Dark Paradise

by Tami Hoag

  She wandered down along the end of the long building where a big sliding door had been left rolled back. She leaned a shoulder against it and stared in at the row of box stalls. Music from the party drifted down the hill, diluted enough to be pleasant. More comforting were the sounds of the horses eating and stamping flies, but not even that could loosen the tension in her nerves.

  Christ, what a party. Lawyers trolling like sharks in a swimming pool. A pillar of the bench snorting coke. She felt like Alice down the rabbit hole on LSD. The sinister quality of it all crept over her flesh like a thousand worms. It grew and pressed in on her until it felt as if it had taken a solid form and stood staring out at her from the shadows of the stable.

  Mari straightened away from the building, unable and unwilling to stop herself from overreacting. All she wanted was away from this place. Wonderland had offered her all the revelations she could stand for one night.

  She hurried up the path for the parking area, headed for her Honda, never thinking the feel of eyes on her back was real.

  Judge Townsend paced the elegant confines of Bryce's private lair. He was fifty-two and favored Charlton Heston. Many said he was a man with a brilliant future ahead of him. At the moment, that future was going up in flames in his imagination. His nerves were strung tighter than piano wire.

  “Dammit, Bryce, how could you invite her here? She could be another Lucy—or worse.” He stopped his pacing at the window that overlooked the valley and stared out into the darkness for a moment. His thin mouth quivered. He brought a hand up and pressed it against his forehead as if he were feeling for a fever. “Jesus, I don't believe this is happening to me.”

  Bryce watched him from a casual perch on the edge of his desk. He held his expression calm and vaguely amused, but inwardly he sneered at Townsend. Spineless. The man didn't have the nerve to play in the big leagues. He was weak—weak of mind, weak of spirit. He constantly succumbed to temptation—women, cocaine, money. He succumbed, he did not indulge. The difference was huge. Bryce might have admired Townsend if he had plunged himself into his vices with joy and verve. But MacDonald Townsend was like a tight-rope walker afraid of heights. Every time he slipped from his lofty position, he screamed and sweated and soiled himself. Bryce despised him and enjoyed pushing him, shaking the wire, luring him over the edge.

  “We don't know what Lucy might have told her,” Townsend said. “We don't know what evidence she might have left.”

  “We searched the house,” Bryce said calmly. “There was no videotape. Lucy was playing games with you, taking your money and laughing at you behind your back.”

  “That bitch.” His whole body was trembling now. He squeezed his hands into fists at his sides. “I never should have touched her.”

  “No,” Bryce commented mildly. He slid off the desk and sauntered to the window with his hands steepled before him like a priest. Ignoring the view, he turned toward Townsend, his pale eyes glowing with contempt. “No, my friend, you should never have touched Lucy. You didn't have the nerve to play her kind of games. You are, however, very fortunate to have me to look out for your well-being.”

  “You'll take care of the Jennings woman?”

  “I'm keeping an eye on her. I'll take care of everything. I always do.”

  Bryce started for the door, eager to rejoin the party. Townsend was tedious. He wanted to turn his attention over to Samantha. Her innocence was genuine, her beauty fresh. He wanted to stand beside her and watch the wonder in her eyes as she took in the experience of meeting famous people and living the good life for the first time.

  The judge's voice bit into him as he reached the door.

  “Bryce, do you know who killed Lucy?”

  Bryce gave him a hooded look. “Of course. Sheffield. It was an accident. . . . Wasn't it?”

  Mari sat on the deck, curled up in an Adirondack chair, covered with the serape from the sofa. Staring down at the moon-silvered creek, she let her mind tumble and race. She smoked the expensive French cigarettes one after another, not tasting them, just grateful for the nicotine. She would quit—just not tonight. She would have that fresh start—if her old life would ever give up and let go.

  God, Townsend snorting coke, Lucas representing the man who shot Lucy. All of them slithering around in Bryce's den of vipers. Watch yourself with Bryce, luv. . . . Lucy enjoyed playing with snakes, but then, she had fangs of her own. . . .

  Snakes in the Garden of Eden. The image sent shivers crawling down her spine.

