Hard Rain (19 page)

“How is the investigation going?”

He groaned in answer.

“You talked to the boys she dated in high school?” Nettie knew her husband too well. He would cover all his bases before he headed for JD Hamilton and that Pandora’s box.

“The main suspects. They all swear the baby couldn’t be theirs.” He took the cold beer she handed him. She didn’t know exactly when things had changed. Frank had never talked about his cases with her—until recently. She suspected it was because he was tired of law enforcement and thinking about retiring.

She hoped it was because her insight often came in handy. Also he knew she would wear him down eventually anyway.

“I thought I had a pretty good idea of who I was dealing with going in, but it turns out I didn’t have a clue. Harper Hamilton and Brody McTavish stopped by my office. They’ve been doing some private investigating of their own.” He shook his head. “They’d learned a whole lot more than I have.”

“Harper and Brody,” Nettie said in surprise. “Well, they are both closer to it than you are, though it astonishes me that they’re working together.”

Frank chuckled. “Their families can’t be happy about it.”

“So who’s the baby’s father?” she asked.

He shook his head. “You’ll probably know before I do. We seem to have more leaks in my office than an old wooden rowboat.”

“So you’re no closer to finding out who killed her?”

“Sure doesn’t seem that way.”

“I’m betting that the trail keeps leading back to Hamilton Ranch and Senator JD Hamilton,” Nettie said. “The whole county thinks he did it. He had motive. Opportunity, with their ranches so close to each other... And considering where she was buried...”

“I think the county might be surprised. I hope so. I hate to think what effect all this could have if JD ends up being the killer.”

“You’re thinking of Harper Hamilton and Brody McTavish.”

He smiled. “I do love the way your mind works. I suspect my warning them to quit snooping around fell on deaf ears, but I sure hope not.”

“You could arrest them,” she joked.

“Don’t tempt me. I may have to before it’s over. They’ve already talked to Ella.”

“The crazy doctor?” Nettie said. “Yeah, I heard that she thought Grace wasn’t wheelchair-bound. That she could have walked if she had wanted to. Grace, even if she could walk, was a small woman. How could she...bury Maggie in a wooden box? Well, she couldn’t. Not without help. So, the way I see it, it keeps coming back to JD.”

Her husband seemed to be studying his beer bottle, but she knew he was listening. He just wasn’t going to tell her anything.

“If Grace killed Maggie, he’d have to help her,” Nettie continued. “JD would be torn up with guilt. No way would he turn her in to the sheriff since he would feel responsible. He’d help her cover up the murder. Then Grace dies, JD can’t live with his guilt...”

Frank took his beer and rose.

“Where are you going?”

“To talk to my crows. They, at least, don’t resort to wild speculation.”

She laughed as she watched him go, then rushed to the door to holler, “If not JD, then who else would Grace turn to for help?
Buckmaster.
She would have gotten her son to help her. Or her daughter-in-law. Maybe that’s Sarah’s real secret.”

* * *

S
ARAH
WOKE
FROM
the dream with a start. Ever since Harper’s visit, she hadn’t been able to get the past off her mind. She sat up in bed, half expecting Buck to be lying next to her. The bed beside her was empty. Buck had gone back to DC.

She clutched the sheet and glanced wildly around the dark room before her gaze went to the window. A pine bough slapped against the glass making her jump.

A thin shriek died on her lips as she heard the wind. The pine bough hit the glass again. She sat, trying to still her thundering heart, the dream still alive in her mind and in the room.

The mystery man from her nightmares. He’d been here again. She could feel his presence, almost smell the scent of him, almost feel his touch on her bare skin.

Sarah shivered and pulled the sheet and blankets up around her neck as she leaned back. Her eyes still searched the room, the nightmare still too real. It always started the same way. She and Buck married, holding hands, laughing as they ran out of church in a hail of white rice.

The joy of the glimpse into what she had known was the future, the way a person always knew things in dreams, had filled her to overflowing. She and Buck finally, truly back together and the world celebrating with them.

Then she would see the man standing in the shadows and stumble, her laughter dying on her lips. He would be at the edge of the crowd. He never said anything. He didn’t have to.

She knew the moment she saw him that he was there to destroy her happiness, her life, destroy Buck. The man had something in his hand. He was smiling as he—

That’s when she woke up.

At her daughter Bo’s wedding reception, that was apparently why she’d fainted. When she’d come to, Buck and her daughter Kat were leaning over her.

“Sarah, what happened?” Buck had cried, concern in his voice, in his expression.

“I...I don’t know.” Her gaze had gone to Kat. What she saw in her daughter’s expression brought it back. She’d seen the man from her nightmare standing just outside the barn door where the reception was being held. Then darkness.

“I should have eaten something,” Sarah had said to Buck. “I’ve just been so excited about the wedding... Would you be a dear and get me a small plate from the buffet?”

