'Til Death (A Rebel Ridge Novel) (2 page)

“I’m in the truck. I’ll meet you there.”

“Uh...one more thing,” Ryal added.

“What?”

“She told me to bring my gun.”

He heard Quinn grunt, and then the line went dead in Ryal’s
ear. He tossed the phone into the console and accelerated as much as he dared.
He had precious cargo riding with him, and on the narrow winding roads of Rebel
Ridge, driving too fast could get them killed.

It seemed that the drive took forever, but it was actually less
then fifteen minutes. He pulled into the driveway and braked hard only a few
feet from the front porch.

“I’ll get Sarah,” Beth said. “You take the first-aid kit and
the gun. We’ll be right behind you.”

He nodded. Moments later he was running across the yard. The
front door was locked but, being family, he had a key. He quickly unlocked it,
then left it ajar as he ran inside, calling Meg’s name as he went.

* * *

Meg was dizzy and beginning to get sick to her stomach
from the pain. The hem of her nightgown was soaked with blood, and she had moved
from the chair to the floor and was leaning up against a wall for fear she would
pass out. Her feet were still bleeding, and she couldn’t quit shaking. She knew
it was shock, but knowing why didn’t make it stop.

When she finally heard her brother’s voice her vision suddenly
blurred. At last! Now she was safe.

“I’m in the kitchen!” she yelled.

Ryal burst into the room and took one look at the chaos and
blood. He dropped to his knees beside her and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“What the hell happened here?”

“Someone broke into the house. I heard him and grabbed the gun.
I guess he heard me coming down the hall and ran out.”

“Did you get a look at him? Could you tell who it was?”

She shook her head. “By the time I got to the porch all I saw
was movement inside the trees. I followed all the way to the fence, shooting as
I went, and didn’t stop until the rifle was empty.”

“Son of a bitch.”

Ryal sounded like she’d felt at the onset: mad and frustrated.
But she didn’t feel that way now. She was scared, and her feet were hurting. She
shoved a hand through her hair, unaware that she’d just smeared blood across her
forehead.

At that moment Beth came hurrying into the room. “I got the
playpen out of the back bedroom and put Sarah in the living room.” Then she saw
the broken glass and Meg on the floor bleeding, and she went into action. “Do
you know if there’s any glass in your feet?”

“No. I was running and shooting, and didn’t even know I’d cut
myself until the gun was empty and the guy was gone.”

Beth rocked back on her heels. “What? Someone broke into the
house?”

“It’s a long story,” Meg said.

“Save it for when Quinn gets here,” Ryal said. “Right now we
need to see what you’ve done to your feet and whether or not we need to take you
to the doctor.”

Meg groaned. “You called Quinn?”

“Yes, and I’m about to call Mom and Jake,” he said.

“Oh, my Lord,” Meg said.

“We’d never hear the end of it if we didn’t,” Beth said, and
gave Meg’s arm a quick squeeze. “I’m going to get a pan and some water so we can
see how bad the cuts are, okay?”

Meg nodded, then leaned her head against the wall and closed
her eyes. There was no need to be afraid anymore. Her family was here.
Everything was going to be all right.

A few minutes later Beth came back over, carrying a basin of
warm water with a couple of towels and a washcloth. Ryal was cleaning up the
blood and broken glass. Beth knelt beside her and proceeded to wash Meg’s feet
to assess the damage.

“I’ll try not to hurt you,” she said softly.

“It’s okay,” Meg said. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

Ryal was still sweeping when they heard Quinn drive up.

He came inside on the run, calling Ryal’s name.

“In the kitchen!” Ryal called back.

Quinn was in his ranger uniform—and armed. He quickly eyed the
room and what his brother was doing, and then got down on one knee beside Meg,
touching Beth’s shoulder as he knelt. The cuts on Meg’s feet were obvious, but
not how they got there. His voice was gruff with emotion.

“What happened, honey?”

