Hard Rain (15 page)

“If that’s what it took. I wasn’t going to let her ruin her life over...” Flannigan waved a hand through the air. “We were just going to do what was best for her,” his uncle said, silent tears rolling down his cheeks. “In time, she would have—” He looked away. “Instead, she went to
him
, told
him
she was keeping his baby...” His voice broke again. “And he killed
her
—and the baby—so don’t be looking at us like that. We were trying to
save
her.”

Brody shook his head as he took in the two men he’d grown up wanting to emulate. He couldn’t have been any more surprised if they’d told him he’d been left on their doorstep by aliens. “What could you have been thinking?”

“You don’t know what it was like,” Flannigan cried. “I did everything to make her see that this man was going to destroy her. She wouldn’t listen. Even after what he’d done to her... If I had only killed JD Hamilton before it went this far.” His uncle broke down for a moment before he angrily stormed out.

His head spinning, Brody turned to his father. “So you don’t know for sure that JD Hamilton took her by force or that the baby was even his. Maggie never told?”

“No, but we know that they use to meet at a high mountain lake in the Crazies. Flannigan saw a drawing she did of JD fishing up there.”

“What about her diary?” Brody asked. “Is it possible she wrote in it during those last days that—”

“After Flannigan read it and confronted her, Maggie must have done something with it. We’ve never been able to find the diary. That isn’t all. She took some belongings with her the day she left. As far as I know, those haven’t turned up, either.”

“Belongings? You mean as if she was running away and wouldn’t be back?”

Finn looked away. “She took her best dress and some things that her mother had worn on her wedding day.”

Brody swore.
“She thought she was getting married?”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

T
HE
WATER
SHOCKED
his system the moment JD dived into the lake. For a moment, he thought it might stop his heart and he would die up here in this crystal clear lake with her. The thought had been almost comforting.

The freezing water cleared his head as quickly as it chilled him. What the hell had possessed him? He knew the answer as he climbed out shivering. Behind him, she splashed him and laughed. “I knew you’d find it refreshing.”

“That water is nothing but melted snow.” He laughed as he grabbed his shirt to wipe the icy water from his face.

“When was the last time you laughed like that?” she asked joining him.

He shook his head. He honestly couldn’t remember.

“Well, I’m glad I got to hear it,” she said. They stood like that, both smiling at each other, the sun warming their bare flesh.

She cocked her head. “You’re quite handsome when you smile. You should smile more.”

JD felt uncomfortable. He’d never been good at compliments. But from this young woman especially. He didn’t want her to get the wrong idea.

“Stop looking so worried,” she said with a laugh. “Now you may never laugh or smile around me again. I shouldn’t have said anything.” She climbed up the rock and jumped in again, letting out a cry of exaltation before hitting the water.

“You’re a glutton for punishment,” he said as he watched her swim toward him. Water beaded on her lashes like jewels and ran down her flushed skin. Goose bumps dimpled her arms and legs and flat stomach as she climbed out. He turned away, but not before he’d seen hard brown nipples pressing erect against the fabric of her bra, the hint of a red V through her wet panties. Worse, she’d seen him looking and he’d seen the challenge in Maggie’s green-eyed gaze.

He felt her warm hand on his back. He turned and she stood on tiptoe as if to kiss him. He grabbed her wet, bare shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “This can’t happen,” he said with a groan.

“What is it you think is going to happen?”

He gave her a sideways glance as he let go of her. “You’re trying to seduce me.”

She laughed, letting her head fall back before she looked at him again. Those green eyes narrowed. “How am I doing?”

He shook his head and released her. As he started to put on his shirt, she stopped him with her hand on his arm.

“What are you so afraid of?” she asked, as if truly concerned.

It was his turn to laugh. “You.”

She smiled at that. “I’m not that scary.”

“Like hell.”

Her hand moved to his face. She cupped his jaw. “I’ve watched you for years,” she said, her eyes darkening. “I know you, just as I know why you come up here, and it isn’t to fish. You’re like me. You’ve been headed here for years.”

Her hand was warm, the skin soft and silky against his stubbled jaw. He took hold of it and pulled it away from his face an instant after her thumb brushed the corner of his mouth.

“Tell me what you’re running from,” he said.

She shook her head. “Not from. To. I think I’ve been running to you for years.”

“No.” He let go of her hand. “I’m too old for you.”

She smiled at that. “Actually, I’m probably too old for you.” Maggie turned her back to him as she walked over to the rock where she had undressed to go swimming the first time they’d met up here.

He pulled on his shirt, knowing that if he hesitated it would be his downfall.

