'Til Death (A Rebel Ridge Novel) (16 page)

“Lock up. Set your alarms. Call me if you need me,” he said,
and took the sack she handed him.

Then, just like that, he was gone. She watched until his
taillights disappeared, then set the alarm and moved about the house, securing
it for the night. It wasn’t late, but she was suddenly exhausted.

“I’m going to bed, Honey girl.”

The dog looked up when she heard her name, then followed Meg
down the hall and curled up on a rug beside the bed.

When Meg crawled between the covers she took comfort in Honey’s
soft snore. As she closed her eyes, the image of Lincoln’s face slid through her
mind. She sighed, wishing it was him snoring beside her and not her dog.

Eleven

F
agan drove home in something of a panic.
The windshield wipers swiped aimlessly at the downpour as he took the curves on
two wheels, coming dangerously close more than once to running off the road. He
was frustrated with himself for paying any heed to Prince and going to Meg
Lewis’s house. He’d known it would be a disaster, and yet he’d done it anyway.
Why, he wondered, was he made like that? Growing up, he’d been a shill for
whatever Wendell and Prince wanted done. It had always been a case of tell
Fagan, send Fagan, make Fagan do it. And he had yet to even contemplate what
could unravel with Lincoln Fox’s return. What he knew was that the Whites were
sitting on a powder keg and Fox had just struck the match.

By the time he got home he was bordering on tears. In the dark
and the downpour, the place looked like a Hollywood version of a haunted house.
No matter how dark it got, there was no hiding how dilapidated it had become. It
had been nice when Mama was still alive, but she was long gone, and the place
was falling down around their ears.

The hounds barked when he drove up and parked, and were still
barking as he jumped out on the run, slogging through the mud and puddles to get
to the porch.

“Shut the hell up!” he yelled.

They slunk off into the dark as he unlocked the door. He turned
on the lights as he went through the rooms, turned up the flame on the heat
stove, then stood shivering before it as he began shedding his wet clothes. His
skinny shanks were a pale, pasty white as he bolted down the hall, knowing a hot
shower and something warm in his belly would fix his immediate needs.

A short while later he came out in dry, somewhat-clean clothes
and a pair of mismatched house shoes—one blue plaid and one a solid
brown—because his dogs had chewed up the mates. He turned on the television and
upped the volume so that he could hear it from the kitchen as he worked.

As he dug through the pantry, it was apparent he should have
shopped for groceries instead of hanging out at the bar all day trying to drink
up enough courage to face Meg Lewis. The shelves were pitifully low on food.

Once he had coffee brewing and a can of chili heating on the
stove, he made a call to Prince, needing to inform his brother of the latest
development on Rebel Ridge, but, like always, Prince didn’t answer and the call
went to voice mail.

“Call me, damn it! There’s trouble afoot.”

* * *

Long after Meg had gone to bed, she lay sleepless and
staring up at the ceiling, going over and over the conversation she’d had with
Fagan White. Why would he lie about something so trivial? How did a dead dog
matter to the Whites, or the location of where it was buried? And did Prince’s
behavior have anything to do with what Fagan wanted to know?

She finally fell asleep, dreaming about Lincoln and cake and
crying in the rain as he drove away, begging him to come back. When she woke it
was already daylight and the rainstorm had passed. She threw back the covers and
began to get dressed.

The day after Thanksgiving was the beginning of Christmas
shopping, which also meant it was the first day of the annual Christmas
craft-and-quilt show in Lexington.

Today was Saturday. She needed to be packed and ready to leave
on Thursday morning. She would have to be at the fairgrounds on Friday before
daylight to set up her booth, but it was part of the fun, seeing other quilters
and crafters, and getting in a quick visit before the doors opened to the
public.

She got dressed, turned up the fires to warm the house back up
and headed to the kitchen to make coffee so that it would be done when she came
back from feeding the animals. As she was filling the carafe with water, she
noticed the notepad with Linc’s phone number written on it and smiled, thinking
of their days to come.

* * *

Linc went to bed with Meg on his mind, reliving every
bit of conversation they’d had and, for the first time in years, feeling hopeful
about his future. He’d nearly given up on ever having a wife and family, and was
so elated from the evening he’d spent with her that he could hardly close his
eyes. But he had a big day planned tomorrow and knew it wouldn’t be easy. Now
that he’d seen the reports on the fire from the police point of view, he wanted
to go back to the scene of the crime—to the place where his father had died. He
thought he wouldn’t sleep, but once he closed his eyes he slept like the dead
for the first time in months.

