'Til Death (A Rebel Ridge Novel)
Read 'Til Death (A Rebel Ridge Novel) Online
Authors: Sharon Sala
He left in handcuffs. Now it’s time to set himself free.
Nearly twenty years after he was wrongly convicted of setting
the fire that killed his father, Lincoln Fox returns to Rebel Ridge, Kentucky.
There, deep in the Appalachians, the truth of that terrible night lies
buried—and he’s sworn to uncover it.
His plans take an unexpected turn when, in the midst of a
blizzard, he rescues Meg Walker from her wrecked car. Suddenly Linc discovers
another reason to clear his name. Meg, his high school sweetheart, had always
believed in his innocence, and if he wants a future with her, he has to show the
world proof that she was right.
As the community chooses sides, those who once let a teenage
boy take the fall for their crime are forced to raise the stakes. They kidnap
Meg, leaving her to the mercy of the mountain. And a second rescue may be more
than even Linc can manage.…
Praise for the novels of
“Vivid, gripping…this thriller keeps the pages
turning.”
—
Library
Journal
on
Torn Apart
“Sala’s characters are vivid and engaging.”
—
Publishers Weekly
on
Cut Throat
“Sharon Sala is not only a top romance novelist, she is an
inspiration for people everywhere who wish to live their dreams.”
—John St. Augustine, host,
Power!Talk Radio
WDBC-AM, Michigan
“Veteran romance writer Sala lives up to her reputation with
this well-crafted thriller.”
—
Publishers Weekly
on
Remember Me
“[A] well-written, fast-paced ride.”
—
Publishers Weekly
on
Nine Lives
“Perfect entertainment for those looking for a suspense novel
with emotional intensity.”
—
Publishers Weekly
on
Out of the Dark
Also by Sharon Sala
Rebel Ridge Novels
DON’T CRY FOR ME
NEXT OF KIN
The Searchers
BLOOD TRAILS
BLOOD STAINS
BLOOD TIES
The Storm Front trilogy
SWEPT ASIDE
TORN APART
BLOWN AWAY
THE
WARRIOR
BAD PENNY
THE HEALER
CUT THROAT
NINE LIVES
THE
CHOSEN
MISSING
WHIPPOORWILL
ON THE EDGE
“Capsized”
DARK
WATER
OUT OF THE DARK
SNOWFALL
BUTTERFLY
REMEMBER
ME
REUNION
SWEET BABY
Originally published as Dinah
McCall
THE RETURN
Look for Sharon Sala’s next novel
GOING ONCE
available October 2013
“At all costs” is a commonly used phrase in our culture, but
rarely do we consider that the true meaning often encompasses the worth of a
human life.
It’s what drives us to excel when by all accounts we should
actually fail.
It’s what pushes us beyond physical strength to a refusal to
let go.
It’s what makes one person a survivor and another a victim.
And it’s inherent in the vow in a wedding ceremony that holds
the most meaning…’til death do us part. And is often the first one broken.
I believe in a forever kind of love—the kind that still endures
after death, the kind with a spirit so strong that it refuses to acknowledge
separation and still finds a way to communicate.
I dedicate this book to forever loves and to the people who
hold on to their dreams at all costs.
One
Rebel Ridge, Kentucky
October
T
he sweet, soulful voice of a blues singer
spilled out into the room from Meg Lewis’s radio, sharing a message of
unrequited love as old as time.
I can’t make you love me
....
Meg looked up from the fabric she’d been cutting and caught a
glimpse of herself in the mirror on the other side of the table. Just for a
moment she saw herself as a stranger might: tall, mid-thirties with dark hair
below her shoulders and a heart-shaped face with eyes as green as new grass.
She frowned and then returned to the cutting table.
The last thing on her mind was finding love. Her high school
sweetheart had gone to prison for killing his dad, and when she took a chance on
love again and married at nineteen, within two years her husband had killed a
man over drugs and gone to prison for life. She wound up divorced at twenty-one
and shamed in the eyes of the residents of Rebel Ridge by association alone.
Her saving grace had been a family who didn’t believe in
quitting. Her grandfather Walker, who was in his last days in a nursing home,
gave her his house. Having a place to call her own and a family that always had
her back saved her. They were fiercely protective of each other, and she was
grateful every day for her brothers: Ryal, a master carpenter, James, who farmed
and was the mail carrier on Rebel Ridge, and Quinn, an army vet and a Back
Country Ranger in the Daniel Boone National Forest.
The only real skill she had was sewing, which was what she
turned to in the dark days after her divorce. She went back to quilting during
that self-imposed exile because it was a solitary task, and when she had
finished the first quilt, in a way, she’d finished grieving for her failed
marriage, as well.
Her father died a short while afterward, and her mother, Dolly,
gave up their family home to Ryal, the oldest son, and moved in with Meg. They
were together for the next fourteen-plus years, until just over a year ago, when
Dolly remarried and moved out to her new husband’s home. For the first time in
her life, Meg Lewis was finally living alone.