“You can leave, but one of these times,” she said, over her shoulder, “you’re going to realize that you and I are lost souls destined to be together.”

He shook his head as he finished dressing, swung up into the saddle and spurred his horse forward a couple of steps. She’d climbed back up on the rock, standing there half-naked in the warm sunlight. He didn’t want to leave her and yet he couldn’t stay. He should never have let her talk him into going in the lake with her.

“Maggie, I really wish you wouldn’t swim alone,” he said as she peeled off her wet underwear and dropped it on the warm rock.

“So do I,” she said, and dived stark naked into the water.

* * *

T
HE
SHERIFF
GOT
the call he’d been hoping for late in the afternoon.

“We were able to get DNA from the fetus,” Charlie said, sounding tired. The job was obviously wearing on him, especially with a case like this one. “Did you get DNA from any suspects yet?”

They both knew who the leading suspect was, which was one reason Senator Buckmaster Hamilton’s DNA couldn’t be the only one sent to the lab.

“I am going to pay several other suspects a visit today. I’ll get back to you when I have more DNA for the lab. You think we can have the preliminary results quickly?”

“In this case, I do.”

He hung up, looked at his watch and headed for his patrol SUV. With luck he could catch Bobby Barnes before he headed home.

Bobby Barnes was just getting off work at the sawmill. He came out of a large metal building carrying an old-fashioned metal lunch box. His head was down, his worn boots shuffling along like a man who couldn’t wait to sit down after a long, hard day’s work.

The sheriff was within feet of Bobby before he looked up. He smelled of fresh-cut pine and sweat. Fine sawdust clung to several days’ growth of beard. There were lines around his eyes, a paunch making his dirty flannel shirt protrude at the belly and a stoop to his shoulders that erased all memory of the high school quarterback who everyone said had potential. Bobby looked all of his fifty-three years.

“Sheriff?” Bobby said, grinding to a stop. His eyes narrowed like a man debating what he might have done to warrant a visit from the law.

“Bobby, I was hoping to have a few words with you before you left for home.”

“This isn’t about Claudia, is it?”

Frank could only guess what Bobby was referring to. Claudia had called deputies on her husband a few months back over a domestic dispute, but then had refused to file charges. “It’s about Margaret McTavish.”

All the tired seemed to go out of the man. For just a moment, he glimpsed the young man Bobby Barnes had been.

“Maggie?” Bobby said, as if even her name filled him with vitality. “She turned up?”

“She did,” Frank said, wondering if he really hadn’t heard. “Mind if we chat in my patrol car?”

Bobby headed for the SUV with purpose in his step. It wasn’t until the two of them were seated inside, Bobby holding the old metal lunch box between his knees, that he said, “Maggie. After all these years.” He frowned then, seeming to realize the sheriff wouldn’t be bringing good news. “Is she all right?”

Frank shook his head. “Her body’s been found where it was buried thirty-five years ago.”

All the spirit went out of Bobby in a breath. He sank into the seat, his blue eyes cloudy with pain. “Oh, hell. You mean she never left?”

Frank shook his head. His reaction seemed real, but Bobby had dated Maggie. Everyone in town had known about their argument at the Creamery.

“Bobby, I need to ask you a few questions about that time before she disappeared.”

He nodded, but he looked far away, as if already back there, his face full of regret.

“You and Maggie dated.”

“Dated?” Bobby shook his head as he looked over at him. “I asked her to marry me.” He seemed to be fighting the painful memories. “I saved for months for a ring. The day I put it on her finger was the happiest of my life, but she wanted to keep it quiet. I don’t think her old man approved of me.”

Frank was glad he’d decided to talk to Bobby alone. It wouldn’t have been good for Bobby’s wife, Claudia, to hear any of this. He guessed Claudia had been living in Maggie’s shadow for years as it was.

“So she agreed to marry you?” He thought of the duffel bag and missing clothing that he’d seen in the missing persons report.

Bobby nodded. “We were going to elope. But the night we were supposed to meet, she didn’t show. I figured she’d changed her mind.” The regret in his voice was palpable. His voice broke as he asked, “But she died? That’s why she didn’t show?”

He nodded. “Someone murdered her and buried her not far from her family ranch.”

Bobby seemed to pull himself out of the past with great reluctance. “He killed her.”

“Who?” Frank asked, although he knew what was coming.

“That senator, JD Hamilton.” Bobby sat up a little straighter. “I knew she was seeing him. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she wasn’t in love with him and was going to marry me only because of the baby.”

“You knew about the baby?”

He nodded. “It wasn’t mine. But I didn’t care. I would have loved the kid because it was hers.” He shrugged.

“Did Maggie tell you who had fathered the baby?”

