'Til Death (A Rebel Ridge Novel)

by Sharon Sala

  “What the hell?”

  He caught movement from the corner of his eye and saw a falling star streaking across the sky. He watched as it burned out behind the treetops, just as he’d fallen from grace so many years ago. It was weird, hearing that alarm and the gunshots, then seeing that shooting star. If it was an omen, was it good luck or bad? Then he frowned at the absurdity of the thought. He didn’t believe in luck. He turned on his heel, swung the beam of light toward the door and went to see what the years had done to the place.

  He kicked aside scrub brush to gain access, only to find out that the door wouldn’t open. He finally managed to get the knob to turn, so at least he knew the door wasn’t locked, but it was obviously rusted shut. Using nothing but brute strength, he drew back and kicked, planting his size-fourteen boots squarely below the knob. The door rattled on its hinges. This time when he tried to open it, it gave way with a loud metallic screech, but when he aimed the flashlight inside he was beyond discouraged by what he saw. The room was full of debris, like the things a hoarder would have kept.

  His first thought was, no way in hell could he ever make the place habitable, but the longer he stood there, the more he began to see the possibilities. One good bonfire, followed by a power spray to disinfect the walls and floor, might change his opinion. But it wasn’t happening tonight.

  He shut the door and headed back to the truck, then decided to pull the trailer a little farther into the trees. It wouldn’t be entirely hidden, but, after hearing those shots, he felt the need to err on the side of safety. After he parked, he got his phone and wallet out of the truck and went into the trailer, then opted not to start up the generator and call attention to himself.

  Without power to hook up to, he lit a couple of candles, and then made a sandwich and dug out some chips. He was about to sit down to eat when he heard sounds outside. Remembering the earlier gunshots, he quickly blew out the candles and grabbed a hunting rifle out of the closet before moving to a window. Once his eyes adjusted to the dark, there was enough moonlight to show him a small herd of deer a short distance away. They were milling around as if settling in for the night. That must have been what he’d heard.

  Just as he was about to turn away the deer suddenly bolted. He tightened his grip on the rifle and began checking the perimeter, expecting to see a cougar, or maybe a bear hunting for a little more food before winter hibernation, but not the man who came running out of the trees.

  The man was of average height, wearing what looked like a leather biker jacket. His head was bare, because Linc could see the bounce and sway of his hair in the moonlight, but he was too far away for Linc to see his face. He watched as the man ran all the way across the clearing before disappearing into the forest.

  At that point Linc moved to the door. Just as he stepped out, he heard what sounded like a dirt bike start up and then speed off.

  The first thing that crossed his mind was that the man had something to do with the shots and the security alarm he’d heard. The timing was just about right. Frowning, he made a mental note to clear up the grass and brush as quickly as possible and let people know someone had taken residence here. Whatever was going on, he wanted no part of it. Rebel Ridge had always been a place for keeping secrets. It appeared that was still true.

  He went back inside, locked the door and felt his way through the trailer, undressing in the dark. He put the rifle on the floor beside the bed, then crawled between the covers. It had been a long day and a grueling drive. It didn’t take long to fall asleep, but sleep brought memories that turned into a horror from his past.

  * * *

  He’d been seventeen, and he and his grandpa Fox had been fishing at his grandpa’s pond all afternoon. It was almost dark before Grandpa began gathering up his pole and the stringer with the fish that they’d caught.

  “I think we’re done for the day, boy. It’s gonna get dark before we get all these fish cleaned.”

  Linc grinned. “You mean before I get all those fish cleaned. You haven’t cleaned a fish in years. For sure not since you taught me how.”

  Wayne Fox smiled. “Why do you think I taught you to do it?”

  They laughed and headed for the house.

  Linc cleaned all the fish and packed them up, saving back a few to leave with his grandpa, and headed home. He was about a quarter of a mile from home and thinking that since his stepmother, Lucy, was away, he would fry up the fish for himself and his dad. Lucy didn’t like the smell of fish in the house, but what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

  Meg Walker popped into his head then, as she often did when he was quiet. She was the love of his life, and he let his thoughts wander to where they might be this time next year after they were both out of school. He was dreaming about their future when he looked up and saw an orange glow over the treetops. It wasn’t until he’d turned up the driveway leading to his house that he realized it was a fire. He stomped the accelerator and tried not to panic. But the closer he got, the more frightened he became. By the time he arrived he had already figured out the house was on fire. Flames were coming out of the windows and burning through a hole in the roof. He expected to see his dad somewhere outside trying to fight the fire on his own, but he was nowhere in sight. The horror of what that might mean shot through him as he skidded to a sliding stop and jumped out of the old pickup, screaming for his father as he ran.

  He was only yards from the house when it suddenly exploded, throwing him back beyond his truck and knocking him unconscious. He woke up to someone saying his name and pouring water on his face. When he sat up, he could see people everywhere, silhouetted against the blaze. They’d formed a bucket brigade but had been too late to save the house, and now they were making a valiant effort to keep the fire from spreading into the nearby forest.

