Hard Rain (4 page)

“Whose body?” Her mother had gone pale.

“The sheriff doesn’t know yet. I don’t want to talk about it. It was...gruesome.” She shuddered again. “I’m going to have nightmares.”

“That’s horrible,” her mother said as she moved to the window again.

Harper looked past her mother. Brody was a dot on the horizon, his horse kicking up a small cloud of dust that settled behind him. She couldn’t help but think of the kiss and the thrill of finally being in his arms. It had turned out to be the only good thing that had happened today.

“I suppose I should call Dad before he hears about it from the sheriff,” Harper said.

“Let me tell him,” her mother said, turning from the window.

She still couldn’t get over her mother’s reaction not only to Brody, but also to the news about the body. “Why is there bad blood between the Hamiltons and the McTavishes?”

“I didn’t say—”

“It’s clear from your reaction to Brody and the news about the body being found on our land.” Harper was just beginning to realize what a sheltered life she’d led so far. She would have laughed if anyone had told her that her family had secrets—until today. “Why do I get the feeling that you know who the woman was?”

CHAPTER FOUR

JD H
AMILTON
SQUINTED
in the sun as he cast his fishing line into the crystal clear lake. This high-mountain lake was his favorite one in the Crazies. It was where he came when life below these mountains started getting the best of him. He thought of himself as a reasonable man, but lately his life seemed to be spinning out of control.

He and Grace had argued again this morning. As he reeled in his line, he couldn’t help but remember some of the things she’d said about Buck’s bride.

“For hell’s sake, Grace, they’re married. Can’t you just accept Sarah?”

“Never. If you weren’t so blind, you’d see that she took advantage of him. You can bet it was her idea to elope. She trapped our son, the gold-digging—”

“Grace! When did you become so hateful?” he’d demanded as he’d stared at a woman he no longer recognized. Sarah, their son’s bride he’d surprised them with only days before, reminded him of Grace as she’d been when they’d first met. Both were petite blue-eyed blondes.

“Hateful?” Grace had laughed. “When do you think I changed?” He’d seen the tears in her eyes only moments before she’d left the room. Her son’s elopement had hit Grace hard. He’d been her baby, the true love of her life. And now he could see that she felt he’d betrayed her.

A fish struck his line as he heard the sound of a horse whinny nearby.

Reeling in the cutthroat, he turned to see a bay horse come out of the trees being ridden by a young woman. He recognized Maggie McTavish and thought of the gangly girl who used to ride across the pasture next to his ranch. She’d always ridden hard and fast as if running from something.

Over the years, he’d watched her go from pigtails to ponytails and finally the thick single braid that swung against her slim back as she thundered past. She’d changed from gangly to sleek and beautiful, and still she seemed to be running either from something or toward it. He never knew which.

He just knew that one day she wouldn’t ride past and that he was going to miss seeing her.

She reined in now, slipping off the horse with graceful ease. That she was beautiful was only part of the young woman’s appeal. There was something strong and determined in the way she held herself. Almost defiant.

“Nice trout,” she said as he brought the cutthroat the rest of the way in. “Dinner?”

Grace didn’t like him to bring fish home. She said they stank up the house when he fried them.

“Not tonight,” he said, and held up the beautiful fish. The colors caught in the sunlight as bright and multihued as a rainbow. “You interested?”

She shook her head and looked toward the lake. “I didn’t mean to disturb your fishing.” She turned as if to leave.

“Don’t leave on my account,” he said as he carefully lowered the fish into the water at the edge of the lake and watched it swim away in a ripple of clear water. “I have to get back. You can have the place to yourself.”

She turned to look at him then, her green eyes luminous. Her long plaited red hair hung down almost to her waist. She reached back to unbraid it. Waves of crimson fell around her slim shoulders. She was even more beautiful up close.

“If you’re sure,” she said.

He nodded and began to break down his rod so he could pack it and his gear into his saddlebag.

“This is where I come when I need to think,” Maggie said, gazing out at the lake. “There is something so peaceful about this place.”

He looked past her to the small mountain lake ringed in huge boulders left by the last ice age. Mirror Lake was so clear he could see submerged rocks down a good ten feet, then nothing but bottomless dark water.