It was the frantic sound of a dog barking madly that woke him
up the next morning. It took a couple of seconds to remember he didn’t have a
dog, and then he ran to the utility room to look out the window.

The ground was white with frost, and three deer were grazing in
the clearing where the old house once stood. He had been dreaming after all. The
deer wouldn’t still be here if a dog had been barking that close to the house,
although the sound had seemed so real.

But now that he was up he shifted into mental gear. After a
quick trip to the bathroom he built a new fire and started the coffee. He was
having pineapple upside-down cake for breakfast, and at least a quart of coffee
as a chaser to buck him up for the day ahead.

Less than an hour later he was on the road and heading up the
mountain. The sun had yet to top the trees, deepening the shadows in the
underbrush. Lingering mist that had been low to the ground was head-high and
rising, giving the trip a ghostly feel. Spindly strands of gray smoke spiraled
upward from the chimneys of the houses as he passed. He thought of the families
just waking up and breakfasts being put on tables. It was Saturday, so no
school. He remembered watching cartoons on Saturday mornings and his mother
telling him to come eat before it got cold. She’d died right after his ninth
birthday, and he didn’t think of her often. Sometimes she didn’t even seem real.
It had always been him and his dad, the man who was his safe place to fall. That
people could ever have believed he would kill the father he worshipped was just
as inconceivable now as it had been then.

He passed Aunt Tildy’s house, saw smoke coming out of her
chimney and knew she was probably making biscuits and ham. He could almost taste
them. She did have a way with bread. As he drove on farther he passed the house
where Beulah Justice lived. There wasn’t any smoke coming out of her chimney.
Maybe Beulah was the kind who liked to sleep in.

When he finally reached the turnoff leading up to where his
parents’ house once stood he tapped the brakes, then accelerated into the turn.
It was immediately obvious that no one traveled this way anymore. Weeds and
grass had grown up in the middle of the old ruts, and the trees that had once
been saplings on either side of the road were so huge that their leafless
branches had come together, turning the road into a wood-roofed tunnel. He
hadn’t been back here since the night they’d taken him away in the ambulance,
and his heart was racing. He caught a glimpse of something darting out of the
brush behind him and glanced up in the rearview mirror just as a big deer
disappeared into the woods. Then he caught sight of himself and quickly looked
away. He wasn’t ready to see what he was feeling and knew it would be all over
his face.

All of a sudden he was out of the tunnel and coming up on the
site where the house had been. There was no longer a yard, just knee-high brush
and grass. The blackened timbers were nearly gone, long rotted away by time and
weather. But the natural rock fireplace that had once been the entire north wall
of the living room still stood, a sad monument to the family who’d lived and
died there.

He drove as close to the house site as he dared and then got
out, minding his step as he walked through the damp, frosty grass all the way to
the chimney. He stopped and then turned around, looking east out across the
overgrown meadow into the sun just topping the trees, and that flash of light in
his eyes brought back that night and the fire in a painful rush.

* * *

Fire! Oh, my God, our house is on
fire! Dad! Dad! Please, God, don’t let him be inside.

With adrenaline pumping, he got out on the
run, charging toward the house. There was a dog—a hound—barking somewhere
nearby, barking crazy loud like they do when they’re threatened.

We don’t have a dog.

He heard someone yell, “Shut the hell up!”
and then the world exploded.

* * *

Linc stumbled and caught himself on the chimney before
he fell. Now the weird dream he’d had this morning made sense. Knowing he was
coming here had released a memory from the past that he’d forgotten. He’d been
so concussed by the explosion and then in such complete shock at his ensuing
arrest that he’d completely forgotten he’d ever heard it.

But he was getting the picture now.

People on Rebel Ridge didn’t let their hunting dogs run free.
They considered them valuable property that could be in danger of being stolen
or sold. They usually kept them in the house, in a pen or tied up—unless, of
course, they were hunting.

Back then, their closest neighbor had lived five miles away,
but someone had been here that night—someone with a hound—watching the evidence
of their crime go up in flames. Even if it wasn’t the killer, he could have seen
who did it. But if he was innocent, then why hadn’t he ever come forward?

