Chapter 38 Lucinda
Lucinda
They didn't believe me.
The thought circles in my mind like a buzzard over roadkill, picking at the raw wound of betrayal until it bleeds fresh.
The Montana landscape rolls past in a blur of golden grassland and distant mountains, but I might as well be looking at the surface of Mars for all the comfort it brings.
I don't blame them. How could I? From their perspective, I'm exactly what uncle Richard painted me to be.
A disturbed woman who's been lying about everything, manipulating their feelings, using their kindness like a weapon.
The evidence he presented would convince anyone with half a brain and a functioning conscience.
Hell, it almost convinced me.
But it still hurts. Jesus Christ, it hurts so much I can barely breathe around the pain lodged in my throat like a fist.
The worst part isn't that they chose to believe him over me. The worst part is that they're probably sitting in Gabriel's kitchen right now, feeling guilty and confused and hurt because of secrets I kept.
Because I wasn't brave enough to trust them with the truth until it was too goddamn late.
A single tear slides down my cheek before I can stop it. Just one. I won't give these bastards the satisfaction of seeing me break completely.
But uncle Richard notices anyway. He always does. It's like he has a sixth sense for weakness, for the exact moment when someone's about to shatter.
"Crying already?" His voice is soft, almost amused, like he's watching a mildly entertaining show. "I haven't even gotten to the good part yet."
I turn to look at him, this man who's been the architect of my misery. In the dim interior of the SUV, his face is all sharp angles and satisfied smirks.
"You always were so dramatic, Lucinda," he continues, settling back in his seat like he's preparing for a scenic drive through the countryside. "Even as a child, you had such a flair for theatrics. Must have gotten it from your mother."
"I'm not being dramatic." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "I'm grieving."
"For what? Three men who couldn't wait to be rid of you?" He laughs, the sound sharp and cutting.
Dr. Harrison and Nurse Wells sit in the front seats like silent accomplices, their backs rigid with the kind of tension that comes from knowing you're doing something wrong but doing it anyway.
"Are we going back to Rosewood?" I ask, though I'm not sure I want to know the answer. The highway stretches ahead through ranch country, fence posts and cattle dotting the landscape like something out of a Western movie.
"That's the interesting part," Uncle Richard says, and there's something in his tone that makes my skin crawl like spiders. " I've decided that particular approach has run its course."
A chill runs down my spine despite the warm afternoon sun slanting through the windows. "What do you mean?"
"It's time for a more permanent solution."
The words hit me like ice water in my veins. "What are you talking about?"
"Think about it, Lucinda. You have a documented history of mental illness, suicide attempts, self-harm. You've been off your medications for two years, living rough in God-knows-where, clearly unstable."
He spreads his hands like he's laying out a business proposal at a board meeting. "No one would be surprised if you finally succeeded in hurting yourself. An overdose, maybe. Or something more dramatic, if you're feeling theatrical."
My blood turns to arctic cold. "You're talking about killing me."
"I'm talking about what's best for everyone involved. This could have been settled a long time ago, if your mother hadn’t decided at the last minute to stay at home, she would have been in the car with your father." he says with the casual tone of someone discussing cattle prices.
"My father," I whisper. "You said it was an accident."
His smile turns predatory. "Did I? How careless of me."
"You killed him." It's not a question. The pieces are falling into place now, forming a picture so horrific I can barely process it.
"Your father was weak," Richard says dismissively. "Soft. He would have run the family business into the ground within a decade. Someone had to think about the future."
"He was your brother."
"He was an obstacle." Uncle Richard's voice carries no more emotion than if he were discussing the weather. "Just like you are now."
My hands are shaking. I clench them into fists, trying to stop the tremors, but it's useless. "And my mother?"
"Ah, Margaret." He sighs like he's remembering an old friend. "I was going to handle her the same way, but then she got sick. Cancer is so much more natural than car accidents, don't you think? I just had to wait."
"You let her suffer. You watched her die slowly and did nothing to help."
"I did everything I could," he says with mock sincerity. "I even helped arrange for her teenage daughter to be her primary caregiver. Such a touching story of family devotion."
The cruelty of it takes my breath away. He didn't just let my mother die. He orchestrated my suffering too.
He made sure I was isolated, exhausted, traumatized by the time she passed. Made sure I was vulnerable enough to break when he had me committed.
"You're a monster," I breathe.
"I'm a businessman," he corrects. "And right now, you're a liability that needs to be resolved."
"All because of money?" The pieces click into place with sickening clarity.
