Page 74 of The Perfect Hosts
“Shut up, Wes. Stay the fuck still. And Madeline, stay down,” Lucy orders when she catches her lifting her head.“I saw the marks when Madeline came home for our dad’s funeral. She told me everything. You think you’re a big man, Wes? Beating up your wife? Does it make you feel strong and powerful?”
“She’s lying,” Wes insists. “Tell her, Madeline. Tell her you were lying.” He reaches down and grabs her shoulder, gives it a shake.
“Don’t touch her,” Lucy says icily, and Wes rears back. “And she’s not lying,” she adds. She keeps her gaze pinned on the man in front of her.
“Lucy,” Wes says through his pain. “You’ll never be able to prove it. No one around here will believe that I could hurt my wife. Everyone loves me. The sheriff will never believe it. And I’ve got friends—lawyers, doctors, judges—who will say whatever I want them to say.”
“I’ve seen the pictures, Wes,” Lucy says, losing patience.
“Pictures?” He glares down at Madeline.
“Yeah, pictures,” Lucy says to him, using her teeth to pull the gloves off her hands. “There’s plenty of proof.”
“Tell me what you want,” Wes says, his eyes wild with fear. “Money? I can give you money. Lots of it. I’ll say it was an accident. We don’t even have to report it. Fifty, sixty thousand?” he offers, and she looks at him incredulously. “Okay, a hundred, and your pick of the horses.”
“Two hundred thousand, and Madeline gets the ranch in the divorce,” Lucy counters.
“Five hundred thousand, in cash,” Wes shoots back. “And Madeline and I will go our separate ways. But I want joint custody of the baby. She’s mine too.”
And this is when Lucy knows for certain that this nightmare will never end for her sister and the child who hasn’t even formally met her father yet. Wes won’t change. One day, Lucy will get the call that her sister is dead or has disappeared.It will all be so tragic and sad, and Wes will play the part of Grieving Husband perfectly. He will get away with murder and will raise his daughter in a house filled with fear and anger and violence.
“Take off your belt,” she tells Wes.
“What?” he asks, pain and confusion on his face.
“Take off your belt. And throw it over here. Do it.”
“Come on, Lucy,” Wes says, unbuckling his belt with his good arm and pulling it from his pants loops. “I can get you the money by morning. What do you say? Deal?”
“Hmmm,” Lucy says and looks down at her sister still trembling on the floor below him. “What do you think, Madeline? Is that enough?”
“It’s not near enough,” Madeline whispers.
“What?” Wes asks, looking down at his wife. “What did you say?”
“I said it’s not near enough,” Madeline says more loudly. “No amount of money is worth what you’ve done to me over the years.” She is sobbing now, but Lucy can hear the steel in her voice. Finally.
“You know, Lucy tried to sleep with me,” Wes says, desperation strangling his voice. “From the minute she got here, she came on to me.”
“I was just messing with you, Wes,” Lucy says. “I was laughing at you. We were both laughing at you.”
“You’re in this together?” he says in disbelief. “Madeline? I love you. You know that, don’t you? And I’m so, so sorry about how I’ve hurt you. I’ll get help. I will. Our baby needs a father. She needs me.”
Madeline’s eyes are locked on Wes’s. Her crying has stopped, her face has softened. She’s looking at Wes like the adoring wife she’s been for so long. Lucy can see her resolve wavering.
“Mads,” Lucy says, trying to get her sister to focus. “Stick with me here.”
Lucy looks over at her sister, her eyes filled with almost unfathomable sadness. Madeline struggles to her feet and stands directly in front of Wes, blocking the shot.
“You can’t do this, Lucy,” Madeline says. “I won’t let you.”
Chapter 38
Madeline
Madeline is light-headed, and it’s all she can do to stay on her feet, but she holds her ground.
“Get out of my way,” Lucy orders.