Next of Kin (17 page)

“Have you lived here long?” Moe asked.

“All my life.”

“Great. Maybe you can help me. I’m looking for someone who lives in a town called Rebel Ridge. Do you know where it is?”

SueEllen’s smile didn’t disappear, but it didn’t get bigger, either.

“It sounds familiar. Who you looking for? If I know the name, I can probably tell you where they live.”

Moe hesitated. He hadn’t planned on divulging the name of the family he was searching for, but he needed to satisfy Pappas within a reasonable period of time.

“I’m looking for a family by the name of Venable. Have you heard of them?”

“Hey, SueEllen! Pickup!”

The waitress held up a finger. “Hold that thought. Your order’s ready.”

SueEllen’s mind was racing as she went to the pass-through to pick up the order. Her mother was one of Sam Venable’s sisters. Beth was her first cousin. The whole family knew about what had happened to her. They also knew she was in hiding somewhere up on the mountain. The way SueEllen looked at it, the only strangers who would be trying to find her family were up to no good.

She took a deep breath and picked up the order, then sashayed back with a big smile on her face.

“Here you go! Nice and hot. You gonna want ketchup with those fries?”

“Yeah, sure, why not?” Moe said.

She scooped up a ketchup bottle from a nearby table and set it in front of him.

“Now, then…you said you’re looking for the Venables, right?”

Moe nodded as he took a big bite of the burger, then groaned in ecstasy, trying to remember why he’d gone vegan in the first place.

SueEllen pulled out her order pad and a pen, and began writing.

“When you leave here, you need to keep going east on Interstate 64. When you connect to Highway 32 outside of Morehead, head north.”

Moe stuffed a forkful of fries in his mouth, talking as he chewed. “You sure about that?”

“Yep, I’m sure. I’m real sure. Here, I wrote it down for you.”

“Thanks a lot,” he said.

“No problem. If you need anything else, just holler.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said, already sidetracked by the food.

He wolfed the burger and fries down without thought as to what it would do to his digestive system later, washed it down with water, then chased it with the refill SueEllen poured for him. She left the bill on his table as she walked away.

Moe looked at the ticket. $7.13. Holy crap. This would be fifteen bucks at least back in L.A., or more, depending on where you ate it. He laid a twenty on the table.

SueEllen called out, “Ya’ll drive safe now.”

Moe didn’t respond as he headed back to his car. The sun was already sending heat waves up off the pavement like mini desert mirages. He couldn’t wait to get inside and turn on the air-conditioning. As soon as he had the car going and the AC jacked up to high, he entered the directional info into his GPS. The fact that it didn’t register as he’d expected concerned him, but this was a blind hunt in more ways than one.

SueEllen watched until the car had disappeared, then grabbed her cell phone.

“Hey, Justin! I’m going outside to make a call. Be right back.”

With no other customers in the café, the cook nodded an okay. She made a beeline for the back door and the nearest shade tree to make the call, then nervously counted the rings before she got an answer.

“Hello?”

“Granny Lou, this is SueEllen.”

“Hi, sugar, how’s your mama feeling since that kidney stone passed?”

“Better, thank you. I called to tell you something. A stranger stopped in here asking about Rebel Ridge and the Venable family.”

Lou gasped. “Oh, no! What did he look like? What was he driving?”

“He was a skinny, middle-aged white guy driving a rental. Don’t worry. I sent him on a wild-goose chase. He’s gonna wind up real lost.”

SueEllen could hear Lou’s smile as she answered, “Way to go, sugar. I’ve got to let the others know. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Satisfied that she’d done her part to keep a cousin safe, SueEllen couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take that man to figure out he was going in the wrong direction, and then she hoped he didn’t come back all pissed and looking for her for what she’d done.