Buck had hurried off, leaving her alone with Kat.

“Who is he?” Kat had asked, stepping closer so Sarah could hear her whispered words.

She had wanted desperately to deny that she’d even seen anyone. “I don’t know.”

“Someone from The Prophecy? Your coleader? Your lover?” The last word stung with its bitter bite.

“I don’t know. I swear—”

Kat had given an angry shake of her head. “I don’t believe you,” she’d said, and had walked off. They hadn’t mentioned it again.

But Sarah had been waiting, knowing in her heart he would show up again. Only next time—

She threw back the covers and got up, knowing she wouldn’t get a moment’s rest until she searched the house. The farmhouse had been built back in the fifties. It had come with a ranch purchase that Buck had made.

Sarah felt as if she’d been in exile since her return. She’d had to hide out from the media. Now she was hiding out because she and Buck couldn’t be together. Not yet.

She understood why they couldn’t let anyone know about their...arrangement. His wife—the woman he’d married fifteen years ago—had only been dead four months. Intellectually, she knew it was too soon for them to be seen together because of the presidential campaign. But she was getting tired of being stuck away, waiting.

Give it time. When he becomes president, you will be together.

Her heart beat a little faster at the thought since she still couldn’t imagine it. She moved through the house, turning on lights as she went. There was little furniture, little decor at all. Buck would have bought her anything she wanted. But she had wanted only the bare necessities, telling herself that she wouldn’t be here long.

The lack of furnishings made it easy to search the house for the man. Even as she went from room to room, she knew she wouldn’t find him. Common sense told her that if he showed up again, he wouldn’t be hiding in a closet in some spare room.

Not if.
When
he showed up again, she thought, snapping off the lights as she went.

Arriving back at the point where she’d started, she turned out the bedroom light, then moved soundlessly through the house to the front window that looked out on Hamilton Ranch and the Crazy Mountains.

The wind groaned in the darkness. Pine boughs scraped against the old siding and clouds scudded across a midnight blue sky speckled with stars and a sliver of moon.

Her eyes had just begun to adjust to the darkness when she saw something move only yards from the house. She walked soundlessly to the spot by the door where she kept the gun. It was only a .22 caliber. Even if she emptied it into a man, it might not stop him. She would have liked something more powerful, but that thought brought with it its own anxiety.

She reminded herself that she was one hell of a shot. She would have to be.

Returning to the window, she waited. More movement. She gripped the gun, telling herself she would use it if forced to. Her daughter Kat already thought she was a killer. Sometimes Sarah felt a heat inside her that scared her into believing her daughter might be right.

She eased the front door open and raised the gun. Her breath caught in her throat before the deer stepped out from behind the pine tree and made its way across the yard.

Sarah shrank back into the house. Next time, what if it wasn’t a deer?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

JD
THOUGHT
HER
a fool. That hurt more than anything, Grace told herself. She’d seen the way he was when he came back from one of his fishing trips. She knew the signs. He’d fallen for that redheaded harlot from the ranch next door. Did he think she didn’t see the half-naked young woman riding her horse toward the mountains? The tramp had been trying to seduce him for years.

And now she’d succeeded—and Grace doubted anyone would believe her.

“Your father isn’t here. He’s busy having an affair,” she told her son when he stopped by that afternoon looking for JD.

“Mother,” Buckmaster said, instantly looking pained. He spent so little time in her company as it was. Now she could tell he wished he hadn’t stopped by. “Where do you get these ideas?”

“It’s that woman from next door, Maggie McTavish.” Belatedly she realized that her son hadn’t come alone. He’d brought his so-called wife. As Sarah stepped into the room, Grace groaned under her breath. One tramp was chasing her husband and another had snared her son. If she wasn’t trapped in this wheelchair...

“What’s this?” Sarah asked as if it was any of her business.

“Mother thinks the teenager next door is having an affair with Dad.”

Her daughter-in-law laughed. “I really doubt that. He’s too busy. If he hopes to be a contender for the presidency—”

“He doesn’t,” Grace snapped. “You’re the only one who is encouraging him to run. Why is that? Why do you care? Isn’t it enough to be the daughter-in-law of a US senator, even a retired one? Maybe it isn’t good enough for you and that’s why you’re so determined that he has to be the next president.”

“Mother,” her son reproached.

“Someone needs to encourage him to follow his dreams,” Sarah said.

“His dreams?” Grace demanded. “He quit being a senator to be with me and now you want to take him away again? Thanks to you, he quit sooner than he planned, but now that you put this foolishness into his head, he’s gone all the time.”

“We’re here for you,” Sarah said, and gave her a fake smile.

“So you can try to kill me again?”

“When JD becomes president, he’ll move you into the White House with him,” Sarah said as if she hadn’t heard. As if she didn’t know it was true.