  “What the hell were you into, Lucy?” she whispered, staring through tears at the Mr. Peanut tin she had brought out and set on the table.

  In one hand she clutched the letter her friend had left behind. She didn't try to read it. She only held it, as if it were a talisman, as if merely touching it might give her the power to see into its author's past. But all that came was a sense of dread and a sense of confusion, and she didn't know if she wanted to try to reach past either of them.

  What she wanted was someone to confide in, a shoulder to lean on. She felt so alone. She had cut herself free of her family, free of everyone she had known. Somehow it only made her feel worse to think that no one from that life would have understood or helped her anyway. She could hear her mother's voice ringing with disapproval. Well, Marilee, what do you expect? The people you run with. Honestly, it isn't any wonder one of them was shot dead. If you'd listened to your father and me and gone to law school . . . if you'd married that nice Enright boy . . . if you were more like your sisters . . .

  In the private theater of her mind she could see Lisbeth and Annaliese sitting primly, their legs crossed, arms folded, smug spite shining in their eyes. It was a cinch no one Lisbeth or Annaliese knew had ever been shot or had an affair with a married district court judge or screwed a top trial attorney on his desk while his client waited in the anteroom. They wouldn't understand or offer support. She thought of Brad and knew his biggest concern would have been the possibility of her getting him an introduction to Ben Lucas.

  She thought of the people she knew here. Drew would listen to her, but what would she say? All she had were fragments and hunches and bad feelings. Then there was the ugly possibility that he would tell her something she didn't want to hear. What she wanted most was a pair of arms around her, reassurance, and the awareness of strength. Someone well-grounded in sanity. Someone there to catch her. Someone to hang on to.

  J. D. Rafferty came to mind. She didn't want him to, but he came anyway, which was just like him. What a joke that she would want to turn to him, she thought, trying in vain to muster up a sense of humor. He didn't even want her in the state.

  He wanted her only in his bed.

  J.D. stood at the rail of the corral and watched the horses by moonlight. They ignored him now that his supply of butter mints had run out. The little palomino mare turned and looked at him every once in a while, curious about him, but the others all stood with their hind legs cocked and their ears back, dozing. For the horses that had worked, the day had been long and hard. They weren't interested in losing any sleep over J.D.'s presence.

  J.D. knew how they felt. Physically, he was beat, his body aching, muscles protesting even necessary movement. Mentally, he felt as though someone had taken a lead pipe after his brain. Spiritually, he had a big old stone tied around his neck, and he was going under in deep, deep water.

  The sight of Will's wife with Bryce's crowd had scared the hell out of him. He had been able to fool himself up to then, believing he could thumb his nose at Evan Bryce, play his game, and beat him. But Bryce had just been toying with him, amusing himself. Now he was upping the ante and J.D. was playing with a busted hand.

  If Samantha divorced Will—and God knew she had grounds for it—she could drag him to court and sue him for his part of the Stars and Bars. If she won, Bryce would be standing right there beside her, ready to stick his foot in the door. And once Bryce got a toehold, that would be the end. Four generations of Rafferty stewardship would be over,
and J.D. would be the one who let it happen. The burden of guilt, the shame, would be his to bear. Beyond that, if he didn't have the Stars and Bars, he had nothing at all.

  He looked out over the horses to the hills and trees beyond, and felt as bleak as a sun-parched bone.

  He would have nothing.

  He had no one.

  He thought of Mary Lee and couldn't quite steel his heart against the insidious desire to pull her close and just hold her.

  Fool.

  “You were mighty hard on the boy today.”

  J.D. glanced over as Tucker hobbled up to the fence and hooked a boot over the bottom rail. The old man met his glare, unblinking, then turned and spat a stream of Red Man into the dirt.

  “He's not a boy. He's a man,” J.D. said. “It's time he acted like one.”

  “He's going through hard times, J.D.”

  “Aren't we all? It's a hard life.”

  “You don't make it any easier—on yourself or anyone else.”

  “I don't want to hear it, Tuck,” J.D. said wearily. Hanging his head, he looked down at the hands he dangled between the bars of the fence. Workingman's hands, thick, tough, callused. “I'm hanging on by the skin of my fingertips. Like those idiot rock climbers who come out here on the weekends.”

