by B. J Daniels
With Sarah at his side, there was nothing Buck couldn’t do, he told himself. He was excited about the election again. Excited about making his country strong again. Sarah was going to make a great First Lady.
There was only one fly in the ointment, he thought. Dr. Ralph Venable. Sarah had promised she would no longer attempt to get her memory back. She would tell the doctor that she couldn’t see him again if she heard from him. Buck would make sure of that, no matter what he had to do.
* * *
SARAH HAD GOTTEN Buck off to Washington, DC, closing the door behind him with relief. She couldn’t believe how well she’d been able to hold up under the circumstances. Their precious daughter had been taken by The Prophecy. For all Sarah knew, Cassidy was dead.
With Buck gone, she could finally express all the warring emotions she’d been feeling. Fear and fury. They burned through her like acid. She wanted to hurt someone and that, too, scared her.
Buck had wanted her to go with him, but she’d reminded him that she would have to buy clothing and get her hair done and he’d laughed.
“I’m sorry. Of course you’ll want to get ready. There will be lots of photographers and reporters.” He’d frowned. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
“I am,” she’d said with false enthusiasm. “I’m your wife. The next First Lady. I have to look the part.”
“So you’ll join me soon?”
“I will. I’ll move into the main house right away and get ready to go on the campaign trail with you.”
He’d been happy with that and had left in better spirits than she’d seen him in a long time. As soon as he’d driven away, she’d broken down, crying and raging until she had enough of it out of her system to make the call.
“I did what you asked,” she said between gritted teeth the moment Doc answered. “Now I want to see my daughter. And Martin’s son as well. And you’d better hope that they are both fine.”
“You really have to quit making demands,” he said.
“I don’t think so. If I really am Red, then you should all be afraid. Very afraid. I’ve held up my part of the bargain. Now it is time for Joe or whoever is running this show to do the same. One word from me and Buck will pull out of this race so fast that it will make your head spin like a top.”
“They are both safe. Trust me.”
“Trust you? The man who drugged me so he could kidnap my daughter, who—”
“Fine, don’t trust me. But, Sarah, you have to start going along with things. You can’t keep balking at every turn. Do I have to remind you what Joe is like?”
“Apparently, I have to remind you what I was like and what I apparently am capable of being again?”
He sighed. “For your sake and Cassidy’s, don’t push this.”
She thought of the Joe she remembered, her lover. But that wasn’t the Joe she’d seen in the photo Cassidy had left with her. A too-handsome man with blue eyes that seemed to look through her. His smirk of an arrogant smile told her he thought he was smarter than most people. And yet, according to Doc, she’d been the true leader—not Joe. But it was the cold, intense look in his eyes that told her more than she wanted to know. Joe was a killer. She shuddered. Had she not seen that side of him? Otherwise, how else was it possible that he’d been her lover?
“When will you let her and Jack go?” she asked, too angry to back down.
“As soon as we know your marriage hasn’t hurt Buck’s chances of winning.”
“But you’re the ones who insisted I marry him!”
“You have to be with him when he wins,” Doc said simply. “We weren’t sure what was the best course of action. This is the one you chose.”
She let those words sink in with a premonition that shook her very foundation. Whatever they had planned, it would be after the election.
“We’ll know in a matter of days. The polls right now aren’t a good indicator yet.”
“What about Jack?” Her question was met with silence. “What are you going to do to him?”
“Nothing. His father is coming from Texas to deal with him.”
“Kill him?”
“Don’t be so dramatic.”
“What are you saying, then?” she demanded.
“I don’t know. You seem to think that I know more than I do. I have no say over what happens.”
She ground her teeth for a moment before she snapped, “Tell me you didn’t have any say about what happened to Russell.”
Doc sighed. “He came to see me. I was planning to handle it, but Joe—”
“Joe.” She said the name like a curse, promising herself she would take it up with Joe and praying that day wasn’t far off.
* * *
NETTIE HAD A long day at the Beartooth General Store. She was glad when she got home to find Frank was still at work and she would have a little time to herself. She hurried toward the house, saying a quick hello to his crows that cawed greetings to her from the phone line. There seemed to be more crows on the line than usual. Uncle, as Frank called the head of the crow family, must have adopted more strays.
“You crows are as bad as Frank,” she said to them, thinking of Tiffany. There was a stray for you, she thought. Look how quickly Frank had adopted her.
Something glittered on the porch in front of her door. She stopped short. Maybe it was because she’d just thought of Tiffany that a ripple of fear moved like a wave through her.
She stepped closer, frowning as she saw that it was a tiny pile of shiny things—pieces of broken bracelet, an old key, a sparkly piece of tinsel from Christmas, a shard of weathered glass, a balled-up candy wrapper.
Behind her, the crows began to caw. Nettie couldn’t keep from tearing up as she turned back to the birds. They all seemed to be waiting for her reaction to the gift they’d left her.
