Dead Right (44 page)

Hunter had been right al along. Her father, the beloved pastor of the Purity Church of Christ, had been a pedophile, the worst of sinners. And the Montgomerys had kil ed him.

Ray had fal en to the floor and was clutching his shoulder, moaning.

“Who was he, real y?” she asked in bewilderment.

She didn’t expect an answer. He was in too much agony.

But he managed one, anyway. “The most selfish man…I’ve ever known.” He cursed, then sucked in a deep, audible breath. “He…liked ’em young.’ Bout twelve or so. But…

Katie and Rose Lee were just playthings. Grace…he loved.”

Madeline winced at the memory of the words her father had written in the margins of his Bible. He’d praised Grace’s beauty and innocence and talked about how much he loved her. Under the circumstances, Madeline couldn’t help interpreting those words differently than she ever had before. Sickened, she covered her face. She didn’t want to hear any more. “Give me your keys.”

He didn’t respond.

“Give me your keys! I’l go for help.”

The sound he emitted was part groan and part laugh. “I don’t want…the kind of help you’l be bringing.”

“Then you’re going to die,” she told him.

“That’d be…better than…prison.”

She dropped the ax and pressed a hand to her own injury to stanch the bleeding. “I stil need those keys.”

She thought she saw the whites of his teeth as he grinned at her. “Fine. They’re in…my front pocket. Feel free…to reach down there…and fish around.”

She’d wait until he passed out, tie him up and then take the keys, she decided. But she didn’t have to wait. The sound of a car engine drew her to the front window, where she saw headlights coming through the trees.

Standing in the open doorway, she watched dispassionately as Clay’s truck came to a stop. It was over.

She’d survived.

But the whole world had changed. Ray was not the upstanding citizen she’d always thought. Her father hadn’t been a man of God. He hadn’t been worthy of her love or respect. Her stepmother and stepsiblings weren’t innocent.

And she was in love with a man she’d met just a few days earlier, a man who probably wasn’t ready to love her back.

She glanced behind her at the bleeding Ray. She’d done that to him, although she’d never dreamed she’d be capable of such a thing.

Even she was different now than she’d been a week ago.

“Thank God I listened to you,” Clay murmured to Hunter.

Clay hung back a few steps as the investigator approached the cabin. He didn’t know how Madeline would greet him, was afraid to learn what had happened before they’d been able to find her.

Madeline didn’t move forward, didn’t rush into his arms as Clay wished she would. Her eyes flicked toward Hunter and, for a moment, she looked as if she might crumple. But she didn’t. Clay saw her stiffen and squint against the harsh glare of the headlights as she turned her attention to him.

“Madeline?” Hunter said hesitantly, gently.

“He got the worst of it.” She stood there unmoving, her hair tangled and matted. Mascara ran down her face in tracks that showed the path of earlier tears, one eye was swol en, both corners of her mouth were cut, and she had an injury on one arm. She looked like she’d been through hel . And there was blood everywhere, on her clothes and arms, on the floor.

Hunter shook his head. “I knew he’d visited that site for a reason.”

But if they hadn’t—at Hunter’s insistence—pul ed off the road to use a pay phone and spoken to Brian Shulman, they never would’ve found it.

Hunter touched her elbow. “Where is he?”

“Inside,” she said, staring directly at Clay.

Clay cleared his throat, overwhelmed by the relief he felt for her, as wel as al the other emotions wel ing up inside him. “So you’re okay?” he asked, bracing for the rejection he expected.

Tears fil ed her eyes and spil ed down her cheeks, making fresh lines through the smudged mascara.

“Tel me you’re okay,” he murmured.

“Where’d you put his body?” she asked point-blank.

She was talking about her father, of course, not Ray. The moment Clay had long been expecting had final y arrived.

He glanced at Hunter, hoping for a few minutes of privacy, but he didn’t have to spel that out. Hunter was already slipping past her to find Ray. A second later, Clay could hear them talking, but what he cared about was happening right here, so he didn’t bother listening.

“Are you going to tel me?” she asked.

Clay had never trusted another soul with the truth about that terrible night. Except Al ie. But the truth was al he had to offer now. “Behind the barn.”

