking madness. It’s cold out here. I’m leaving. Don’t ever bother me again.”
When she stood up to leave, despite her earlier warning about him touching her, he grabbed her hand and yanked her back down onto the bleacher.
“You’ll go along, Lisa. Want to know why you will?”
With that, he had produced copies of overdue invoices owed by her father. She’d sorted through them with mounting dismay, and with another emotion that was foreign to her: humiliation. Her spring semester tuition was two months in arrears.
“One of these days your daddy is going to fall down in a gutter and not get up again,” Rusty had said. “Where’s that going to leave you?”
Whether knowingly or not, he had stoked her worst fear. Unless Joe had a miraculous turnaround, which there had been no signs of his doing or even attempting to do, she soon would have to support herself and assume sole responsibility for Arden.
That would mean sacrificing any hope of completing her education and fulfilling the ambition she’d had to leave this nowhere town and make something noteworthy of her life.
But burglary? “If I commit a crime, where will that leave me, Rusty? In prison.”
“We won’t get caught.”
“You’re delusional. Your scheme is preposterous. As desperate as my situation is, I want no part of it, and no part of you or those other two creeps. I’ll figure out another way, an honest way, to pay our bills.”
“Not so fast, whistle britches. You’re in now, whether you want to be or not. You know the plan, you gotta do the deed.” Then he’d given her a beatific smile and said, “Don’t just think about yourself. Think about sweet little Arden.”
Again, his tone, with its undercurrent of pedophilia, had sickened her. It also had frightened her. Obviously, he had been keeping track of her schedule. He’d followed them today to the library. Otherwise he wouldn’t have known they were there and for how long.
She’d told him that she would think it over. But as she’d driven away from the football field, she knew her destiny had taken a steep, downward turn. She had made an irreversible pact with the devil.
Now here she was, in the parking lot of Burnet’s pool hall, no less, the rubber soles of her blue sneakers crunching gravel and collecting mud as she left behind her three accomplices. As well as the money.
If Rusty thought she was going to sit by quietly for six months while he played watchdog over it, he had another think coming. Foster and that sullen Burnet boy might be gullible enough to believe in Rusty’s integrity, but she sure as hell wasn’t.
She didn’t allow herself to dwell on the fact that she was now a felon. Even her righteous mother would have sanctioned the drastic action she’d taken. She had done what she’d had to in order to make a better life for herself and Arden.
In any case, it was done. Now, she must somehow figure out a way to best the psychopathic Rusty Dyle without tripping herself up. Having just left him, she was already trying to devise a way to beat him at his own game and reclaim her share of the take.
When her house came into view, she could tell even from a distance that it was dark inside, just as she’d left it. No cop cars in sight. When she got closer, she turned off her headlights, steered carefully into the driveway, and made the incline at a snail’s pace.
The door on the detached garage was up. With relief, she saw that her father’s car was still there. She’d had to wait until he returned from the cemetery before she could leave and keep her date with the other three crooks. She’d made it with little time to spare.
As she’d sneaked out of the house, it had occurred to her that her dad might run out of liquor and leave the house in search of a bottle, in which case Arden would have been left alone. That had been a risk she’d had to take, but she’d banked on the cemetery visit leaving her dad depressed enough to drink himself into a stupor before passing out.
The back door was locked, as she’d left it. That, too, boded well. She used her key and slipped inside. She smiled at the basket of dyed Easter eggs in the center of the table. She’d promised Arden that tomorrow they would bake a layered coconut cake using the recipe written in their mother’s hand.
Please, God, for Arden’s sake, let Dad go one day without drinking.
With that prayer, she silently climbed the stairs and went into her bedroom. It couldn’t have gone any better, even taking into account that stupid confab Rusty had conducted in the ditch. She had left the house undetected, and had returned undetected.
She would figure out a way to get her money from Rusty sooner rather than later, but so far, so good.
Chapter 39
By the time Lisa had finished, Arden’s knuckles had turned white, and she had to pry her fingers open in order to let go of the chair back. She looked over at Ledge. Throughout Lisa’s account, he hadn’t moved, either.
Her voice husky with emotion, she said to him, “You should have told me.”
“She should have told you.”
“But since she hadn’t—”
“God knows I wanted to.”
“But you couldn’t without giving yourself away.”
“That’s not why,” he said, looking pained that she would think that. “You had lost your baby. You have no other family. I didn’t want to be the one who messed up what you have with her.”
She held his steady blue gaze, then looked at Lisa, who sat with head bent. If she’d heard their exchange, she gave no sign of it. Arden said, “Lisa, what were you thinking?”
Lisa pushed the fingers of both hands up through her hair and held it back for several seconds before letting it go. It resettled like a curtain framing her face. The hardness of her expression defied them to censure her.
