'Til Death (A Rebel Ridge Novel) (22 page)

“You’re scaring me, Linc.”

“No. It’s not that. I’ll tell you when I get there.”

When the line went dead in her ear, she headed for the living
room and stood at the window, watching for his truck. Within a few minutes Honey
was on her feet, looking down the road, and Meg knew he must be coming up the
drive. When he pulled up in the yard Honey barked, but her tail was wagging as
she went out to meet him. Meg watched him stop to pet the dog and then head
toward the house. Even when he got close enough that she could see his face, she
couldn’t read his expression.

She went outside, met Linc on the top step and kissed him
soundly. His cheeks were cold, but his lips were warm. And he was still in one
piece, which was a plus.

“Two warm welcomes. A man couldn’t ask for more,” he said
gruffly.

They walked into the house together; then he shed his coat and
hat and turned to face her.

“Sorry for being so mysterious, but I can’t decide whether to
laugh or cry.”

“Sit with me,” she said as she made her way to the sofa.

Linc sat down beside her. “The good news first. Got a phone
call from Marlow. Wesley Duggan confessed to his lawyer to lying on the stand.
Admitted it was Lucy who told him what to say. His lawyer sent Marlow a
notarized confession, along with the statement from Duggan that if this went
back to court, he was willing to testify and take the consequences for
perjury.”

Meg gasped. “Linc! That’s wonderful!”

He shrugged. “The bad news is that he was shot last night at
the motel where he’s been staying. Apparently he and Lucy have been living
apart, probably since I paid them that little visit. Remember I told you I had
the impression that he’d believed what he’d testified to? I guess he went back
and confronted her, and it hit the fan. Anyway, they life-flighted him to
Lexington. He’s in intensive care, and I don’t know anything about his
condition.”

She was stunned. “Dear Lord...what does that do to his
confession? Did they arrest Lucy?”

“Hardly. My impression is she’s trying to cover her ass by
claiming she was assaulted in her home. Supposedly the cops were at her house
taking the report when Wes was gunned down.”

Meg stood abruptly, then began to pace. “That’s pretty
convenient. Do you have any idea how severe her injuries were? Did she give any
description of the man who did it?”

“I don’t know anything about that. Marlow is following up.”

“Hang on a minute,” she said, and strode out of the room. She
came back carrying a notepad and sat back down beside him. “I hope you don’t
mind, but I roped Quinn into helping with that list you wanted. I kept running
into walls online, and without going through all the newspapers in the state for
that time period, which would probably take me months, this was the quickest
route. With Quinn’s job as a ranger, he has access to databases that a civilian
wouldn’t. And I want you to know he was happy to help, and he said he won’t
mention a thing about where you’re going with the information.”

Once again Linc was taken off guard by her family. “No, I don’t
mind. I’m just surprised he was willing to help.”

She smiled. “My family loves me, therefore whoever I love is
fine with them.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “Thank you for believing,
Meg.”

She gave him a quick kiss.

“You’re welcome,” she said, and handed him the pad. “I knew
you. It was easy. So this is what’s listed on the police books as unsolved
thefts with large amounts of money still missing.”

Linc glanced at the list and smiled. “Woman...you amaze me. You
are still my best backup.”

She smiled. “This is a little more serious than the tests we
studied for together.”

“It’s all relative. At the time, those were just as important,”
he said, starting to go through the list. “I think we can mark this one off.
Over a half-million dollars still missing from a Brinks armored truck robbery in
Louisville. If they’d stolen
that
kind of money,
they wouldn’t have had the sense to hide it.”

“I thought the same thing, but you wanted all the big ones.
This is one I thought looked promising.” She pointed.

Linc eyed the info she’d indicated. “A hundred-and-thirty-two
thousand still missing from a bank heist in Louisville. Considering Wendell was
alive then, I think they could have pulled off something like that and gotten
away with it.”

“But how would it play into your dad’s murder?”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure, but them coming into big money only
a couple of weeks before he was killed seems too coincidental to ignore.”

