Hard Rain (22 page)

Leaving the office, he had his warrants and two graves to exhume. But his first stop was Kyle Parker’s house. When Kyle saw him, he groaned, his expression bleak, but faced with going to jail, he had only one choice.

“What is it you’re so afraid I’m going to find out?” Frank asked after Kyle reluctantly gave him his DNA sample.

Kyle shook his head and looked away.

“You know it could go easier on you if you told me. If you were one of the men who raped Maggie—”

“What?”
Kyle cried. “That’s ridiculous. And anyway, isn’t there a statute of limitation on rape?”

“But not on murder.”

“I’m not saying another word without my lawyer present.”

* * *

H
ARPER
REACHED
THE
lake to find her mother hadn’t arrived yet. A part of her wanted to be wrong about Sarah Johnson Hamilton. Even after everything Kat had told her, she wanted to give her mother the benefit of the doubt. No one wanted to believe that the woman who’d given them life possibly had a very, very dark side.

She left her horse in the trees away from the spot she recognized from Maggie’s drawing of JD. Seeing the lake, the rocks, the scene, she realized probably the same thing her mother had.

Hurriedly she began to look in the rock crevices. She found what she was looking for only moments before she heard the sound of another horse making its way up the mountainside toward the lake, and she quickly hid.

From her hiding place, she watched her mother dismount and begin her search. Like her, she peered into the holes between the rocks. Her search looked as frantic as her own had been. But then again, her mother had more to lose if she didn’t find it.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” Harper held up the diary as she stepped out of her hiding place. Its cheap vinyl cover was soiled from having been hidden in the rocks. Fortunately water hadn’t gotten to it over the years. Harper had been forced to break the lock since she hadn’t thought to bring the key. But the lock was flimsy and popped open easily. The words inside were still plenty legible.

After a startled moment, her mother asked, “Where did you find it?”

Harper told her how she’d taken a shortcut to beat her to the spot and how the moment she’d seen the rock, she’d recognized it from the drawing Maggie had done of JD. It hadn’t been that hard to find the diary once she realized this would be the logical place Maggie would hide it.

“When I saw you riding in this direction, I remembered what you said about them meeting up at Mirror Lake. I realized you were the one who’d been searching for the diary in the old Maynard House and in the Hamilton ranch house last night. It was your perfume I smelled right before you knocked me down.”

Her mother looked away. “It was foolish of me. I’m sorry. I didn’t see you in the dark last night.”

She looked at the diary in her hands. “You’ve been busy looking for this, which means you knew about their affair.” She met her mother’s blue eyes, eyes so like her own. “You said you didn’t know for sure. Why lie? Unless you have something to hide? What are you so afraid Maggie wrote in this diary about you?”

* * *

S
ARAH
LOWERED
HERSELF
to a rock facing her daughter. Suddenly she felt exhausted. She breathed in the high mountain lake air and thought about the time she’d found Maggie up here waiting for JD. She looked out at the lake. Why was it that some of her memories were missing and others were crystal clear? This was one memory she wished she could forget.

“They were in love,” she said, turning back to her daughter. “It would be hard for most people to accept, but they seemed...perfect for each other.”

She could see that this wasn’t what Harper had expected to hear. Sarah watched her daughter move to a rock closer to her. Her gaze went to the diary, clutched tightly in Harper’s hands.

Her daughter followed her gaze and seemed to grip the diary even tighter. “Why would you think Maggie had written something in here about you?”

“Because we met up here once. I tried to buy her off.”

Harper raised a brow.

“She refused the money. She refused to give up JD. She didn’t care that she would destroy his marriage, his political career—”

“So you killed her.”

Sarah flinched. “Is that what you think?” She shook her head, hurt that her daughter could think that of her. But under the circumstances, she shouldn’t have been that surprised. “I didn’t kill her.”

“Then who did?”

She sighed and looked toward the lake again. Her gaze came back to Harper. “JD didn’t do it. I knew the man. He could never have hurt her. He loved her.”

“Grace?”

Sarah thought of the bitter woman. “Not alone.”

Harper frowned. “JD wouldn’t have helped her...” Her eyes widened. “Not Dad.”

“I’ve always suspected Grace killed Maggie by accident and—”

Harper was on her feet. “No, Dad wouldn’t do that.”

“He loved his mother. I’m sure he felt he owed her after marrying me. He knew that he’d broken her heart.”

“No, you’re wrong.”

“I pray I am,” Sarah said. “But Grace had more of a hold on Buck than he ever wanted to admit. He was her baby boy and he knew that he’d broken her heart by marrying me.”