Meg sighed. Quinn was the brother who’d been to war. From the
look in his eyes, he was ready to go back.

“Someone broke into the house,” she said.

“She couldn’t see enough to tell who it was, but she emptied
the rifle at him just the same,” Ryal said.

“Which direction did he take when he ran?” Quinn asked.

Meg wasn’t fooled by the soft tone of his voice. The family all
knew that the quieter he got, the angrier he was.

“The first time he was here, he came and went behind the barn,
but this time he went left of the house into the trees.”

“What the hell do you mean,
this
time?
” Ryal asked. “You didn’t say this had happened before.”

Meg’s eyes welled with tears. “I didn’t think it amounted to
much. From the size of the first footprints I found, I thought it was a teenager
just messing around, trying to rile me up because I’m alone.”

“I didn’t mean to raise my voice, Meggie. Don’t cry,” Ryal
said. “Just tell us what’s been happening.”

Beth put a clean towel under each of Meg’s feet and went to
pour out the bloody water while Meg began to explain, telling them about the
bucket going missing in the barn, then the cow getting out and the rope latch
being cut. By the time she got to what had happened that morning, she couldn’t
stop shaking.

“Shock,” Quinn said. “Hey, Beth! Bring a blanket,” he yelled,
then eyed the cuts more closely. “You need stitches. Has anyone called Mom?”

“We were waiting for you to get here before we made any further
decisions,” Ryal said.

“Call her. Tell her you’re taking Meg to the E.R. in Mount
Sterling.”

“What are
you
going to do?” Ryal
asked.

“I’m going hunting,” Quinn said, and stood abruptly. “Don’t
worry, sister, we’ll find the son of a bitch and make him sorry, okay?”

“Be careful,” Meg said.

Beth came back with an old quilt and wrapped it around Meg’s
shoulders. The warmth of the quilt was secondary to the feeling of shelter that
swept through her as she tucked it under her chin.

A look passed between the brothers as Quinn went out the back
door, pausing to look at where the lock had been jimmied. Moments later he was
gone.

The baby started to cry in the other room.

Meg felt like joining her, but it would solve nothing and only
add to the confusion.

Beth gathered up the first-aid supplies and put them back in
the box. “Ryal, you go on to Mount Sterling with Meg. Sarah and I will stay here
to wait for Jake and Dolly. Quinn’s already on the hunt, so we’ll be fine. In
the meantime, I’ll finish cleaning up in here, and we’ll have everything all
shipshape by the time you two get back.”

Ryal hesitated and then picked up Meg’s empty rifle.

“Where’s the ammunition?” he asked.

“In the hall closet on the top shelf,” she said.

“I’ll be right back,” Ryal said, and went to get the ammo and
reload the rifle. He didn’t like the idea of leaving his wife and child alone in
a house that had just been vandalized, but Meg had been bleeding too long as it
was, and Beth was right. Quinn was already after the perpetrator, so there was
no chance of him coming back here. Still, he wasn’t going to leave them
defenseless.

He paused in the hall and hung the rifle on the gun rack, then
went back to the kitchen.

“The rifle has been reloaded. If it wasn’t for Sarah, I’d say
leave it in a corner somewhere in here. It’s hanging on the gun rack in the
hall, okay?”

Beth nodded. “We’ll be fine.”

“You better be,” he said softly, then picked Meg up and headed
for the front door with Beth leading the way. They settled Meg in the front
seat, then buckled her up.

Ryal turned to his wife and kissed her goodbye. “We’ll be back
as soon as possible. Be careful. Pay attention.”

“I will. I’m going to go call your mother now. It won’t take
them long to get here. You two drive safe and hurry home.”

Beth hurried back inside to console her baby, only to find out
that she’d fallen asleep in the playpen. She covered her with a blanket and then
picked up the phone to call Dolly.

