by B. J Daniels
“Has he said why he tried to kill my daughter?” the senator demanded.
“No, but he is talking,” Frank said. “He has given us the name of the other man who was with him, a fellow named John Carter.”
“How does that help us?” Buckmaster demanded.
The sheriff raised his hand, asking for a chance to finish, and the senator fell silent. “Warren Dodge has agreed to a lesser sentence for providing the names of the other members still at large.” He saw the surprised looks on their faces and the fear on the senator’s.
“Unfortunately, we are unable to locate the three left. One of them we know is a doctor who’s been working in South America. His whereabouts are now unknown. The other two, Martin Wagner and Joe Landon, are also apparently on the run. But a woman by the name of Virginia Handley has been arrested. She has also confessed as being the member known as Red.”
Frank felt all the air go out of the room. The relief was palpable. Kat was shaking her head, as if she couldn’t believe it. Max didn’t believe it. He met the sheriff’s gaze with a steady one of his own. Frank gave him a slight shrug.
“You’re sure this woman is this notorious Red?” Buckmaster asked, clearly elated by the news.
“According to her and Warren Dodge. Of course, the FBI will be verifying their stories.”
“So it’s over,” the senator said with a sigh as he got to his feet. “This calls for a celebration drink.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s over until the other three are caught,” Frank said, but the senator waved him off.
“As far as I’m concerned, the Prophecy is dead,” Buckmaster said. “If I never have to hear about it again, I will be a happy man.”
The sheriff held his tongue. He understood why Buckmaster wanted to celebrate. This cleared Sarah Johnson Hamilton. Or at least seemed to.
“So this Warren Dodge has confessed, right?”
Frank nodded. “Dodge has admitted killing reporter Chuck Barrow, as well as mugging Max Malone. He has also implicated himself along with John Carter, the deceased member, in Angelina’s accident, the death of several private investigators and the hiring of a woman who called herself Tammy Jones to steal Malone’s camera and laptop in an earlier incident, as well as attempts on Kat and Max’s lives.”
Buckmaster said something under his breath as he downed his drink. “Thank God we don’t have to worry about him anymore.”
“Have you seen a photo of this woman who confessed?” Kat asked.
The sheriff nodded. “She looks a lot like your mother did when she first came to Beartooth all those years ago. She’s a natural blonde but dyes her hair red, apparently.”
Max got to his feet. “So it’s all wrapped up in one nice little ball.”
“Sure looks that way,” Frank said.
“Well, I’ve got a story to write.” He looked to Kat.
“I have to get back to work, too,” she said, getting to her feet.
“Talk later?” Max asked, and she nodded.
Frank watched the two of them leave, just glad neither of them had been killed. He hoped they would quit digging into the past and stay safe.
But all his instincts told him that neither of them had bought into Sarah’s innocence as easily as Buckmaster had.
Clearly they were in love. He wished the best for them, then smiled to himself, thinking he was getting as sentimental as Lynette.
“Here,” Buckmaster said, shoving a drink into his hand. “To happy endings.”
Frank glanced at his watch. He was officially off duty, not that it would have mattered. He could use a drink. He took the crystal glass the senator offered. “To happy endings.” He said it like a prayer, because all his instincts told him this was far from over.
* * *
BUCKMASTER WANTED TO shout his relief from the highest rooftop. Sarah wasn’t a terrorist. Nor had she been during the missing twenty-two years. She’d worked for a doctor in Brazil, a doctor who’d apparently stolen her memory.
He still had no answer for why she’d left him, why she’d tried to kill herself or why these people were trying to use her. But he told himself he could live with that for now. The sheriff was looking for this Dr. Venable. They’d deal with it when the man was found.
Meanwhile, he had to concentrate on the campaign. He had to become the next president. Once he was, he’d make sure everyone involved in this conspiracy would get what they deserved.
After everyone left, he finished his drink and was about to head to the old Morgan Place to tell Sarah the good news, when his daughter Harper came in.
“I thought you’d left,” he said in surprise.
“I’m staying here on the ranch. You have to get back to DC and the campaign. You need someone here to take care of things.”
“What about graduate school?”
“The truth? I miss riding my horse. I miss Montana. I miss my family.”
He stepped to his beautiful blonde, blue-eyed angel. She and her sister were identical so they’d often fooled him. “Honey, there is no reason for you to stay here to take care of me. As you said, I’m going to be coming and going from now until...”
“Until you move into the White House. I know, Daddy. But I want to stay for you as much as for me. I feel as if everyone has tried to get the cowgirl out of me—without any luck. This is where I belong. I won’t be a bother, I promise.”
“You could never be a bother,” he said and gave her a hug. “There’s something I need to do before I leave tomorrow. Will you be all right here by yourself?”
She laughed. “I’m looking forward to having the run of the ranch again. And I’m certainly not alone here, with all the wranglers and staff in the house. I see Cooper has brought in more wild horses. I’ll have to talk to him about one for me to ride.”
