Lifeline Echoes (33 page)

"You want to kill Sean over a land deal?"
That was straight out of a Western movie. Sandy forced herself to
breathe slow and easy. "What's up there that makes it so appealing?
It's almost impossible to get to."

"Coal," said Alice. "Green River's got a
rich vein but not many folks around here want a mine in their back
yard."

"The McGees will never sell." Sandy
remembered the sheer love for the land she'd seen on Ryan's
face.

"Justin will, once he's got no more sons to
leave the Great McGee Legacy to," said Alice coldly. She shook her
head. "Those McGees. Always in our way. Always acting like they're
better than everyone else in the county. I'm glad it's them I had
to deal with. Means I can finish what I started years ago. I was
going to kill one son. Now I can get them both. I really didn't
think Ryan would ever come back here. But then he did and right
away he took up with you." She brightened. "Now that he's here, I
won't have to worry about him showing up later. I wanted to get you
together but my son had to go off on him." Her teeth flashed in a
cunning smile. "He did good that night, even if it was too soon. If
people would have just stayed inside he might have finished
it."

Alice was completely insane. The way her
emotions ran her, going up and down like a roller coaster, Sandy
wondered why no one had ever noticed her instability before. She
was clearly losing what shaky hold she had on reality.

Sandy felt like she'd just consumed a drink
of throat-clogging muddy water. "Do you hate him for taking Mac
away?"

"Goodness, no." Alice's smile and pleasant
tone made their conversation an obscene parody of afternoon tea
between friends. "I hated Johnny. Never wanted him. But Ryan taking
him off like that drove the final wedge between our families." Her
eyes were chilling. "I made sure of it."

Sandy stared. How could that wonderful man
she'd loved come from this madwoman? "Mac was your child."

"So?" Alice tilted her head to regard Sandy
thoughtfully.

"Then is this about Bethany? Ryan was only
twelve. He tried to save her. She was his mother."

Alice's laugh reverberated in the cab of the
pickup. A startled hawk took off from its perch in the top of the
pine tree just outside Sandy's window. "I was glad he couldn't save
her." She leaned toward Sandy, her tone becoming conspiratorial.
"How do you think my sister came to slip into the creek in the
first place?"

Sandy's eyes opened wide. Bile rose in her
throat. "You killed your sister."

"Now see that? You're a lot smarter than
these local folks, aren't you?"

"Why?"

Alice shrugged. "She caught my husband's
eye."

"They were having an affair?" Keep her
talking, Sandy told herself. Stall for time, try to think of a way
to escape.

Alice snickered. "I doubt she would have
seen it that way, but sooner or later, he'd have had her. He
wouldn't have been able to stop himself."

"I don't understand."

"Of course you do. My Brody takes what he
wants. Who he wants. He wanted my sister and I couldn’t have
that."

Sandy's eyes widened. "So you killed
her?"

Alice jerked the gun, and Sandy held up her
hands.

"You're in no position to judge me, the way
you parade around half dressed. You're a tramp. It was only a
matter of time before Brody turned his eye on you, the way you
carry on at that bar. But you dirtying yourself with a McGee
brought it on that much sooner."

Despite her attempt to remain calm, the
bitter taste of bile gurgled into Sandy's throat. "Alice, there's
nothing between your husband and me."

Alice shook her head. "You think this is
about a relationship? It's all about what he hungers after. And you
being with the McGee boy, that's made him hungrier than he's ever
been." Her smile faded; bitterness settled over her face. "He'd
come at me brutal but it was your name he was moaning. Same as when
he wanted my sister. Why do you think he was in your parking lot
the other night? He'd have come for you then but you were with
Ryan."

"Did Brody tell you about that?" Panic began
to swell inside, choking off her oxygen.

Alice laughed, a humorless brittle sound.
"No. He keeps that part quiet unless things get out of hand and I
have to clean up. My daughter-in-law's mother works in the
sheriff's office. She's such a shameless gossip. It helps to know
what investigations are active and the direction they're taking.
Helps me keep tabs on who's going to be where. She couldn’t wait to
tell me you were going to pick Ryan up early this morning. She
thought I'd be relieved he was going to be okay."