“Naw,” he said with a shake of his head. “But I knew what I was getting myself into. It wasn’t like I didn’t know she was only marrying me because he wasn’t going to.”

“You loved her.”

Bobby let out a bitter laugh. “I never stopped.” He looked out the side window for a moment as if pulling himself together. Even after thirty-five years, Frank could see the pain. Men had killed over less pain than that.

“Then how can you be sure it was JD Hamilton’s baby?”

“I wasn’t. Until I happened to see them together once on the main street in town,” Bobby said with a curse. “The bastard was old enough to be her father.” He shook his head.

“You confronted her?”

“She didn’t even deny what was going on.” Bobby seemed to realize where the conversation had gone. “You think I killed her?” He sounded shocked.

“She hurt you.”

Bobby laughed. “She fricking killed me. If it hadn’t been for Claudia... I won’t lie and say that I didn’t think about murder. But had I acted on that feeling, it wouldn’t have been Maggie I killed. As it was, the bastard killed himself.” Bobby seemed to start. “Oh, hell. He did kill her, didn’t he.” He looked up at Frank. “He killed her because he couldn’t be president—not with some pregnant teenager he’d been having an affair with. Then he couldn’t live with what he’d done.”

“We don’t know that,” Frank said. “That’s why I’m asking everyone who dated her to give me a DNA sample.”

Bobby reached for the door handle, suddenly angry. “You want
my
DNA.” He let out another bitter laugh. “You’re just hoping it will turn out to be someone else’s kid, not Hamilton’s.” Bobby opened the patrol SUV’s door and shot an angry look at the sheriff. “You and Buckmaster have always been thick as thieves.”

Bobby was so far off base that it was laughable. “That’s not true. All I’m trying to do is find her murderer.”

“Well, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I
loved
Maggie. I still love her.” His voice broke. “If it wasn’t for that damned Hamilton...”

“Then let me clear you by giving me your DNA.”

“She was pregnant with his baby and you want my DNA? Kiss my—”

“I can get a judge to force you, but I don’t want to do that.”

“We weren’t even together in the months before she disappeared,” Bobby said.

“There is one way to prove it.” Frank handed him the kit.

Angrily Bobby ripped it open, swabbed the inside of his mouth and stuffed the stick back into the container. “There. The sooner the truth comes out, the better.”

Frank thought the same thing as Bobby climbed out of the SUV, dragging his lunch box with him, and slammed the door. He watched him walk toward an old pickup parked nearby. Bobby got in and sat for a long while, his head on his arms on the steering wheel, before he started the engine and left.

When Frank reached Big Timber, he wasn’t surprised to see Bobby’s pickup parked at the bar.

He drove on past, hoping for a chance to talk to Claudia before Bobby came home.

* * *

W
HEN
H
ARPER
CALLED
Brody to tell him what she’d learned from her mother, he’d listened but said little.

“So what did you find out?” she asked. She could hear him hesitate. “Don’t forget. We had a deal. I’m not happy with everything I’ve found out, either. We knew going into this that it could be bad.”

Silence, then finally he said, “It isn’t anything I want to talk about on the phone.”

“Fine. Then let’s meet somewhere.”

“I am on my way to talk to Doc Franklin,” he said. “Maybe after—”

“Dr. Ella Franklin?” She couldn’t help her surprise. “She was my grandmother’s doctor. If anyone would know whether or not Grace could walk... I’ll meet you there,” she said, and hung up before she could ask why he wanted to talk to Ella. No doubt he already knew that she was Grace’s doctor.

Dr. Ella Franklin was in her late seventies. She’d retired years ago after being a country doctor and had now become what they called a local character. But back in the day, Harper had heard that she had made house calls. Often on a horse when the roads were impassible. No one had ever said she wasn’t tenacious. Most people, though, said she’d lost most of her marbles.

Ella now lived alone in a small house at the edge of town. She was said to walk five miles a day—no matter the weather. Everyone considered her quite eccentric. Bold and brash, she wasn’t one to mince words, which made some people cross the street to avoid her, Harper had heard.

As the woman let her and Brody into her house, Harper just hoped that the doctor would remember her grandmother. From the moment he’d driven up, Harper noticed that Brody looked as if he hadn’t gotten any more sleep than she had last night.

Looking at him now, she saw that his jaw was set. Did he think she would try to cover up the truth? Was that why he’d planned to come here? Nor did he seem that happy to see her.

Ella, wearing a flannel shirt and canvas pants, led them into the living room. The furnishings, like her, looked practical. Her gray hair was short in a no-nonsense cut and there was an air about her that said she didn’t like wasting time.