Harper looked down at the diary in her hand. “You think there’s something in here that—”

“You asked me if there was bad blood between the families. There’s something I didn’t want to tell you. When Flannigan McTavish found out about his daughter and JD, he was livid. He came roaring up to the house looking for JD, saying he was going to kill him. JD had been down at the stables. Buck and I had taken the babies over... Buck tried to stop them, but the two men ended up in a fistfight. If Buck hadn’t separated them...” Sighing, she continued, “Grace was watching from the window. I saw her standing up there. The look on her face... She was hoping Flannigan killed JD.”

“That doesn’t prove anything other than that she could stand and she was hateful. That doesn’t mean she killed Maggie.”

“Fortunately, none of the ranch hands saw the fight,” Sarah continued. “Buck was beside himself, furious with his father and worried about his mother. JD was different after that. Maybe Maggie told him that I’d tried to buy her off.” She shrugged. “I’m not proud of what I did, but she was destroying JD’s marriage and any chance he had of being president if they were having an affair or, worse, if he left Grace for her.”

“As it was, he pulled out of the race. Are you sure it mattered so much to him. Or was it only important to you?”

Sarah smiled. “You’ve been listening to your sister Kat. Yes, I wanted it for him. The man needed something and he couldn’t have Maggie. He was a good man. He would have made a good president.”

“Like Dad.”

She shook her head, not surprised that Kat had poisoned Harper against her. “You think it is my obsession to see another Hamilton in the White House? I’ve never liked politics. I can’t imagine living in DC. All that ambition to save the world? That’s on the male side of the Hamilton family. Not mine.”

Harper looked down at the diary in her hands. Sarah realized that her daughter hadn’t had enough time to read much of the diary. “Is it possible Maggie knew about Grace’s fall?” Harper asked.

Sarah saw what she was getting at. “You think I really did push your grandmother down the stairs?”

“I’m not sure what to think.”

“Think about a woman who would do anything to keep her husband and son tied to her—even throw herself down a flight of stairs. Grace wanted to make JD quit the senate, to dote on her the rest of her life. She hated politics, hated me for encouraging him. She wanted his undivided attention and would do anything to get it.”

“Even kill Maggie?”

“Yes. I suspect JD talked to Maggie about what was going on at home.”

“And if Maggie wrote about it in this diary...”

“Then the murder trail will lead to Grace. If Maggie went over to the house to talk to her, to tell her about the baby she was carrying and there was a confrontation... Grace couldn’t have managed disposing of the body alone, so the trail would eventually lead to your father,” Sarah said. “Throw the diary in the lake. Destroy it before it destroys our family.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“I
WASN
’
T
SURE
you would be here,” Maggie said as she dismounted.

JD had been waiting for her after getting her message. He figured that she knew of the rumors running wild about them after her father had stormed over to the ranch, the confrontation ending in a fistfight that Buck had broken up.

Now he watched her, suddenly scared. “What’s wrong? Is it the baby?”

She shook her head but didn’t look at him.

“Sarah hasn’t tried to buy you off again?”

Maggie turned to him. “Bobby Barnes has asked me to marry him.”

“What?” The word came out on an expelled breath. He suddenly had to sit down. Stumbling to one of the rocks, he sat. “Bobby Barnes?” He looked up at her, squinting in the fall sun. Her back was to him. Just the sight of her... “Isn’t he one of—” She’d never told him who the boys were who’d raped her.

“Bobby wasn’t one of them.”

JD wished he could believe that.

“He will give the baby a name.”

“A name? You and your baby need more than a name.”

She spun on him, green eyes blazing. “I don’t have a lot of options. I’m doing the best I can. My father...” Her voice broke.

“I know. Come here.”

She stepped closer and he held out his hand. When she took it, he pulled her down on the rock beside him, still holding her hand tightly.

“I can help you.”

Maggie shook her head and tried to pull free.

“You can’t marry him.”

She said nothing as she looked out at the lake.

“Maggie.” It came out a plea. He couldn’t bear the thought of her in a loveless marriage with Bobby Barnes.

She turned to him, her heart in her eyes. “Run away with me.”

His own heart broke at her words. There was nothing he wanted more than to just take off with this woman. But even as he thought it, he knew how unfair that would be to her. Her life was just beginning. While only forty-two, his was probably more than half-over. Not to mention, he was married. He’d made promises to Grace and she needed him more now than she ever had.

“We could go to Hollywood. Every man there marries a younger woman,” she said, but he could tell she was no longer serious. She knew that for them, there was no place to run. Since he’d tossed his hat into the ring for president, his face was everywhere.

He let go of her hand and she rose to her feet. “I want to run away with you. You can’t know how desperately I want to.”

She nodded, her back to him as she stood looking out at the lake. “But you can’t. I know.”

