In Seconds

16

Rex had his arms around her. They were standing beneath a tree in Libby in some park she’d probably passed by once or twice but never noticed, and he was crooning words of comfort in her ear. “It’ll be okay, I promise. Don’t worry about anything.”

Vivian heard what he was saying but his words held no meaning. Her mother was gone. Murdered. And Vivian wasn’t even sure she’d loved her. Not at the end. Was it possible to love someone you couldn’t trust? Someone you blamed for so much heartache?

She’d wanted to love Ellen. All along. But…

God, she’d thought her feelings involving her mother were complicated before this happened, but she’d had no idea how confusing they could get. She needed to find herself in all of this, to at least grab hold of an emotion she could understand. An emotion that would make her feel normal. But she couldn’t manage it.

“What’s going on, Laurel?” Her real name seemed as foreign as everything else at the moment. She was no longer Laurel. He wasn’t Pretty Boy anymore, either. He’d told her that himself. Too much had changed.

She missed him, missed her old self, too. And yet she wanted more power than she’d had before. She wanted to take charge of her life and refuse to let The Crew control her through the threat they posed.

Rex pulled back to look into her face. “You haven’t said a word since you dropped the phone.”

The way she’d grabbed the pedestal in order to keep from sagging to the ground had told him something was wrong. He’d dashed out to catch her, hung up the handset and helped her back to the car. Then he’d brought her here, where there was no phone and no busy street, only green grass, green trees, gold and orange flowers and a wide blue sky.

“I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I don’t even know what to feel.” She was pretty sure there should be something besides emptiness inside her. What about sorrow? Regret? Relief? Vindication? She could justify any of them, and yet they weren’t there. A void filled her heart where the pain should be.

He removed her sunglasses and lifted her chin, forcing her to look him in the eyes. “Start with what you’re thinking.”

“Nothing.” She gave her head a quick shake. “I’m numb.”

“Come on, don’t shut down.” Setting his hands on her shoulders, he squeezed them for emphasis. “Talk. It’ll make this easier. You can trust me, remember?”

She could trust him to care about her, but she couldn’t trust him to take care of himself. And that meant she couldn’t risk loving him. And yet she did love him. Not like she used to. Not in a romantic sense. But as a good friend, someone who’d always be special.

Even that frightened her.

“Laurel?”

She had to get him to stop calling her that. “Vivian.”

“Fine. Vivian. You’re scaring me. You’re white as a ghost and I could feel your pulse a second ago. Your heart’s racing like a rabbit’s. Will you let me know what’s going on inside that pretty head of yours?”

She studied the crushed grass between them while she tried to isolate a single ingredient from the stew of her thoughts. She wanted to ask what Ellen’s death signified. But he wouldn’t know. Did it mean The Crew had paid Ellen a visit and she wouldn’t give up what she knew?

That possibility made Vivian wince. Had she misjudged her mother after all?

Or…had Ellen told as much as she could about Vivian’s calls?

The mere fact of her death didn’t provide the answer. The Crew could’ve killed her even if she cooperated.

“Hey!” He gave her shoulders another squeeze.

Talk. She needed to talk. “Who’s going to see to her burial?” she asked. “I can’t expect Virgil to do it.”

“You’re right. He can’t leave Peyton. Not while she’s so close to having the baby.”

It was more than that. Her brother was absolutely convinced that Ellen had conspired with Gary to murder Martin and let him take the blame for it. He wouldn’t attend Ellen’s funeral even if it was right across the street and there was no danger.

“So?” She reclaimed her sunglasses and put them on. They provided a shield of sorts—a small one, granted, but that was better than nothing.

“It’s a homicide, so there’ll be an autopsy,” he replied. “That may take several days, maybe a week or two.”

“She’s already been dead awhile. Who knows how long? Sonja Ivey was so upset she could hardly speak. She was too busy gasping and crying.” Images of the murdered marshal in Colorado loomed, but Vivian shoved them away.

“The police will get whatever information they can about the way she was killed. But my point is this—you don’t have to make every decision right this minute. Let’s deal with the shock first.”