“Thank you all so much!” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. When she and Frank first married, the crows hadn’t been happy about her moving in. They’d pooped on her car. Not exactly the welcome she’d been hoping for. But Frank had helped her befriend them. While they often greeted her, they’d never left her presents like they did Frank.
This was a first and it touched her heart more than she could tell them. “Thank you,” she said, her voice breaking again. She was rewarded with a cacophony of caws from the telephone line. Scooping up the present, she waved to the crows and went inside.
Once in the house, she hurried into the kitchen to put her present in a small baggie. Hands washed, she took the pendulum out of her pocket. The gold coating of the pendulum caught the light as she sat down at the table. She put her elbow on the table and dangled the pendulum a few inches over the surface.
The waiting for the darned thing to stop moving was the hardest, she thought. When it finally stopped, she took a breath and, steadying her arm, asked, “Did Sarah have something to do with Russell’s attack?”
The pendulum began to move back and forth. No. It stopped more quickly than usual and it didn’t make a very wide arc, she noted.
She frowned. “Did Buck?” The pendulum moved in a wider swinging arc, making her eyes widen with interest. So Buck wasn’t involved, but maybe Sarah was in some way?
The pendulum stopped again. Nettie swallowed, her throat dry. “Will Sarah kill Buck when he’s president?”
The pendulum didn’t move. She stared at it, trying to make sense of what it was attempting to tell her—and feeling foolish. Half the time she didn’t believe any of this. The other half—
Nettie felt a jolt. “Will Buck be president?” she asked, but didn’t get to see the answer as the sound of a vehicle door slamming made her jump. Frank was home. He knew about the pendulum, but she had a feeling he was in no mood tonight for “hocus-pocus,” as he called it.
“Wait until he sees what
I got from his crow family,” she said, putting away the pendulum and picking up the baggie proudly as she went to meet him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
JACK HAD BEEN young when the bomb shelter was built on the ranch, but his father had insisted he learn everything about it. Tom Durand was convinced that one day they would have to use it—and that that day wasn’t far off.
At the time, he’d thought his father was simply being either cautious or paranoid. Now, though, he wondered if his father wasn’t involved in some crazy plot to cause the end of the world. He pushed that too-scary thought away as he searched the rest of the room he was being held in.
He had no way of knowing how sophisticated this bomb shelter was. His father’s had a fail-safe backup. In case of the apocalypse, the idea was to get to the bomb shelter, lock the doors so no one else could get in and wait until it was safe to venture out.
So there had to be a way to open the door and escape—without electricity, assuming that everything aboveground had been destroyed.
“I’m so sorry I got you into this,” Cassidy said through the intercom.
He stepped to his. Just the sound of her voice made him feel hopeful. “We were destined to meet, don’t you think? Anyway, there is no one I would rather be in this with than you,” he said. “We’re going to get out of here. It’s going to be all right. I promise.” He cringed at his own words because he knew that he had no way to promise such a thing.
Cassidy said nothing at her end. She knew where his heart was, but she didn’t have much faith that they would ever see daylight again. He couldn’t blame her. But he was damned sure going to do everything in his power to make it happen.
“How big is your space?” Her estimate definitely made it sound a lot larger than his. She had a larger bed in her unit, while his had bunk beds. “Do me a favor.” He explained what he was looking for. “See if you can find anything like that in your unit.”
Jack waited, praying silently that she was in one of the units for adults. His room, he suspected, was for a child or two given the bunk beds, so there wasn’t any way to open the door once it was locked from the outside.
“I think I found the panel!” Cassidy cried. “Tell me what to do.”
* * *
TIFFANY CHANDLER SAVORED this moment as she let her thumb pad move teasingly over the sharp blade of the knife. It had been a long time coming. For a while, she’d actually thought that one day she would walk out of this place a free woman.
“It isn’t going to happen,” her mother had told her from the grave. “At best you will go from here to a prison cell. There is only one way to end this, the way we always planned.”
Now as she tested the blade, she realized her mother was right. Her mother was always right. “I couldn’t have done this without you,” she said to her mother.
Pam Chandler sat on the small bed in the mental hospital’s violent offenders’ wing beaming up at her, pride in her expression. “You’re my daughter. My blood courses through your veins. You make me proud.”
Tiffany felt her throat tighten. All she’d ever wanted to do was make her mother proud. She tried not to dwell on the fact that it hadn’t happened until after Pam’s death. It still bothered her. Not only had her mother not come to visit her before, but Pam had washed her hands of her, saying she never wanted to see her again.
Tiffany had been devastated that she’d failed her mother. Now she quickly shoved that memory into a dark corner of her mind. That had been the most heartbreaking moment of her life. She’d failed her mother. Failed to kill Sheriff Frank Curry, her mother’s former husband. Failed to kill Nettie, the sheriff’s true love. Failed.
But then one night her dead mother had come to her room when everyone else was asleep and told her what had to be done. Pam had married Frank Curry years ago, but belatedly she’d realized he was still in love with his ex-girlfriend, Lynette “Nettie” Johnson. Nettie had married a man named Bob Benton and broken Frank’s heart. On the rebound, according to her mother, he’d married her.
