Chapter Ten
The following morning, Peyton was in the kitchen, fulfilling the orders her customers had paid for. At the same time, she was making breakfast for the ranchers. Shae was in his office with Sheriff Hyde, as they looked at the street footage from the security cameras.
He’d already checked the footage for the guy who had taken Leah’s bag from her. Now, they watched as not one but two people opened the door to the bakery and entered.
“Holy shit,” Sheriff Hyde said.
Shae didn’t need to see any more. There were no lights on inside the bakery.
They snuck in, and within ten minutes, the damage was already done.
They had gasoline and were setting fire to the place.
They stepped out of the building, and Shae saw her—Lily-May, with a big old smile on her face—and a guy.
The same guy wearing the exact same hoodie he had been wearing while snatching the bag from Leah.
He didn’t need to know rocket science for this kind of shit. It was right there in black and white.
Lily-May had stolen the keys, let herself into the bakery, and then burned it down. Did she think there was going to be money on an insurance claim? Peyton didn’t own the building. He did. He would be the one who got any money.
“Are you all right?” Sheriff Hyde asked.
“Yeah, I’m good, but you need to do me a favor. Lose this,” he said, and pulled the tape out of the VCR.
“Fine,” Sheriff Hyde said. “But you’ve got to be the one to tell her what her sister did.”
Peyton was not happy this morning. She was going through the motions, of that he was certain. Leah had come to the house to help out. Peyton had called her.
“I will.”
He had a couple of ways to resolve this, and he didn’t know how Peyton was going to handle it.
They had gotten back into Fort without him realizing. He had figured Lily-May wouldn’t be that fucking stupid. It was fucking insane, and it pissed him off.
He shook the sheriff’s hand, then headed to the kitchen.
Peyton’s hair was bound up at the back of her neck, and Leah was bustling around the kitchen, trying to keep up with Peyton.
The counters were full of cupcakes. This was Halloween, one of the best nights of the year.
And Peyton wasn’t going to be able to make a single cent because of what her sister had done.
“Peyton, babe, can I talk to you?” he asked.
She looked up from where she was putting the buttercream icing into bags.
“Uh, yeah, sure. Will you keep an eye on everything?”
“You got it,” Leah said.
She offered him a smile, but he put his hand at the base of Peyton’s back and walked her into his office, where he shut the door.
“What is it?” she asked.
“A couple of nights ago, Leah’s bag was stolen. Inside were the keys you had given her to the bakery.” He moved back toward his VCR and rewound the tape for her to see the evidence of what Sheriff Hyde had shown. It started to play, and Peyton pressed a hand to her mouth.
“What is going on? They stole Leah’s bag and took the keys. That means they must have been watching the shop. How can ... who can ... oh,” Peyton said.
He watched the shock and horror be replaced by anger. That is not what he expected. He pressed “pause.”
“It’s Lily-May.”
“I see who it is.” She gritted her teeth, and her hands clenched into fists.
“I have a feeling she thought you still owned the building.”
Peyton was silent and then she laughed and started to bend over as if it was all just too much and hysterical.
“Oh, my, you just can’t make this shit up.” She was laughing. “She burned down our bakery, the only way for us to survive, because she thought there was money in it. The insurance money that will go straight to you.” Peyton burst out laughing again.
He allowed her to laugh, and he waited. Holding onto the remote, he watched as she placed a hand to her stomach, and with her other hand, she wiped at her eyes.
“That is just so funny.” She turned to look at him.
“There’s a problem,” he said.
“What is it?”
“She and this piece of shit who did it with her have hurt the people of Fort, and I cannot allow that to go unpunished.” What he was about to tell her was going to take their relationship to the next level.
“I have killed people for a lot less than what they did. Not only did they put other buildings and the lives of people in Fort in jeopardy, they took from you, Peyton, and I cannot allow them to get away with it.” It was taking every ounce of his control not to hunt them down and kill them right now.
“Okay.”
“Now, you tell me, do I let your sister live, or do I let her die?” he asked.
****
Peyton sat in the truck, staring across the yard, toward the barn. Shae had been up-front with her. He told her if he allowed them to get away with it, then more people might come to Fort and risk hurting the locals, and he could not let that happen.
She had known there was more to Shae. She heard the rumors, knew the whispers of bad people no longer making it out of Fort. Her parents would share some of those rumors around the dinner table.
Nibbling her lip, she saw several of the ranchers were on guard. They were more than just working the cattle and the land. They were guarding the whole town. She saw it now.
Climbing out of the truck, she had already heard one of the guns go off, and she had no doubt he had taken care of the guy with Lily-May.
Shae appeared at the entrance to the barn.
Peyton had thought about this moment in the last few hours, what felt like a thousand times.
She didn’t know what to think or feel. She was numb.
With the bakery burned down and completely out of commission, she felt a mix of relief and dread.
What could she do to earn a living? Her parents’ legacy was gone, but with Shae owning the building, it was already gone.