The shock was exactly what she was attempting to overcome. She felt as if she’d been dumped into some kind of arctic wilderness. If she didn’t force herself to keep thinking, keep planning, keep moving, she’d freeze and be unable to do anything. “But I have to worry about her burial at some point, don’t I? Some point soon.”

She stepped out of reach. Being so close to him had once felt right, but not anymore. He’d been Laurel’s crutch, Laurel’s love, not Vivian’s. Vivian was too infatuated with the sheriff to be able to fall back into a relationship with Rex. Not that she could pursue what she felt for him, either. “At the very least, I have to tell the police who’s responsible for her death. I won’t let The Crew get away with this.”

The empty place inside her was filling up—with anger and outrage. It threatened to make her reckless because she was beginning to care less about her own safety and well-being than achieving justice.

Or maybe it wasn’t justice she wanted so much as revenge. Was she becoming less like ordinary people and more like the men who hunted her? It wouldn’t surprise her. They’d made her live in their world, made her look over her shoulder every second, for nearly four years.

“You might have to let the police handle the investigation on their own,” Rex said.

“No.”

He gripped her elbow. “Look, I know what you’re feeling. I feel the same. But it’s a war we can’t win.”

She knocked his hand away. “We won’t win if we don’t fight.”

“Don’t you think Virgil and I have considered that? We have. Lots of times. But there are too many of them. We could pick off one or two, maybe even three or four. But we can’t get to the most powerful members. They’ll just keep sending more foot soldiers until we screw up or get too tired to run. Then they’ll get us.”

She didn’t want to hear that. As logical as it was, it pushed her into a corner. “Maybe that’s a chance we have to take. Maybe we have to risk our lives to make our lives worth living.”

“That sounds fine and good for us,” he responded. “I’m willing to take that risk. But what about Jake and Mia? And Virgil’s kids?”

“That’s exactly what The Crew’s counting on, that we’ll offer no resistance, play it safe.”

“Or, by killing your mother, they could be trying to coax you out of hiding. Which is why you can’t contact anyone, least of all the LAPD.”

She threw up her hands. “Oh, come on. The Crew can’t have moles everywhere.”

“They can in L.A.! That’s their home turf.”

She couldn’t even go to her mother’s funeral? “Then who’ll bury her?”

“Natalie.”

Ellen’s sister. “You think she’d bother to interrupt her life, to put herself out for us?” Natalie lived in Texas with her husband, who’d been in the air force for most of his career. She’d been very careful to keep her distance, didn’t want the taint of what had happened to ruin her life, too.

“If there’s no one else,” he said. “She remained loyal to Ellen throughout it all, right?”

Natalie believed that Gary had killed Martin as a favor to Ellen, but that Ellen had no foreknowledge of it. According to her, Gary only implicated Ellen because Ellen didn’t give him more of the money, and his ex supported this theory, which was another reason Ellen had never been charged. But letting Natalie take over the funeral arrangements meant conceding yet another battle to The Crew. “She was my mother. That makes her funeral my responsibility.”

He raked a hand through his hair, which was longer than she’d ever seen him wear it, longer than hers. “Doesn’t matter. You can’t go back to L.A. The Crew could be watching and waiting for you to do just that.”

Or they could be here in Montana. That was the problem. She didn’t know.

“I’ve…had it,” she said. “I don’t know how else to explain what’s going on with me.”

He sat on the edge of the closest picnic table. “You don’t have any other choice, Laurel—Vivian,” he corrected before she could protest. “You have to do what you have to do in order to survive.”

“No. I could fight back. I have that choice.”

“But do you know what fighting means?”

“It means I’ll endanger my children, like you’ve already pointed out. But what if you took them to Virgil?”

He got up again. “That’s crazy. I’m not leaving you here alone.”

He had to. He wasn’t well. “If I don’t have to worry about my kids, I’ll be able to defend myself.”

His expression said he didn’t think she stood a snowball’s chance in hell. And he was probably right. But she had to at least try to break free, didn’t she? Running wasn’t necessarily any safer. The Crew could find her again. And maybe next time she wouldn’t have the warning she did now.

