The Inheritance Part VI Read online

  The Inheritance

  Part VI

  Olivia Mayfield

  INTERMIX BOOKS, NEW YORK

  INTERMIX BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  A Penguin Random House Company

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  THE INHERITANCE PART VI: THE TRUTH

  An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  InterMix eBook edition / November 2013

  Copyright © 2013 by Rhonda Helms.

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  ISBN: 978-1-101-62607-8

  INTERMIX

  InterMix Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group

  and New American Library, divisions of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  INTERMIX and the “IM” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  About the Author

  The Truth

  Chapter 31

  The entire room froze, all attention focused on the gun in Maggie’s mom’s hand. No one moved or spoke for a painfully long time. The whole evening had taken a potentially fatal turn, and no one could seem to believe it.

  Maggie pressed her fingers against her thighs, fighting her growing shakes as best as she could. What the hell should she do now?

  “Mom,” she made herself say in a quiet, even tone, not wanting to shock her mother into accidentally pulling the trigger, “this isn’t the right way to handle the situation. Put the gun down, and let’s talk about it, okay?”

  She turned her gaze briefly to Maggie. Something in her haunted eyes was broken, shattered by the realization that her own son had committed the most unimaginable crime. And then had spent the last eight years covering up his secret. Maggie had never seen her mom so upset, not even after Cassandra’s disappearance. It shot a deep splinter of pain into her own heart.

  “There is no right way to handle any of this ‘situation,’ is there,” her mother said, her voice strangely flat and matter-of-fact. She straightened her spine and looked back at Robert. “What he did . . . it’s unforgiveable.”

  “I know, and I feel the same way,” Maggie agreed, taking a small step forward. “We can talk about it, about how we want to handle this. We can call the police and get this all resolved. Now that we know the truth.”

  Her mother didn’t look at her, but her gun hand shook slightly with Maggie’s movement, so Maggie paused. Her heart was slamming so hard against her rib cage she was sure it would burst out of her chest. Her lips, fingers and toes had gone almost numb from her blinding fear. What the hell was she supposed to do, to say? No doubt her brother deserved to rot in jail for the rest of his miserable life.

  But killing him?

  “This isn’t going to bring Cassandra back,” Maggie continued, her throat parched. She tried to lick her lips, but her tongue was too dry to offer any moisture.

  “Please put the gun down, Susan,” Andrew said in a low, gravelly voice. His phone was still in his hand but dropped down to his side now. He kept his stance relaxed, his voice even.

  Maggie wanted him to dial the police right now, but also wanted him to let them sort this out first. This situation had spiraled way out of control. Unbelievably so. They needed to get things back down—without a gun—before the police got involved.

  “For the last eight years, I’ve been trapped in a nightmare,” her mom said in a throaty tone, staring hard at Robert, who flinched a tiny bit beneath the intensity of her gaze but didn’t move. “My marriage falling apart day by day, one daughter missing without a trace, my son drowning his sorrows in booze and gambling. But every day I pulled myself together, got out of bed, sleepwalked my way through my life. Because that’s what you do when tragedy happens to you—you move forward.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Robert said again, his voice barely audible. His gaze was tortured, filled with fear, and he held up his hands as if to ward off the gun. He still hadn’t moved from his spot, and Maggie could see an artery throbbing in an erratic pulse on the side of his throat. His dread was a living thing, smothering the air out of the room.

  It was like he had a real fear that his mom would actually shoot him. But would she? Right now, Maggie didn’t know for sure. Her lungs were the size of grapes; she could barely draw in enough oxygen to keep her head from feeling lightheaded. This was a nightmare.

  Maggie took another step forward, Andrew moving right by her side. His presence was the only thing keeping her grounded and sane in this moment. “Mom, please put the gun down.”

  The hand holding the gun wavered for a second, then straightened again. Her mother’s eyes filled with a steely resolve, her jaw tightening. Rage poured off her in waves. “He destroyed our family,” she bit out.

  “No, he didn’t,” Maggie answered hotly. Tears flowed down her cheeks—God, would she ever run out of them? “I’m still here, and I need you.” The words came out choked. She blindly reached for Andrew’s hand, craving his steady presence to help her get through this. “I know you and I haven’t had the best relationship, but I need you right now, and I really want you to put down that gun. Please. For me. Please.”

  Silence thickened and stretched out into an eternity.

  Andrew squeezed her hand and kept the other tightly around his phone. She knew he was waiting for the right moment before calling the police, but it wouldn’t be too long now. He’d be forced to call if her mother didn’t put down the gun soon.

  Bethany looked like she wanted to say or do something, chewing on her lower lip, the lipstick having long ago worn off. She turned a desperate gaze at Maggie, who shook her head in warning. Any words or movement by the woman might just make her angrier, since Maggie’s mom already didn’t like her.