Buckmaster sighed and said, “Tell Dad we stopped by. I’ll try to catch him later.”

Grace wanted to grab his arm and plead with him to stay, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. He didn’t believe that his wife was dangerous any more than he believed his father was having an affair. He was wrong on both counts.

* * *

“I
THOUGHT
I
MIGHT
find you here,” Harper said as she climbed up onto the bar stool next to Brody.

He shook his head at her. “Sometimes you have to know when to quit.” After finding the drawing and proof that Maggie and JD had a relationship, he thought she’d give up. He sure had. He went back to staring into his beer glass.

“I can’t stand to see you drinking alone,” she said and motioned to the bartender for a beer.

“I
like
drinking alone. Anyway, are you even old enough to drink?”

“Funny.”

“What do you want, Harper?”

“Why didn’t you ask me to dance at Bo and Jace’s wedding?”

“Really? That was months ago.” He saw that she wasn’t going to let it go. “Maybe I didn’t want to.”

“Seriously. I was waiting for you to ask me.”

He looked into her eyes and felt himself weaken. “I didn’t want to wait in line.” He felt his expression soften. What was it about this woman that made him want to leap tall buildings for her? “Come on, Harper, what man wouldn’t want to dance with a woman like you?’

“There was only one man I wanted to dance with that night.”

“Harper—”

“Well, there is no line now and the way I figure it, you owe me a dance.”

He held her gaze. “Is that all you want from me?”

“For the moment.” She picked up some change from the bar and walked over to the jukebox. A few moments later a slow country song began to play. The dance floor was empty. The whole place was pretty much that way this time of the day.

She looked to Brody. “Well, cowboy?”

He sighed and slid off his stool to step out onto the floor with her. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“You keep telling me that,” she said as he pulled her to him. “But what if I set my sights on you a long time ago and nothing can change that?”

He met her gaze and slowly shook his head. “I suggest you set your sights a lot higher.”

“Come on, Brody, you said you’ve been waiting for me to grow up.”

“That was before...”

“Before what?”

“Harper—”

“Come on, you know you’re half in love with me already.”

He laughed. He was a lot more than half. “Kind of full of yourself, aren’t you?”

She gave him that crooked smile of hers that melted his heart like warm chocolate. “Do you remember what you told me when I left for college? You had stopped by to pick up a horse and we were alone in the stables. You told me to go after what I wanted in life and not let anyone stand in my way.”

“I must have been just full of advice back then.”

“I want
you
.”

“You don’t know what you want. I’ve got boots older than you and right now, I’m not worth two cents. All I have in the world is an old truck and a saddle to my name.”

The song ended and he let go of her.

“I know you want me, too.”

He shook his head. There’d never been anyone who captured his heart like Harper Hamilton. He couldn’t speak for a moment because of how much he wanted her. How much he wanted to kiss her again, sweep her up and carry her out of this bar.

“Sometimes we don’t get what we want.” He tipped his hat. “Thanks for the dance.”

* * *

“D
ID
I
HEAR
RIGHT
?
” Undersheriff Dillon Lawson asked as he entered Frank’s office and closed the door. “We’re looking into Grace Hamilton’s death?”

“Not just hers, but her husband’s, as well,” the sheriff said.

Dillon pulled out a chair and sat. “What exactly are we looking for?”

Frank hated to voice what he’d been thinking. “I suspect the former sheriff might have...”

“Covered up for the Hamiltons,” Dillon said. “Those are pretty strong words.”

He laughed. “And you’re the one who said them.”

Dillon nodded, smiling. “The way he handled the McTavish girl’s case already had me wondering just how far it went. I looked through the case as you asked. Either he was told to back off or he really did believe she was a runaway and didn’t bother taking it any further.”

The former sheriff was long dead so they couldn’t ask him. But Frank knew that Chuck Rush had stayed sheriff for years because he didn’t ruffle feathers.

“Grace Hamilton’s death, according to the death certificate, was ruled an accident. But what woman who has been confined to a wheelchair falls from the top of a second-story staircase? I’ve spoken with her doctor. Apparently she was capable of walking, no physical reason she couldn’t have. So I suppose...”

“And JD Hamilton?”

“I doubt I’m the first to think he might have purposely driven into the river.”

“Guilt?”

Frank shrugged.

“We might never know the truth about either death,” Dillon said.

“Talk to the former coroner. Bud Turner signed off on both of them. See if after all these years he might remember something. He lives up in Boulder. Maybe we’ll get lucky. And one more thing, Dr. Franklin confirmed what I heard. Maggie was raped five months before her death and, from the bruises on her wrists and ankles, there was more than one man.”

Dillon lifted a brow. “The baby?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I need to get DNA on several more suspects before we check it against the baby’s DNA. Unfortunately, two of my suspects are dead.”

“JD Hamilton. Who’s the other one?”