“Against how many?” he asked. “One? Two? Don’t you remember what happened in Colorado?”

She’d never forget. But she couldn’t allow the fear inspired by that event to define her whole life. She could no longer live behind the boundaries of that fear, not anymore. “However many they send.”

Instead of arguing with her, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed. No doubt he was hoping Virgil could talk some sense into her.

“Bad news,” he said into the phone. “She’s okay. But…she’s talking crazy. And she has something to tell you.”

At first Vivian refused to take the phone. She knew what Virgil would tell her. But Rex insisted they wouldn’t leave until she had this conversation, and she had no hope of getting the keys from him, even in his weakened state.

“Tattletale,” she muttered to Rex, then gave him a dirty look when he grinned at her. “Hello?”

“What’s going on?” Virgil demanded.

Tilting her head back, she stared up at the sky and breathed in the scent of pine. “Mom’s been murdered.”

His response, when it came, was so low she could barely hear it. “I’m sorry, Laurel.”

Suddenly the tears that’d been so conspicuously missing began to burn behind her eyes. Determined not to shed them, she blinked rapidly. She was done crying. She was done allowing herself to be frightened and intimidated, too. This was her life, damn it. She was taking it back.

“How’d it happen?” he asked.

“She was stabbed. Sonja Ivey found her on the floor of the laundry room.”

“The Crew got hold of her?”

“Who else? With Ink out of prison, that has to be it.” Tears leaked out despite her efforts to dam them, so she simply squeezed her eyes shut and relied on her glasses to hide them.

“I haven’t told you this, but…I tried to warn her.”

This took Vivian aback. “You called Mom?”

“I went to see her. Right after we left Washington, D.C.”

Her eyes popped open. If he’d contacted Ellen, he hadn’t been as impervious to the doubts that had plagued her as he’d pretended. “What did she have to say?”

“Nothing more than she always said. She didn’t know Gary was planning to kill Martin. She’d never be party to such a thing. She only thought it was me because of what the detectives told her.”

“And you said?”

“What could I say?”

“You could’ve said you believe her.”

“I tried. It just…wasn’t there.”

Vivian understood. How many times had she hovered on the brink of forgiving Ellen? Too many times to count. And yet, even when she wanted to believe, when she made up her mind to trust, Ellen’s story rang false. “Weren’t you afraid that showing up there might be exactly what The Crew wanted you to do?”

“I was careful to minimize the risk.”

“Meaning…”

“I flew into Phoenix, rented a car and drove from there. Then I returned the car in San Francisco and flew out.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this trip?”

“I don’t know.”

Because their mother was a hard subject for both of them. Because the visit hadn’t changed his mind, as he’d probably hoped it would. Because it was easier to pretend, as he had for years, that he didn’t care.

“You could’ve taken me with you.”

“I needed to meet with her alone. Give her one last chance.”

Ellen hadn’t realized it had been her last chance. She’d been trying to convince Vivian as little as six months ago that they could still be a family. But that was so typical of her.

“I told her about The Crew,” he said. “I explained why I joined them and why they wouldn’t let me go. I made sure she understood that they’d use any means available to find me, including her, and that they weren’t going to give up anytime soon. I suggested she leave the area.”

“Advice she obviously ignored.”

“Yes. She felt safe since she didn’t know where I lived or how to contact me. We haven’t been part of her life for so long…I guess she thought they’d continue to assume she was out of the picture. And she met Randall the day I left. After that she forgot about everything else.”

Suddenly the irony of the situation became clear to Vivian. Ellen cared more about the men in her life than she’d ever cared about her kids. Her many romances always came first. Yet, in the end, she’d been alone.

Not only that, but if Ellen had instigated Martin’s murder, it was her fault that Virgil had gone to prison. And it was because he’d joined a gang in order to survive that Ellen had lost her life. What she’d set in motion nearly twenty years ago had come full circle.

