Epilogue
Lucinda
One Year Later
HIS FACE WAS gaunt. He’d lost weight. He had a black eye and his lip was split. The handcuffs around his wrists looked like they hurt. I hadn’t seen him in months, and the change in him would have concerned me if there was still any love in my heart for him.
“Have you signed them?” I asked, getting straight to the point. I wanted to get what I came for and get the hell out of there.
“Where’s McKenzie?” he asked, ignoring my question.
“This isn’t a place for children, Rhett. I won’t put her through that.” I spoke firmly, leaving no room for argument. I meant what I said. I would never bring my young daughter to this godforsaken place. And especially not to see a man that didn’t deserve her love.
Rhett said nothing. He watched me with a guarded expression.
After a few minutes, I pulled a sheet of paper out of my purse and put it on the table with a pen.
“I brought another copy.” I pushed the signature page toward him. “I know you want this as much as I do. Neither of us want to be tied to each other for a moment longer. Sign it and you’ll never have to see me again,” I said, my voice pitched low enough so only he could hear me.
He looked down at the divorce papers. I had already served him—twice—yet he refused to sign. I didn’t know why. He had spent the last sixteen years letting me know, in many different ways, that he would never love me.
I had fought so hard to hold onto something that was never mine.
It was way past time to let it go. To let him go.
He looked up at me, his expression cold. “You can’t keep my daughter from me, Lucinda.”
I sat back in my chair, putting as much distance between us as possible.
“I’m not keeping her from you. When she’s old enough to make her own choices, she can decide to come and see you for herself.
And I’ll support her in that. But I won’t traumatize her by bringing her here now, not when she’s too young to understand.
If you cared about what was best for her and not you, you’d agree with me. ”
On this, I wouldn’t budge. It had taken me a long time to find my footing as a mother. It seemed I only needed my treacherous husband to go to prison to find it. I had let myself be sidelined in my own family for far too long.
“I’m her fucking father!” His voice rose sharply and Phil, the prison guard, gave him a look of reproach. Rhett took a deep breath. “I’ll get a lawyer. I’ll fight you—”
“Or you’ll sign those papers and let us get on with our lives,” I interrupted. “If you ever loved me, even a little bit, you’ll set me free.”
His smile was chilling. “Set you free? I’m the one who’s in prison, yet you act like you’re the one in a cage.”
I tapped the divorce papers impatiently, and Rhett shook his head. “I’ll never sign them.”
“Then you’ll never see McKenzie again,” I snapped coldly.
I hated this place. The smell of it. The sounds.
I wanted to leave and never come back. I wanted to put Rhett behind me and never think about him ever again, but without a divorce that was almost impossible.
“Have you run into Marty in there? I heard he got picked up for an assault charge a few months ago.”
“No, I haven’t. I’m sure he’ll be kept far away from me.
Wouldn’t want us comparing notes or anything.
” Rhett narrowed his eyes. “Funny how the men in your life end up in prison.” He regarded me coldly.
“Odd how a smart guy like Marty, who spent his life dodging the police, somehow ended up going to jail. Sort of like how strange it was that out of all the judges in the county, I ended up with the only one that hated your dad more than anything,” Rhett muttered.
I waved away his comments like flies. “Life is full of weird coincidences, Rhett.”
Rhett’s eyes flashed with loathing. He leaned toward me only to receive a grunt of warning from Phil, so he sat back in his seat.
“Look, Lucinda, I know why I’m in here. I get it, okay?
That’s why I won’t bother with an appeal, even though I probably have a pretty good chance of getting another trial.
I’ve thrown myself on the proverbial sword for you—but please don’t take my daughter too. I’ve given you enough.”
I couldn’t stop myself from glaring at him, the mask slipping slightly. He didn’t get it—how could he when all he cared about was himself? Even after everything, he still saw himself as the victim.
“I know this is my penance for the affairs—”
The word slipped out easily, the small mistake blatant, yet he was so cocky and confident that he didn’t think I would notice it.
Affairs with an s.
There had been many of them.
He hadn’t learned his lesson with Jenn and had instead spent the next fifteen years cheating on me over and over.
Making a mockery of our vows and our marriage—mocking me.
