Сандра Браун - Thick as Thieves

“Arden is in danger from Rusty.”

His terse statement shut her up. A tad more of her arrogance slipped. “Rusty Dyle?”

“That’s the one.”

She turned to Arden. “When we talked about him yesterday morning, you seemed not to know him.”

“I didn’t until half an hour before I called you.”

Ledge looked between the two sisters. “You two talked about Rusty?”

Arden said, “Mostly in the context of your rivalry with him over Crystal.”

“Crystal,” Lisa said as though with enlightenment. “That was her name.”

“Still is,” Ledge said.

“Is the rivalry ongoing?”

“More cutthroat than ever.”

“Aren’t you two a little old to be feuding over a girl?”

“Crystal is a woman, but she’s no longer at the heart of our feud. Rusty’s main beef now is that he lost out on the money we emptied out of Welch’s safe.”

Lisa’s features went slack.

“You heard right,” Ledge went on. “I’ve confessed to Arden that I was in on the burglary.”

Arden shot him a reproving look. “You didn’t have to admit it to her.”

Speaking softly and directly to her, he said, “Yeah, I did. For twenty years it’s been eating at me. I’m glad it’s out.” They shared a look redolent with unspoken meaning, then he turned back to Lisa.

“Rusty coerced me into doing it. I should have bucked him. I didn’t. We’re long past being prosecuted for it, but that doesn’t make me any less guilty.”

“Why would you confess now?” Lisa asked.

“It’s good for the soul. Besides, I plan to put Rusty out of business before he draws more blood.”

“Draws more blood?” Lisa looked over at Arden. “What is he talking about?”

“It’s Rusty who’s been keeping a nightly vigil on me. I discovered that yesterday.” She told Lisa about her disturbing encounter with him at the courthouse. “We, Ledge and I, believe that he, not Dad, killed Brian Foster.”

Lisa looked even more shocked. “What?”

“Late that night, Rusty set up an elaborate alibi scenario with Crystal,” Arden said. “Possibly for only the burglary, but it’s more likely he needed an alibi for something else, some violent encounter.”

“Like a fight to the death with Foster,” Ledge said. “He also has a vendetta against your father. But he isn’t here, so Rusty’s going after Arden.”

“How so?” Lisa asked, turning to Arden.

She described the dog attack and their showdown with Hawkins. She was blunt, sparing her snooty sister none of the gorier details.

When she finished, Ledge said, “There’s a footnote. Hawkins was found dead this morning. You can guess who silenced him, and this fresh taste of blood has only emboldened him. Rusty all but confessed to us.”

Looking queasy, Lisa backed up to the wall. “He’s the district attorney, for godsake.”

“Which only gives him license to do what he wants with impunity,” Ledge said.

“Your fear for Arden’s safety is justified, then.”

“Thanks all the same, but I don’t need your okay. Not for anything, but especially not anything concerning Arden and me.”

Lisa gave him a dirty look, then turned back to Arden. “I told you repeatedly that moving back here was a terrible idea. You didn’t listen.”

“Because I had no idea of what I was walking into,” she exclaimed. “I didn’t know I had a built-in enemy. Did you?”

Lisa held her ground for a time; then her shoulders slumped, and she gave a small nod.

Arden regarded her with incredulity. “You knew about Rusty, his part in the burglary? All that?”

“Yes. All that.”

“For how long?”

“From the night it took place.”

Arden gaped at her. “You allowed me to stumble into this blind, Lisa. All those times you tried to dissuade me, why didn’t you simply lay it all out?”

“I couldn’t ‘simply.’ I couldn’t warn you about Rusty without…without telling you that I saw Dad that night. With the stolen money.”

Lisa abruptly left the bedroom and went into the kitchen, where she helped herself to a soda from the refrigerator. Ledge and Arden followed her but declined anything to drink.

Ledge posted himself as lookout where he could see out onto the backyard as well as have a clear shot of the front door through the empty dining and living rooms.

The position also gave him a head-on view of Arden. He wanted to read her reactions to what Lisa had to tell her. She needed to hear it. At long last. But he dreaded the next few minutes for her. Apparently, she shared his apprehension. Seated across the table from each other, Arden was regarding Lisa as though she were a stranger she had never seen before.

Lisa fiddled with the soda can, idly turning it on the tabletop. Ledge wondered if she was buying time in order to fabricate a plausible partial truth that Arden would swallow. Or was she choosing words that would soften the blow of the hard facts?

She said, “I thought that by now Rusty would have given up the idea of regaining his booty.”

“He hasn’t,” Ledge said before Arden could speak. “She’s been in Rusty’s crosshairs from the day she moved back. If you know anything about how Joe wound up with the cash and made his escape, now would be the time to tell us.”

“ Us ? Whatever I tell my sister will be in private.”

“Nuh-uh,” he said. “I want to hear.”

“Anything relating to our father is between Arden and me.”

Arden said, “Lisa, Rusty has threatened to blame Hawkins’s murder on Ledge. He deserves to know what you know about that night. He stays.”

She relented. “All right. Where to start?” She took a sip of her soda, then began. “Directly after dinner, Dad left, saying he was going to the cemetery.”

“I remember.”

“You and I watched a movie. At bedtime, I tucked you in, secured the house, and went to my room. I worked on an assignment for one of my classes and didn’t go to bed until after Dad came back. That’s not when I saw him, though. He went straight to his room, I assumed to bed.”

“What time was that?” Ledge asked.

“I don’t remember,” she snapped. “At the time, I didn’t know it would be important to note.”

He stared back at her but made no further comment.

She continued. “Hours later, I woke up to a noise downstairs. I got up and checked your room. You were sound asleep. I came downstairs, and when I got here to the kitchen, I was stunned to see Dad. I thought he was still upstairs.

“But he hadn’t only left his room, he’d left the house without my being aware of it. His shoes were muddy, his pants legs were wet. Stickers and twigs were stuck in the fabric. He was also flushed and sweaty. He wouldn’t have returned from the cemetery that way.

“Then I noticed a canvas bag, sitting on the floor, just inside the door. ‘Where have you been?’ I asked. ‘What’s that?’ And he said, ‘That’s the cash stolen from Welch’s store tonight.’ Just like that.

“I thought for certain that I was having a nightmare. But, no, the basket of Easter eggs we had dyed was on the table. The faucet was dripping as it always was. I could smell the whiskey on Dad’s breath. All my senses were sharpened, exaggerated. As much as I wanted to deny that it was actually happening, it was all too real to be a dream.”

Ledge observed Arden. She sat rapt, barely breathing, taking in every word.

She said, “Ledge said that when the group split up, Rusty had the money. How did Dad get it from him?”

Lisa divided a look between them. “I can only tell you what Dad told me, which was that Brian Foster called him with a warning. Rusty was going to use Dad as a scapegoat. Foster told him that you,” she said, looking over a Ledge, “had been arrested for possession of marijuana, and Rusty feared that you would barter what you knew about the burglary in exchange for getting a walk on the drug charge.”