“Don’t marry Bobby. I can give you money to help with the baby and—”

“No,” she said, turning to face him. “I’ve made up my mind. I’ve put my father through enough as it is. He’s old-school. It will be hard enough for him when everyone finds out that I was pregnant before the wedding.”

JD tried to find something to say to change her mind, but there were no words and he knew it. “When?”

“Soon. I’m already showing.”

“Are you sure you want to keep this baby?”

She placed a hand over her stomach. “She’s mine.”

“What if she’s mine?”

“That’s another reason I’m keeping her.”

He tried to swallow the lump in his throat as he watched her swing back up into the saddle. He knew that she wouldn’t be back to the lake. Neither would he. He couldn’t bear it without her.

“I love you.” He’d never said anything more true.

She smiled down at him. “I know. I love you, too.” With that, she rode away.

* * *

T
HE
SHERIFF
HAD
had a day of surprises. First Harper had shown up with Maggie’s diary. He’d listened as she’d told him how she’d decided to check out the lake where she believed that JD and Maggie had spent time, telling him about a sketch she’d found that Maggie had done of JD at the very spot.

“And the diary was hidden in the rocks?” he’d asked, still finding it hard to believe. Also feeling there was something she
wasn’t
telling him. “Remind me again how you knew she kept a diary?”

Harper had shrugged guiltily. “I found the key to it when Brody and I checked her room. We were just trying to help you.”

“Uh-huh,” he’d said. “And you probably read what was in the diary.”

“I did read through it,” she’d admitted. “She was in love with my grandfather. It was very sad because she knew they couldn’t be together.”

After she’d left his office, he’d spent the rest of the day reading the diary, until it was time to go home. It was clear to him, just as it had been to Harper, that Maggie had been in love with JD. Even though she didn’t mention him by name, anyone reading this would have known she was talking about him.

He’d found the entry after she’d been raped. She hadn’t mentioned who’d done it, just that the “He” in her life had found her and taken her to the doctor.

It was the last few entries in the diary that he was the most interested in. It seemed she’d been trying to decide what she should do, though she didn’t mention the “problem.” He assumed it was the pregnancy.

I asked him to run away with me but of course he can’t. I told him what I was thinking about doing. He got really upset and begged me not to. I know I’m putting him in a terrible position. I hate seeing him like this. This is all my fault. But now I have to do what is best for him and my baby. Bobby loves me. He said he’ll love the baby. My heart is breaking, but I’m strong. I can do this. I’ll hide this diary where he can find it, and maybe someday he will. Then he’ll know how much I loved him.

That was the last entry. Frank had hoped for more. What he read made it sound as if she’d put JD Hamilton in an untenable position. Days later, Maggie would be buried alive.

He’d thought about that all the way home. He couldn’t get Maggie and JD out of his mind. It was probably because he understood that kind of longing for someone he had spent years yearning for only too well.

“I have a confession.”

He’d been so lost in thought that Lynette startled him as she came into their living room. She handed him a cold beer, looking guilty.

As he twisted off the top of the bottle and took a sip of beer, he studied his wife. For weeks, he’d known she was hiding something from him. Lynette was great at ferreting out other people’s secrets, but she wasn’t good at keeping her own.

Frank had experienced different kinds of fear over the years as a lawman. A half dozen horrible thoughts raced through him. Was it possible Lynette wasn’t happy? That there was another man? That she might be sick, might be dying? That she might have done something that he would have to arrest her for?

He clutched the cold, sweating bottle and said, “Yes?”

She reached into her pocket and produced a small white box.

Staring at it, he watched her open it, not sure what he expected might be inside. Certainly not what she pulled out. “A pendulum?”

She nodded, looking guilty. “I bought it when we found out that Sarah had one branded on her behind and that it was a symbol of The Prophecy.”

Of course Sarah had sworn she couldn’t remember how the tattoo had gotten there or what it might mean, let alone why The Prophecy had targeted her. When one of the members had been caught, another killed and a third arrested, he’d asked that they be checked for the tattoo.

Sure enough, all of them had it—including Virginia Handley, the woman who confessed to being Red.

That had been enough evidence to convince Senator Buckmaster Hamilton that The Prophecy had “branded” Sarah in order to make it appear she was a member of the radical group, when she knew nothing about it.

Frank hadn’t been so easily convinced. Because of it, his wife now had a pendulum? “This is your...secret? Your confession?”

She nodded.

“Why would you buy a pendulum?”

“To see if they work,” she said, suddenly excited. She shoved him over on the couch to sit next to him. “It works. I’m telling you, I’ve tested it. You ask it a question and it tells you—”

“It talks?” He laughed, so relieved he wanted to take her in his arms and hug her.