“What are you going to do with this information?”

“Ask Marlow for more help. If he can get details of the
robberies, something might show up that I’m not seeing.”

He set the list aside, smiled and pulled her into his lap.

She put her arms around his neck and kissed the side of his
cheek, then his ear, then his lips.

“It’s almost noon. I have a casserole in the oven. Do you have
time to stay and eat?”

“Yes, gratefully, and after I eat, I’m going to take this list
down to Marlow. The sooner he gets on this, the better. And he might have some
info for me on Lucy, too.”

“Why don’t you use my laptop and see what you can find out from
the Louisville papers? Do a Google search for the bank, theft and Louisville,
and see what pops up? We can take that info to Marlow, too.”

“We?”

Meg nodded. “I’m in this with you, Linc. You don’t need to
stand alone anymore.”

He couldn’t speak. He just wrapped her in his arms and held
her.

The silence was as telling to Meg as their lovemaking had been.
She had never felt more loved.

* * *

Lucy tried to roll over in her hospital bed and then
groaned from the pain. She had four stitches in her head, two cracked ribs, a
fractured jaw, and she was bruised over half her body. One eye was swollen shut,
her lips were twice their normal size, and one nostril still continued to seep
blood.

The bruising on her face was turning a darker purple with every
hour, and it even hurt to blink. She was miserable, but at the same time happier
than she’d been in days. The only thing that would have made it perfect was if
Wes would hurry up and die.

The cop who had broken the news to her about the shooting
hadn’t given her much hope that he would pull through. She’d wailed loud and
long, and he’d been apologetic that he’d had to be the one to give her the bad
news. What he didn’t understand was that she was crying because that bastard
wasn’t already dead.

On the plus side, the police had been at her house taking their
report when Wes was shot. Without a ballistic test for proof of the specific
gun, they did know that he’d been shot with the same kind of weapon she was
claiming had been taken during her assault. It was the perfect alibi. She had
told them that she and Wes had been arguing, and that he’d moved out of the
house after a fight. And she’d already explained that the intruder had taken her
gun from her, but that she didn’t know what else was taken because she’d been
unconscious when the intruder left. The fact that she’d just received the news
of the recent death of her brother gave an even bigger boost to her claims of
grief. The only thing that she’d changed from what she and Prince had decided
was the description of her assailant. When they had asked her what he looked
like, she had opened her mouth to say a middle-aged, heavyset man with a
salt-and-pepper mullet, but what came out was a small, fortysomething man with
brown hair and a thin face. That description, except for the hair color, would
have fit either one of her brothers. Even now she didn’t know why she’d done it,
but it was her belief that the closer you stayed to the truth when you were
being deceptive, the easier it was to make people believe you.

The police guessed from the condition of her bedroom and the
office that things must have been stolen but were waiting for her to give them a
complete list of the stolen goods. It didn’t appear that the man had come to rob
her, because there were bigger things in the house he could have taken. It
appeared that he had turned robber on the spur of the moment, since his main
target had been Wes.

As she was waiting for the pain to subside, she heard a knock
on her door. Thinking it must be one of her friends, she was arranging herself
as she watched it open. A middle-aged woman was standing in the doorway.

“I’m so sorry to disturb you, but are you Lucy Duggan? Wesley
Duggan’s wife?”

“Yes, yes, I am,” Lucy said, and then tried to sit up as the
woman came toward the bed.

“Please, don’t get up,” the woman said, and handed Lucy an
envelope.

Lucy moaned as she took it. “What is this?”

“Divorce papers, Mrs. Duggan. You’ve just been served.”

The woman pivoted quickly and left before Lucy could take a
breath.

“No,” Lucy muttered, and quickly opened the envelope and
unfolded the contents.

She couldn’t believe it. That sorry bastard had acted faster
than she’d expected. Her hands were shaking as she scanned the pages, trying to
read with only one eye. The words were blurry, but she saw enough to realize
things weren’t quite as simple as they’d been five minutes earlier. Then another
couple of pages fell out from the stack, separate from the divorce proceedings.
She unfolded them, saw they were from their lawyer and began to read.