  * * *

  Linc struggled in his sleep, kicking the covers, and despite the cold air, he was bathed in sweat as the dream sucked him further into the past.

  * * *

  The ambulance ride to the hospital in Mount Sterling was a blur. Still suffering from shock and concussion, and so stricken with grief that he couldn’t do anything but cry, he barely noticed his grandpa and Aunt Tildy in his room. Grandpa was leaning over him, and Aunt Tildy was standing at the foot of the bed with a sad expression on her face.

  Later, getting the news that there wasn’t much left of his father’s body to bury was one thing, but learning Marcus Fox had been dead before the fire ever started left the family in shock.

  Linc was at his grandpa’s house, still recuperating, when the sheriff drove up and began an interrogation that left him reeling. The panic he was feeling came out in his speech—the short, jerky sentences between deep, painful breaths.

  “We didn’t fight. Dad and me...we didn’t have problems...Grandpa’s house...fishing all afternoon.”

  The fact that his grandfather corroborated the claim hadn’t seemed to matter later, when everything went to hell.

  Linc’s stepmother, Lucy, who had been on the other side of the state at a family funeral, was the next member of the Fox family to be interrogated, although she had an alibi nobody questioned.

  But it was Wesley Duggan, Marcus’s best friend and a man Linc considered a member of the family, who sealed his fate. When Wesley was interviewed, all of a sudden Linc’s status went from grieving son to prime suspect, despite his insistence that he would never hurt his father—that he loved him. His words fell on deaf ears. When they went to trial, the M.E.’s autopsy report finished Linc’s plea of innocence. The back of Marcus Fox’s skull had been crushed inward in a distinct pattern, not unlike being hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat.

  Linc had been a member of the high school baseball team, one of the star players. Strike one.

  Wesley claimed that Linc and his father had been fighting like crazy. Strike two.

  Lucy wept on the stand, claiming she would never have left them alone if she’d known their fussing would lead to something li
ke this.

  Strike three.

  Linc was tried as a juvenile, and when the jury found him guilty of manslaughter, he couldn’t believe it was happening. The last thing he remembered were the looks of shock and disgust on the faces of the people he’d grown up with, and the tears on Meg Walker’s face. Whatever future they might have had was over.

  Three strikes and he was out—and on his way to prison.

  * * *

  Then, as dreams had a way of doing, this one segued from Linc in prison to Linc making love to Meg in the back of his old pickup truck while a country music station drifted out from the rolled-down windows of the cab. Despite the beauty and passion of the interlude, he slept fitfully, locked within the memories of his past.

  Four

  Meg was watching the driveway for the sheriff’s car, but Honey heard it coming first and growled as she walked to the door.

  “No, Honey. This time it’s the good guys.”

  The security light came on as he pulled up to the house. She opened the door as he came up the steps.

  “Are you all right?” Marlow asked.

  “Yes, thanks to Quinn’s security system and my dog.”

  She shut the door behind him and then followed him to the sofa.

  “Now, tell me again exactly what happened,” the sheriff said as he took out his pad and pen.

  “Honey and I were out in the porch swing when the phone rang. We came inside, but whoever it was had already hung up. I had just set the alarm and was headed to the kitchen when I heard a gunshot. Of course Honey started barking, and that’s when I realized the outside security light was on. When I looked out the window, I saw a man on his belly in the yard. It looked like he’d fallen...I guess startled by the light. I think his pistol went off when he hit the ground.”

  “Did you get a look at his face?”

  “Not really. He was bareheaded, and his hair...it was kind of long and brown...and it had fallen forward, hiding most of his features. He wasn’t very tall...maybe five feet ten inches or so. He was wearing jeans and a black leather jacket, like the kind a biker would wear. Oh, wait! I just remembered...it had a patch on the sleeve. I saw it when I saw the pistol he was holding.”

  “Do you remember what the patch looked like?” Marlow asked.

  She closed her eyes, trying to picture it in her mind. “The Confederate flag. It was the Confederate flag.”

  He added that to the info he already had down. “Unfortunately, that’s not as unique in this part of the country as I would like. Do you think you’d know him again if you saw him?”

  “I doubt it...maybe...I don’t know.”

  “That’s okay. So...back to what you were saying. You saw him through the window, then what?”

  “The rifle was by the door, because I’d had it outside with me, so I opened the door and sicced Honey after him. She flew out, barking like crazy. The alarm was shrieking, and I shot at him...twice, maybe three times, before he disappeared in the trees. Honey was still running after him when I heard him fire off another shot. I panicked and called her back. She has a crippled paw and can’t run as fast as another dog might.”

  Marlow frowned as he continued to make notes. “So he came armed this time.”

  Her shoulders slumped as she nodded. “Why is this happening to me?”

  “Meg, I need you to think. Off the top of your head, who do you know who would be capable of doing something like this?”

  “I’ve done nothing but think ever since this started happening, but no one comes to mind.”

  “Excuse me for being personal, but have you been dating anyone?”

  “Ryal was thinking along the same lines, but absolutely no. Like I told him, I can’t remember the last time someone asked me out.”