When her mother had first begun visiting after her death, she’d been disappointed in Tiffany and taunted her.
“I give you one thing to do and you can’t handle it. You had the gun in your hand. All you had to do was pull the trigger,” her mother would say.
“I did pull the trigger. I hit him. I just didn’t kill him before he got the gun away from me.”
“I’m sick of your excuses. You should kill yourself. Or maybe you would bungle that, too.”
It had been her mother’s idea to get hold of the scissors. Pam had wanted her to stab herself, but the scissors were dull. Tiffany had been so upset at failing once again that she’d chopped off all her pretty blond hair. Her mother said she deserved much worse.
“When Frank comes to visit you, tell him that you will kill yourself if he marries Nettie,” her mother said one late night.
She’d done as she’d been told, but Frank had married Nettie anyway.
“Please,” she’d begged her mother. “Give me another chance. I can get out of here. I can still make you proud. I promise.”
Her mother had finally relented. “But if you fail this time...”
“I will kill myself and we can be together.”
Pam had smiled. “But if you fail, I will have nothing to do with you even in death.”
“When will you do it?” her mother asked now. Pam had been nagging Tiffany night after night. But Tiffany’d had to wait until Jerry was on duty. She’d had to wait until she could get the knife from where she’d hidden it. She’d had to wait until the time was right.
“When?” her mother demanded.
“Tonight.”
Her mother’s smile broadened. “Make your mama proud.”
* * *
CASSIDY STARED AT what appeared to be some kind of control panel. Her fingers trembled. What if she hit the wrong one and made matters worse?
She took a breath and flipped the switch. Nothing happened. She took another breath and tried the next one and then the next one.
Her door let out a clank, startling her. She quickly tried the handle, her heart soaring as it turned and the door swung outward. “It’s open,” she cried as she stepped back in to press the intercom button. Holding it open, she glanced out into a dim, narrow hallway with a half-dozen other doors. “How do I find you?”
“I’m sure there is a master release of the door locks somewhere, but let me try tapping on my door.”
She waited until she heard the faint tap, tap, tap of something metallic on steel. Letting the door close behind her, she moved toward the sound. The bomb shelter was a maze of rooms connected by a series of narrow hallways. She felt her claustrophobia kick in. Her breathing quickened along with the frantic beat of her heart. She had to find Jack and quickly.
Turning down one hallway, she realized the tapping had grown fainter. She swung around and hurried back. Suddenly, there didn’t seem to be enough air in the hallway. Gasping, she fought to hear Jack over the rasp of her breathing.
Miraculously, the tapping sound was growing stronger. She practically ran. Stopping next to a door where the tapping was the loudest, she tried the handle. To her relief, the door opened. She fell into Jack’s arms.
“What is it?” he cried in alarm as he saw the shape she was in. “You’re shaking.”
“I have to get out of here,” she said. “Please. The walls are closing in.”
“It’s all right. I’ve got you now. Come on.” He took her hand and led her back the way she’d come.
She tried not to think of anything except the moment when she could breathe fresh air again, when she could see blue sky, when she would no longer be closed up so deep underground.
They hadn’t gone far when Jack stopped so suddenly she plowed into the back of him. Tha
t’s when she heard it. A sound over their heads. She felt the panic and frustration rising in her. She couldn’t bear being trapped down here any longer.
“This way,” Jack said, motioning for her to keep quiet.
She was breathing hard again, gasping for air. He pulled her close, cradling her head against his chest. She took in the now-familiar male scent of him and felt herself relax a little. Her breathing slowed some.
From somewhere in the distance came the clank of metal stairs as two sets of feet descended. Cassidy tried to close out the sound. If they were caught down here—
“Which rooms are they in?” a male voice asked and she felt Jack tense.
Raising her head, she looked into his eyes. He’d recognized the voice. His father? The thought terrified her even more.
“You told me to separate them so I did,” a different male voice said. “I put them down here somewhere.”
“You don’t remember which rooms they’re in?” There was a curse and then the voices grew fainter.
“Come on,” Jack whispered. He ushered her along the hallway. The light seemed to get bright at the end. They turned a corner and she saw stairs next to a small elevator. “Take off your shoes. We can’t make a sound,” he whispered.
She did as he ordered and began to climb the stairs quickly. The two men had left the hatch above open. She could see blue sky and sunshine. She caught a whiff of fresh Montana infused with the scent of pine and began to cry.
There was a noise like the sound of running feet on the concrete and then she was out, Jack right behind her. She heard angry shouts come up the shaft, but they were quickly muffled as Jack dropped the steel hatch.
The two men had left a Land Rover parked nearby. Cassidy stood for a moment, sucking in air as she looked at her surroundings. She’d thought she’d never see any of this ever again. But where were they? They seemed to be on a knoll above a river valley surrounded by mountains. It looked vaguely familiar.