Сандра Браун - Thick as Thieves

A voice she had come to know well said from behind her, “Be still.” She looked over her shoulder. Ledge was kneeling behind her. He snapped the restraints apart with his pocketknife.

Then gently Arden and he turned Lisa onto her side. When Lisa blinked, Arden sobbed in relief.

Ledge, who’d located Lisa’s wound, raised his eyes to Arden, and what she saw in them made her tremble.

He said, “Ambulance is coming up the drive.”

She looked back down at Lisa, who was moving her hand in a restless, groping motion until she found Arden’s. Realizing what her sister was attempting, Arden hooked their little fingers together. Lisa closed her eyes momentarily, then reopened them and gave Arden’s finger a tug.

Arden leaned down, placing her ear directly above Lisa’s lips, but what she managed to utter was gibberish. Arden leaned back in order to look into her face, but Lisa’s eyes were already partially closed and unseeing.

Arden sensed commotion behind her and, at the same time, Ledge placed his hands on her shoulders and pulled her up to stand. “Give them room.”

Paramedics crowded into the space. One immediately began administering CPR on Lisa.

“Lisa?” Arden hiccupped a sob. “Lisa?”

Ledge placed his arm around her and drew her close.

Lisa was still receiving CPR when they placed her on a gurney and carried her to the ambulance. Arden was given a hand up and climbed in. The doors were shut, and it sped down the drive toward the road.

Ledge had seen in the eyes of one of the medics who had attended Lisa what he already knew. It had been a belly shot. Her chances of surviving were remote. He wanted to be with Arden.

But she might not want to be with him.

The rain had stopped. The men Don had sent to assist if necessary were circled around in the yard, chawing among themselves over what had happened, and giving their statements to the law officers who’d arrived with the ambulance. Some were from the sheriff’s office. Some, Ledge was relieved to see, were from other agencies. They would be impartial.

One of the retired Rangers noticed Ledge and brushed the brim of his hat with his fingertips. Ledge bobbed his chin in acknowledgment but didn’t join the group. He stayed on the steps at the back door.

Soon, Rusty was carted out of the bedroom, through the kitchen, and out the door where Ledge had been waiting.

The .357 had blown Rusty’s right shoulder joint to smithereens. The medics had stanched the hemorrhaging blood vessels, but Ledge knew it hurt like a mother. It wouldn’t kill him. Ledge hadn’t meant it to.

He hadn’t been looking Rusty in the eye.

Rusty was cursing the paramedics who carried his gurney. When he spotted Ledge, he tried to sit up, straining against the straps holding him down. “Fuck you, Burnet. You crippled me.”

“Maybe.”

“I’m not done with you.”

“Oh, you’re done, Rusty.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

Ledge did something he never thought he would do in the presence of Rusty Dyle. He smiled. “I don’t think so.”

Epilogue

A pair of headlights swept across the living room windows before going off. A door was shut. Footsteps sounded on the porch, then the new lock on the front door was unlatched with a decisive snap, and the door swung open.

Ledge stood silhouetted against a twilit sky.

Arden stayed as she was, seated on the second step of the staircase, bare toes curled over the edge of the next tread down. Her high-heeled pumps lay on the floor where she had stepped out of them. The darkness inside was relieved only by two candles, which she’d placed on either end of the mantel.

“Hi.”

“Where did you get a key?”

“I bribed the locksmith.” He said it with no sign of embarrassment or remorse.

She let it go. “How did you know I would be here?”

“Just figured.”

It had been four days since Lisa was pronounced DOA at the hospital. During that time, there had been formalities, legal and otherwise, that had kept Ledge and her apart. She hadn’t sought him out. He’d made no attempt to see her. They hadn’t even spoken by phone.

He must have been sensitive to her need for time and distance away from him in order to contend with everything that had been disclosed in the final hour of Lisa’s life.

The crime scene tape had been removed from the house today. She’d been cleared to return, and she’d felt that she must go back. But after getting the candles from a kitchen drawer, she had gone into the living area, even though it was the least comfortable room without a place to sit.

She would never go into the catch-all room again.

When she’d left with Lisa in the ambulance, she’d taken nothing with her except her handbag. Everything she was wearing, she’d had to buy. The new black dress was appropriately funereal.

Ledge closed the front door and walked toward her. As he got closer, she caught him looking at her legs. Her hem rode several inches above her bent knees, but she didn’t want to tug it down and call further attention.

He lowered himself onto the step beside her. They didn’t look at each other or speak for a full minute; then he said, “You buried her today?”

“You heard?”

“You can’t keep a secret in this town.”

“You can. You did. Lisa certainly did.”

He exhaled a breath laden with regret. “I heard about the worst secret she’d kept. God, I’m sorry, Arden.”

He’d missed hearing that shocking revelation by seconds before he had shot out the window glass. “Who told you?” Arden asked.

“The detective who took my statement. He’d also taken yours.” He turned his head to look at her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. I’m weary of it.”

“Fine by me.”

They sat in silence. Then she said, “Our appointment with the attorney general…?”

“That’s in abeyance. A prosecutor in Rusty’s office—young, idealistic, no love lost for his former boss—is treating the public disgracing of Rusty Dyle like a crusade. He’s already charged him with two counts of first-degree murder—Lisa and Hawkins. That doesn’t include Brian Foster.

“He said Rusty had taken crookedness to new heights and promised that heads will roll in the sheriff’s department, the county court. That’s just for starters. In light of all that, the burglary of Welch’s store way back in 2000 is at the bottom of his to-do list.”

“He and the attorney general would probably be content never to reopen that investigation.”

“Probably. But I want my admission to go on the record, even if it’s by deposition. I also want to make an official apology to you. Here and now.” He held her gaze. “Arden, I’m sorry I didn’t confess my part in it sooner. I should have leveled with you the day you came to the workshop. My intention was good, but maybe my judgment was lousy.”

The seriousness of his expression was emphasized by the play of candlelight and shadow across his features. “Yes, you should have,” she said softly. “But if you hadn’t gotten here when you did, and acted, Rusty would have killed me, too. In exchange for saving my life, I can forgive you the other.”

He looked like he wanted to say more, but he had apologized, she had accepted, so before he could belabor the point, she changed the subject. “Thank you for contacting the demolition company for me.”

“You’ve heard from them already?”

“This morning. The foreman is coming tomorrow to walk through the house to see what will be involved. Goodwill is taking all the household items and my belongings. I don’t want any of it. I didn’t have much here, anyway.”

He looked at her through his perceptive squint. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”