A Year of You (30 page)

Instead he groaned and pointed toward the door. “Go home, Em. It’s over.”


Emeline put her hands on her hips. “I refuse to believe that.”


“Believe it. Go home. Get out.
Hasta la vista
. This is what matters to me now.” He gestured toward Mattie.
A little undignified, Mattie thought, but sweet.


“You know what? Whatever. I don’t care. You’ll regret it though. You too, Mattie. There’s going to be a day when you wish you never ever heard of the McKendrick family.”


Mattie laughed, a hard, cynical snort. “Darling, I already do.”
Emeline rolled her eyes and flounced out, slamming the door behind her.

West dropped to his knees and laid his head on Mattie’s shoulder. “Sorry, babe,” he whispered. “Tonight’s been a disaster.”

“No, it hasn’t. It’s been just fine. I got to hear you sing ‘Rain.’”


“I’m drunk.”


“It’s okay.”

“I don’t like it.”


“You’ll be all right.”


“I feel sick.” He tried to push away from her, but ended up puking down both of their shirts.

Chapter Nineteen

The drive to see Ruth Ellen was long and quiet. West rode with his arm hanging out the window, the window making his hair fly all over. Mattie watched him, unable to put a finger on how she felt. Since the night of the impromptu party, he’d been possessive and demanding—but she didn’t mind. It felt good, being needed, being pushed around by him. The sex was complicated, hot, violent, passionate. It left her breathless, thinking about it.

In the truck she flexed her lower body against the cracked vinyl seat, savoring the hot raw ache. “Own me,” she’d begged him the night before. “Make me yours.” The words had startled her at first, even though they came out of her own mouth.

He dropped her off in front of the nursing home and made her swear to wait inside, by the front desk with the security guard until he got back.

Mattie wasn’t sure if the woman would be lucid. She was completely shocked to find her sitting up and talking on the phone, a newspaper opened to the stock market on her lap.

She knocked lightly on the door. The woman looked up, vibrant and smiling. She still had the cold, calculating light in her eyes that Emeline had. Ruth Ellen waved Mattie in and pantomimed for her to shut the door.

When she hung the phone up, she folded the newspaper and gazed at Mattie expectantly. “Well? Progress report?”

“I’m still trying to figure where she might be. There’s a lot of land.”

“Matilyn, I don’t like excuses. I like results. And I want them, or your time is going to run out.”

Mattie walked over to the window and gazed out at the parking lot. “I had a crappy life, Ruth. The woman Karen gave me to didn’t give a shit about me.”

Ruth Ellen remained silent. Mattie didn’t look at her because she was more than sure she wouldn’t see the slightest bit of interest in the sick old woman’s eyes. Interest or apology. The rustle of the newspaper confirmed it. Mattie took a deep breath and shoved all the emotional crap deep down.

“She married a guy who had a son who raped me and got me pregnant at thirteen. Nobody I told cared. I spent the next five years being tortured by him, emotionally and physically.”

The newspaper rustled again. “You seem to have turned out well enough.”

With a cynical snort, Mattie sat down in the rocking chair by the window. “Yeah. I’ve only spent one year in prison.”

“What happened to your baby?” Ruth Ellen knew she’d given the little girl up for adoption, but not much more.

One warm, sunny spot opened up in her heart. “Her name’s Molly. The only people in the entire world that ever cared about me adopted her. She’s more like sister to me than a daughter.”

“She’s happy?”


“Happy and safe.”


“Good. That’s all that matters.”


“Yeah.”


“She can’t inherit anything, by the way. Stipulations in my will.”


“Doesn’t matter to either one of us. Her parents take care of her.”
The damn newspaper rattled again. Ruth Ellen folded it and placed it next to her. “Even if James had known about you, Karen couldn’t have kept you.”

“Kids were like stray pets to them, weren’t they? Did either of them every think about birth control?” Mattie shook her head.

Ruth Ellen laughed. “It’s all about pedigree.”

Glad that she’d managed to turn her emotions off, Mattie shrugged. “I might have turned out like Emeline if she had.”


“Exactly. I couldn’t stand another one of her running around.”