“I’ve been dreaming of a swim all morning,” she said turning back to him.

“Swim?” He laughed. “Do you know how cold that water is?”

She smiled and for the first time looked like the teenager she still was. There was something timeless about her. But when he gazed into those green eyes, he saw an old soul, a young woman wise beyond her years. What had made her that way? he wondered. Or had she been born knowing truths that should have been saved for much later in life?

He watched her sit down on a nearby rock and pull off her boots and socks. As she reached to unbutton her jeans, he turned away to finish loading his horse for the ride back to the ranch. In truth, he wasn’t ready to leave the lake. The thought of going back to that house, back to Grace and her anger and hatred, back to the decision he’d been putting off for weeks...made him want to stay here forever.

But he felt uncomfortable being here with Maggie. She made him feel old and full of regrets, as if he’d wasted his life.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her slip out of her jeans and drop them beside her boots. She was unbuttoning her shirt when she said, “Dare you to go in with me.”

That made him laugh and turn toward her. She stopped unbuttoning her shirt for a moment to give him a challenging grin. “Chicken?”

“I don’t think—”

“So don’t think. Just do. We all think way too much.” She peeled off her shirt. Barefoot and down to her underwear, she ran up the smooth surface of a large boulder at the edge of the water. There she stopped to look back at him. “You really don’t know what you’re missing.”

He might have argued that, but she didn’t give him a chance. She dived off the rock. He would always remember her long sun-browned body clad only in white bra and panties caught in an arc over the glistening water. She looked like a sea nymph, her long red hair floating out behind her as she sliced through the clear water.

JD felt such a moment of supreme loss that his heart ached with it. He wanted desperately to jump in with her. He wanted to feel young and free like her. He wanted to feel that jolt of ice-cold to awaken the man he’d been.

Instead, he stood on the bank and watched her glide through the water. At that moment, he knew that life was captured in fleeting moments, choices taken and not taken, opportunities lost. As he watched her swim, he knew he’d just made a choice he would regret.

“You shouldn’t swim alone up here,” he called to her.

“I know. There are a lot of things I shouldn’t do,” she called back.

* * *

R
USSELL
M
URDOCK
CHECKED
his phone, turned it off and replaced it in his pocket. “I’m sorry, you were saying?”

The elderly woman sitting in the chair next to him raised her head and looked around as if not recognizing her surroundings. Millie blinked in the bright sunshine before giving him a radiant smile.

“You know, I can’t remember what we were talking about,” she said with a laugh. “It happens more and more all the time.”

“Don’t feel bad, it happens to us all,” he said. She was a slim, pretty woman with white wispy hair that covered her head like a protective cloud. Her hair was in stark contrast to the vivid blue of her eyes. Her face was soft, her skin only lightly creased. She looked like a kindly grandmother.

“We were talking about Dr. Venable. He rented from you when he worked at the clinic outside of town.”

She frowned and looked around the courtyard as if again wondering how she’d gotten there.

“Ralph,” he suggested.

She turned toward him then, her face brightening. “He was such a polite man. Nicest tenant I ever had. He would bring me little treats,” she said confidentially as she leaned toward him. “Don’t tell my children. They worry about my health. He knew I loved chocolate.”

Russell saw that he’d lost her again. She seemed to have been transported as if by time machine to twenty-five years ago. He tried to imagine what Dr. Venable had looked like back then. According to Russell’s calculations, he would be close to Millie’s age now, seventy-two. But unlike Millie, maybe he wasn’t now suffering from dementia.

“Did he ever talk about his work?” Russell asked. He desperately wanted to ask about Sarah Hamilton and if Ralph had ever mentioned her. “When Ralph brought you treats, chocolate, did he mention his patients?”

He wasn’t sure which word did the trick, but Millie was back. The nurse had told him she was having a good day and might be able to help him.

“He liked helping people,” Millie said. “He hated to see them suffering. When I told him about my nightmares after my husband died, he got tears in his eyes. He told me he could help me forget.” She shook her head.

“You weren’t interested in having your memories erased?” Russell said, trying hard not to sound too eager.