  Tucker was silent, working his chaw, thinking. The pharmacist's palomino mare wandered over and sniffed at him, rubbing her nose against his beard stubble. He pushed her away with a gentle hand. “You're not the only one hanging on, son. We're right there with you—me, Chaske, Will.”

  “What if he just lets go, Tuck?” J.D. said, for the first time giving voice to a fear that went deep and well beyond thoughts of the Stars and Bars. The thread that bound them as brothers had always been strained as their parents had pulled them in opposite directions. What if it broke? What would he feel? Relief?

  “He won't,” Tucker said with more conviction than he felt. He stepped back from the fence, spat, and wiped his chin on the sleeve of his shirt. “He won't. He's a Rafferty.

  “You oughta get some sleep, son,” he ordered.

  He moved off toward the house, his gait the pained shuffle of an old cowboy. J.D. stayed at the fence, knowing he would feel more peace with the horses than he would in his bed. In his bed his thoughts would drift toward Mary Lee and dangerous longings for things he could never have.

  He turned toward Bryce's place, imagining that he could catch snatches of music on the wind. She was there tonight, drinking Bryce's champagne and laughing at his jokes. She was one of them, which quite simply meant she could never be anything more to him than temptation.

  Too bad. On nights like this one it would have been nice to have someone to rub his shoulders and share his concerns, warm his bed and ease his needs. And the taste of Mary Lee Jennings lingered in his mouth, and the feel of her lingered against him. On nights like this one, when dawn seemed a long way off, temptation was damn hard to resist.

  Will sat on the back steps of the little house he had once shared with his wife. Ex-wife. Ex-wife. The word still pulsed in his brain. The moon was up, shining down on the fenced backyard. Rascal had been busy excavating. The place looked like the site of a treasure hunt. The pup lay on the steps beside him with his big head on his big clumsy paws, twitching as he dreamed puppy dreams.

  The house behind them was dark and empty. Sam had abandoned it. Will wondered if she would ever come back once she'd gotten a taste of life on Mount Olympus.

  “What's she got to come back to, Willie-boy?” he asked, Jack Daniel's turning his speech to a molasses drawl. The bottle stood between his booted feet, empty. He wasn't drunk. He couldn't seem to get drunk tonight. The liquor couldn't penetrate the fear, it only slowed down time, an ugly trick. He didn't want more time to think. His thoughts ran around and around, like a pup chasing its tail.

  He didn't want a wife. Marriage was a prison sentence. He'd seen that growing up. His father had sentenced his mother to a life she'd grown tired of, then held on to her anyway. Marriage was stupid. He'd thought so all along. People should be free to move in and out of relationships as the tides of attraction dictated. No ties, no guilt, no hard feelings.

  So why did you marry Sam in the first place, Willie-boy?

  And why did that word stab at his chest like a dagger? Ex-wife. Ex-wife. Ex-wife.

  And why did he sit there feeling so damn scared and so damn lonely when the moon was bright and the night was fragrant with the perfume of other women?

  Because you love her, stupid.

  “You screwed up again, Willie-boy,” he whispered as two tears swam over his lashes and streaked down his face.

  CHAPTER

  12

  MARI WOKE in the Adirondack chair as the first hint of morning turned the sky a pearly gray. Every part of her hurt from sleeping out in the cool damp night in an unnatural position. She struggled up out of the chair and slumped around the deck like Quasimodo, trying to work the kinks out, snagging the feet of her convenience store nylons on the wood planks of the deck. Her head was pounding from the French cigarettes and from the dreams that had wrecked what little sleep she'd gotten. The images had slammed around inside her head, screaming to get out, never finding the door, never lining up neatly the way she wanted them to so that she could make sense of all the dark clues and sinister feelings.

  She leaned against the back of the chair and groaned, bringing a fist up to rub her eyes and push her hair back. Still clutched in her fist was the letter Lucy had left behind for her. Unable to face it before coffee, she tucked it under the base of the dew-covered peanut tin and went inside.