She bit down on her knuckles. Clay wanted to pul her to him, to help her bear the pain and disappointment, the same way they’d dealt with other problems since they’d become family. But this time he was the source of that pain and disappointment.

“The police searched the entire yard.”

“I’d already moved him.”

He was grateful she didn’t ask where. He knew it would be too upsetting to her. “Why’d you do it? Why not go to the police?”

“It wasn’t something we planned, Maddy.”

“Tel me what happened.”

“It was an accident.” After al the lies, he wasn’t sure if she’d believe him, so he tried to explain. He couldn’t shelter her from the truth, not anymore. “Mom caught him with Grace, doing—you know what he was doing, right?”

More tears fil ed her eyes, but she blinked them back and lifted her chin. “I know what he was doing.”

Clay nodded and continued. “When she said she was going to turn him in, he got mad and started hitting her.”

Clay thought Madeline might argue or insist her father would never strike a woman, but she didn’t.

“So you got involved,” she said dul y.

“Yes.” The memories were stil so fresh it felt like only yesterday that he was digging the grave, mopping up the blood, lying to the police. “And when he turned on me, and the violence got out of hand, Mom panicked and hit him over the head with the butcher block.”

“That’s it?”

He hated the agony he saw on her face but couldn’t do anything about it. “That’s it. She didn’t mean to kil him. Only to get him off me.”

Her voice fel to a tortured whisper. “But if it was an accident, why didn’t you cal the police, Clay? Why would you hide something like that?”

“Do you think we should’ve cal ed them up and told them their town’s esteemed preacher was a pedophile, Maddy?

That we got into a fight over it and accidental y kil ed him?

Who would’ve believed us?”

She covered her face with her hands, but now that he’d begun, he had to tel her the whole truth.

“There was proof. He’d taken—” he struggled to break the news as gently as possible “—pictures of Grace. She told us about them afterward, and we found them in his office. But we couldn’t take them to the police. They would’ve used them to establish a clear and powerful motive. Almost everyone in Stil water was pressing the cops to put Mom or me in prison. And if that happened, you and Grace and Mol y would’ve been taken into foster care.

Our family would’ve been destroyed.”

She dropped her hands. “But you lied to me. You’ve lied to me al these years.
Everyone
knew but me.”

“We didn’t want you to
have
to know.”

Hunter had wrapped a blanket around Ray and was helping him to the door. “As worthless as this piece of shit is, we’ve got to get him to a hospital before he bleeds to death,” he said. “There’s no phone service here.”

“You’re going to do that by yourself?” Madeline asked anxiously.

“I’l tie him up. The way he’s bleeding, I doubt he’s capable of giving me any trouble but I won’t take any chances, okay?”

She hesitated, then stepped out of the way, her gaze trailing after the two of them. “It was me or him,” she said softly.

Taking a deep breath, Clay reached out to her. “I understand.”

Madeline stared at her stepbrother’s outstretched palm.

She felt so alone, so isolated. For two decades she’d been searching for what he and Irene, Grace and Mol y had known al along.

But…
Me or him.
Her stepfamily had had to make a similar choice, hadn’t they?

“I heard you…Clay,” Ray taunted as he limped past.

“You’re going to…prison with me. She’s…going to send us both…there.”

Madeline drew herself up. “What are you talking about, Ray? I didn’t hear Clay admit anything. Did you, Hunter?”

“Nope, not me,” Hunter said. Then Madeline slipped her hand inside her stepbrother’s and fel into his arms.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his voice choked with emotion.

She closed her eyes, reveling in the inherent strength of the man who’d stood between her and what could’ve happened had their family been torn apart. As hard as it must have been, he’d built and guarded the fortress that had protected them al , been there for her in every way he could. Despite what her father had done and the terrible secret he carried because of it, Clay had provided her with food, shelter and love. And he’d started doing that at only sixteen years old.

“I love you,” she whispered.

“Ray and I wil take his truck,” Hunter cal ed, using the ropes that had bound her to bind him. “You guys come when you’re ready.”

Madeline pul ed back, laughing a little as she dashed a hand across her wet cheeks. “Unfortunately, I love him, too,”

she said, speaking in a low voice so Hunter couldn’t hear her as he wrangled the keys out of Ray.