“You be careful.” Buckmaster eyed his grown-up daughter. He couldn’t help being suspicious of her motives. It was the father in him. The one thing he’d learned after having six daughters was that once they hit a certain age, there was usually a boy involved in most of their decisions. He wondered who Harper had her sights on.
“I’m glad you’re home,” he said to her. “I hope you spend some time with your mother while you’re here. She’s staying in the old Morgan Place on the ranch.”
Harper brightened. “I will, I promise.”
* * *
MAX HAD A STORY, an exclusive for the moment. He went back to his motel, took out his laptop and began to work. He’d missed writing, so his fingers practically flew over the keys. He didn’t expect much of a reaction to his story. The Prophecy was old news.
But he needed this story out there for when the real news broke. He wasn’t fool enough to believe that Sarah Hamilton wasn’t Red. He wondered why a woman named Virginia Handley would confess to something she hadn’t done. The only reason was to clear Sarah. He stopped writing long enough to see what he could find out about her. Little to nothing. No surprise there.
Then he went back to his story that wouldn’t hit anywhere near a front page. But the fact that the senator’s daughter had almost been killed might get it close. Not that it mattered. At one time, he would have been disappointed by that.
He called Kat when he finished. “I’m starved,” he said when she answered.
She laughed. “I’m in Bozeman at the gallery.”
“You’re probably busy.”
“Not that busy.”
It was his turn to laugh. “I’ll drive over.”
“Sounds great. See you soon. I’m thinking big thick burgers, lots of fries and chocolate milk shakes.”
“Of course you are.”
He hung up, feeling good, considering he had no idea what the future held. As long as it held Kat. The rest he was willing to wing.
He thought a
bout their lovemaking and smiled. He’d never felt like this. Not even with Amy, as much as he’d loved and adored her. He’d never thought he could feel like this with any other woman. Hell, he felt as if he was walking on a cloud and he never wanted it to end.
* * *
SARAH SEEMED SURPRISED to see him. “Buck?” She smiled as she opened the door. “Is everything all right?” she asked as he tied his horse to the porch railing.
“Everything couldn’t be better,” he said as he stepped to her and kissed her hard on the mouth.
“What has gotten into you?” she asked with a laugh as he came in and she closed the door behind him.
“I have news. Great news.” He quickly told her about what had happened. “Kat is fine. So is Max. One of the Prophecy is dead, the other confessed and ratted out Red.”
Sarah seemed to freeze. For a moment, he thought she might faint.
“I’m so sorry,” he said rushing to her. “It’s not you, Sarah. It’s some woman named Virginia Handley.” He helped her over to the couch and hurried into the kitchen to get her a glass of water. When he came back, she still looked pale. “I didn’t mean to scare you like that.”
“It’s all right,” she said and took a drink of the water. “I thought for a moment...”
“Of course you did. How foolish of me,” he said as he sat down beside her and took her hand. It was like ice. “It’s over. I was telling the sheriff that I hope I never have to hear another word about the Prophecy.”
“You said one man is dead and another was arrested?”
“A man named John Carter is dead. The other one, Warren Dodge, is the one who confessed.” He was watching her closely, more closely than he’d planned. She was taking this hard. Maybe too hard.
Buckmaster pushed away his doubts. “It’s over,” he said, more to himself than to her. He didn’t mention that there were still three members at large. Three members that they knew of.
Sarah put the glass of water aside and stood to walk to the window. “I knew Virginia Handley,” she said. “We were on the same floor our freshman year at college. We used to joke about how much we looked alike. How we could be sisters.”
“You knew her?” Buckmaster heard his voice quiver.
Sarah turned, tears in her eyes. “We were friends for a while until she got involved with campus politics. After that, she dropped out. I heard she was holding sit-ins and organizing demonstrations... But I never dreamed she’d get involved with a domestic terrorist group.”
“Sarah—”
“Don’t look so shocked, Buck. Just because I knew her, it doesn’t mean I was involved with the Prophecy.”
“Sarah, don’t you realize what this does mean?” he demanded as he got to his feet. “Your former...friend used you. She helped set you up. I’m not sure how they pulled it off, but the tattoo, the fact that you looked like Virginia, the memory loss... Sarah, they have to be behind the brain wiping. That man you apparently knew, Dr. Ralph Venable, he was an older member of the Prophecy. They were using you to get to me.”
* * *
SARAH LOWERED HERSELF into a chair, no longer trusting her legs to hold her up. All this had come as such a shock. She lifted her head as she realized what he’d just said. “You didn’t withdraw from the race?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t.”
She felt a well of relief and wondered why it mattered so much to her. Wouldn’t it be better for the two of them if he stayed here on the ranch with her? “I don’t know what to say.”
“Sarah, you don’t have to say anything. You’re the victim here. All of this is somehow tied to that radical group. Now we know the connection. We know why they wanted me to believe you were Red. But you’re in the clear now. Once things settle down, there is no reason you and I can’t be together. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
She rose to go to him. “More than ever.”
“Harper is staying at the ranch. She’s promised to come visit you.”