These days the sad song’s message had no place in Meg’s world.
She didn’t have an unrequited love and wasn’t looking for a new one, although
there were times when the loneliness of living alone got to her. The song ended
just as a gust of wind popped the screens on the outside of the house.
Though the window shades were down and the curtains drawn, she
quickly glanced toward the window. For her own peace of mind, she had to make
sure there was no one outside. She laid down the scissors and, without turning
on more lights, went into a darker part of the house to look out, remembering
the odd things that had been happening around the place.
The first time she’d noticed something was wrong was when she
went to feed the chickens and the feed bucket was not in the shed where she’d
left it. At first she’d blamed herself for being absentminded, but when she
finally found it sitting outside near the water faucet, she was shocked. Because
of the small pinholes in the bottom, she never carried water in that bucket.
The next incident happened days later, just before dawn, when
she was awakened by thumping and banging outside her window. When she got up and
looked out, she saw her milk cow grazing in the yard. She grabbed her bathrobe
and a flashlight, slipped on a pair of tennis shoes and headed outside,
muttering beneath her breath.
The cow looked up, recognized Meg’s voice and then took another
bite of the sweet green grass underneath the old tire swing.
“Daisy! Get!” Meg shouted.
The cow lowed softly before ceding to Meg’s insistence and
headed back toward the barnyard at a jog with Meg right behind her, yelling and
waving the flashlight to get her through the gate.
The unsettling part for Meg was discovering the loop of rope
used to fasten the gate had not broken as she’d assumed. The moment she saw the
clean-cut ends, she remembered the bucket that had gone missing. She stared in
disbelief, then, in sudden panic, swung her flashlight into the darkness, but
she neither saw nor heard anything unusual.
Her hands were shaking as she pulled the belt from her bathrobe
and used it to tie the gate shut, then hurried back toward the house. Once
inside, she grabbed her daddy’s rifle and a handful of shells and headed back
out to the porch. She loaded the gun, then sat watch in the porch swing until
the sun came up, wishing old Blue were still alive and lying at her feet.
Once she could see, she got dressed, made herself some
breakfast, then went outside, still carrying the rifle, and began looking for
tracks.
She found them coming out of the woods behind the barn and then
going back the same way. From the size of the shoe print, it was hard to decide
whether it was a teenager or a small man. She wanted to believe it was some
stupid kid thinking how funny it would be to bug her since she now lived
alone.
The problem was that there weren’t any teenagers within five
miles of her place, which shot a big hole in that theory. She didn’t know of a
one who would willingly trek through five miles of forest in the dark just to
play a trick. Drive, yes. Walk, no.
Later, as she was doing the morning chores outside, she kept
trying to decide what to do. Once she told her family, her brothers would raise
hell until this was solved. She hated to disturb their lives over something that
most likely didn’t amount to anything, but, at the same time, she didn’t like
feeling uneasy in her own home. By the time she took the fresh milk into the
house to strain up, she’d calmed down and convinced herself it was nothing to
bother anyone about.
Still, when dark came she put the loaded rifle near the
headboard of her bed, just in case. The next four nights came and went without
incident, and she convinced herself that whatever had been going on was
over.
Now she wasn’t so sure. She hated that just the noise of the
wind had rattled her sense of security. She looked out through all the windows
but saw nothing that seemed to warrant concern.
The yard was as dark as the night sky. No moon. No stars. Just
an occasional flash of distant lightning—a promise of the storm to come. She
paused to watch as a possum waddled up the steps and onto the porch, sniffing
around the pots of plants and then checking beneath the porch swing before
waddling back down the steps.
She smiled. The swing was her favorite site for a retreat from
work, the place where she often drank her iced tea and ate a snack, which was
usually a couple of her homemade cookies. The possum was obviously looking for
cookie crumbs. After a final sweep of the yard, she felt confident that all was
well and went back to the sewing room with an easier feeling, anxious to finish
what she’d started before going to bed.
A few days ago she’d been digging through some old quilt
patterns and found one called Storm at Sea that had belonged to her granny
Foster. She’d never seen that pattern made into a quilt and was anxious to see
what the top would look like once it was pieced together.
The fabrics she had chosen were washable cottons—a plain,
bright white, two different shades of solid blues and three different shades of
blue prints to give the wavelike imagery needed for the design. The feel of
fabric in her hands was, for her, the equivalent of running her fingers through
jewels.
She picked up a length of fabric with tiny navy blue flowers on
a pale blue background and unfolded it, sliding it onto her cutting table,
smoothing it out, folding it just so, methodically laying on the pieces of
pattern.
Over the years her fascination with color and texture had
garnered her a reputation as a craftswoman of some note, and now her name among
quilters was synonymous with quality. But it had come after years at the task.
She had four special orders finished and waiting to be shipped, and one still on
the quilting frame.