Clay retained his grip on her for a second longer. “You’re serious? You know that already?”

She nodded.

“He’s a good man,” he said thoughtful y. “One of the few who might be good enough for you.”

Hunter had a new picture on his phone. Every time he used it, he saw Madeline smiling back at him. It’d been three weeks since he’d left Mississippi, but he kept opening that phone and remembering.

He’d cal ed her once, just to make sure she was okay.

She sounded as if she was recovering, adjusting as wel as could be expected after her whole world had shifted off-kilter. But the conversation had been strained, with both of them wanting to say more than they did. Hunter didn’t see the point of trying to maintain a long-distance relationship, so he hadn’t cal ed her again. And yet…she was present in his thoughts al the time. When he closed his eyes, he could stil feel the soft skin of her neck against his lips as he’d felt it that night in her bed….

“I ran into Selena the other day,” Antoinette said, joining him at the restaurant table where he’d been waiting for her to get a coffee drink.

He put his phone away. His ex-wife had had another col agen treatment. One side was slightly more swol en than the other, but she’d lined her lips perfectly with a deep-pink pencil and fil ed them in with shiny gloss. With her long blond hair fal ing in wisps around her face, and that low-cut, tight-fitting white sweater, she reminded him of Pamela Anderson.

That was probably intentional. If he knew her, she’d brought Pamela’s picture to her plastic surgeon.

Hunter could tel the other men in the coffee shop were impressed. It was hard not to stare at a woman who had breasts that big. But to Hunter, Antoinette didn’t look pretty

—she looked plastic. A walking, talking Barbie dol . Maybe that was just because he knew what she was like under al the makeup and the trendy clothes. Anyway, she was nothing like the real, earthy woman he’d made love to in Mississippi.

“Hel o?” she said, clearly annoyed when he didn’t respond.

She’d mentioned Selena already. She brought up their old neighbor whenever she wanted to remind him of his shortcomings, general y right before she demanded a large concession. But it wasn’t going to work today. Mississippi had changed him. He wasn’t sure what had made the difference, but he was tired of apologizing for the past.

“What’d she have to say?” he asked indifferently.

“She asked about you, of course.”

“What’d you tel her?”

“That you’re the same cheating son of a bitch you always were.”

Hunter stretched his legs out in front of him. “I cheated—

once—because I was miserably unhappy.”

She straightened, obviously surprised by his frankness.

He’d always accepted the blame before, so this was something new. “Do you think being married to you was a picnic for me?” she retaliated.

He shrugged. “At least you wanted to be with me. I never wanted to be with you.”

Her eyelashes fluttered as she blinked. “You should’ve thought of that before you got me pregnant!”

“
Got
you pregnant? You
wanted
to get pregnant,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, we were both at fault.”

“Are you accusing me of trying to trap you?”

When her voice rose, a few people turned to stare.

Hunter ignored them. “Yes.”

“That’s a lie!”

“Is it?” He cocked a disbelieving eyebrow, but he wasn’t wil ing to argue about it. Antoinette would deny it to her dying day. “Regardless, it’s over, Antoinette. Al the extra money. Al the fighting. Al the games.”

Her mouth sagged open. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do. You’ve turned me into my own worst enemy. But I’m clean and sober now, and I’m going to stay that way. I’m also going to move on with my life. No more regret for failing at a marriage I didn’t want in the first place.

I can’t change the past.”

“That’s how you’re going to excuse your behavior?”

“I’m not excusing anything. If this was easy for me, I would’ve done it a long time ago.”

Appearing quite stunned, she set her drink down. “But—

but what about your daughter? Are you walking away from her, too?”

“I’l never walk away from her. I’l stay in touch, be patient and hope she eventual y changes her mind about me.”

“She’l never change her mind about you. Not if I can help it!”

It was a final jab, an attempt to drag him back onto the old, familiar battlefield, where she could continue to manipulate him through his love for Maria. “She’s a smart girl,” he said. “I trust that someday she’l figure it al out.”

He took the check he’d written for next month’s child support from his shirt pocket and slid it across the metal table. “Here you go,” he said. Then he got up and started to leave.