* * *

Quinn found the tracks easily enough and saw that Meg
had been right. They were on the small side for a grown man, which meant nothing
in the grand scheme of tracking. It could even be a woman. Not everyone was the
size of the Walker clan. Another thing he noticed was that the man made no
attempt to hide his tracks, and from the length of the stride, he had been
moving fast. Quinn smiled grimly. That would be because his sister had been
emptying the rifle at his ass. Too damned bad she’d missed.

He lost the trail twice when he ran into a patch of rocky
ground but picked it up again within minutes. The man was still moving uphill,
but Quinn noticed from the length of his stride that he was also slowing down,
and that was when he found the first sign of blood. Meg had gotten a piece of
the bastard after all.

A mile up he came out into a clearing and realized he’d walked
up on the old Fox homestead. There was nothing left of the house and
outbuildings but a chimney and a pile of rotting lumber. He seemed to remember
hearing that it had taken a bad hit one year during a storm after old man Fox’s
death, but he hadn’t been on this land in years. Obviously the story had been
true. The storm must have blown the roof off, and the ensuing years of weather
had rotted what was left. The place was grown up with weeds and grass, so he
began looking around, trying to pick up the trail again.

The first thing he saw that was out of place was an old rusty
door in the side of the mountain. He guessed it was some kind of storm shelter
and tried it, but it wouldn’t open. It was either locked or rusted shut, and
from the amount of undisturbed weeds and brush around it, the man couldn’t be
hiding in there.

After circling the area and finding what looked like tracks
from a dirt bike, he had to accept that he’d lost the trail. The thought of
going back to Meg without good news was frustrating, but there were still things
they could do to ensure her safety. He made a quick call to his boss, filled him
in on what was happening and then headed back down the mountain.

* * *

There was a hole in his coat. It and his shirt were
soaked with blood when he finally pulled it off. The damn bitch had nicked him
with her first shot. The pain had been a shock, but it had lent speed to his
exit. The last thing he’d expected was for her to come out shooting. There was
more fire to Meg Lewis than he’d expected, and he was regretting his decision to
fool with her awhile before making his approach. He had a big question, and she
had the answer. He should have just knocked on her door and found a way to trick
her into telling him. The only reason he’d decided to tease her for a while was
pure meanness on his part, and it was a mistake that had almost cost him his
life. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

He grimaced as he shifted in front of the bathroom mirror to
eye the wound. Thankfully it was just a graze and had almost stopped bleeding.
He grabbed a bottle of alcohol from the medicine cabinet, dousing the wound
liberally, cursing loud and long from the pain. With no gauze or tape to make a
bandage, he ripped up an undershirt, folded it into a pad and stuck it down with
a half-dozen Band-Aids.

As soon as he was satisfied that the makeshift dressing was
going to hold, he got a long-sleeved shirt out of the closet. It wouldn’t be
wise for anyone to see the bandage or the wound and start asking questions. He
moved quietly through the house, dodging sleeping dogs. Thankful that his
brother was a heavy sleeper, he took some pain pills out of the cabinet and a
cold beer from the fridge, and he dosed himself as he headed for the door.

It was almost ten in the morning and not a bite of food in the
house to eat. It was time to go down to Boone’s Gap, pick up some groceries and
grab some food at Frankie’s Eats.

Two

B
y the time Quinn got back to the house,
not only were Jake and his mom there, but so was his wife, Mariah. He found
Dolly scrubbing and sweeping the kitchen floor all over again, and Beth feeding
Sarah a snack. Except for remembering all the blood and Meg’s pale face, it
would seem like old times in this house. But the moment he came in, they began
bombarding him with questions.

“Give me a minute,” he said, and hugged Mariah, who gave him a
careful look. They were both veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and each
other’s monitor on the PTSD that came and went in their lives. After he winked
at her, she relaxed.

“I brought Moses. He’s tied up on the front porch,” Mariah
said. With Jake’s help, she was teaching their dog, Moses, to track. “Want me to
put him on the trail?”