It took less than two hours for Moe’s belly to start cramping and about a half hour more before he began to break out in a cold sweat. All he could taste was the grease on his tongue from that burger and fries. He knew he was going to throw up. It was only a matter of time. When the urge finally hit, he was still on the interstate. He pulled off the highway onto the shoulder of the road and jumped out just as the first wave of nausea hit. He bent over with a groan and hurled up the burger from Frankie’s Eats, along with a good portion of the fries. One wave after another came and went, until there were nothing but dry heaves, before he collapsed against the car. His legs were shaking, and his belly was still cramping.

He didn’t know if it was food poisoning or the fact that red meat and grease had not passed his lips in such quantity in years.

Just when he thought the worst was over, he got cramps of another kind and knew his troubles were about to get worse. He tore through the car looking for something to use for toilet paper and then bolted for the woods lining the road.

It was dark by the time he reached another town of any size. He rented a room at the first motel he came to, locked the door behind him as he entered and then collapsed on the bed in exhaustion, only to be revisited again throughout the night by a repeat of his afflictions. On his fourth trip, he staggered toward the bathroom with a vow on his lips.

“Just let me live through this and I swear to God I’ll never touch red meat again.”

Twelve

T
he swing on the back porch had become Beth’s go-to place when she wanted to think. There was something inherently calming about the back-and-forth motion. Not that the old Foster house was all that noisy, but being in Ryal’s presence made thinking impossible. All she thought about when she was with him was the years that they’d missed.

She longed for a drawing pad to sketch him, even though she knew she would never be able to capture the true essence of the man. The strongest part of his allure wasn’t in his physical appearance, although that was exceedingly fine. It was his soul that drew her closest.

He made love to her with all the ferocity of the storm that had broken down the last walls of their resistance. His tenderness was evident in his caress, in his gaze, in the slow, sensual strokes of the hairbrush he ran through her hair. Everything about him was perfection in her eyes, just as it had been when the love between them was new and fresh. They could never get back the ten years they’d lost, but she would happily settle for sharing the rest of his life.

What she didn’t know was how Ryal felt about her. She knew he liked to make love
to
her, but she didn’t know if he was still in love
with
her. And with the danger hanging over her head, now was not the time to ask.

The swing was slowly coming to a stop, so she pushed off again with the toe of her shoe, giving it new momentum. The sudden squeak of the chains holding it to the ceiling of the porch sent a squirrel in a nearby tree into a frenzy. It scampered farther up the tree before it began scolding her in a high-pitched tone that made her smile.

Again she wished for a drawing pad and some pencils. In her mind, she could already see the little creature coming to life on the page, right down to the indignant twitch of its tail. Aunt Tildy’s ointment was healing her wounds nicely, but her hands were still too tender to hold a pencil, so there was no use asking for someone to bring them up on the next grocery run.

Suddenly something banged inside the house. Beth heard footsteps and then the sounds of voices. Quinn must have been up, which was strange, because he usually slept through most of the day. Worried that something had happened, she got up and went back inside.

Ryal was in the front of the house, sanding down the bottom step that he’d replaced. After this was over, he was thinking about coming back up here and giving the old place a new coat of paint. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.

He could hear the occasional squeak of the chain holding up the porch swing out back and guessed Beth was in it. She’d taken to spending a lot of her time out there. He knew she was still dealing with a lot of guilt about her friend Sarah’s murder and had purposefully left her alone. The old Beth would have come running to him with all her problems, but this Beth was a woman grown and had a mind of her own. He was surprised by how much he liked that.

Just as he was sanding off the last rough corner, his cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID. It was Beth’s grandmother.

“Hello.”

“Hey, Ryal, it’s me.”

He smiled. Lou and cell phones had not made an acquaintance, and he doubted they ever would. She still used the old landline and a phone that had seen better days—definitely not one with caller ID.

“What’s up?”

“I called to warn you.”

Ryal’s heart skipped. “About what?”

“SueEllen called me. You remember she works down in Boone’s Gap, at Frankie’s Eats?”

“Yes, ma’am, I remember.”

“So she had a customer today, a stranger, asking how to get to Rebel Ridge. She said he was a skinny, middle-aged white man driving a rental. ’Course you know the whole family is aware of what happened to Bethie, so she led him into talking until he admitted he was looking for the Venable family.”