“No, our memories are all we have at the end. We don’t get to pick or choose. The bad ones make us stronger—at least that’s what I tell my children.” She smiled sadly. “You know he lost his wife. So tragic. Suicide is a terrible thing for those left behind. He said he tried to take away the bad in her life, but had failed. He swore on her grave that he wouldn’t let it happen to anyone else.”

“So he succeeded?”

She seemed to wander away from him again and he’d thought he’d lost her, when she said, “I don’t think he could get rid of anyone’s bad memories any more than he could get rid of his own.”

Russell disagreed. He would bet his life that Dr. Venable had stolen Sarah’s memories and he was going to prove it or die trying.

* * *

W
HEN
H
ARPER
RETURNED
to the main ranch house after seeing her mother, the guard at the gate buzzed to tell her she had a visitor. The name didn’t sound familiar.

“Did she say what it was about?” Harper asked suspiciously. Often the media would try anything to get inside the house for a story.

“She says she has information about your mother.”

Still annoyed with her mother’s attitude toward Brody, she told the guard to let the woman in. If it turned out the visitor was lying, she could call the guard and have him escort her away.

Harper felt anxious. She’d gone to her mother’s hoping for some reassurance after the grisly scene she’d witnessed earlier; instead, she had left even more upset.

Now she opened the door to find a young, pretty woman standing there. “I’m Ariel Crenshaw.” When Harper didn’t react, she added, “I’m Ace’s sister.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know who Ace is,” Harper said, wondering now if she had been too quick to let in a complete stranger. Since her father had joined the race for president and her mother had returned, they’d been inundated with reporters. Harper hated that they had to have guards at the front gate. She yearned for the days when they came and went without being under such scrutiny.

“Addison ‘Ace’ Crenshaw, the private investigator your mother hired,” the woman clarified.

Her mother had hired a PI? “I’m sorry. This is news to me.” Harper was just beginning to realize how much her family kept from her. “Won’t you come in,” she said, moving aside. “You say my
mother
hired your sister?”

“Before she was killed,” Ariel said. “My condolences, by the way.”

“Wait, no. You’re referring to my
stepmother
, Angelina.”

“My mistake. I’m so sorry.” Ariel had stopped in the middle of the large living room as if not sure what to do next.

Harper wasn’t sure there was anything she wanted to know about the Ice Queen, as she and her sisters called Angelina. They had never been close to the woman their father had married. She had always treated them as if Buck’s six daughters were a burden she had to bear.

“Let me start at beginning,” Ariel said. “My sister was murdered. I’m trying to find out why. It seems to have had something to do with an anarchist group called The Prophecy?”

Harper shook her head. “I’ve never heard of it.”

This surprised Ariel. “Your father didn’t tell you that two members of the group have been implicated in the death of my sister, as well as the death of your stepmother?”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I was out of the country, but the last I heard, it was an accident.” She motioned the young woman into a chair. “Would you like something to drink?”

Ariel declined but took a seat. She sat on the edge and leaned eagerly toward Harper. “My sister was investigating a woman by the name of Sarah Johnson. Is that anyone you know?”

Harper hesitated. “That
is
my mother.”

“Oh.” Ariel sat back, wariness replacing the earlier eagerness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. This is all quite confusing.”

Their family had been in the news for months, especially because of her mother. “You must not read newspapers or watch the news.”

“I had been working with my church group in a remote part of Africa until my sister’s death. We had neither newspapers nor television and little news filtered in from outside.”

Harper didn’t like talking about her family’s situation since her mother’s return, but this young woman had lost her sister possibly because Angelina had hired her to dig up dirt on Sarah.

“I grew up believing my mother was dead,” Harper explained. “She drove into the river when I was only a few months old and drowned. At least that’s what we all thought. Apparently, she was trying to kill herself for some unknown reason and failing that, she disappeared for twenty-two years. She suddenly reappeared a year ago. What makes it even more bizarre is that she swears she doesn’t remember anything from the birth of my twin and me until she ‘woke up’ in the middle of a dirt road outside of Beartooth. According to her, she has no idea where she’d been those twenty-two years.”

“She still hasn’t remembered?”

Harper shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

“That’s interesting, but it doesn’t explain why my sister was looking into not those missing years your mother lost but your mother’s college years.”