A Year of You (42 page)

Emeline answered again.
She gave up all hope of controlling her emotional reaction and hit the nurse-call button.

***

The phone call me when he least expected it. The state attorney decided to pursue charges against mattie. Fraud. Conspiring to defraud the elderly. Assault. They wouldn’t charge her with killing K; they’d decided that was self-defense.

On the way to the hospital, he called Ruth Ellen. “Fix it,” he said simply.

She assured him, “I’m doing everything I can. James is insisting on pressing charges.”

“Your word has to mean something. You asked her to come.”

“She pretended to be Elaine. She accepted money as Elaine. She’s not Elaine. I’m not sure what I can say that will change that.”

“Just fix it, Ruth Ellen. She didn’t survive that psychopath just to get locked up.”

“I’m doing everything I can. I promise you that. Watch out for Justine, West. Keep her away from Mattie. She called me last night and left a frightening message. I think the news about Emeline’s paternity has pushed her over the edge.”

“I’m going to the hospital now. I won’t leave Mattie’s side.”

You mean it this time?

He hung up and set the phone down by his thigh. West took a long drag of his cigarette, then flicked the butt out the window.

Ruth Ellen was convinced her son-in-law had killed the little girl. West put his money on Justine. It was all about money anyway. The trust funds reverted to the remaining heir, doubling their worth. It was a hell of a pretty penny in Em’s pocket, which would, in turn, end up in McKendrick’s. Stocks, bonds, investments...Dear old Dad would milk her dry like he’d tried with Ruth Ellen.

With Mattie in the picture, as a full heir, that money was threatened once more.

West chewed on his bottom lip as he steered toward the McKendrick house. Nobody was going to be home. If they were, he didn’t care.

Once he got through the gate, he pulled up to the garage. The side door was open.

Justine’s car was sitting in the usual spot. She rarely drove it herself, so it was in the far space. West tasted blood on his lip. He swiped at the sore spot with his finger. Bright red blood trailed across his skin. He licked his bottom lip and headed toward the front of the car.

Mattie swore over and over again the car that had run her off the road was a big black one. The damage was on the right side of his truck, which meant if his hunch was right, the left front side of Justine’s vehicle would be messed up.

West went the long way around the car, trailing his fingers over the slick surface. Damn it.

There it was. A deep dent, the paint gouged off, the fender pried up at the very corner. Light blue streaks of paint marred the lustrous black finish. Paint from his truck.

He recalled the oil in the ceramic bust. It was a juvenile attempt, but one none-the-less. The time Mattie had fallen off the seawall, she said she thought someone had shoved her. He hadn’t believed her.

He hadn’t believed her. Another insult to injury. West hurried back to his truck. Mattie needed him, right now.

Justine and McKendrick were both at the hospital, mired in the mess of police and lawyers. One of them wanted the family secrets to remain just that.

Secrets.

Chapter Thirty

Mattie woke up to someone in her room that set her nerves on edge. She looked around the dim space, seeking what had disturbed her. Mid-morning sunlight fell over her bed and filled the rest of the room with dark lumpy shapes. She blinked rapidly to clear her foggy vision. The cocktail of pain meds and sedatives were brutal. A shadow detached itself from the wall, moving forward.

Mattie felt around for the remote control with the nurse-call button.

“Go away,” she said.

The figure moved closer to the bed. “You’ll never get a dime.”

Mattie frowned. “Justine?”

“You ruined it all. We had it worked out perfectly. Emeline would get the Carruther money. James and I would invest it and save the family. But you…you had to show up.”

“What do you want, Justine?” Dammit, where was that remote control? It was huge! In addition to controlling the bed, it controlled the TV, too. Before she’d gone to sleep, the nurse who came in to check vitals hooked it over the bedrail.

Justine wasn’t even looking at her. She had her gaze glued to the window. The tiny slices of light that made it through the vertical blinds made her eyes glitter. “James is working with the state attorney to have you put in jail for many years to come. Soon, we’ll have Ruth Ellen declared mentally incompetent, and any changes she made to her legal documents since you arrived will be invalid. Emeline will stand as the only heir to her fortune, and James and I will be all right.”