“Well damn,” Ryal muttered. “Excuse my language.”

“No need on my account,” she said. “A similar thought went through my mind.”

“What did she tell this guy?” Ryal asked.

“She sent him on some wild-goose chase that’ll take him a long way from here. Eventually he’ll figure out he’s going the wrong way, but now we can assume those people who are looking for Bethie have figured out she might have come home.”

“I was hoping this wouldn’t happen,” Ryal said.

“So was I, but I’m not surprised. Anyone who dug into her background would eventually learn where she grew up.”

“Right. Okay, thank you for the warning, Lou, but now I’m a little uneasy about you. I don’t like to think about someone knocking on your doorstep asking questions. Maybe you should go stay with one of your daughters and her family until this is over.”

“Certainly not! I won’t be run out of my own house. I’ll be fine. You just take good care of my girl. That’s all I ask.”

“I’ll do that for sure. We’ll be in touch.”

He dropped the phone in his pocket and ran into the house. A gust of wind caught the door as it swung shut behind him, slamming it shut. He winced, hoping the sudden noise hadn’t awakened Quinn. Even though he wanted him up, he didn’t want to scare him awake. But when Quinn came out into the hall with his rifle in his hand, Ryal realized that was exactly what he’d done.

“Sorry, brother. The wind caught the door as I was coming inside. I was going to wake you, but not like that.”

Quinn’s heart was still pounding from the sudden instinct for survival that had kicked in. He’d grabbed his rifle without thought. Now he leaned it against the wall.

“What’s up?”

“Lou Venable just called. SueEllen said a stranger came into Frankie’s Eats asking for directions to Rebel Ridge, then said he was looking for the Venable family.”

Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “How much time do we have?”

“I’d say quite a bit,” Ryal said. “SueEllen sent him on a wild-goose chase, but he’ll eventually figure out he’s going the wrong way and backtrack.”

“I’m getting dressed,” Quinn said. “Remember what we talked about?”

“You mean about setting traps along the way up?”

“Yes. There are traps, and then there are traps. I think it’s time to set some of mine.”

Ryal knew some of the stuff Quinn had learned in the military, but not nearly all of it. He had a feeling they were all in for a firsthand demonstration of what the United States Army had taught one of their own.

Beth walked into the hallway just as he turned around. She saw Quinn and Ryal standing head to head and the rifle leaning against the wall.

“What’s happening?”

Quinn picked up the gun and disappeared into the bedroom to dress.

When Ryal started toward her, she wanted to run away, fearing the answer he would give.

“There was a stranger down in Boone’s Gap looking for Rebel Ridge and the Venable family.”

“Oh, my God! They found me.” She felt the breath leave her body as everything went black.

Ryal jumped, then caught her just before she hit the floor and carried her across the hall into his bedroom. She was already coming to when he returned with a wet cloth, and when he put it on her forehead, she grabbed his wrist and pulled herself upright.

“I need to leave! I have to get out of here while there’s still time!”

Fear swept through him—fear that she would run in the mistaken belief it would keep both her and them safe. He pulled her into his lap.

“No, Beth. No, baby, your running is over. We’re all with you here. You’re not alone anymore.”

Beth felt sick. “But what happens when they find us? And they
will
find us,” she said, and then started to cry.

“Then we’ll be waiting,” Ryal said. “No one knows Rebel Ridge better than the people who live on it. Trust us, darlin’. Trust us to keep you safe. Promise me you won’t run again.”

She couldn’t stop shaking. “Lord, forgive me for being weak, but I promise,” she said, and hid her face against his shoulder.

“Don’t cry, Beth.”

“I can’t help it,” she sobbed. “I’m so tired of being scared. I want my life back. I want all this to be over. I need to give Agent Ames another call. He needs to make something happen, and fast, or I won’t be alive to testify.”

The thought was horrifying. “Don’t say that, woman. Don’t even talk about dying. I just got you back. I’m not going to lose you, not ever again.”