“One is bad enough.”
Ruth Ellen gestured her over. “Don’t think I have a heart of stone, Matilyn. I’ve just learned to accept that some things are a certain way because that’s how they must be. You are beautiful, intelligent, and I promise you, if you find Elaine, then I can make all the pain you’ve ever experienced go away.”

Some pain I want
, she thought, thinking of West’s mouth, his hands, his way in the bedroom.
I don’t want that kind to go away
. “It made me who I am. It made me strong.”

“I see it in your eyes, Evelyn.” Ruth Ellen blinked and gave her head a slow shake. “Mattie. You can be ruthless when you need to be.”

“No, I can’t.” Mattie shook her head. “I won’t.” She hesitated before she asked, “Did James kill Elaine because of money?”

“It doesn’t matter. I just want her found so that the whole world knows what he did. I need to find my granddaughter before this damn cancer eats me alive. I’m in no condition to go digging for graves. Get out there and look for that little girl, Matilyn. You have much more riding on this situation. Find her, and all the trouble that you will be in will go away. Don’t think you’ll be able to skip out on me. My son-in-law isn’t the financial genius he pretends to me. All that money of his, I gave him. What he’s earned on his own has been earned through less than legal practices.”

Oh, that was juicy. “Really?” A few of her old habits—engrained in her by K—surfaced. She filed away the information to use, to investigate. Blackmail was always the alternative to fraud.

No! I’m not that person anymore!

“It’s neither here nor there. Mark my words, Matilyn. I don’t have much time left. I’m having a good day, but this is highly unusual. We don’t have time to waste. You need to find my granddaughter and fast. The sooner that happens, the sooner you will be vindicated. The truth about you will be revealed. I know the truth about you. I can guarantee that James knows as well. Why he’s humoring you, I have no idea.”

“I’ll take care of it, Ruth Ellen. I’ll find Elaine.”

“Good.” For the first time in the fifteen-minute conversation, the sick woman looked tired. “I do believe I’ll rest for a while.”

“I hope you continue to feel well,” Mattie said sincerely. “And...I’ll find her.”


“I know you will. I see it in your eyes.”
As she was gathering up her purse, a nurse brought in Ruth Ellen’s mail. One envelope in particular caught the old woman’s attention. She ripped it open.
Mattie thought she saw the scrawl of McKendrick’s handwriting across the front. Ruth Ellen skimmed the paper within and looked up at Mattie, eyes wide, startled.


“What?” Mattie said, frightened. What did the letter say? Who was it from? What were these people doing now?


“Nothing.” The old woman was breathless. Her hands shook violently. She reached over and pawed the nurse-call button. A second later the same nurse who’d brought the mail was back. “Get out. Go. Don’t come back until you have an answer for me, or I call you,” Ruth Ellen said to Mattie.

Terrified, worried, Mattie hurried out of the room.
West was already waiting downstairs in the lobby. He hugged her and pressed a kiss to her temple, but he didn’t press for any information about what Ruth Ellen wanted. Still ruminating on the conversation that hadn’t really given her any answers, Mattie reminded him they needed to stop for a few things.

A client called as he pulled into the parking lot of a drugstore. “I’ll be right back,” Mattie mouthed.

He nodded and she hurried inside. Mattie gulped hard as she paced down the aisle, recalling a time twelve years earlier when she’d had the same feeling, looking for the same thing. She stopped in front of the rows of pregnancy tests, willing herself not to cry.
I can’t be. It’s just got to be stress. We’ve been so careful.
It only takes one time.



“Shut up,” she whispered to herself, reaching out for one at random.

If it’s positive, what the hell do I do?

West might want her to stay. Or he might accuse her of getting pregnant on purpose. He’d been so insistent that she take one of the tests. It took a week, but she had managed to talk him into believing she wasn’t pregnant. Of course, the constant puking didn’t help her at all.

Sick to her stomach, Mattie tucked the test into her armload of other purchases and headed for the front counter to pay.

He didn’t have to know, actually. In less than a month she would be leaving. Disappearing.

It would be nice to have company, wherever she was going. The baby would be part of West, a part of him she would have forever. Maybe he or she would inherit West’s wonderful singing talent.

The thought of leaving West had her in tears again. She was sure the cashier thought she was absolutely insane. Before she walked away, she shoved the pregnancy test into the bottom of her purse. It felt wrong not telling him, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it yet.