  Bethany’s face turned splotchy red, and she crossed her arms over her chest, her thumbs rubbing her upper arms with a nervous twitch. But she kept quiet.

  “Mom,” Maggie pressed, her heartbeat kicking up a notch. “We can talk about it. We’ll figure this out together, okay? But give it a chance,
please.”

  She finally let out a choked sob, her face falling in utter misery, and dropped the gun down to her side. The whole room whooshed out an audible exhale. Maggie ran to her mom, who crumpled to the floor in a tired heap, gun dangling from loose fingers.

  “Shh, it’s okay,” Maggie soothed, taking the gun and giving it to Andrew, who uncocked it and moved with it out of the living room, probably to hide it away somewhere. Maggie wrapped her arms around her mom, so frail and tiny and broken. Her own heart was shattered into tiny pieces as well, grieving once again for Cassandra. Heartbroken for the years and years of lies. Barely able to mentally process Robert’s treachery. “We’ll get through this.” Though at the moment, she really didn’t know how.

  Her mom clung to her, sobbing into her shirt. “God, I still miss her so much,” she cried out. “I don’t know how to deal with this. I wasn’t ready, I wasn’t ready.”

  “I know,” Maggie said, stroking her mother’s hair, shutting out everyone else in this moment to focus on comforting the woman as best as she could. “I don’t either. But we have the answers now.” As painful as it was to hear them. She turned anger-filled eyes to her brother, who remained frozen in place, his face showing his inner angst. His golden brow was deeply furrowed, and a flicker of shame and remorse shone in his red-rimmed eyes again.

  Bethany took one stilted step, then another toward the front door.

  That movement jarred Robert from his frozen stature. He whipped his head around and fixed his gaze on Bethany, who fumbled for the doorknob, hot tears now flying down her face.

  “No, wait, you can’t leave yet,” he said in a shaky, panicked tone, stepping and reaching out toward her. He swayed a little bit in response to the sudden movement, reminding Maggie that he was still quite drunk, despite the sobering events of the last few minutes.

  Bethany shoved him off and tried to open the door again, tugging it only to realize the deadbolt was locked too. “Let me out of here!” she cried out in a frantic voice, slapping an open palm on the door repeatedly while fumbling with the deadbolt. Her eyes were wild, roving over everyone still in the room.

  Maggie moved to get up, but her mom’s grip tightened, and the woman started sobbing again, her body shaking with her jolting cries.

  “You’re not leaving this room!” Robert said, jerking Bethany away from the door.

  The woman reached up and with terror in her eyes, clawed across Robert’s face, leaving a few shallow scratches along his cheeks.

  “Bitch!” he shouted, touching fingers to his face. The strips of flesh swelled and turned red from her fingernail marks. His eyes slitted and his mouth pressed into a thin line, and with a big hand he reached for her throat. “You stupid bitch! I said you’re not leaving!”

  Before Maggie could try to move again, Robert threw Bethany on the floor, her head smacking against the corner of a wooden chair as she slumped down to the carpet. He jumped on top of her, straddling her torso while pinning her on the ground.

  Bethany gasped, fingers grappling for the hand clenched around her throat, eyes wide open in terror.

  Stomach twisted into a knot, Maggie jumped up and grasped her brother’s shoulders hard in an attempt to pull him off. “Robert! Stop this—what the hell are you doing?”

  “She’ll tell the police everything, and they won’t listen to me!” he spat out, ignoring Maggie. In his drunken rage, he had the strength of a bull, and she couldn’t make him budge despite her efforts. “I can’t go to jail. Not because of this big-mouthed whore.”

  “Oh my God, you’re going to kill her!” Maggie cried, this time grabbing Robert’s hair to pull him back. Her brother had obviously snapped, and she didn’t know how to reach him other than by surprise.

  He howled in anger and with his free hand shoved at Maggie, who went flying back into the edge of a side table. Her back exploded with a sudden stab of pain, and she sobbed, scrabbling to her feet. Her head was dizzy, and she gulped in desperate lungfuls of air, fighting the sickness in her stomach.

  “Stop!” she screamed at her brother, reaching again for him, but her back pinched in horrible agony. She fought past the pain and tried once more to pull him off.

  Robert ignored her attempts and turned his attention back to Bethany, tightening his grip on her throat. “Stop moving,” he said with wide, crazy eyes, spittle flying onto her face, “or I will make sure you don’t move again.”

  “Andrew!” Maggie called out, dropping herself with a heavy thunk onto Robert’s back. “Help!”

  Robert growled and stood, off the startlingly still Bethany, shaking Maggie off again. His eyes were streaked red and filled with venomous hate. Aimed right at Maggie. Her heart lurched in response.

