A Thousand Lies (36 page)

“Brendan got an SOS call from Linny. He’s on his way out there threatening to kill Daddy, and I’m in the city in a delivery truck. I won’t get home in time to stop him.”

Chance lowered his voice. “Damn it all to hell, Sam. I could lose my job over this if I leave.”

“You can get another job, but we can’t replace our family.”

Chance sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Sam hung up. He’d done all he could from here. One of them had to get to Brendan before he did something they’d all regret.

****

As soon as Brendan passed the city limits sign, he made one more call—to Julie.

“Bren! Good morning, sweetheart! Are you on your way here?”

“No. I can’t talk long. Just needed to let you know something’s wrong at home. Got an SOS call from Linny. I’m on my way there now.”

Julie’s heart sank. “Oh no! Oh, Brendan, I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do from here?”

“Say prayers,” Brendan said.

“Don’t do anything rash,” she begged.

“I’ll call you later,” he said and disconnected.

Julie sat down, shaking in every fiber of her being. If anything happened to Brendan, she’d die.

****

Delle came in from outside where she’d been watering the flowers in the big pots on the front of the house, and set to mopping the kitchen floor. She’d just finished mopping when she heard a vehicle and looked out. It was Brendan. She started to smile, then saw the look on his face as he got out and her heart skipped a beat. Brendan was running when he hit the back porch. He came inside without knocking.

“Brendan, what on earth is—?”

He grabbed her by the shoulders. “I tried to call you, but you didn’t answer.”

“Sorry. I was outside for a bit and—”

“Never mind. Where’s Linny?”

Breath caught in the back of Delle’s throat. “Why…? She’s out playing in the bayou. Why?”

He shook his head and asked another question. “Where’s Anson?”

Delle flinched. “Damn it, Brendan, stop this. You’re scaring me!”

“Linny is in trouble, and I need to know where to start looking.”

Delle staggered backward as her heart began to pound. “How do you know this?”

“I gave her a phone. She was never to use it unless one or both of you were in danger, and less than fifteen minutes ago she called me.”

Delle felt like throwing up. “She left the house to go play. I told her to be home by noon.”

“Did she go toward the swamp?”

“Yes.”

Brendan pivoted quickly and ran out the door as fast as he’d come in. Delle came to her senses and followed.

The sun was hot on the back of his neck as Brendan came down off the porch. A red bird flew across his line of vision as he ran along the well-worn path his little sister always took. Red meant stop. Was it a warning from Mother Nature to beware? He kept imagining all the terrible things that could happen to a person in the swamp, wondering why in hell they’d ever let her play there, and then wondered where Anson was.

He started past the packing shed, then stopped and ducked in long enough to make sure she wasn’t there. It was empty of everything but the bamboo cuttings being rooted in water and the dozens and dozens of empty pots. He stepped over a rag on the ground, then without thinking, went back to pick it up. The smell was still strong enough it was staggering.

“Son of a bitch!” he muttered, and tossed it on the counter.

Delle caught up with him there, breathing hard and already limping.

“What’s wrong?” she cried.

Brendan glanced down at her feet. “Your feet are bleeding.”

“I don’t care. She’s
my
baby and I’m going to the swamp after her.”

“Damn it, Mama, she’s not lost. Someone took her.”

“No, that can’t be. No one was here but us.”

He was already pulling the phone out of his pocket to call the police when he saw something in the grass a few yards away. He ran over to get it, and when he stood up, he was holding Linny’s stuffed toy.

When Delle saw it, she gasped. “What on earth? Why would she leave Rabbit here when she’s been carrying it with her everywhere?”

Brendan thrust his hand into the back of the rabbit and pulled out the phone. She’d done exactly what he said and hadn’t hung up. Unfortunately, it appears she didn’t have the option of taking Rabbit with her.

“She carried it because it was where she’d hidden the phone,” he said. His hands were shaking as he handed it to his mother. “There’s blood on the fur and that rag inside the shed reeks of chloroform. She didn’t leave here willingly.”

Delle let out a wail that sent the birds in flight as she clutched the toy to her breast.

Before Brendan could think what to do next, he saw Anson’s pickup coming down the driveway. He grabbed his mother and ducked inside the shed.

