Busted in Broken Hearts Junction Page 16

  The man paused for a second.

  “Well, that’s a chance I’m just gonna have to take,” he said. “Now, c’mon.”

  “Eddie, please don’t,” Maggie said, her voice quivering. “They won’t say anything. I know them. They’re good people. They don’t deserve this.”

  She looked at me with large, scared, raccoon eyes.

  “Don’t speak to me about them being good people, Mags,” he said. “You helped them get into this mess. That note you left’s the only reason they’re here.”

  “Eddie, I—”

  “Don’t you plead with me like you’re an innocent, you back stabber. I ought to take you out with them.”

  Maggie’s face seemed to crack somehow and tears rolled down her red cheeks.

  I was suddenly having trouble breathing.

  “He was just a kid, Eddie,” she said. “Maybe you felt that you had to kill his father, but you didn’t have to kill Clay, too. He wasn’t gonna figure anything out. He wasn’t gonna do a thing.”

  “According to you, nobody was gonna do a thing,” the man said, raising his voice. “Meanwhile, if I let you have things your way, I’d be the one dead right now. Is that what you want? After all I’ve given you? You know, I didn’t have to do anything for you, Mags. Not after you ran away to Texas with that abuser you married. But instead, I was a good brother to you. I bought you this cabin, gave you a life. And you turned around and stabbed me in the back.”

  Brother?

  Maggie was Eddie’s sister?

  Which meant…

  She most likely wasn’t Marie.

  I glanced over at Fletcher.

  He looked at me, a calm, steady, reassuring look. I could almost read his thoughts.

  “It’s going to be okay, Bluebird. I’ll figure a way out of this. It’ll be okay.”

  I wanted to believe him oh so badly.

  But with a murderer pressing an arrow against my back, I was having trouble doing that.

  My breathing was becoming more and more frantic.

  “Eddie, please don’t—”

  “Shut up, Mags!” Eddie said. “Now you two, let’s go.”

  The arrow dug into my flesh, and I let out a sharp squeal. I felt him push me forward toward the cabin’s back door.

  “Don’t you hurt her,” Fletcher said, his voice thundering, bouncing around the cabin like a ricocheting bullet.

  “It’s not up to you, is it?” Eddie said.

  I felt my breath catch in my throat.

  The voice was so familiar. It was right there. I could almost place it.

  I took in a deep breath and summoned the courage.

  Then I turned my head, looking behind me for the first time.

  Hot bile pushed up the back of my throat.

  He caught me looking.

  “Let’s not make this any more difficult than it has to be, Loretta.”

  Pastor Cash Phillips smirked at me as he pressed the tip of the arrow deeper into my back.

  Chapter 63

  I inhaled deep breaths of cold air as I stumbled down the back steps of Maggie’s cabin in the dark.

  It was all like some sort of nightmare.

  Except I couldn’t wake myself up this time.

  Cash Phillips, the man who had just given me a lecture on forgiveness the day before, the man who I’d known for the better part of my life, was the man who Marie Altier had run off with. The man who had been Jake Warner’s business partner.

  The man who had murdered him.

  And 25 years later, the man who had shot Jake’s son with an arrow, almost killing him too.

  Pastor Phillips. The man who’d just married Beth Lynn and Robert. The man who organized food drives and church picnics. Who my mother thought was a living saint.

  Cash Phillips was Eddie Ricker.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  Yet here I was, the sharp point of an arrow needling my back. The pastor pushing me into the dark woods behind the cabin.

  “It’s not going to work, Eddie,” Fletcher said, his hands up above his head. “People know about the police chief covering this up. It’s only a matter of time before it all comes out.”

  Cash didn’t say anything. We marched through the forest of junipers, our boots sinking into the snow.

  I was shaking.

  “You should be running, Eddie,” Fletcher said, his words now filled with anger. “What are you doing out here when you should be running?”

  “This right here ought to be a good place to tie up loose ends,” the pastor said, stopping suddenly and grabbing my elbow.

  He pushed me forward so hard, I lost my balance and fell to my knees. I sank into the bitterly cold snow, trying to keep from sobbing.

  Cash kept the bow and arrow angled at me, the muscles in his arms bulging beneath his jacket.

  I looked up at him.

  A thin light coming from the cabin behind him illuminated the side of his face.

  Eddie had grown older and fat, but beneath the chubby cheeks were the same features of that man who’d been standing next to Jake all those years ago in the nightclub where Marie sang.

  And those same, lean, sharp eyes too. A hunger in them that was easy to miss, what with his generous smile and easy way of being.

  Jake had missed it, all those years ago.

  And the residents of Broken Hearts had missed it too for all these years.

  “Eddie, this is the last time I’m going to warn you,” Fletcher said, looking the big man square in the face “You’re making a mistake.”

  The pastor quickly swung his aim from me to Fletcher.

  “You know, I went to nationals in high school for archery?” he said. “I’m more deadly with this bow and arrow than a man with a machine gun.”

  He smiled.

  “But what am I talking about? You’ll know how deadly this is soon enough.”