  He raised his fist to smash it down into Maggie’s face, but before he could punch her, a massive fist landed square in the middle of his nose, over Maggie’s shoulder.

  Robert crumpled to the side of Bethany, holding his nose and howling in pain. Maggie backed away as Andrew landed another blow on Robert, then another. He pounded him several times until Robert stopped moving beyond uneven gasps for air. Blood poured out of Robert’s nose, so much that she could barely see his mouth. It coated the carpet under his head.

  “Get something to tie him up,” Andrew said, shaking his now-open hand as he turned to Maggie. “We need to keep him in place until the police arrive.”

  Maggie gave a shaky nod and on wobbly legs moved past her mom, who was frozen in horror, tears still streaking down her face as she stared at the whole scene. Maggie ran through the garage door, her back screaming in pain where she’d hit the table, and frantically pawed through boxes until she found a stretch of bungee cord. She gripped it and darted back in, praying everything was okay.

  Andrew made quick work of tying Robert’s wrists together. Her brother gave a strangled groan and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. The blood was finally subsiding from gushing out of Robert’s nose, though it still coated part of his face and the carpet. The scratch marks were bright red against his skin. Then Andrew rushed over to peel back Bethany’s eyelids, leaning closely to examine her pupils. Her eyes were unresponsive, and her chest fluttered with small movements. “She’s alive, but unconscious,” he said to Maggie. “The police will be here any minute—I called them after putting the gun away. I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier.”

  For a moment, Maggie couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Her brain had finally shut down, and she stared numbly ahead at Andrew, seeing but not seeing. Her entire body was cold.

  Robert had been about to punch her. In the moment, he’d obviously been willing to do whatever was needed to keep his secret. Would he have hurt or killed Maggie too? Andrew? Even their mom?

  She swallowed.

  Andrew’s face softened, and he stood, rubbing his hands along Maggie’s upper arms. “Hey, talk to me,” he said quietly. “Are you okay?”

  She shook her head, her throat so tight she couldn’t speak. How the hell would she ever be okay with any of this?

  A small hand landed within hers. She turned and saw her mother looking at her, eyes pouring tears, mouth pinched into a thin line. Maggie hugged her mom, aching for the woman for the pain she knew was deep inside her, and Andrew wrapped both of them into a warm embrace in his arms.

  They remained there for a moment or two, until police sirens cried out in the distance. Finally. It had felt like years had passed since Maggie had called everyone over to talk tonight. In the span of less than an hour, her entire life had shifted, sunk into quicksand.

  Maggie’s mom disengaged from the embrace. She straightened her spine and wiped her eyes, putting on the cool, collected mask she normally wore. Her eyes were swollen and red, but she sniffled and lifted her head, smoothing a hand over her hair. “Maggie, I’m so sorry for my earlier reaction. When I heard . . . when he said those things, I just snapped. I don’t know what happened—some
thing in my mind just . . .”

  “I know,” Maggie said. Truthfully, she was still shaken her mom could even react like that. Would she ever cease to be surprised by people she thought she knew so well?

  Andrew squeezed Maggie’s hand and gave her a soft, knowing smile. She drew her heartache back into herself and steeled her resolve to remain calm. Then she walked over and sat beside Bethany, stroking her hair away from her face. The woman was breathing a little steadier but didn’t respond to the gesture. Her throat was already marred by darkening bruises.

  The next half hour was all craziness. Police and first responders flooded the house, taking charge instantly. In a no-nonsense manner, the EMTs assessed Bethany’s needs and gingerly put her on a stretcher, wheeling her out the door and into the ambulance.

  Maggie, her mom and Andrew were grilled for a full twenty minutes as Robert, his face blood-streaked and bleary, was escorted by two officers to the back of the police car. At first Maggie wasn’t going to mention the gun at all, knowing her mom would get in serious trouble for bringing the weapon out, but her mother piped up to the officer in charge about it with a resigned sigh.

  “No more lies,” Maggie’s mom said, giving Maggie a stern look. “I will face the consequences of my actions. You stay here and wait for your father—he’s going to need you.”

  Maggie gave a nod then squeezed her mom’s chilly hand. “I’ll call Dad.”

  A tall, slender officer escorted mom to the police cruiser to question her further back at the station. Another officer, a stocky African American with closely cropped hair, asked where the gun was, and Andrew led him toward it.

  Maggie’s head pounded. The anxiety that had coursed through her body, her crying . . . all had slammed right into the front of her head, and she cringed. “I need to take something for this headache,” she said.

  The officer who’d been grilling her followed, continuing to ask questions as she went into the kitchen and popped a couple of ibuprofen with a bottle of water. She collapsed in the kitchen chair and finished answering him as best as she could through the blinding agony wrapped around her skull.