Delle was still wailing when Brendan clamped a hand over her mouth and shook his head. “Anson is home,” he said softly, watching him as he hurried inside the house.

Delle grabbed his arm. “We need to tell him what happened. We need to call the Parish police. We need—”

“The only person who would’ve been in this shed was Sam or Anson, and I already talked to Sam. He’s in New Orleans.”

Delle shook her head in disbelief. “You can’t mean you suspect your own father of hurting Linny? She’s his daughter. He—”

“Linny’s missing, Anson was gone, and he just came back alone. He doesn’t love anyone but himself and we both know it. Now I’m going into the house. Don’t mention one word of Belinda’s absence and let me do the talking.”

Panicked by what was happening, all she could to was nod.

“Give me the rabbit,” he said.

She handed it to him then had to run to keep up as Brendan loped toward the house.

****

When Anson saw Brendan’s vehicle, he debated with the notion of leaving the briefcase full of money in his truck until the bastard was gone, then changed his mind. He was a business man. He could carry a briefcase any damn time he wanted.

He got out with his head up and his shoulders back, striding toward the house with it swinging against his leg, thinking what a high it was going to be to carry all that money in beneath their noses without them suspecting a thing.

But his bubble quickly burst when he walked inside. He could tell from the silence that the house was empty, although he called out to make sure.

“Hey, Delle, I’m home! Where are you?”

When no one answered, he strode swiftly toward the library and then straight to the safe.

****

The quiet was unsettling as Brendan entered. He put a finger to his lips and then pointed at his mother to be quiet. She slipped out of her floppy shoes and followed him through the house in her bare feet.

Brendan heard a scuff of boot to floor, and the sound of rustling paper in the library and quietly slipped inside to see what Anson was doing. When he saw the open briefcase and all that money, it startled him. He didn’t have any pot to sell. Where the hell had that come from?

But then Delle walked in behind him, saw all that money and gasped.

And that was the sound that Anson heard. He spun around, his body crouched and ready to fight and then saw then in the doorway and straightened up.

“Damn it all to hell, what’s the matter with you people sneaking up on a man like that?”

Seconds later, Brendan was in his face. “What the hell did you do to Linny?” he asked and thrust the bloody rabbit in his face.

Anson was taken aback by the question and surprised that they’d already found the rabbit.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said and shoved him back.

“There’s blood on Linny’s rabbit and she’s missing,” Brendan snapped.

Anson’s heart skipped a beat when he saw the blood, but then quickly recovered.

“So maybe she had a nosebleed. How should I know where she is?”

Brendan grabbed Anson by the shoulders, pushing harder and talking faster. “Did she get the nosebleed before or after you chloroformed her?”

Anson heard drums, and then the rattlesnake. “You’re crazy,” he muttered and began trying to get free of Brendan’s grasp.

“Belinda is in danger, and don’t say she’s not because I already know it. She called me for help, so start talking or I’ll beat it out of you.”

Anson frowned. “You’re lying. She didn’t call—”

Brendan grunted as if he’d been punched. “How do you know what she did or didn’t do?”

Delle had been standing quietly aside, unable to grasp the full meaning of what was happening until she heard Anson give himself away.

“Noooo!” she screamed and launched herself at him like a mad woman, digging her fingernails into his cheeks and clawing them down his face. “I put up with you for years so you would leave my children alone! You lied! You lied!”

Before Brendan could separate them, Anson retaliated. Roaring in pain, he backhanded her so hard she fell against the desk, her head striking the sharp edge of the leg before slumping lifelessly to the floor. When a small pool of blood began to spread beneath her head, Brendan lost it.

“You killed her!” he screamed and hit Anson so hard his head popped back against the wall safe. Brendan grabbed him again, slamming him up against the wall. “Did you kill Linny, too?”

Anson tried to take a swing that Brendan blocked. “You sorry bastard,” Anson shouted and swung again, but Brendan blocked it, then punched him in the face.

“Where’s Belinda?” Brendan yelled.

Anson moaned. The drums were louder, and so were the rattles.

Brendan hit him again. “I can’t hear you. What did you do with my sister?”

He was about to hit him again when Chance ran in, grabbed Brendan’s arm. Anson slid to the floor, unconscious.

“You won’t get any information if you kill him,” Chance shouted.