But this went deeper than me being a woman scorned.
This was about the person Rhett hid away in the deep, dark recess of his heart.
He was a man who hurt the women around him.
A man who used their affection to bolster his ego until he moved on and found someone else.
He was a cancer infecting everyone that had the bad luck to love him.
“But I’m not the only one who should be in here—am I? No matter what the evidence says,” he continued.
The man was stupid.
He still thought he was paying the price for my crime.
Phil gave me the signal that my time was up. I got to my feet. “I’d better go,” I told my husband. I slung my purse over my shoulder and straightened my skirt. “Please sign the papers, Rhett. This has gone on long enough. For both of us.”
“Might as well, it’s not like I’m going anywhere,” Rhett said, picking up the pen I had offered and finally putting his signature on the paper. He shoved them across the table with a look of distaste. “There, now you can make another man’s life miserable.”
He had no idea how long and how hard I had loved him. How I had been willing to burn the world to the ground to hold onto our life together.
How I would have killed someone simply for trying to take him from me.
He had never appreciated everything I offered him.
Phil came over and pulled Rhett to his feet to lead him back to his cell.
Before Rhett could leave, he leaned toward me, his voice pitched low.
“You and I both know your dad rigged my trial. I also know, even if I were to be granted an appeal, he’d find some other way to ruin me.
I’d never be free of any of you. Because that’s what Herbaughs do.
They destroy lives. So, perhaps I’m actually better off in here.
At least behind bars I can relax and be myself. ” His voice cracked.
How had I ever convinced myself that this man would ever love me or be a good husband?
My mind wandered, as it often did, to that last horrific fight. The things he had said. The steadiness in his hands as they wrapped around my neck. I knew he wanted me dead. And he wanted to be the one to do it.
I also remembered Jenn that night so many years ago. The blood on her face. The bruises on her arms.
My husband thought he was a good guy. He believed his own press. He had fooled so many people into thinking I was controlling. That I was the problem. They couldn’t see the darkness that lingered there in the depths of his hateful heart.
That his love was the killing kind.
“What was so wrong with wanting a life together?” I asked him before he was taken away.
“Why was I the bad guy in your story and Jenn the heroine? You had promised me a future, so I held you to it. Why do you hate me for that?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I wanted to snatch them back.
The last thing I wanted was for this man to have any power over me ever again.
Rhett stared at me, and I knew he’d never understand what motivated me. How I had been willing to protect him and love him for the rest of my life, no matter his supposed crimes. And all I wanted in return was the promise that he would be loyal. And that he would never hurt me again.
But Rhett had never been able to promise anything unless it benefited him.
“And that’s why you did it, isn’t it—that’s why you killed Jenn. Because I wouldn’t marry you otherwise.” Rhett extolled his venom as if it were facts. “You were just a jealous bitch and took it out on an innocent girl, and now you’re making me pay for it.”
He was so sure of my guilt, just as I, at one time, had been so sure of his.
I couldn’t let him live with moral superiority. I would be damned if I’d allow him a martyr complex. He had to know his reasons were wrong and that he would never, ever see the light of day because of it.
Before Phil could corral him out of the visiting room, I leaned in close, dropping my voice to the barest hint of a whisper.
“It’s not my crime you’re paying for, Rhett.”
I could see his confusion. “What?”
“I didn’t kill Jenn. I would never harm someone that hated you as much as I do.” I let my words sink in.
The thing about marriage is you knew each other’s weaknesses—the pressure points. Rhett and I had spent decades honing the art of knowing exactly where to stick the knife.
His eyes widened. “Then who did? Lucinda, please, tell me,” he begged, but I ignored him. I’d never tell him what he wanted to know.
The days of me trying to make this man love me were over.
I waved goodbye to my shocked husband as he was escorted back to his cell.
“I’m on my way home. I’ll pick up something for dinner,” I said to my sister, who was watching McKenzie.
Mom and Dad had gone on an extended vacation.
Dad needed to get out of Fern River. The tide had turned against my once indomitable father.
The Kentucky Bar Association had investigated him on allegations of corruption after receiving several reports involving his undue influence on criminal investigations.