“You ask it questions that can be answered by yes or no,” she said. “I can tell that you’re skeptical, but I swear to you, it’s amazing. I ask it questions all the time. You’ve almost caught me a few times. I knew you’d make fun of me, so I quickly hid it.”

That’s why she’d been acting guilty the times he’d caught her. “You can’t really believe that piece of matter answers your questions.”

“I can prove it. Ask it a question.” She took the pendulum and held it at the end of the cord. The pointed end hovered over the top of the coffee table, moving slightly as she steadied her hand. “Remember, it has to be a question that can be answered with a yes or no.”

He took a drink of his beer. He could see how determined she was. The last thing he wanted to do was make fun of her and yet she couldn’t really believe in all this. Lynette was too smart to fall for such hocus-pocus.

She was looking at him, waiting. The pendulum hung from the line, the end of it barely moving with her breathing.

A question. “Does my wife love me?”

Lynette mugged a face at him and looked down at the pendulum. It didn’t move for a few seconds. Then it slowly began to circle, the circle growing larger and larger before the pendulum settled down again.

“The answer is yes, as if you didn’t know. That’s the only question you had?” She sounded disappointed in him.

He looked at the pendulum as it stopped moving. He felt like a fool as he asked, “Did JD Hamilton kill Maggie McTavish?”

The pendulum began to move almost at once. It rocked back and forth, back and forth.

Lynette’s eyes were large and shiny. “I told you.” The pendulum stopped again. “Let’s try this. Does Collin Wilson’s death have anything to do with Maggie McTavish?”

The pendulum began to circle slowly, growing in speed and distance.

“All right, that’s enough,” Frank said, getting to his feet. “As long as I’m sheriff, I’m going to solve crimes the old-fashioned way.”

“You just hate to admit that there might be more to all this,” Lynette said as she gathered the pendulum and cord in her hand before dropping it back into the little white box.

“I’m just glad you still love me,” he said, pulling her to him as she rose from the couch. “Now I’m going out to talk to my crows. They have their own theory on Maggie’s death. Don’t make that face at me. They’re as reliable as your...pendulum.” He smiled as he bent and kissed her. “I love you.”

“I know. The pendulum told me.” She laughed, making him feel a little better. She didn’t entirely buy into all this, at least he hoped not.

But, like the pendulum, he also believed Collin’s murder was tied somehow to Maggie. If only the pendulum could talk, he thought as he pushed open the door and, taking his beer, went out to visit with his crows perched on the phone line.

* * *

B
RODY
TOOK
THE
call when he saw it was Harper. “I can’t talk long.”

He was back at the ranch to get some things and he knew that at any minute his father and uncle could drive up. If they caught him talking to Harper it would only make this harder. He didn’t want to put himself or them through that. “My father called. He wants to set up a time to meet here at my house. He wants to talk to me.”

“You’re getting your ranch back?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” He felt as if he should be happier about that prospect, but the bond between him and his father and uncle felt irrevocably broken.

“I’m happy for you.”

“I have to admit there have been moments when I just wanted to walk away. I’m angry with them and they’re angry with me.”

“I know what you mean.” She told him about seeing her mother riding off on a horse after she’d heard her whole life that her mother was terrified of horses. “You found Maggie’s diary,” he interrupted when she got to that part. “Where is it?”

“I gave it to the sheriff. I tried to reach you first.”

“I had my phone turned off. You looked at the diary before you gave it to him, right?”

“Maggie didn’t name JD in it. Nor did she ever say who raped her. Her last entry was about letting go, giving up, doing what had be done. I wrote it down. Do you want to hear it?”

“Yes. If I hang up before you finish, you’ll know my father dropped by.”

Harper cleared her throat and began to read.

“So she was going to marry Bobby Barnes,” he said. “I have to go. But I want to see you later. I miss you.”

“Me, too. Call me.”

* * *

“R
USSELL
?” S
ARAH
COULDN
’
T
believe he’d called. All the messages she’d left him. All the times his phone had gone straight to voice mail. He hadn’t answered any of her messages. Just the sound of his voice now made her want to cry. She’d missed him, missed the time they’d spent together as friends. “Are you still on the ship?”

“I haven’t left yet.”

She fell silent. Hadn’t she suspected that he hadn’t left? And yet, she’d hoped that he hadn’t been able to return her calls because he hadn’t been able to call from the ship.

“You haven’t gone yet?” she repeated. Or he wasn’t going at all. The rancher didn’t seem like the kind to go on a cruise by himself. But she knew she’d hurt him badly and thought maybe he really did need a change of pace.

If he was still in Montana it more than likely had something to do with her. She’d broken their engagement, broken his heart, according to him. She hated herself for thinking that she could marry Russell when Buck had her heart and always would.