Brendan shook his head, then staggered and dropped to his knees beside his mother’s body to feel for a pulse. When he felt the thump beneath his fingertips, he breathed a shaky sigh of relief.

“She’s alive, but we need to call an ambulance. Belinda’s missing. There’s blood on Rabbit, and Anson just came home with a briefcase full of money.”

Chance stared at the money, and then suddenly jerked as if he’d been hit.

“Oh shit! Oh no! He wouldn’t! God in heaven, tell me he didn’t!”

But Anson was still out and had nothing to offer.

Brendan’s panic increased as he jumped to his feet. “What’s happening? What do you know that I don’t?”

Chance pushed past his brother to where Anson was lying. “I need his phone. Help me find his phone.”

“You call an ambulance for Mama. I’ll look,” Brendan said and began digging through Anson’s pockets as Chance made the call to emergency services.

“I don’t see it,” Brendan said, then saw the phone beneath the desk where it must have fallen out of his pocket. “Oh wait! Here it is.”

Chance yanked it from his brother’s hand and quickly pulled up the call record.

“Oh dear God,” Chance whispered, then stared down at his father in disbelief.

“What the hell’s going on?” Brendan yelled.

Before Chance could answer, they heard the back door slam and then running footsteps coming through the house.

“Where is everyone?” Sam yelled.

“In here!” Chance shouted.

Sam stopped in the doorway, saw his mother unmoving in a pool of blood and his daddy on the floor and panicked. Were they too late?

“Dear God, are they dead?”

“Mama’s hurt. Anson knocked her down after she scratched his face. Chance called an ambulance,” Brendan said.

Sam dropped to his knees beside his mother’s body.

“What happened? Where’s Linny?”

“I’ll tell you what happened,” Chance said. “Linny is missing. Daddy has a briefcase full of money. And the last three calls on his phone are to Wes Riordan.”

Sam paled. “No.”

“He fucking did it,” Chance said.

Brendan grabbed the phone out of his brother’s hand, his voice shaking. “Somebody talk to me. What do you know that I don’t?”

“Wes Riordan told Daddy weeks ago that Linny was worth a hundred thousand dollars to the right buyer, and the last three calls on Daddy’s phone were to Riordan, one less than an hour ago.”

Brendan stared at Anson in disbelief, then ran to the wet bar, filled a decanter with water and dumped it in his face.

Anson was sputtering and groaning as Brendan yanked him to his feet and slammed him backward into a chair.

Chance grabbed an arm of the chair and spun it around until he was staring down into his daddy’s face.

“You sold Linny to Wes Riordan and you’re going to jail. I’ll testify against you myself that I heard the two of you talking about it weeks ago.”

Anson spit blood, then looked up at his sons and smiled.

Sam’s mind was racing. “I have evidence against him,” he said abruptly.

“Against Daddy?” Chance asked.

Sam nodded his head. “Against Daddy and Riordan. Linny told me days ago to make a list of the Evil Overlord’s friends and bad deeds and we would use it to destroy him.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Chance said.

Delle moaned.

Chance dropped to her side and started weeping. “I’m sorry, Mama. I shouldn’t have run away. I’m sorry.”

“You defied me and this is what you get,” Anson said, then laughed.

“Somebody gag him,” Brendan said, and then grabbed Anson’s phone, pulled up Riordan’s name, and hit Call as Sam pulled off his belt, jammed it between Anson’s teeth and pulled it tight against the back of his head.

Anson was grunting and kicking when Brendan turned around and hit him again, knocking him out.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Sam asked.

“Getting Belinda back,” Brendan said, and the moment the call was answered, he put it on speaker so all three of them could hear.

“Hells bells, Anson. What do you want now? Got another kid you want to sell?”

“I’m not Anson. I’m Brendan. Anson’s indisposed.”

Wes was a little startled, but not enough to panic. “So, the pup calls, but I’m not—”

Brendan interrupted angrily. “Shut the hell up and listen, because you’re only going to have one chance to make this right before I bring your world down around your fucking ears. I know you have my sister, and I have the money you paid for her, with your fingerprints and your DNA all over it. I also have Anson’s cell phone. The last three calls he made were to you. He disappears. My sister disappears, and he comes back with a briefcase full of money.