So that's how Alice had known where to catch
her. Sandy's hands turned to ice. Each revelation tightened her
anxiety. This couldn’t end well. "Your husband has liked other
women, hasn't he?”

Alice shook with silent laughter, her eyes
glazing. "He's taken a few companions up to the McGees' cabin for a
nice little getaway."

"He hurts them, doesn’t he?"

This time Alice MacKay's laugh was loud,
bordering on maniacal. "Nothing but trash. He takes what he wants
when I let him. By the time Brody's finished with them. . ." She
shrugged. "Believe me, I'm doing you a favor."

"No, you're not," Sandy said, keeping her
voice even. She had to find a weapon of some sort, or she had to
figure out how to open the door and get out of the truck before
Alice could shoot her. "You don't care about me any more than you
cared about your sister. You can't let him hurt me because if he
starts hunting women in Orson's Folly, that investigation could end
up on your front stoop."

"See? I told you, you're smart."

"Where does Brenda fit into this? Why did
you let her stay?" Sandy leveled her gaze at Bull's mother. She
wondered if she could reach the tool belt behind her seat without
drawing unwanted attention.

A flare of nostrils and a very slight
narrowing of the eyes were Alice's only reactions.

"Mac isn't Ricky's father, is he?" Sandy
asked quietly, holding Alice's eyes with her stare. "You didn't
have a choice. You had to let her stay. Did Bull force your
hand?"

Alice sighed heavily. "Bull always did
exactly what I told him until Brenda had the child." Her eyes were
looking in Sandy's direction but focused on something she saw in
her head. "I wanted Brenda to die in childbirth. When she went into
labor and started having trouble, I thought she would. But Bull
defied me that day. He took her to the hospital himself."

Slowly, without taking her eyes off Alice,
Sandy slid her hand toward the rear of her seat. If she could just
keep Alice occupied and off balance long enough to get her hands on
that tool belt. A screwdriver wasn't much of a weapon compared to a
gun but it was all she had. She stretched a little more, almost
there.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Sunlight flashed on the gun barrel just as
the butt smashed violently into Sandy's forehead, leaving her
stunned. Vaguely, she heard Alice rummaging around in the cab of
the truck. Then she was alone. Seconds later, the driver's side
door was wrenched open.

Sandy tried to sit up, but her brain
couldn't seem to animate her body. Rough hands shoved her forward
into the steering wheel. She connected with a painful jolt. Her
teeth sank into her bottom lip and she tasted blood.

Moaning, Sandy turned her head, managing to
dodge the worst of the blow as Alice slammed a sizeable rock into
the back of her head. Pain exploded like a bomb. Little starbursts
of fiery agony blurred her vision. Dimly she saw Alice raise the
rock again, but she blacked out before the next blow came.

****

Dressed in the stiff new jeans and dark
pullover shirt his father had insisted on getting him from a nearby
discount store the night before, Ryan waited. He paced from the bed
back to the window, looked out at the parking lot, trying to spot
any sign of his dad's bright red truck. The wall clock registered
noon. He'd been waiting four hours.

Something was wrong. She'd left a message at
the nurse's station that she would be there at eight. It took just
over an hour to get from Orson's Folly to Jackson. Even if she
hadn't left her place until eight, and had run into light traffic,
she wouldn't be this late.

He dialed her cell number again, and again
it went straight to voicemail. Did that mean her phone was off? Or
was she in the mountains with no service?

Ryan erupted into a string of violent
cursing punctuated by the sharp sound of his open palm slapping the
marble window ledge. Sliding open his cell phone, he punched in
Sean's number.

"Melanie's waiting at the bar for a
delivery," said his brother. "Let me call over there, find out when
Sandy left. Maybe she was delayed."

When the nurse came to check his vital
signs, Ryan waved her off, then called her back.

"Is there someplace close I can rent a
car?"

"About a block away," the young nurse
replied. "But your discharge instructions recommend against
driving."

"I'll take that under advisement."

By the time Sean called him back, Ryan was
just signing the papers on his rental.