Dear Mrs. Duggan,

Since I am representing your husband in these divorce proceedings,
you will need to retain separate counsel. You understand that even though I have
been counsel for both of you in the past, I cannot represent you now. Also,
please be advised that your access to all moneys and property will be frozen
until the terms of the settlement can be reached.

At my client’s request, I am enclosing a copy of a notarized
letter he has sent to the sheriff in the county where Marcus Fox was murdered. A
copy has also gone to the district attorney in the district where the trial
against his son, Lincoln Fox, was held. Again, I urge you to retain counsel at
your earliest opportunity. It appears you will be needing it.

Sincerely,

Dwight B. Simpson, Esquire

Lucy read Wes’s statement in growing disbelief. When she got to
the end, her heart slammed against her chest with such a thud that for a moment
she thought it had stopped. She choked and then coughed as she struggled to
catch her breath, her mind in an all-out panic. He’d confessed to lying on the
stand, and said that when he’d confronted his wife to ask if she’d been telling
him the truth about Marcus and Lincoln Fox’s relationship she’d admitted to him
it was a lie. She didn’t know what to think, what to do. After everything she’d
just endured, was she going to be too late to save herself?

Should she run or play dumb? She was a damn good liar, but
convincing a jury of her innocence, even though she had not been present when
her husband was murdered, wasn’t going to be easy. Not when they found out she’d
been fucking her husband’s best friend and he’d just admitted he’d testified to
her lie and pointed the finger of guilt at an innocent boy.

She’d worked so hard to climb out of the poverty into which
she’d been born, and everything had been perfect—as perfect as she could ever
have wanted it to be. Damn Lincoln Fox forever for coming back where he didn’t
belong.

The phone at her bedside began to ring. She didn’t know whether
to answer it or not. If it was more bad news, she wasn’t sure she could take it.
But it continued to ring until she finally picked it up. “Hello?”

“It’s me.”

A tear slid from the corner of her good eye and rolled down the
curve of her cheek as she recognized Prince’s voice. She began to whisper her
news in frantic bursts of information.

“He’s still alive, but he’d already confessed to his lawyer and
filed for divorce. I was just served papers. They also a copy of his confession
of perjury. It’s already gone to the sheriff and the district attorney.”

The silence on the other end of the line was unexpected.

“What are we going to do?” she asked, and then started to
cry.

She was shocked when the line went dead in her ear. But the
moment it did, the fear she’d been feeling increased a hundredfold. The only
thing Wes had ever known about the crime was the story he told on the stand. He
had no idea who she was protecting. She was the only person not involved in the
actual murder of Marcus Fox who knew the guilty parties and the reason why it
had happened. Would her brother get rid of whoever else he needed to in order to
keep himself out of prison, even if it meant killing one of his kin?

In a heartbeat.

Lucy closed her eyes and eased down against her pillows,
willing herself to a calm she didn’t feel. There was still a way out of this.
She just needed to figure it out.

A minute passed, and then another. She could hear trays banging
and people talking out in the hall, going about their daily lives as if nothing
was wrong. How could such mundanity still exist when her world was crashing down
around her ears?

And then it hit her. It was so brilliant that if she hadn’t
been so sore, she would have patted herself on the back.

She looked toward the door and then began buzzing for the
nurse. They needed to notify the police that she’d just received a threatening
phone call from her assailant.

Within twenty minutes her room was crawling with cops. One was
standing guard outside her door, and detectives Kennedy and Tate, who were
working both Wes’s shooting and her assault, were standing by her bed.

Lucy knew she looked worse than she had last night when she’d
been admitted, which put the cops in her emotional corner. And she’d been crying
nonstop since the threatening phone call, which only added to her pitiful state.
A nurse was standing right there, monitoring her blood pressure as they began to
interrogate her.