“Maybe,” Quinn said. “We need to talk first.”

His mother set the mop out on the back porch to dry and then
came back in and joined the conversation.

“Talk to me, Quinn. Who did this?” she asked.

“I wish I knew,” Quinn said. “I lost the trail up around the
old Fox place. He got away on a dirt bike, but I found blood. Meg got a piece of
him when she fired.”

“Damn shame it wasn’t his head,” Jake said.

Quinn silently agreed. “Has anyone heard from Ryal and
Meg?”

“I did,” Beth said. “He called about a half hour ago. They’re
on their way home. She has six stitches in her right foot and three in her
left.”

Quinn’s eyes narrowed angrily. “I’m so upset with her for not
telling us about what’s been going on.”

Dolly’s face crumpled as a fresh set of tears slid down her
cheeks. “It was because she was living on her own now and didn’t want anyone to
think she couldn’t handle it.”

Mariah frowned. “Meg is the most resourceful woman I’ve ever
met. She’ll always be fine on her own if the playing field is level.”

“You’re right, honey.” Quinn nodded. “I called my boss and told
him I’d be off all day. I’m going into Mount Sterling to get some
motion-activated security lights and an alarm system. I also need to fix the
lock on the back door. When that bastard walks up on this house again he won’t
have the convenience of hiding in the dark to jimmy a lock. I’m getting the
loudest damn alarm I can find, and next time he tries breaking in, maybe he’ll
die of a heart attack and save me the trouble of killing him.”

Mariah grinned. “My hero.”

Beth laughed. “No one ever accused Quinn of being the family
pacifist.”

Quinn eyed his wife. “Mariah, if you intend to put Moses on the
trail, don’t take him into the woods by yourself.”

Jake spoke up. “I’ll go with her. I brought my rifle. We’ll see
what happens.”

Beth tested the floor to see if it was dry and then put Sarah
down to play. “Dolly and I will wait here for Ryal and Meg. You should meet them
coming back on your way down.”

“Okay,” Quinn said. “Oh, did anyone call James? He’ll be
seriously pissed if he finds out what’s happening from someone other than
us.”

Beth nodded. “I tried his cell a couple of times but only got
voice mail, then just called his house and told Julie everything. She’ll fill
him in when he gets home.”

“Okay, so call if you need me, but I won’t be gone any longer
than I have to,” Quinn said. “I’ll have this place wired like a prison before
the sun goes down tonight.”

“Jake and I are spending the night with her,” Dolly said.
“We’ve already decided. And I’m staying here with her until her stitches are out
and she’s able to get around again.”

“I’ll be right here with them every night,” Jake said. “My boys
can watch our place while we’re here.”

“Meg isn’t going to be happy about that,” Beth said. “She’s
going to think we don’t believe she can take care of herself.”

“She’ll get over it,” Dolly said shortly.

“So Mom’s still in charge, huh?” Quinn said, and winked at his
mother.

A few minutes later he was on his way down the mountain, while
Mariah and Jake took Moses outside and set him on the intruder’s trail.

* * *

As they left the hospital in Mount Sterling, Meg felt
light-headed from the pain meds and realized it was because her stomach was
empty. She would rectify that after she got home, but for now all that mattered
was that her feet were blessedly numb. She glanced over at her brother, grateful
for his presence but at the same time worried about how she was going to cope.
She wasn’t supposed to walk until the stitches came out, except when it was
completely necessary, and she had chickens to feed, a cow to milk and a quilt to
finish, although she could work on that sitting down.

Her head was spinning, trying to figure out how to make
everything work, when Ryal glanced over at her and smiled.

“You doin’ okay, sister?”

“As good as can be expected, but what a mess I’ve made of
everything. If only I’d seen that glass on the floor.”

He frowned. “You’re not responsible for any of this. The sorry
bastard who broke into your house is responsible for all of it, and speaking of
sorry bastards...can you think of anyone who would do this to you?”