“I was thinking how badly we could use that money to get us out of the red. I was thinking how helpful it would be to have that cash squirreled away when you became my responsibility, which was inevitable, considering the rate of Dad’s decline. I was thinking that I was protecting you from Rusty’s clutches as well as securing a better future for you.”
“And you.”
“All right, and me!” she shouted. “And why not?”
Then, reining in her temper and her tone, she said, “Dad wasn’t providing. I was a college student with no income. The state could have taken you away. Would you have rather been placed in foster care?”
Arden rounded the chair and sat down. “Did you make up the part about Foster’s phone call, catching Dad with the money bag?”
“No,” she exclaimed. “My encounter with him here in the kitchen happened exactly as I described it. Everything Dad did after that phone call from Foster was just as I’ve told you, except that he was doing damage control for me, not for himself.
“Having recovered the money, he urged me to turn myself in. Giving back the money and turning state’s witness against my accomplices might prevent me from being charged. Besides, that would be the right and moral thing to do, he said. Also, as a witness to Foster’s death, he had an obligation to report it to the authorities.
“Of course, he was right on all scores. But in all honesty, his appeal to my conscience didn’t affect my decision as much as learning that Rusty had had a hand in Foster’s dying, whether or not he’d killed him outright. That shook me because it gave backbone to his threats toward you. He wasn’t just a smarmy, spoiled brat. He was sick. Psycho. Evil. My worst transgression, even above the theft, was my naïveté regarding his depravity.
“So I agreed with Dad. However, he and I knew better than to call the sheriff’s department. Dad told me that he would call the Texas Rangers, maybe even the FBI. But he suggested that we wait until daylight. He wanted to clean himself up, get cold sober and clear-headed. He said we had to place ourselves in the best possible bargaining position for my clemency.
“He told me to go upstairs and try to sleep. He held my face between his hands and apologized for all his shortcomings. He blamed himself for driving me to commit a crime, and told me he would make certain the authorities understood that desperation had led me to do it. He kissed my forehead.
“Obediently I went to my room. I was nervous and frightened. Even if I surrendered and threw myself on the mercy of the law, there was still a chance I would go to prison.”
She reflected for a moment, then shook off her pensiveness and shifted her position in the chair. “I never saw Dad again. He’d seemed so contrite over his failings. There were even tears standing in his eyes. It never occurred to me that his mea culpa was a ploy.”
No one said anything; then Ledge prefaced speaking by clearing his throat. “When did you discover that he was gone?”
Lisa looked at him, then at Arden. “When Rusty nearly beat down the door looking for him.”
“You’re lying.”
“Rusty was here that night?” Arden asked.
She and Ledge had spoken in unison, but it was his accusation of lying that Lisa addressed. “I’m not lying! I was in my room, but it was a ridiculous notion that I could sleep. When the pounding on the door started, I was afraid it was lawmen, here to arrest me.” She looked at Ledge. “I thought perhaps you’d done as Rusty had feared, that you had turned on the rest of us to save your own skin.”
&nb
sp; He gave her a baleful look but didn’t comment.
She went back to Arden. “I was afraid that you would wake up and be terrified. Not even taking time to dress, I ran downstairs in my pajamas and answered the door. It wasn’t men in uniform. It was Rusty, and he was a wreck. His clothes were filthy. He was all banged up and in obvious pain. He couldn’t even stand upright, but he barged in, ranting, demanding to know where Dad was, threatening to kill him.
“I had to pretend to be shocked by his appearance, pretend not to know about his fierce fight with Foster and how it ended. I kept asking him what had happened to him, who had beaten him up, what had Dad to do with anything.
“He said, ‘Foster told your old man about the burglary. He knew where I was going to meet Foster. He hoodwinked both of us and took the money. Where is he?’ He told me that when he found Dad, he was going to kill him, and I believed him.
“He pushed me aside and hobbled into the kitchen here. There were Dad’s fresh muddy footprints, and a wet patch on the floor where the bag had been. I gaped at them as though I didn’t understand what they signified.
“Actually, at that point in time, I didn’t,” she said with a wry grimace. “I thought maybe Dad had seen Rusty’s car coming toward the house and had sneaked out. Something like that. I was glad that he and the money were safe from this crazy person ranting at me. He went out the back door and into the garage. I followed, fearing Dad would be cowering in there. But he was nowhere to be found. Rusty was relentless, saying he was going to find him if he had to tear the place apart.
“When we came back inside, he went from room to room. I kept trying to distract him by asking how he’d been injured. He was grunting and groaning in pain, but he dragged himself upstairs. He looked into your room,” she said to Arden, “with me begging him not to wake you. If you had woken up and seen him in his condition, you would have been traumatized.”
“No doubt,” Arden said caustically.