Darkness enshrouded the long, lonely highway. No other cars passed them, in either direction. The stillness was comforting, yet unnerving at the same time. The stupid radio had broken earlier in the week, so the only entertainment she had was the sound of the wind rushing in the open window. West hummed a song, but she couldn’t hear him well over the wind.

The engine of the truck made a funny clunking sound, and the roar diminished.
That’s not right...hmmm.
West looked down at the dashboard, puzzled. He cursed softly and slowed down. A moment later the resistance of the gas pedal beneath his foot vanished and he pumped the pedal. The truck nearly stalled. The smell of gas filled the cab of the truck.

“Where’d he come from?” West muttered. Blinding headlights flashed suddenly in the rearview mirror. Highway 40 had seemed deserted for the last twenty minutes.

The vehicle sped up until it seemed right on his tail. “Okay, come on, get off my rear end,” West mumbled.

Mattie twisted in her seat and looked out the back window. The car was sleek and black. It reflected the starry sky. Mattie shrieked when West and floored the gas pedal, nearly slinging her out of the seat.

“Get off my tail! Come on, come on, go!” The truck struggled and strained, but the speedometer barely crept over sixty. The car fell back a few dozen yards, just enough to let Mattie catch her breath.
Was it K? One of his flunkies? Or just some idiot driver thinking he could race down a deserted highway?

“West?”

“Just strap in and hang on, babe.”

The interior of the truck went dark as the car behind them shut off its lights. “What the hell?” West asked nobody in particular.

The car tapped the bumper, sending the truck fishtailing across the road. West cried out and slung his arm out, pinning Mattie to the seat. . Mattie screamed and gripped the dashboard, tearing chunks out of the aging vinyl with her fingernails. The car kept coming at them, relentless, teasing the truck’s bumper.

West goosed the gas pedal and pumped it hard, trying his best to get the truck to move. The damn thing stuttered and chugged, but it moved sluggishly forward. The car wasn’t behind her anymore!

Frantically, Mattie turned around, searching for it. Shit. It was right next to them, in the other lane. She couldn’t make out anything other than the vague silhouette of the driver.

What do they want? Why don’t they just go already?

She was pretty sure this wasn’t K. K didn’t want her dead. He wanted to own her, possess her, manipulate her. He didn’t want to kill her! She couldn’t get any money dead.

Who else wanted her quiet?

This has something to do with Elaine. Somebody wanted her mouth shut. As she tried to gain speed and distance on the other car, she took note of it. Long, black, shiny, like a Mercedes.

Who drove a Mercedes?
The McKendricks had one. Justine drove it frequently.
“
There are secrets this family is willing to do anything to keep
.”
Just as it seemed like she was pulling ahead of the car, it jerked toward the truck abruptly.

Instinctively, West yanked the steering wheel away from the point of impact. The woods spun into view. A huge oak tree glowed in the weak headlights.

Too fast, too fast! Mattie managed one more squeak of fear, just as the brakes decided to give out with a grinding squeal. West growled as he jerked the steering wheel hard. He missed the oak tree but slammed into a thick bank of palmettos and thin pine trees.

Mattie bounced off the dashboard and her head ricocheted off the back window. Stars flashed in front of her eyes, and a sense of heaviness weighed her down for a moment. The truck’s engine died. The sound of night insects was an actual pressure on her ears. Panic swelled in her chest, stretching, straining her lungs until she thought she was going to explode. She hunched over her knees, trying to ease the ache in her chest and head with willpower.

Hysterical sobs choked her breath off.
This isn’t the time
, the rational voice in her head said. It sounded like West.

West!

“West?” He didn’t answer her. She fished around until she found the seat belt buckle. It wouldn’t release! Didn’t matter. She could still reach West. “West, answer me.”

He groaned. Her eyes adjusted to the low lighting and she made him out, pressed against the driver side door.

“Are you hurt?”

“My head bounced off the window. Was seeing stars there, for a second.”

“I can’t get my seatbelt open. West moved, groaning again. He found her hand and pressed his pocket knife into it.

“Cut it. I don’t think I’m going to be able to get out of my door. The tree’s right up against it.”