Too bad there wasn’t more satisfaction in knowing that. No matter what Vivian believed, she could never wish this kind of death on her own mother. “So why would they kill her now, after all this time?” she asked. “They could’ve gone after her four years ago.”

“They knew we didn’t have any contact, so they didn’t see any point in it. But enough time has passed that…they must’ve decided to take a chance.”

She watched a cruiser drive slowly past, knew the cop inside was probably wondering if they were doing a drug deal. They were standing in a park, just the two of them, and they didn’t have kids, a dog or a picnic basket. “It’s not only that.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s Ink.”

“You think he killed her himself?”

“If not, he’s behind it.” Which meant her worst fears were becoming a reality. “Question is…how close is he?”

“That depends on what our mother told him.”

“She couldn’t have told him much. Maybe she jotted down the numbers I called from, and passed that along, or turned over her phone records. But that’s it.”

“So we have to assume Ink knows you live in Montana. Maybe, through Horse or some other contact, he even has a cop on the payroll who’s been able to trace one of those numbers to Pineview.”

It was chilling to hear Virgil say that. His acknowledgment of how easily Ink could find her made it that much more real. He could be waiting at her house right now. “That’s why I need Rex to bring Jake and Mia to you until this thing plays out.”

“Are you crazy?” he snapped. “No way do I want you there alone.”

“It’s better than having me here with the kids. What if I can’t protect them?”

“What if you can’t protect yourself? Come with Jake and Mia. You can start over. One more time. This is a great area. I’ll pay for the move, whatever you need.”

She wished it could be that simple. She missed Virgil and Peyton. But she didn’t want to leave Pineview, especially because she had no assurance that this would be the last time she’d have to flee. “And when they find us in New York?”

“We’ll deal with that when we come to it.”

The cop appeared again, slowed and parked next to her Blazer. He didn’t get out, but he distracted Vivian, irritated her. The police were present and available when she didn’t need them, but she had no confidence she’d have help when it mattered most. They’d never been able to help her before. “No. I’m finished running. I won’t move again.”

“Then I’ll have to come there.”

“You can’t leave Peyton unprotected!”

“I can’t leave you unprotected, either.”

“This is my choice.”

“You must not be thinking straight.”

Rex wasn’t comfortable having that cop so close. He eyed the cruiser as he leaned against the picnic table. He was shaky, not feeling good. Vivian could tell. But he was trying hard not to show it. “I’m making perfect sense. And that’s what has you so angry. You don’t have a better plan.”

When he didn’t immediately reply, she knew she had him. “Tell me the truth,” she said. “What would you do if you were me?”

“I’m not you. I spent fourteen years fighting with men in other gangs. I’ve had to kill to save my own life, Laurel. Even if I thought you could defend yourself, I don’t want you to experience that. It’s too much. You never forget it. Listen, Peyton’s not due for two weeks. Let me come out there and—”

“No. She could go into labor at any time. Gestational diabetes makes it a high-risk pregnancy. I know how worried you are. Are you really going to leave her? What if she loses this one, too?”

No answer. He was weighing his options, trying to decide, so she gentled her voice and tried to persuade him. “Stay, Virgil. Take care of your family. I’m guessing Ink’s already here. That means I need to deal with it.”

“Why not send the kids but have Rex stay with you?” he asked.

Vivian shot Rex a sideways glance. “Because Rex needs help himself.”

“What kind of help?”

“You know what kind of help. Get him into rehab as soon as he walks off the plane.”

“That’s bullshit,” Rex said. “Give me my damn phone. Rehab can wait.”

She stepped out of reach. With a cop watching, he wouldn’t force the issue. “We have no idea how long this situation might take to resolve itself. One week? Two? A month?” she said to Virgil. “Rex is barely hanging on. He won’t admit it because he’s a stubborn fool but he needs help.”

“Now you’re really pissing me off,” Rex growled. “I’ll take the kids to Virgil, but I’m coming back.”

“He will, you know,” Virgil said. “He won’t let you face this alone.”

He’d probably try. But she didn’t think his body could handle much more. “We’ll talk about that once you have the kids.”

She had a feeling it would all be over by then, anyway.