"I've been managing the family fortune beautifully for years, but being a guardian is so limiting. So many restrictions, so much bureaucratic oversight." He examines his manicured nails. "But inheriting as the sole surviving family member? That's much more straightforward. Much more profitable."
I turn to stare at Dr. Harrison and Nurse Wells, these people who took oaths to heal, to protect the vulnerable. "You're hearing this. You know what he's planning. How can you just sit there?"
Dr. Harrison's shoulders tense slightly, but he doesn't turn around. His knuckles are white on the steering wheel. Nurse Wells glances at me in the rearview mirror, her expression carefully neutral but her eyes showing the strain.
"It's just a job," she says finally, but her voice wavers. "We don't ask questions about... family matters."
"He's talking about murder!"
"He's talking about a lot of things," Dr. Harrison says, his voice strained like a guitar string about to snap. "People say all sorts of things when they're emotional. Under stress."
"They know I could make their lives very difficult," Uncle Richard adds conversationally. "Medical licenses revoked, criminal charges filed, families destroyed. Or I can make them very comfortable. Gambling debts? Puff… gone! "
The full scope of his plan hits me. He's not just going to kill me; he's going to make it look like suicide or an accident. The perfect crime, committed by a man with enough money and connections to make evidence disappear like morning mist.
"You think I wanted this?" His voice takes on a wheedling, almost plaintive tone that makes my skin crawl. "No one understands what it's like to work your whole life building something, only to watch some brat inherit everything you've sweated for."
"You didn't build anything," I say, and for the first time in hours, my voice is steady. Strong. "My family built it. You're just a parasite feeding off their corpses."
Uncle Richard's face darkens like a storm cloud over the Rockies. "You ungrateful little—"
That's when the world explodes.
The impact comes from the passenger side, metal screaming against metal like the death cry of some massive beast. The SUV lurches sideways, tires shrieking against asphalt.
We hit the guardrail doing sixty, the barrier designed to keep vehicles from plummeting into the ravine below. For a split second, I think it might hold.
It doesn't.
The world flips sideways, then upside down, then sideways again.
My body slams against the door, the ceiling, the seat, each impact driving the air from my lungs.
Glass explodes in a shower of crystalline rain.
The screech of twisting metal drowns out everything else.
My screams, uncle Richard's curses, the terrible silence from the front seat.
We roll once, twice, three times down the rocky slope before slamming to a stop against a cluster of granite boulders with a sound like the end of the world.
Then everything goes quiet except for the hiss of escaping steam and the distant cry of a red-tailed hawk circling overhead.
I'm hanging upside down, held in place by my seatbelt, blood trickling down my forehead and into my hair. The SUV is on its roof, windows spider-webbed but miraculously not completely shattered.
My ears are ringing, my vision blurred, but I'm alive.
Dr. Harrison and Nurse Wells aren't moving. Blood pools beneath their heads where they hang motionless in the front seats.
Uncle Richard groans beside me, alive but dazed. Blood streams from a gash on his forehead, and his expensive suit is torn and stained with dirt and gore. His manicured hands fumble weakly at his seatbelt.
Before I process the situation fully, the passenger door is wrenched open with a screech of protesting metal. Hands reach in, rough and urgent, grabbing uncle Richard and dragging him from the wreckage like a sack of grain.
"About fucking time I found you," a rough voice snarls.
I know that voice. My blood turns to ice water.
Roy Cutter.
He hauls uncle Richard to his feet, and through the broken window I can see them both clearly. Roy looks like he's been living rough. Clothes dirty and torn, hair greasy and unkempt, face gaunt with the hollow-eyed desperation of a man who's been running from the law for too long.
But what makes my blood freeze solid is the gun in his hand, pointed directly at uncle Richard's chest.
"You lied to me," Roy snarls, pressing the barrel against Richard's sternum hard enough to leave a mark. "You said there would be drugs in that van. Good stuff, lots of it. Easy money, you said."
Uncle Richard's face goes white as fresh snow. "Calm down—."
"Fuck you!" Roy's voice cracks with rage and desperation. "You hired me to run that bitch off the road. Said she was carrying a shipment of veterinary ketamine. Easy money, you said. Just make it look like an accident."
My crash. Uncle Richard was behind it all.
"My brother's rotting in county lockup because of you," Roy continues, his finger tightening on the trigger. "The cops are hunting me like a goddamn coyote. And for what? Nothing! There were no drugs in that van!"
"There was a misunderstanding," Uncle Richard says carefully, his hands raised in surrender. "I can explain everything. I can make this right."
"Explain this, you lying sack of shit!"
The gunshot cracks across the Montana afternoon like thunder, echoing off the canyon walls.