“You told her where I’m living?”
He nodded. “You need to get to know your daughters.”
“Yes, that’s why I came back.” She met his gaze, thinking how the words had become like a mantra. Or something she’d memorized, she’d said them so much. “Because of them and you.”
Buck pulled her into his arms. He was still the most handsome man she’d ever known. She remembered their fevered lovemaking, the way he always held her afterward, the feeling of being safe in his arms.
“It’s all going to be fine. Trust me. You do trust me, don’t you, Sarah?”
“With my life.”
He kissed her, and she remembered sultry summer nights behind the house on the porch swing. Long horseback rides on fall days when the breeze stirred the dried leaves over their heads. Tangled sheets in the big bed upstairs where they’d made their children.
She frowned. “I was just thinking about horseback riding with you.”
“Really?” He pulled back to look at her. “I would love it if you would try again.”
She stared at him. “After the twins were born, I thought you and I went on a long horseback ride that fall.”
He shook his head. “Does that sound like something you’d like to do? Sarah, I would love it if you would let me teach you to ride. Maybe you won’t be afraid anymore.”
“I was afraid?”
Buck held her at arm’s length as he studied her face. “You don’t remember? It was after we first got married. You went for a ride by yourself...” He was frowning. “You really don’t remember getting bucked off?”
She shook her head.
“I found you well after dark over by Horsethief Creek. You’d taken a nasty spill. You refused to get near a horse after that.”
So why did she remember riding beside him through the aspens, the fallen dried leaves kicking up under the horse’s hooves as the rich smells of autumn filled her nostrils? An implanted memory? Like the horrible ones that often flashed in her mind, scaring her into believing they were memories?
“I’m sorry about your friend,” Buck said as if seeing that she had paled again.
“Clearly, she wasn’t my friend if she did this to me.”
“You still have the gun I gave you?” he asked, no doubt seeing that it was getting dark outside. He had to ride back to the ranch house where she had once lived as his wife. His only wife. But it wouldn’t be the first night he’d ridden in the dark, would it?
“Yes, but—”
“The FBI is looking for the other three of the group, including the doctor who took you to Brazil.” He was studying her again. “When you looked at the photo that Kat showed you of the group, you didn’t recognize your friend?”
She shook her head. “She was blonde like me. I guess it was the red hair, but, no, I didn’t recognize any of them. Now that Virginia has confessed, they have no use for me, right?”
Buck nodded. “I think that’s the last we’ll hear of them, but I don’t want to take any chances. Maybe you should move into the main house.”
“No,” she said, stepping away from him. She thought of the memories that weren’t true memories and felt one of her headaches coming on. “I’m fine here. Like you said, we need to give this time. Harper will come visit, and I’ll get out more since the media will be following your campaign and not me.”
“I can’t wait for us to be together,” Buck said.
Sarah smiled up at him and felt that old desire warm her. “You don’t have to go back right away, do you?”
* * *
“DO YOU BELIEVE IT?” Kat asked as she dredged a fat French fry through a puddle of ketchup.
“About this Virginia Handley confessing?” Max asked between bites of hamburger. “Maybe it’s the reporter in me, but I don’t want to. Everyt
hing pointed to your mother.”
“You think they wanted us to believe it was her? That she was being used? I know that’s what my father believes.”
He stopped eating for a moment as if to think. “When you add it all up, it’s possible. She and Virginia Handley look a lot like each other. They went to the same college. They could have even known each other.”
“I was thinking about that. What if they tried to use my mother twenty-two years ago? Dad was a senator. Isn’t it possible that they tried to force her to do something she didn’t want to?”
“And that’s why she drove into the river that night?” Max said. “It’s pretty far-fetched. But if she was involved with them...then I might buy it. She’d made a good life for herself with your father, and maybe she didn’t want to blow up buildings anymore. They put pressure on her, and she knew the only way she could save herself and her husband’s career would be to kill herself. Pretty desperate.”
Kat agreed. “But when she survived, she would call the one person she knew who she believed would help her. Dr. Ralph Venable. I wonder whose idea it was to try to wipe away her memories?”
“You’re assuming she knew about his brain-wiping research.”
“If she was being...blackmailed, she couldn’t stay in Dad’s life without destroying it and hers and ultimately her daughters’, so she tried to kill herself. Failing that, she called the doctor and asked him to wipe out the memories. Then the two of them take off to Brazil.”
Max laughed. “That is one hell of a theory, but it has legs, I’ll admit. Then what, though?”
“She starts remembering her family, wants to come back. The doctor puts some memories back and sends her home.”
Max looked skeptical, but shrugged. “Why not?”
“Then the doctor double-crosses her, and what’s left of the Prophecy members decide to use her.”
“I suppose it’s possible,” Max said after he finished his burger. “Or your mother is Red, this other woman is taking the fall for whatever reason, and the whole plan was to keep your father in the race and your mother at his side.”
She studied him. This handsome, smart man. Her lover. “Why doesn’t your theory sound more probable?”