The wind popped the screen again. She shuddered but made
herself focus. She’d never been afraid to be alone and wasn’t going to start
now. After cutting out the last of the pieces for the new quilt top, she locked
up the house, took a shower and crawled into bed.
* * *
Meg woke just after daybreak but lay in bed with her
eyes still closed, thinking about the day ahead. She was considering the idea of
rolling over and catching another hour of sleep when she heard a board creak.
She’d lived in this house long enough to know that the only time that sound
happened was when people walked just behind the kitchen table.
Someone was in the house!
Panic shot through her so fast she almost lost her breath as
she threw back the covers and grabbed the rifle. She ran out into the hall in
her nightgown and bare feet, carrying the rifle waist high and ready to fire.
All of a sudden she heard the sound of breaking glass and then the back door
slam.
Whoever it was had heard her coming and was making a run for
it!
She ran down the hall, through the living room, into the
kitchen, then out the back door as fast as her long legs would carry her. She
caught a glimpse of movement at the edge of the tree line and fired, then leaped
off the porch, firing as she ran, until the rifle was empty and her heart was
hammering against her rib cage so hard she thought she was going to pass
out.
The sound echoed within the quiet of the morning, sending the
milk cow racing toward the pasture and the chickens flying about inside the
coop.
“Run, you coward, run!” Meg screamed, and then stopped near the
fence and began to shake.
It wasn’t until the bottoms of her feet began to burn that she
looked down past the hem of her nightgown and saw blood between her toes.
“Just what I need,” she muttered, then gave the trees one last
look and headed back to the house, limping from the pain.
As soon as she stepped up on the porch she saw that the lock on
the back door had been jimmied. Once inside, she shoved a chair beneath the
doorknob, then turned to scan the mess the intruder had left behind. The floor
near the dining table was scattered with water, wildflowers and broken
glass.
What the hell? He’s breaking into my house
to leave flowers? What’s next...climbing into my bed?
She’d run right through the debris without feeling a thing,
which said a lot for what a surge of adrenaline could do to a body. But this
time there was no question of whether she would call for help. She hobbled
across the floor with the rifle, leaving bloody footprints as she went. Her
fingers were still trembling as she picked up the phone. Her mother and her new
husband, Jake Doolen, were too far away to be of immediate help. James and Quinn
would already have left for work. That left Ryal, who worked from home.
She made the call, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath,
willing herself not to cry. But when she heard his voice, her best intentions
were not enough.
“Hello.”
“Ryal, it’s me. I need you. Can you come over now?”
Ryal heard the fear in her voice. “What happened, Meggie? Are
you hurt?”
“A little.”
“Do you need to go to the hospital?”
“I don’t know...maybe.”
“I’ll be right there, honey. Hang on.”
“One more thing,” she said.
“What’s that, Meggie?”
“Bring your gun.”
She heard a swift intake of breath, and then there was a growl
in his voice that made the hair rise on the back of her neck.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here,” she said, and then hung up
the phone.
* * *
Ryal’s heart skipped a beat as he disconnected. “Beth!
Beth!”
His wife came out of the kitchen drying her hands. “Ryal, what
on earth?”
“Something’s happened to Meg. Get the baby and our first-aid
kit.”
“Oh, my God. Oh, no...should we call Dolly and Jake?”
“Not until I know what to tell them,” he said, and started out
of the room.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“The last thing Meg said was to bring my gun.”
Beth’s face paled, but she spun into action. She filled the
diaper bag with stuff she might need, grabbed their toddler, Sarah, who was
still in her high chair, eating breakfast, and picked up the first-aid kit on
the way out of the house.
Ryal took the baby out of Beth’s arms and buckled her in the
car seat as Beth tossed the other stuff onto the floorboard of their SUV. The
baby was unhappy at being separated from her food and started to cry, stopping
only when Beth handed her a cookie.
Ryal drove as fast as he dared. He couldn’t imagine what the
hell had happened, but he knew it was serious. Meg was the oldest of his
siblings and not the kind of woman who panicked.
He glanced at Beth. She was tight-lipped and staring out the
windshield. He knew she was remembering a time when she’d been in danger and on
the run. His family had come through for her then, and they would come through
for Meg now, whatever was going on.
“Do you want me to call Dolly now?” Beth asked.
“Let’s find out what happened first, but call Quinn.”
“What about James?”
“He’s on his mail route, and his cell phone only works
intermittently out there. We’ll talk to him later.”
“Got it,” Beth said, and quickly put in a call to Quinn, hoping
it would go through.
Moments later she heard him answer.
“This is Walker,” he said shortly.
“Quinn, it’s me, Beth. Hang on. Ryal needs to talk to you.”
She handed the phone to Ryal and turned her attention to the
baby in the back.
“Hey, Quinn, where are you right now?”
“Just leaving headquarters, why?”
“Meg called me a few minutes ago. She’s hurt, and Beth and I
are on the way there now. I don’t know what happened, but she sounded rattled as
hell, and you know how much it would take to make that happen.”