  Eddie pulled the bow back farther and farther, the horrible sound of the string bending against air rippling through the night.

  I looked up at Fletcher, my heart hammering as our eyes met.

  The love I felt for him in that moment… in that moment of utter desperation and fear… was a kind of wild, desperate, mad love I’d never felt before.

  Like my heart was gonna burst.

  Like the very atoms of my being were about to rip apart.

  And the feeling that my soul was gonna be destroyed in these next few moments.

  Because if Pastor Phillips released that arrow, it wasn’t just Fletcher who was gonna die in that instant.

  I was going to die in that instant, too.

  Fletcher and I may not have always agreed on everything. We might have had our share of fights and arguments.

  But I couldn’t deny my heart.

  I’d do anything for him. Anything. No matter the consequences.

  The fear that had made me its prisoner suddenly melted away.

  There was only one thing to do.

  I got to my feet and threw myself forward as hard as I could at the pastor.

  Chapter 64

  A cracking sound exploded and echoed in the woods around us just as I charged the pastor.

  A second later, I felt the sharp end of Cash’s elbow against my chest as he quickly regained his footing and pushed back at me. I yelped in pain.

  There was another loud explosion around us.

  Fear ripped through my heart like a bundle of dynamite.

  Someone was shooting at us.

  In one swift movement, the pastor grabbed my arm and then grabbed the sharp end of the arrow, pressing it against my neck. Fletcher lunged for him, aiming to land a blow on his face. But the large man was too quick. He yanked me to my feet, pulling me backwards, away from Fletcher.

  I squirmed, but it did me no good. Cash only tightened his grip on me.

  “You stop that, or I’ll slit her throat right now!” he howled, his voice echoing in the juniper forest surrounding us.

  I squirmed and fought, but I couldn
’t get free of his large hands.

  The woods fell into an eerie silence.

  It must have been Lawrence shooting, I gathered.

  Had to be.

  The old man was frail, but not as frail as he let on. And though it had probably been two decades since he fired a rifle, the old timer had been a decent shot once upon a time.

  But in the darkness, it must have been hard for him to make his target.

  Pastor Phillips pulled me back, his big hands squeezing tightly around my neck.

  “Let her go, Eddie!” Fletcher yelled, stepping toward us. “Let her go and get the hell out of here. We won’t follow you. We won’t even tell the cops about any of this.”

  “The hell you won’t,” the pastor said, tightening his grip on me. “You stay right there, Fletcher. You and whoever you’ve got shooting for ya.”

  Fletcher took another step toward us, and the pastor punished me for it. He needled me in the neck, and I yelped in pain. Fletcher held up his hands and took a step back.

  He looked as though it was taking every ounce of self-control to not come after me.

  “Don’t hurt her,” he said, staying where he was. “Just don’t hurt her.”

  He couldn’t do anything, I realized.

  Nobody could do anything.

  Except for me.

  I knew this was only going to end one way. I was Cash’s bargaining chip. His hostage. The thing that was going to get him out of all of this.

  Meanwhile, he was pulling me farther from Fletcher, in the direction of the driveway.

  His car must have been nearby.

  He was going to take me with him.

  And after that… after that…

  I shuddered to think it.

  I couldn’t let him take me.

  I stopped squirming for a moment, letting him drag me farther and farther away from Fletcher, who was slowly following as close as he could at an uneasy gait.

  I stared at him, our eyes meeting for a second.

  He seemed to know what I was about to do, and I could see fear in his eyes.

  He shook his head at me.

  “No, Loretta. Don’t—”

  But it was too late.

  I thrust my elbow into the big man’s gut with everything I had and pushed with the remainder of my strength. The pastor lost his grip on my neck for a split second, and I flew forward.

  I almost made it.

  I almost broke free of him.

  But I didn’t.

  A second later, he’d regained his grip on my neck, and I felt one of his fists crash into the side of my face.

  I thought my head was going to explode.

  The world went black around me.

  The last thing I heard was the pastor’s deep, booming voice thundering in my ears.

  “If you follow us, I’ll kill her. I’ll kill her.”

  Chapter 65

  He sat inside the truck outside of the chapel, waiting for her.

  It’d been a month since he got here, but the inside of his car still smelled like the road. Of greasy McDonalds wrappers and sweat and worn vinyl.

  Jake unrolled the window, letting in the cold high desert air.

  She’d been in there half an hour now. In the time that he’d known and loved her, he’d never known her to be a God-fearing woman. She came from religious stock, all right, but going to church and helping out at community functions and volunteering just didn’t fit someone like Marie. Like a dress two sizes too big. Like an ill-fitted wedding ring.

  Marie didn’t belong in church.

  Yet in the week since he’d first spotted her at that gas station market and started tailing her, she’d come to this small little chapel on the outskirts of Broken Hearts Junction almost every day.

  He’d thought about going in himself, confronting her there.

  But he didn’t much like the idea.

  He didn’t belong in church any more than she did.

  So he waited, looking out at the bleak, cold landscape.

  Thinking about what he was going to say.