She shook her head. “No, but since he was on foot, I think it
must be someone who lives fairly close. We know everybody on this side of the
mountain, but I’ve never looked at my neighbors and thought of them as possible
stalkers.”

Ryal sighed. “It doesn’t have to be someone within walking
distance, honey. They could have a vehicle stashed somewhere nearby. I was
wondering if anyone had been coming on to you at church, or maybe trying to hit
on you down in Boone’s Gap and you turned him down. Anything like that ring a
bell?”

She snorted softly. “I haven’t been asked out in so long I
can’t remember the last man who tried.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“I’m not. There’s not a man, single or married, living on Rebel
Ridge that I’d give a second look at, and that’s the truth. My first boyfriend
wound up going to prison for manslaughter, although to be fair, I never thought
he did it. As for the man I married, he
did
kill
someone, and I’m glad he went to prison for it. I’ve never had the guts to give
it another try.”

Ryal glanced at her, eyeing the closed expression on her face.
“I had forgotten all about you and Lincoln Fox.”

She shrugged, ignoring the pang of regret she always felt when
she heard his name. “We were teenagers. It was a long time ago.”

“Your ex wasn’t a bad guy when you married him,” he added.

Meg shrugged. “No, but he was a weak one. The first time
someone waved money under his nose, he caved. He was making meth in the back
pasture just like his granddaddy used to make moonshine up in the hills, and
when he began cheating his customers, he wound up killing one who dared to
complain. Lord. Even divorcing him after he went to prison wasn’t enough to live
that down.”

“Damn it, Meg, that’s on him, not you.”

“Yes, well, Mrs. White probably had a different opinion, God
rest her soul. It was her son Wendell who Bobby killed.”

“Yeah, Wendell, the oldest of the three losers she gave birth
to, and the druggie who spent his mama’s social security check on meth before
she even got a chance to buy groceries. This sounds a little harsh, but if you
ask me, your ex did her a favor.”

Meg knew she should be shocked, but the smirk on Ryal’s face
made her smile.

“I guess there’s a case to be made there,” she said.

He nodded. “However, I do remember their financial situation
had turned around before Wendell was killed. One day they’d been bordering on
losing everything, and then suddenly they were fine. By the time Mrs. White
passed, the place was a little showpiece...flowers in the yard, a new barn and
even a small tractor. Then the property passed to Prince and Fagan, and it’s
gone downhill ever since.”

“You’re good for my soul,” she said.

“Well, I don’t want to hear any more crap out of you about any
shame falling on your shoulders. You did nothing wrong, so don’t go and turn
yourself into some damn martyr, do you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, brother.”

“Good. And now you’re home,” he said, eyeing the number of cars
in the yard. “Looks like the only ones who have yet to arrive are James and
Julie.”

Meg pointed. “Oh, Lord. Here comes Mom, and she’s crying.”

“If this had just happened to Sarah, I’d be crying, too, so get
over it,” Ryal said.

“Point taken,” she said, and opened the door.

“Hang on. You’re not getting out on your own, remember?”

She sighed. “Actually, I’d already forgotten.”

“You won’t forget when the pain meds wear out. Just hold your
horses.”

Moments later she was enveloped in her mother’s teary hug
before Ryal picked her up and carried her into the house. Dolly chastised her
all the way inside for not telling them what had been happening. Before Meg
could get in a word of explanation, Jake finished up the scolding by telling her
that he and Dolly were staying there until she could walk on her own again, and
they didn’t want to hear a word about it.

“I hear you, and I thank you,” Meg said, trying not to cry as
Ryal put her down in the recliner and pulled out the footrest. As he did, the
quilt that had been wrapped around her in the car slipped down to her waist.

Dolly took one look at the nightgown Meg was wearing and
gasped.

“Oh, Lordy be, Margaret Ann, you actually went to the emergency
room in your nightgown? What did people think?”

