More at the hospital

Sam felt numb as she listened to the phone ring, waiting for her parents to pick up. She'd been trying all night to get a hold of them but for some reason they hadn't answered. She'd left at least a dozen frantic messages but now she didn't have the energy to be frantic anymore. The familiar message played in her ear but she almost forgot to start talking after the beep. "Oh uh, I need you to call me, soon." She fliped her phone closed and slumped lower in her chair. It was almost 7 am, they had been sitting at the hospital for 8 hours and still didn't know any more then they had known when they arrived. Jess, who had been pacing for the last few hours, sat down next to her.

"I should probably call my mom and check on the kids. And I think I'll call in today."

"Sure hun, sounds good." Sam hardly heard what Jess had said, but was too tired to do anything but agree.

Sam started to doze off. Her phone rang and she flung it in the air as she jumped from her chair. Picking it up from the carpet she answered it. "Hello?"

"Sam its mom. What's wrong?"

Sam couldn't hold her composure and began violently sobbing into the phone. She was so upset that she didn't even notice when Rance slid the phone from her hand.

"Hello?"

"Rance, this is Berta. What is going on with Andi? Why is Sam so upset?"

Rance swallowed hard. He hadn't intended to be the one telling his inlaws about Andi's condition. "We don't really know what's going on. Evan beat her to a pulp and she's in the hospital but they haven't told us anything. Last we heard they were working on stablizing her." Rance waited for a response but was answered only by silence.

"Hello?" Now Andi's father was on the other end, agitation rising out of his voice.

"Hi Rod, is Berta ok?"

"She's sobbing. What's going on Rance?"

"Evan beat Andi last night. She's in the hospital but we don't know anything. They will only tell us that they are trying to stablize her. The doctor did tell us that all of the family should probably come as soon as possible though."

"Well it will take us an hour or so to get packed and then we'll hit the road. If I go strait through we should be there in about 7 hours." Rod hung the phone up with out saying goodbye.

Rance sat down next to Sam and put his arm around her. He felt an odd relief as he looked across the room at his sleeping wife. He wasn't sure he could handle much more of the hystaria that had ruled their lives most of the night.

Good-Bye

I'd loved him for a long time, 9 years and 3 months to be exact. It had always been one of those relationships that made the people around us shake their heads. There were ups and downs, screaming matches and the occasional violent outburst but in some twisted way we were actually in love. We hadn't been together all 9 years though, I'd moved away to college, he moved away to college, we broke up, got back together, and all those other things that happen in a less then perfect relationship. But saying good bye for real wasn't ever in my plans. We hadn't been together in over a year but I still loved him and we had talked about getting together, just never did it. When he called and said he wanted to come over I was sure it was going to be another should we give it another try conversation and I was ready to say yes.


He showed up after work and looked exhausted. We started with all the pleasantries of any two people from a small town. I ask about his family, he asked about mine, we talked ranching for a few minutes and then he let out a long sigh. "We really need to talk."

"OK", I answered.

"You know you were my first love. I'll always love you in some way, but there's someone new."

I just sat there. I didn't know what to say or how to say it. I was ready to get back together and now he was telling me there was someone new. I felt dizzy and nauseous and wanted to run away, only my legs were made of jello. Finally I managed to squeeze an "Oh" out.

"I know it's sudden but we just connect. She makes me laugh and makes me feel like I'm 16 again. And we don't fight." He averted his gaze.

I just wanted to scream at him. Tell him he was wrong. Tell him this time we wouldn't fight, tell him this time would be different. But I knew I'd be lying. I loved him and we had a deep connection but he was right, we did fight. "So, how long have you been seeing her."


"About a month. We got engaged last night. We're getting married this fall." He stared at his hands as if not looking at me was making this whole twisted thing easier.

"Oh, congratulations. I'm glad your happy." The words were coming out of me but I didn't seem to be making them. I guess I was glad he was happy. That was one of the things that had always bothered me about our relationship, he never seemed truly happy. We sat in silence for almost an hour, him staring at his hands and me staring out the front window. When the sun was nearly set he stood.

"I ought to get. She's planning to come meet my sister tonight. You ought to come see my sister while she's in town. She'd like to see you."

I walked him to the door and stood watching him walk to his pickup. He stood with the pickup door open, just looking back at me. I hoped for a brief moment that he was going to take it all back but he didn't. "Good-bye."


"Good-bye", I said. He backed out of the driveway and drove away. I slumped against the door and cried. This really was good-bye.