"She left just before seven," said Sean.

That was no surprise. If Sandy promised to
be somewhere at eight, she would be there at seven-fifty. But it
was more than that. Something was wrong. He felt it.

"Do you want me to come up and get you?"
Sean asked.

"I want you to drive up this way and watch
for the silver Grand Prix I just rented," Ryan instructed. "We'll
probably meet halfway, but if she's stranded on the road, you might
reach her before I can."

Determined to find Sandy, Ryan punched the
gas pedal and squealed out of the rental company parking lot,
heading toward home and, he hoped, the woman he loved.

With dismay, he realized that the brush was
so thick in places along the road it could easily swallow a vehicle
whole and pop back into place. If she'd gone off the road, finding
her would take keen eyes and patience to look thoroughly. He
definitely had none of the latter.

As Ryan had predicted, he met up with Sean
at the halfway point between Orson's Folly and Jackson. He pulled
his rental into a scenic overlook and waited for Sean to turn
around and join him.

"I didn't see anything on the way up," Sean
said in response to the unvoiced question. "I saw Alice MacKay
coming back from Jackson, flagged her down, but she said she hadn't
seen anything. She must have been about thirty minutes ahead of
you."

Ryan paced to the road, looked in both
directions, willing his father's red pickup to appear from around
either of the bends in the road.

"Bull still in jail?" he asked, without
turning around.

"Transferred to Jackson late yesterday,"
said Sean. "I got the impression that's where Alice had been."

With an explosive curse, Ryan punched the
hood of his rental, not caring about the fist-sized dent he left.
"Where is she?"

Sean touched his brother on the arm. He held
the radio from the cab of his truck. "Ry, it's time to call DC," he
said gently.

****

The Sheriff was already in his office when
the brothers pulled in, one behind the other.

"I've reported her missing under suspicious
circumstances," DC told them before the door finished closing.
"They're going to take a long, hard look at Brody MacKay Senior
because of Sandy's visit to Bull yesterday and the report I filed
about concerns for the welfare of Brenda and Ricky."

"Wait, wait!" Ryan held up a hand. "What are
you talking about?"

DC brought the brothers up to speed about
the events of the previous afternoon. Ryan's gut began to eat at
itself.

"The boy had fresh burns on his arm," DC
reported grimly. He looked at Ryan as he spoke, "Six round burns in
a line on the underside of his arm between his elbow and his wrist.
He said he got them from fighting the fire at your place."

Ryan shook his head. "No way. I asked if he
was okay, looked him over before he left. I would have noticed
burns like that." His mind was racing. Burns on the kid, probably
Mac's kid. "Old man Brody has a history of using cigarettes for
discipline," he murmured, more to himself.

But DC heard him. "I know," he said meeting
Ryan's shadowed eyes with a pointed gaze.

"Did you tell the MacKays it was Sandy
showing concern for Brenda and Ricky?" asked Sean.

DC shook his head. "No. The request to check
welfare came from Bull."

Ryan started as though he'd been slapped.
"Bull?"

"He seemed pretty worked up after Sandy
left," admitted the sheriff.

In a lightning move, Ryan violently swept
the pile of papers from the edge of DC's desk. "What did they do to
her?"

The sheriff left the papers sitting on the
floor, pushing them into a pile with the toe of one boot.

Ryan's cell phone rang. Quickly he slid it
open, saw Joe's number, and hit reject.

"I feel like I should be out looking for
her. But I don't know where to start." He pressed the heels of his
hands into his temples. His head was killing him. Not knowing what
had happened to Sandy was killing him quicker.

The door to the office opened and a pair of
state troopers entered. The building began to feel very small. With
a profound claustrophobia assaulting him, Ryan stepped outside
while DC spoke with the troopers.

He used his cell to check in with his father
while he paced around the parking lot.

"Have you tried calling her?" Justin
asked.

"Several times. It just goes straight to
voice mail."

"On the radio, son. The other day, I sent
her off with one of our hand-helds."

At last, something else to do. Ryan sprinted
to Sean's truck, reached in and grabbed his radio.