“Well, Mom, just be glad they didn’t have to take the nightgown
off to treat me, because I’m not wearing anything under it, either.”

Dolly gasped as the rest of the family burst into laughter.

* * *

Quinn was back from Mount Sterling. He’d already fixed
the lock on the back door and was outside hanging the first of the
motion-sensitive security lights when Moses came bounding out of the woods with
Mariah and Jake behind him. The dog saw Quinn on the ladder and began barking to
signal their arrival. Quinn waved at the trackers, and then kept on working as
the dog bounded up onto the porch and flopped down in the shade, his tongue
hanging out of the side of his mouth, panting from the exertion.

Mariah and Jake stopped to talk.

“How did it go?” Quinn asked.

Mariah looked disappointed. “We lost the trail in the same
place you did.”

Jake took off his cap and combed his fingers through his thick
gray curls. “I found bike tracks right where you said they’d be. I’m thinking he
had it stashed there for a getaway.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” Quinn said. “Regardless, I’m
putting in some security here. If there’s a next time, I’m making sure Meg has
light to aim by.”

“Are she and Ryal back?” Mariah asked.

“Yeah, she’s inside.”

“I’m going to go see her,” she said, and tied Moses up before
going inside.

“Need any help?” Jake asked.

“I’m good,” Quinn said. “I helped set up communications in
Iraq, so most of this is familiar territory.”

He kept on working, and when he was finished with the first
light he gave Moses some water before moving the ladder to the front of the
house. He installed another light on the front porch, and just as he was
finishing up, the last Walker brother arrived.

James was alone, which meant Julie had been able to contact him
before he’d gone back home. He got out on the run, without the jovial smile he
usually wore. He looked as deadly as Quinn felt.

“What the hell happened to Meg?” he asked.

Quinn frowned. “Someone’s been stalking her. She’ll fill you in
on all the details. Everyone else is inside.”

James bolted up the steps, letting the door slam behind him as
he went inside, but not before Quinn got a whiff of chicken frying and corn
bread baking in the oven. It was almost noon, and his mom was obviously on a
mission. She couldn’t fix what had happened, but she knew how to feed the people
who could, and she was hard at it.

He finished with the last outside light and then proceeded to
install the alarm system inside the house, putting sensors on both the doors, so
that once the alarm was set it would go off if either door was opened. If he
could, he would have dug a moat around the house and installed a drawbridge, but
this was the best he could do for the location they were in.

As Quinn headed for the bathroom to wash up, he saw the local
sheriff’s car coming up the drive. Ryal, who was standing head to head with
James, must have called him.

“Hey, Ryal, Sheriff Marlow just pulled up,” he said, pointing
toward the door, and then kept on walking.

Ryal handed his daughter to James and went outside to greet the
sheriff.

Marlow promptly shook Ryal’s hand as he came up the steps.
“Good to see you, Ryal. Sorry it’s under such circumstances. How’s Meg?”

“She’s okay, no thanks to the man who broke into the
house.”

“Is she up to giving a statement? I’ll need to talk to her to
file the report.”

“Sure, come on in,” Ryal said, and led the way to the living
room. “Hey, everybody, why don’t you go see if Mom needs any help? The sheriff
needs to talk to Meg.”

They left the room as the sheriff chose a chair beside the
recliner where Meg was sitting.

“You’ll have to ignore my clothing,” Meg said. “Mom is already
horrified that I went to the emergency room in my nightgown, so when it dawns on
her that I’m giving my statement to the authorities in the same condition, she
won’t be happy with me.”

Marlow chuckled. “You’re just fine, Meg.” But the smile ended
when he got down to business and took out his notepad. “So, talk to me. Ryal
mentioned when he called that you’re being stalked, so start from the
beginning.”

She nodded, then once again repeated her story, from the
missing feed bucket to the squeaky floorboard in the kitchen and chasing him out
with the rifle. At that point, Quinn returned.