“Why are you telling me this, Justine?”

“You have two choices. You can keep your mouth shut and plead guilty. You’ll go to jail and we’ll never think of you again. If you try to defend yourself in anyway, we’ll file for charges against West. He admits he knew you weren’t Elaine. He knew about Ruth Ellen’s plot. He’ll be charged right alongside you.”

Mattie gasped and shook her head. “Leave him alone.”
I’m sick of saying that to people. I can’t protect him like this.
“You can’t touch him. If you do, I’ll make sure everyone knows you killed Elaine.”

Wild guess, but it triggered something in Justine, much to Mattie’s astonishment.

The older woman leaned over the bed and got in her face. “Without a body, you have no proof.”

“I know where it is.”

“By the time you’re able to get out of this bed, it’ll be gone from beneath that damn tree.” Justine stepped back. “As I said, you have two choices. You can plead guilty to the charges of fraud and conspiracy, or…I can finish what your boyfriend started.”

It wouldn’t be too hard to hurt her now, not now when she was at her weakest.

“What do you want from me?” Mattie’s seeking fingers finally found the cord for the remote between the bed rail and the mattress. She followed it and found the hard edge of the device itself. The call button was at the bottom, a raised, firm bubble. She pressed it over and over again. Justine was lost in her mania and never noticed.

“I want you to pay for what you’ve done to my family. You’re an interloper. You aren’t wanted here, and now that you’ve ruined everything James and I have worked for, you’ve got to pay for it.”

The door swung open and a nurse hurried in, flipping on the light. “Mattie?” She saw Justine and jumped, startled.

“Ma’am, Mattie’s visitors are restricted.” It was a security measure, to protect Mattie from any further threats, and to make sure she stayed where she was supposed to until the DA was done with her.

“She’s leaving,” Mattie said firmly. “Right, Justine?”

“Not until you--“

“Can you call security?” Mattie asked the nurse. “I don’t want her here.”

Justine reached out for Mattie. She turned away and the woman grabbed a double handful of her hair. She yanked her up, half out of the bed. “You have to pay!”

Mattie shrieked and the nurse jumped in between her and Justine, yelling as loud as she could. “Code gray, Code gray!”

The nurse pried Justine’s hands out of her hair. Two security guards ran into the room and between them, hustled Justine out of her room. Mattie heard her yelling all the way down the hall.

Shaking, Mattie curled up around an extra pillow. The nurse smoothed her hair back from her face. “Are you all right?”

Mattie nodded. “I think so. She just scared me.”

“Who was that?”

“My aunt. She’s a little bit crazy.”

“Do you want something to help you get back to sleep? I can get Doctor Lewis to sign an order.”

“No, no. I’m okay. She’s gone. I’ll be all right now. West will be here in the morning.”

The nurse stayed for a few more minutes, checking her blood pressure and then to make sure none of her incisions had reopened during the minor struggle with Justine. “Everything looks good. If you need anything, just push the button.”

The wheels in Mattie’s heads were spinning, tumbling around everything Justine had said. The forming plan was horrible and would be brutal on her healing body, but it had to be done.

Justine had told her exactly where to look.
That damn tree
, Justine had said with such contempt.

“Can I have another dose of something for my shoulder? It sort of got wrenched a little bit. A pill or something, though, I don’t want anything in my IV. Messes my head up too bad.”

“Of course.” She returned a few minutes later with a single pill in a tiny plastic cup. She gave Mattie a sip of water and turned to write in her chart. Mattie took the pill and hoped it would be enough to get her through the next few hours. The nurse adjusted Mattie’s blanket and left, turning the room lights off as she left.

Mattie knew she had to move quickly. She had to get to the tree before Justine did. They wouldn’t expect her to attempt to find Elaine. She thought calling West, but the last thing she wanted to do was involve him in something else with yet another psycho.

Sitting up nearly undid her. Fortunately, it helped clear the last of the sedative-haze from her head. She sipped tepid water from the pitcher on the bedside table, gathering a pitiful amount of strength for the hobble to the door. Her room was at the end of a hall, far from the main entrance to the ward, but only a few doors down from the emergency stairwell.