  He’d had hours to rehearse it on the drive out here, during the time he spent looking for her and that rat ex-partner of his. But now that the moment was here, finally here, he felt unprepared.

  Marie, he thought. I don’t care if you don’t love me anymore. I don’t care if you love Eddie. I don’t even care that you stole all my money and stabbed me in the back. I’ve come all this way, a thousand miles, not for me, but for Clayton. Our baby needs a mother, Marie. You can run all you want from me. But you can’t abandon him. You can’t—

  Jake sat up straight in the worn seat.

  There she was, walking down the steps of the church. Coming out into the parking lot. Looking as beautiful as ever. Wearing a long coat, a dress, and heels that looked out of place in a landscape this remote.

  He swallowed a glob of nervous spit and stepped out of the car. He walked briskly up to her, his heart running wild in his chest.

  She looked up and saw him.

  Her face went paler than a blizzard.

  And everything he had rehearsed slipped his mind as he stared into those beautiful eyes of hers.

  Those beautiful, cruel, eyes.

  There was only one thing, one question he could muster.

  “Why’d you leave, Marie?” he said, his voice trembling with anger and pain and other things he had never felt before. “Why’d you leave us for that son of a bitch?”

  She backed away from him, like she’d just seen a monster.

  She tried to run, but he was too quick for her. He grabbed her, pulling her back, wrapping his arms around her waist.

  She sobbed and cried and screamed.

  He knew it wouldn’t be long before the other people in the church heard her and came out.

  He shook Marie like a rag doll.

  “Why’d you leave!?” he screamed, his heart thundering in his chest, her sweet, familiar perfume filling his nostrils. “Why’d you leave us?”

  She sobbed.

  “Let me go, Jake!” she said, clawing at him.

  “Why’d you leave our son, Marie?”

  She broke down in his arms.

  “Marie?!”

  She turned her neck to look at him.

  Shame and guilt and pain lurked there, beneath those cool, unflinching eyes of hers.

  She cried like the way the sky did on late winter days back home.

  “Because,” she finally said, turning toward him. Looking him right in the eye. “He’s not our son, Jake.”

  Jake felt his hands loosen their grip on her. His arms began to fall to his sides.

  “What?” he said, scanning her face. “What are you talking, woman?”

  She straightened out her dress.

  She couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “It’s not your baby, Jake,” she said. “It’s Eddie’s.”

  He thought that she’d already ripped his heart out by running away with his best friend.

  But he’d been wrong.

  “I couldn’t live the lie anymore,” she said. “I couldn’t do it. I didn’t mean for it to happen that way, Jake. But it did. And there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  He wanted to throw up. Spew up the thing that was now tearing him apart inside.

  “Do you love him?” he said, his voice low and fragile. “Have you loved him all this time?”

  She stared at him hard for a long moment.

  “Not the way I loved you,” she finally said. “I’ve never loved anybody the way I love you.”

  The words both hurt and somehow comforted him.

  “Then why? Why Marie?”

  She shook her head, moving her lips as if to say something. But nothing came out.

  Until finally, she grasped the words she was looking for.

  “Just get the hell out of here, would ya?” she said, her voice turning mean as an angry drunk’s. “I’m not coming back to you. I’m never coming back, Jake. I don’t love you anymore. Why can�
�t you understand? It’s OVER.”

  He suddenly wanted to hit her. To smash that look off her face. To make her feel what he felt inside.

  But instead, he backed away on wobbly legs.

  He got into the truck, feeling like he was going to throw up.

  She stood in the parking lot, unmoving, unfeeling. Statuesque. Watching him.

  As unmovable as her cold, cold heart.

  He turned the engine over and pulled out, the tears rolling down his cheeks.

  He hadn’t just lost Marie, he realized.

  His son.

  His pride and joy.

  The single light in his life.

  Wasn’t his either.

  Chapter 66

  I stared up at the familiar wooden slats above me through bleary eyes.

  The slats I’d often looked up at when I was a girl, praying to God to make the matchmaking visions go away so my mom would stop being scared of the things I knew about people. Prayers that had remained unanswered.

  My throat ached and the right side of my face felt like a bag of popcorn left too long in the microwave.

  I couldn’t rightly remember what I was doing here or how I ended up on the floor of the dark chapel, alone.

  Or why my body was in such pain.

  Marie’s voice from the vision echoed in my ears.

  It’s not your baby, Jake. It’s Eddie’s.

  She hadn’t just run off with Eddie on a whim.

  She’d been having an affair with him for a long while.

  I closed my eyes, the feeling of Jake’s heart breaking so utterly real, I could taste it.

  Tears rolled down the side of my face and onto the chapel floor.

  Marie hadn’t just cheated on Jake and stolen his money.

  She had betrayed him in the worst possible way.

  Clay wasn’t his son.

  Meaning that Clay Westwood hadn’t been looking for his father’s murderer in Broken Hearts Junction.

  He’d been, unknowingly, looking for his father.

  And his father had…

  “My God,” I whispered.

  I heard the back door of the chapel creak open and the sound of heavy footsteps walking swiftly across the floor.

  And it all came back to me.

  The cabin. Maggie.