If I Should Die_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [68]
Anyway, Jimmy was a hypocrite. Telling Ricky to stay out of the business, but getting in deep himself. So deep that Ricky didn’t believe him when Jimmy said it was to protect Ricky. Protect him from what? The monster? Ricky didn’t believe she’d set foot in Spruce Lake again. If she did, Ricky would kill her himself.
He cringed as he thought of the last words he’d said to his uncle.
“You’re a fucking hypocrite, Uncle Jimmy.”
Ricky knew exactly what was going on in Spruce Lake. The drug trade was alive and well. And Ricky couldn’t care less about it, other than it was his ticket out of here. What people did to themselves was their business; Ricky had no need to give up control of his mind and body to drugs. Maybe it was even his father who’d convinced him of that with all the lectures and warnings, ironic considering how his father made his money.
You’re better than that, Rick.
His father had considered drug users weak and helpless, but he had no problem manufacturing the product that kept them dependent.
Ricky desperately wanted someone to tell him what to do, but he had no one to trust. He wanted to trust Sean Rogan, but why would that guy help him? He had to have an ulterior motive.
“Mom, I don’t know what to do.”
His voice was scratchy and thick. He swallowed and coughed, his head low.
Jimmy was gone. Reverend Browne wasn’t acting himself. Something was happening, and it was the first time since his mother had died that Ricky didn’t know everything that was going on in Spruce Lake.
He was scared and angry and there was only one person who might be able to help him, but Jimmy had told Ricky to go to him only in an emergency. Well, this was a fucking emergency! Jimmy was dead, and something big was going down on Sunday.
Headlights cut down the road as three cars turned toward the church. Ricky lay flat on the ground, partly shielded by his mother’s grave marker. He didn’t think they saw him. They were going into the church, eight or nine of them. Ricky knew all of them. The reverend. Andy Knolls, the weird guy at the Gas-n-Go who used to give only the girls free candy, until he touched Lisa Thompson’s twelve-year-old breasts and her father beat him nearly to death. The creepy guy Andy hung around with, Gary Clarke. He wasn’t from Spruce Lake; he hadn’t shown up until Ricky’s father went to prison. Some of the other regulars.
A fourth car drove up. It was a luxury rental, sleek and black. A blond guy got out. Ricky could read City Boy in his crisp jeans and black button-down shirt. And who wore trench coats in Spruce Lake? He looked mean, and Ricky might have been scared, but then he saw who got out of the passenger’s seat and he was terrified.
The monster is back.
Even through his fear, Ricky had one thought.
Vengeance is mine.
The monster had killed his mother. She’d stolen the money that his dad had hidden before he went to prison. The money to pay for his mother’s chemotherapy and surgery.
His mother had had a good chance of surviving if she’d had the necessary treatment.
And Bobbie had even known that when she took the money.
TWENTY-THREE
Sean drove Tim to his house and, after getting directions to the Callahans’ place, he asked Tim to check in on Lucy. Sean had already warned her about the note he’d found in the truck. He didn’t want to leave her longer than he had to, but he had questions he was certain Henry Callahan could answer.
As soon as he drove away from the Hendricksons’, his cell phone rang. It was his brother, Duke, calling from California.
“Confirmed,” Duke said. “Roberta Swain Molina, a.k.a. Bobbie Swain.”
“That was fast.” Sean had sent the picture less than thirty minutes ago. “She’s married?”
“Widowed. Her husband, a known drug smuggler, was