Chapter 37
Lucy
The shot is wide, and instead of hitting center mass, like Lucy’s father taught her when they went deer hunting, the bullet
grazes Wes’s shoulder. Madeline is on her knees, arms covering her head, trying to cocoon her baby beneath her. Thank God
her sister listened to her for once. If Madeline hadn’t dropped to the floor when Lucy yelled duck, her sister would be dead. But for now, Lucy has Wes right where she wants him. He’s clutching at his wounded shoulder, blood
seeping between his fingers and dripping over Madeline.
“What? Why?” Wes asks, eyes wide. Lucy almost giggles at his absolute confusion. Her sister’s husband has always been a narcissistic
son of a bitch, so of course he wouldn’t be self-aware enough to understand why she has just put a bullet in him.
“Hmmm, where to begin?” Lucy says, keeping the gun pinned on him. “How about, you are an abusive fuck?”
“No, no,” Wes says. “That’s not true. Madeline, tell her that it’s not true. I never hurt you. I would never . . .” He begins
to sidle toward the door.
“Shut up, Wes. Stay the fuck still. And Madeline, stay down,” Lucy orders when she catches her lifting her head. “I saw the marks when Madeline came home for our dad’s funeral. She told me everything. You think you’re a big man, Wes? Beating up your wife? Does it make you feel strong and powerful?”
“She’s lying,” Wes insists. “Tell her, Madeline. Tell her you were lying.” He reaches down and grabs her shoulder, gives it
a shake.
“Don’t touch her,” Lucy says icily, and Wes rears back. “And she’s not lying,” she adds. She keeps her gaze pinned on the
man in front of her.
“Lucy,” Wes says through his pain. “You’ll never be able to prove it. No one around here will believe that I could hurt my
wife. Everyone loves me. The sheriff will never believe it. And I’ve got friends—lawyers, doctors, judges—who will say whatever
I want them to say.”
“I’ve seen the pictures, Wes,” Lucy says, losing patience.
“Pictures?” He glares down at Madeline.
“Yeah, pictures,” Lucy says to him, using her teeth to pull the gloves off her hands. “There’s plenty of proof.”
“Tell me what you want,” Wes says, his eyes wild with fear. “Money? I can give you money. Lots of it. I’ll say it was an accident.
We don’t even have to report it. Fifty, sixty thousand?” he offers, and she looks at him incredulously. “Okay, a hundred,
and your pick of the horses.”
“Two hundred thousand, and Madeline gets the ranch in the divorce,” Lucy counters.
“Five hundred thousand, in cash,” Wes shoots back. “And Madeline and I will go our separate ways. But I want joint custody
of the baby. She’s mine too.”
And this is when Lucy knows for certain that this nightmare will never end for her sister and the child who hasn’t even formally met her father yet.
Wes won’t change. One day, Lucy will get the call that her sister is dead or has disappeared.
It will all be so tragic and sad, and Wes will play the part of Grieving Husband perfectly.
He will get away with murder and will raise his daughter in a house filled with fear and anger and violence.
“Take off your belt,” she tells Wes.
“What?” he asks, pain and confusion on his face.
“Take off your belt. And throw it over here. Do it.”
“Come on, Lucy,” Wes says, unbuckling his belt with his good arm and pulling it from his pants loops. “I can get you the money
by morning. What do you say? Deal?”
“Hmmm,” Lucy says and looks down at her sister still trembling on the floor below him. “What do you think, Madeline? Is that
enough?”
“It’s not near enough,” Madeline whispers.
“What?” Wes asks, looking down at his wife. “What did you say?”
“I said it’s not near enough,” Madeline says more loudly. “No amount of money is worth what you’ve done to me over the years.”
She is sobbing now, but Lucy can hear the steel in her voice. Finally.
“You know, Lucy tried to sleep with me,” Wes says, desperation strangling his voice. “From the minute she got here, she came
on to me.”
“I was just messing with you, Wes,” Lucy says. “I was laughing at you. We were both laughing at you.”
“You’re in this together?” he says in disbelief. “Madeline? I love you. You know that, don’t you? And I’m so, so sorry about
how I’ve hurt you. I’ll get help. I will. Our baby needs a father. She needs me.”
Madeline’s eyes are locked on Wes’s. Her crying has stopped, her face has softened. She’s looking at Wes like the adoring
wife she’s been for so long. Lucy can see her resolve wavering.
“Mads,” Lucy says, trying to get her sister to focus. “Stick with me here.”
Lucy looks over at her sister, her eyes filled with almost unfathomable sadness. Madeline struggles to her feet and stands
directly in front of Wes, blocking the shot.
“You can’t do this, Lucy,” Madeline says. “I won’t let you.”