She had changed so much to keep them out of debt, that it was no longer the same place.
She had turned it into her place—a trap, a prison—one she had thought about running from so many times. Her sister had taken it from her.
Now, as she moved toward him, Shae grabbed her arm. “What happens on this ranch stays on this ranch. You talk to me and no one else. You understand?”
“Yeah, I understand,” she said.
And every other woman might be running to the hills in fear. Not her. This was so clear to her. Clearer than she had ever been in her whole life.
And so, she made her way into the barn and saw her sister with her arms tied above her head, and she still had on her clothes. Only, there was no sweatshirt and nothing to hide the tracks that had been made in her arms. Her sister had never stopped using.
“Peyton, thank God, your boyfriend is a psycho. You got to get me out of here,” she said.
She walked up to her sister, aware of Shae stepping into the barn.
Peyton hadn’t given Shae her answer, as she was afraid to make it until she saw her sister.
Now, as she looked at Lily-May, she was shocked to feel absolutely nothing.
She had expected to feel something—a tinge of love or regret.
That sisterly bond people liked to keep talking about, and assuming everyone felt that way.
Lily-May was her sister by blood, but that was all. There was no love, no feeling, no nothing. She looked at her sister and felt nothing but hatred.
“My boyfriend.” She took a step closer. “You mean the same man you bargained me for to get you out of your shit.”
Peyton never swore. She didn’t like to. It served no good. But, as she looked at her sister, she saw the shock on Lily-May’s face.
“You have not helped me from the start. You didn’t help our parents, and you know, I wondered how they got into the mess they did.
I have a feeling you did this. You and your addictive ways, always trying to blame them for the crap you got into.
It was always someone else’s fault. You never took the blame, and even now you want to blame everyone else.
Your boyfriend. Shae. Me. You burned down the bakery.
Did you think there is money in that? Shae owns the entire building.
Our parents sold it to him, and he has been helping us since the start.
You think I don’t know what you wanted? Your share.
Your cut. I bet you were hoping they would blame me, saying I had left something on, that I caused the fire.
We’ve got evidence to prove it was you.”
Lily-May looked terrified and she was staring at her in desperation.
“I bargained with Shae to get rid of you. I was a virgin, Lily-May. It was what I had to offer to rid myself of you. You should have stayed gone.”
“Peyton, please, I needed the money. You don’t know what it is like to be this way. I need it. Please, I need it. Help me. Please help me.”
“I’ve helped you for the last time, and I don’t care.”
“Mom and Dad will hate you!”
“Mom and Dad are dead. You chose this. Not me.”
Peyton stepped away, moved to Shae, and put a hand on his chest. “Do what you have to do.”
She stepped out of the barn, looked up to the sky, and took several deep breaths. Time seemed to stand still. The air was cold. It was Halloween, and ... she heard the gunshot.
The ranchers made their way to the barn, and she knew Shae had stepped out. There were no tears to be shed. Did this make her a monster? They had crossed a line in their relationship. She knew what Shae was capable of. The damage he could make.
He caught her arm. “Come on, let’s got for a walk.”
Peyton didn’t know if he was now about to kill her, but she didn’t fight him as they walked away from the barn and into a small patch of forest. She thought “small,” but it was actually quite large.
She wouldn’t want to get lost in it. There was a fallen tree, and he helped her sit down.
She leaned on her knees and clasped her hands together.
“Are you going to kill me?” she asked.
“No.”
“I won’t tell.”
“I know.”
“I don’t feel anything,” she said, and turned to look at him. “That’s a bad thing, right?”
“I don’t know,” Shae said. “She hasn’t exactly been a sister to you for quite a long time. She has caused you trouble, and she put a lot of people in danger with this act.”
Tears filled Peyton’s eyes. “It’s probably sick and twisted, but I finally feel free. I think I expected to feel pain and hate myself, but hearing it, knowing what you did, I feel ... happy.” She took a deep breath. “How do you feel?”
“I’m worried about you.”
“I won’t do or say anything.”
“I don’t mean about that. It will sink in. I couldn’t let them live. Lily-May was too ... letting her go that first time was a risk.”
“Didn’t you have men watching her?”
“Yes, I did, and they kept coming back, reporting that she was working in a strip club. Which she was, but clearly, she got in with the wrong people again.” He sighed. “You can’t blame yourself.”
This made her laugh. “I don’t.” She looked out across the forest. “I don’t think I am ever going to forget this Halloween.
” She turned to look at Shae. “You know, there is a big party happening tonight in town. There are going to be a lot of people there, and seeing as I don’t have to worry about being behind a counter, do you want to go with me? ” she asked.
Yes, it might make her seem like a crazy person. Her sister was dead, the bakery was gone, and she was asking a man she had fallen in love with, if he wanted to go on a Halloween date.
“Are you asking me on a date?”
“That depends, are you going to say yes?”