New plan

Ok, so I know the story isn't exactly matching the title anymore but some things have changed since I started writing it. So I'll change the title later but for now try not to get too caught up in the discrepency. And I realize there seems to be a big gap between the last post and this one but I had writers block so I moved on and hopefully I can go back later and fill in the middle.

Rance nearly fell off his chair trying to answer the phone before it woke Corri or Brandon. "Hello?"

"Rance, this is Jess. What are you doing?"

"Nothing really. Why?"

"I need to talk to you. Meet me at Martha's in say 30 min."

"Alright. Whats going on?"

"Just meet me at Martha's."

As Rance drove into town he couldn't help but anticipate the worst. Everyone was on edge with Evans trial. Now that Andi was dead if Evan wasn't found guilty he would have custody of Brandon, and from what Jess had heard things weren't looking good. When Rance pulled into the Martha's parking lot Jess motioned for Rance to get in the pickup. "So what's up?"

"The jury just came back with a not guilty verdict. I haven't told Sam yet, she'll be devastated." Rance didn't know what to do. He'd been prepping himself for this but somewhere in his mind he had been convinced that the jury would find Evan guilty. "I think we should get the girls together when we tell them. They'll need each other."

Rance sat in silence for a few long moments before he was even able to think. "What are we going to do? Evan can't have Brandon back, he'll just kill him too. It'll kill Corri to give Brandon to him. We have to do something Jess."

"I know. That's why I called you. Sam and I weren't on board with your plan before but now it doesn't seem so drastic."

Rance was shocked. "You mean killing him? You really want to kill him?"

"Didn't Moses say an eye for an eye?"

"Yeah. I mean I agree with you, I just didn't think you'd ever be the one to say it. So you want to stick with the hunting accident?"

"No. It would be too obvious. Every one knows we think he's guilty and if we were suddenly taking him hunting with us and then he turned up missing rumors would start to fly. We need to have a realistic story to fall back on."

Rance examined Jess's expression. He could tell that Jess had a plan.

Jess waited. He knew Rance was mulling it all over, probably trying to decide if Jess had a plan or not. He did have a plan but he wasn't just going to blurt it out. He had spent all morning working on the details, as if he were working a murder, trying to find the faults and the holes. He wanted to make Rance work through it with him, just to give him another chance to examine the whole idea.

"So how you want to go at it? Suicide, drowning, just disappearance, what?"

"Well, what do you think will look the most accidental?"

"Well, I don't know." Rance just thought about it for a long time, trying to think over what people might believe would just happen to Evan. "Well he likes to fish so we could probably pull off a drowning. On the other hand a lot of people in town figure he killed Andi so maybe we could stage a suicide and people will think his conscious got to him. But then I don't know maybe just killing him and hiding the body is the best bet."

Jess could see that Rance wasn't just going to work it out like he had hoped. "OK, well I do have an idea. I want you to work it out with me though because my kids are not growing up knowing their parents are in prison. We have to work this so it can't be solved. Disappearances are hardly ever just that and its nearly impossible to hide a body and know for sure that it won't be found. Suicide is a plausible story but there's a lot more chances to screw up and leave evidence that way."

Rance considered what Jess said. He hadn't pointed out any faults with the drowning. "But how will we know when and where he'll be fishing? We can't very well call and ask. He'll never tell us plus then they could link our conversation to what happens."

"Right. We can't call him and we can't talk to him in any public places and your probably right about him not talking to us." Jess could tell that Rance was catching on. He liked hearing someone else work it out because it gave him a chance to look at the plan from an outside perspective.

"We could follow him on Saturday mornings and hope he was headed fishing."

"We could but someone might see us. Or he might notice us."

"Wait. Every year doesn't he go fishing the day before Thanksgiving. Something about fish being a more traditional meal for his people?"

"Yeah he does."

"Well I know his favorite place to fish is the south side of the reservoir. Corri made me go with him a couple of times. We could just be there waiting for him. And the bank is nearly a cliff there so a tumble wouldn't seem strange." Rance thought over what he had just proposed. He was pleased with it. The fine details would need to be worked out but it seemed that the general idea was good.

"Your a step farther then I was. I didn't know where he like to fish. We'll have to work out the details so we don't leave a trail but I think so far we've got a cut and dry accidental death. That is as long as he dies. If he doesn't he'll be able to identify us and we both go away for attempted murder."

"If he survives that fall he'll be a miracle. The waters down this year and he'll have to fall over 20 foot of bolders before he hits water. Even if the fall doesn't kill him he'll be cold cocked and drown before he wakes up."

"Now we just get the girls to agree and work the details and then we'll get rid of the little creep."