  “Have you had harsh words with anyone recently?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, let’s think of this from another angle. Is there someone you can think of who has a grudge against any member of your family?”

  Her eyes widened. “I have no idea. I’ll have to talk to them and find out.”

  He nodded. “You get back to me on this, okay, because right now, I’ve got nothing to go on and this is getting serious. You know that, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not going to like this, but I think you should consider moving in with your family until we figure out who’s doing this.”

  Anger swept through her so fast it made her voice shake. “Not only no, but hell, no. I’m not taking this danger to them. Ryal and James have wives and children, and the last damn thing Quinn and Mariah need is for me to bring a war to their door. They’re still struggling to forget the last one they were in.”

  Marlow frowned. He hadn’t thought about it like that. “So what about staying with Jake and Dolly?”

  “You mean the newlyweds? I’m thirty-five years old and nearly six feet tall. I’m younger and stronger than both of them, but don’t tell them I said so, and I’m a damn good shot. Between me, the security system and my dog, I’m here to stay.”

  “Are you going to tell them that this happened again?”

  “Eventually.”

  He sighed. “You are one hardheaded woman.”

  “I’d rather consider myself self-sufficient.”

  He chuckled. “Yes, ma’am, I’d say that’s about right. So, if you’ll show me the general direction that your intruder took when he hightailed it out of here, I’ll leave you to try and get some rest.”

  Meg followed him out and into the yard to show him where the intruder had fallen and which direction he’d run. The security light had flooded the yard and the frosty grass, but Marlow got a flashlight from his cruiser for a more thorough look.

  “You say this is about where he fell?” he asked as he swept the beam along the ground.

  Her house shoes were getting damp as she paced off the distance from the porch to where she’d seen the man lying.

  “Right about here,” she said, pointing a few feet off to the right.

  Something glinted in the grass as Marlow swung the light in that direction.

  “Wait. What’s that?” she said.

  Marlow bent over and picked it up. “It’s a toy car, a little black race car with a number on it. No...wait...I don’t think it’s a toy. I think it’s something you’d see on the end of a key ring. Oh, hey, I know what this is. It’s a replica of Dale Earnhardt’s crash car. Is it yours, or something one of your brothers had?”

  The skin crawled on the back of her neck. “I’ve never seen it before.”

  Marlow pulled a little baggie out of his pocket, dropped the charm inside and zipped it up.

  “The weird thing is, I have seen it before, but I can’t remember where. However, I’m thinking we just found our first lead.”

  “This is good, right?”

  He grinned. “Yes, ma’am, this is good. You say he went uphill and to the right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. It’s cold out here. You go on back inside. I don’t expect to see much of anything, but I’m going to drive up the road and take a look around.”

  “Thank you so much for coming out so quickly.”

  “It’s what I do, Meg, and don’t hesitate to call again if the need arises.”

  “Yes, and I’ll let you know what my brothers have to say after I talk to them, too.”

  He waved goodbye, waited until she and the dog were back inside the house, then got in his car and headed back to the road. He drove slowly with his floodlight on, scanning the roadside and into the trees. He flushed a deer and a raccoon, and sent an owl into flight, but there were no humans around that he could see. He’d started to turn and head back to town when he noticed the gate at the old Fox place was down. He hit the brakes, then radioed headquarters to tell them where he was going. After fingering the pistol in his holster, he aimed the floodlight straight ahead and took the turn up the overgrown drive.

  * * *

  Something hit the top of Linc�
�s travel trailer with a thud. He’d been back in high school, dancing on the creek bank with Meg, when the sound woke him. He was still trying to figure out what it was when he heard something running on the roof. A squirrel. It must have jumped out of the trees and used his trailer for a shortcut to somewhere else.

  He rolled over, then sat up on the side of the bunk with a groan. Now that he was awake, he got up to go to the bathroom, then, from there, went into the kitchen to get a drink.

  He was just about to put the empty glass in the sink when a bright light came through the window and swept across the opposite wall. Headlights! He made a run for the bedroom and grabbed the rifle before moving to a window to look out. When the vehicle suddenly stopped and an array of red-and-blue lights started flashing on top of the car, followed by a couple of bursts from the siren, he couldn’t believe it. Either rural law enforcement had improved greatly since last time he was here or that shooting star he’d seen had been an omen of bad luck after all. He dropped his head in frustration.

  “Son of a bitch! So much for quiet arrivals,” he said, then leaned the rifle against the wall and opened the door.

  * * *

  Marlow was more than surprised to see the pickup truck and travel trailer parked behind the wreckage of the old house. He didn’t recognize the vehicle or the trailer, and wondered if he could be this lucky and find the stalker in residence.

  He flashed the spotlight on the door of the trailer, and then hit the lights and gave the siren a couple of short bursts to get the occupant’s attention. Lights came on inside the trailer, but the moment the door opened and the man’s body filled the space, he knew this was not his stalker. The man he was looking for was less than six feet tall, with small feet and shaggy brown hair.