“Son of a bitch.”

Linc was so stunned he was shaking. Another puzzle piece thrown
onto the table, but where did it fit? So many questions. So many lies. And one
man’s lies had sent him straight to prison.
He
was
the one Linc wanted to talk to next.

He walked to the truck with his head down and drove away—all
the way down the mountain, straight into Mount Sterling. He stopped at a
convenience store to get the location of the Ford dealership and then kept on
going. When he pulled into the lot and up to the office, he killed the engine,
then couldn’t move. He sat with his fingers curled around the steering wheel so
tight that the knuckles were white, trying to get to a place in his head where
he could trust himself to talk.

Cars were coming and going around him, salesmen walking in and
out with prospective buyers. The lot was full of bright, shiny cars and lots of
colorful flags hanging from nearby poles. It appeared as if Wesley Duggan had
done well for himself.

When Linc could breathe without wanting to hit someone, he went
inside and began scanning the little offices at the back of the room, looking
for the man who’d betrayed him. When he finally spotted him in the last cubicle
to his right, he took a step forward, only to be cut off by a smiling salesman
with an outstretched hand.

“Hey there, how’s it going? I’m Kevin Collins. What’s your
pleasure today? Souped-up truck? SUV? Sports car? You want it, we’ve got
it.”

“I want to talk to Wes Duggan.”

The lack of a smile and the curt tone of Lincoln’s voice told
the salesman this man was pissed about something.

“Uh, yeah, right. Let me see if he’s got a minute, okay? Just
have a seat over there and I’ll—”

“I’ll wait here.”

Collins wasn’t going to argue with someone who made two of him.
He turned on his heel and headed for the boss’s office.

Linc watched the salesman knock and then step inside. He saw
him gesturing, saw Duggan look up, then through the glass at him. It wasn’t
surprising that Duggan didn’t recognize him. He was as far removed from that
scared seventeen-year-old boy as a man could be. So much the better. Shock value
was priceless.

Linc didn’t wait for permission. He just started walking. When
he got to the office he opened the door, then caught the salesman’s eye.

“Get out.”

All of a sudden Duggan was on his feet. “I don’t know who you
are, but you can’t come in here and talk to my employee like that.”

Linc smiled, but it never reached his eyes. “Why, what’s the
matter, Uncle Wesley? Don’t you recognize me?”

Wes Duggan gasped. His legs went out from under him as he sat
down in the chair with a thump. Still trying to maintain control, he cleared his
throat and then waved the salesman away.

“It’s okay, Kevin. You can go.”

Collins was still uneasy. “Are you sure? Do you want me to call
the police?”

Linc’s eyes narrowed warningly. “Yeah, how about that, Uncle
Wes? Do you want him to call the police?”

All the color washed out of Wes’s face. “No, no, that won’t be
necessary.”

Linc shut the door as Collins slipped out, then turned to face
the pasty-faced man on the other side of the desk and waited for him to make the
first move.

Wes was still trying to get a grip as he started a
conversation.

“I will say, I would never have recognized you, Lincoln. You’ve
grown into quite a large man.”

“Bigger than Dad,” Linc said softly.

Wes nodded. “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing toward a
chair.

“No, thanks. I won’t be here long.”

Wes’s heart was pounding. “I had no idea you were back. Are you
here for a visit, or—”

“I moved back to the homestead. Come spring, I’ll rebuild.”

Sweat was popping out on Wes’s forehead even though it was
almost chilly in the large building.

“That’s great news. What finally brought you back? I hope Aunt
Tildy’s all right? I’ve pretty much lost touch with everyone on Rebel Ridge
since—”

“Since you tucked my ass so neatly into prison and walked away
with Dad’s wife?”

Wes shivered. “It’s not like you think.”

“You don’t know what I think,” Linc said.

“You’re right, I don’t. But I hope you don’t hold a grudge
against me for—”

“Lying on the stand? Actually, I do. As a matter of fact, it’s
a real big grudge, and part of why I came back. I came back to clear my name. I
am doing my own investigation into Dad’s murder. And since you were one of the
prime reasons I was convicted, and we both know it was because you lied, you can
consider this meeting your first interrogation.”