  While she heated water on the stove for instant caffeine, she went into the powder room off the kitchen and went through an abbreviated version of her usual morning routine, trying not to look at herself in the mirror. But like driving by a car wreck, morbid curiosity got the better of her and she chanced a glance, gasping in horror at the reflection. Her eyes were shot through with jagged bolts of red and underlined with raccoon rings of mascara. Rummaging through the small medicine cabinet, she found a bottle of Murine and a jar of petroleum jelly and did her best to repair the damage.

  In Lucy's bedroom, where the aftermath of the vandals had yet to be cleared away, Mari dug through the rubble for something fresh to wear. The mattress had been torn off the bed and slit open. A table lamp had apparently been hurled into the large beveled glass mirror that hung above the dresser. Clothing spewed out of open dresser drawers and trailed across the floor from the closet, blouses and dresses lying on the carpet with sleeves bent at strange angles, looking like inanimate casualties. The only piece of glass intact in the room was a goldfish bowl on the nightstand that was half full of condom packets.

  Mari pretended there was no mess. She ignored the condoms and the statement they made about Lucy's lifestyle and went in search of something to wear, digging up clean underwear, jeans, a T-shirt from Mazatlán, and a neon-orange sweatshirt with an enormous, raised hot pink outline of a woman's lips slanting across the front.

  Coffee in hand, she went back out to the deck and lit the last of the Gauloises. As sweet smoke curled up from the end of it, she picked up the letter and studied it again.

  We all have our calling in life. . . . Mine was being a thorn in wealthy paws. . . . It got me where you are today. Or did it get me where I am?

  The lines had made no sense at all when she had first read the letter. Now her attention homed in on two sentences: It got me where you are today. Or did it get me where I am?

  Where you are today—the ranch. Or did it get me where I am—dead.

  Mari bit her lip as she sifted through the possibilities, each one uglier than the last. Her heart picked up a beat and then another. Caffeine, she told herself. Nicotine. Or the chance that Lucy had foreseen her own murder.

  Murder. She couldn't think of the word without seeing blood, without seeing the photos from Sheriff Quinn's file. Lucy's lifeless body lying in the grass, a hole blown through her.


  Lucy knew things she shouldn't have about people with power, people with money. The summer she had been sleeping with Judge Townsend, he had brought her to Montana for a weekend. She told Mari that was how she found her little ranch. Her hideout.

  Outlaws had hideouts. Outlaws got shot.

  Dr. Sheffield claimed he hadn't seen her. What if he had? What if Lucy had known something she shouldn't have about him? What if the tears he'd spilled at the hearing hadn't been from abject grief, but abject guilt?

  She stared down at the peanut tin, acutely aware of the expensive log house behind her and the priceless land that stretched out before her, of the llamas and the Range Rover, the pricey clothes strewn across the floor of the bedroom, and the lavish lifestyle.

  Lucy knew things she shouldn't have known about people with money and power. Lucy was dead.

  Mari folded the note and tapped it against her pursed lips. She had to see where the shooting had happened, to see for herself if it could have been an accident. And she had to talk to the man who had found the body—Del Rafferty—J.D. or no J.D.

  By noon Mari and Clyde were headed up the mountain, map in hand, for all the good it would do her. Sheriff Quinn had drawn it on the back of an old Burger King wrapper, scrawling instructions such as “bear left at the blue rock” and “head north at the dead cow.” Mari figured she would be lucky if she didn't end up in Canada.

  The sheriff's words regarding Del Rafferty had been less than encouraging. “You won't find him unless he wants you to, which he won't. He don't take to strangers.”

  Mari tried not to dwell on J.D.'s claim that his uncle could shoot the balls off a mouse at two hundred yards.

  The higher they climbed up the side of the mountain, the more nervous she became. The terrain was rugged, the trail obscure. The scenery might have taken her breath away if she hadn't been too preoccupied to notice it. Fragrant, shaded pine forests gave way to beautiful green meadows, which gave way to more forest. All of it pitching up and up, hurling itself at the huge Montana sky. All Mari could think was that the Lucy she had known would never have taken the time to bruise her butt in this godforsaken saddle, riding a mule halfway up the side of a mountain. Never—unless there was something major in it for her.