Stairs. Oh God…

It was the only way out. It took forever, clinging to the rails, to make it down to the ground floor. The fire door took her out in the back halls, between utility bins full of dirty sheets and towels. A quick glance down the hall led her to an employee locker room where she ‘borrowed’ a t-shirt and a pair of jeans from someone’s locker. She grabbed flip-flops and a wallet from another locker, then slipped out a back door. As she walked across the parking lot, she made sure her hair fell into her face, hiding K’s last gift to her.

She made it to the corner of Clyde Morris Boulevard and International Speedway Boulevard before the combination of major surgery to repair life-threatening wounds and three weeks of convalescing caught up with her. She sat down heavily on a bus stop bench and panted away the dizziness that threatened to black her out. The last thing she needed was to get caught outside the hospital.

The problem lay now in logistics. She had to get from Daytona to Barberville, undetected. It wouldn’t be long before someone realized she was gone.

Fighting the black fuzz that threatened to steal away her consciousness, Mattie checked the wallet. It belonged to a woman named Latricia, and she had forty bucks, a couple of credit cards, and a condom stuck behind the driver’s license.

A taxi would be her best bet.

It took her ten minutes to get across the street to a dingy K-Mart, where she called a cab from a pay phone. Within a few minutes, one pulled up in front of the store. She got in and gave them her address.

She stretched out in the backseat, pillowing her aching head on her arm, ignoring the faint, unpleasant odors mingled with the scent of Febreze emanating from the cushions.

West had to know what was going on by now. She’d seen the headlines in the newspaper boxes in front of K-Mart. Her old mug-shot had been printed right next to a picture from her wedding.

Gee, I wonder. You’ve been pretending to be someone you’re not, with the all-too-prove-able intentions of scamming them out of money.

If the cops had the body, they could prove Justine and James McKendrick were responsible for the child’s death. Ruth Ellen would stand behind Mattie, and verify she hadn’t been out to scam anything. She could prove she was just another McKendrick daughter, seeking her rightful inheritance.

The ride to West’s was long, bumpy, painful. The driver went as fast as he could, but it still took forever. She instructed him to drive her all the way to the remains of the burned trailer. He scowled when she pushed the cash into his hand. It was just enough to cover the cost of the trip.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “I don’t have much extra for a tip. Hey, can you drop this in a mailbox or something? I found it back here.” She shoved the wallet through a space in the mesh cage separating him from the backseat. She got out into the bright sunlight and wobbled, dizzy.

The driver growled something she didn’t quite catch and spun off into the bright morning. The RV sat close to the blackened remains of the trailer. She limped to the door and tried the handle.

It was open! Once inside she got a bottle of cold water from the fridge and drank a long gulp. Tears filled her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. The cozy little RV smelled like West, and West smelled like home. Home.

“I don’t want to leave,” she whispered. The water gave her a little boost of energy.

She got a shovel from the shed outside, so weak she could barely move. She used it like a walking stick, leaning most of her weight on it. Forcing herself to take step after step, she trudged to the orange grove, stopping to rest against the pine trees.

By the time she made it to the old dead grove, she was so weak she couldn’t stay on her feet. She dropped to her knees and breathed slowly, deeply. After a long, woozy moment, she forced herself back up and plodded to the old oak tree. Trailing her fingers over the drooping bough, she ducked beneath it.
The hole she’d begun to dig for K was still there. Bits of yellow police tape hung from the tree and thin wooden stakes surrounding the shallow pit.

As she plunged the shovel in to the dirt a few feet away from the tree, in the gap between two huge roots just beneath the heart West had carved into the tree, tears began to run down her face.

Sweat poured down her face. The sun vanished behind heavy rain clouds, and thunder rumbled close by.

The scoops became scrapes after a while. This was too hard. Too much. She let the shovel fall to the side and sat down on the edge of the hole. Black sparkles swirled in her vision. She wanted to cough to clear the thick feeling in her chest