“Ty Jenkins. He killed himself a few weeks after the rape. Also, I’m not sure how Collin Wilson might be involved, and Kyle Parker has refused to give me a DNA sample. The story behind Maggie’s death is turning out to be a lot more involved than we first thought.”

* * *

H
ARPER
HAD
WATCHED
Brody leave the bar, leave her. Her heart ached. She wanted to help him, but it was clear there were things he had to work out himself with his family. Had they really disowned him? Kicked him off the ranch he’d worked all these years believing it would one day be his?

She couldn’t help but feel responsible. Maybe if she hadn’t pressed him to looking into his cousin’s death...

Distracted, she left the bar and started home. A set of headlights flashed on behind her. Like the time before when a car chased her out of town, this one roared up behind her, startling her. Blinded by the bright headlights, she couldn’t see the driver.

She sped up, but the car stayed with her. She turned off at the next road, hoping the driver wouldn’t follow her. No such luck.

The headlights filled her car as the driver rode her bumper. She hit her brakes, hoping to make him back off. Instead, the driver raced up on her left side as if to pass her.

But, at the last minute, the car swerved into her. She heard the screech of metal and felt the jarring collision as the car hit her again. The wheel jerked in her hand. She fought to get control as the tires caught in the soft gravel at the edge of the road and pulled her toward the ditch.

Fortunately she wasn’t going very fast when she hit the embankment. Her airbag exploded in her face as her car came to a bone-crushing stop.

* * *

“Y
OU
DIDN
’
T
GET
a look at the driver?” the sheriff asked.

Harper shook her head even though it hurt to do so. She felt bruised all over from the impact. “It might have been the same one that chased me out of town before. In that older model Chevy Bel Air I recognized as the car Collin Wilson drives.”

The sheriff mugged a face. “I believe I warned you about getting involved in this.”

“I wasn’t doing anything this time.”

“Do you think it was the same car this time?”

“It could have been. It was dark and it happened so fast.”

He closed his notebook. “You do realize I can have you arrested for interfering in my investigation.”

“I wasn’t doing anything but driving home.” She gave him her most innocent look.

He shook his head. “I’ll have a deputy take you home since your car has been hauled to the repair shop.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the emergency room just to get checked over?”

“I’m fine,” Harper said.

“Is there anyone I can call for you? Maybe you shouldn’t be alone.”

She thought of Brody. “I’ll be fine.”

The sheriff still looked worried, but he let it go.

* * *

B
RODY
HAD
TRIED
to sleep but couldn’t. He’d returned to his motel room after the bar, mentally kicking himself for not kissing Harper again. She’d been asking for it, he thought with a wry grin. But he knew that if he had he wouldn’t have been able to leave it at one kiss. And right now, he couldn’t commit to anything.

Tomorrow he’d go out to the house he’d built on the ranch to get his things. He couldn’t believe how this was turning out. He’d had an understanding when he took over the ranch. Unfortunately, he hadn’t gotten anything in writing.

That seemed foolish now, but he’d never thought his family would turn on him. That was probably how his father and uncle felt. Betrayed.

He raked a hand through his hair as he looked out at the night. The snowcapped Crazies glowed silver in the moonlight. A few clouds scudded across the midnight blue canvas studded with stars. Harper. She was probably tucked in bed right now.

That thought did nothing to help him settle down and get some sleep.

When his cell phone rang from where he’d dropped it earlier, startling him, he crossed the room in two strides to pick up the call. His heart was already beating fast. He’d been hoping it was Harper and he accepted the call without even checking to see who it was from.

If she suggested he come over, he would be in his pickup in two seconds flat.

It wasn’t Harper.

* * *

T
HE
HOUSE
WAS
eerily quiet when Harper returned home after the deputy dropped her off. “Hello? Anyone here?” she called only to have the words echoed back at her.

Usually there was at least one staff member around at this time of the night. Had her father given them the day off?

She told herself she was being silly. She’d grown up on this ranch in this house, and had never been afraid. But after everything that had happened recently, she felt spooked, as if everything had changed. Or maybe now she was finally aware that her life wasn’t as safe and secure as she had thought.

She climbed the stairs, suddenly exhausted. The moment she hit the sheets, she was sound asleep. And then she was sitting up in bed, suddenly wide-awake.

Heart pounding, she listened for what had awakened her. A bad dream? Or a sound? She was just about to lie back down when she heard a thud from down the hall.

She froze, her thoughts scattering. No wonder she’d awakened so abruptly. She’d sensed that she wasn’t alone. Or heard something...

Was it possible that it was only one of the staff?

Another thud, this one closer. She grabbed up her cell phone from the bedside table. Her first thought was to call 9-1-1, but several things stopped her. One, the sheriff couldn’t get here for at least twenty minutes, and by then it could be too late. And two, whoever was up here could be staff or even one of her sisters.