by B. J Daniels
“I don’t know what the truth is and neither do you,” he said as he watched the crowd disassemble and the cops leave. “We probably will never know what really happened to her.”
“I led a killer straight to her. I just as good as murdered her,” Dixie said.
He looked over at her, seeing how hurt and angry and scared she was. “Dixie, this isn’t your fault.”
“If I hadn’t found those photographs in my mother’s jewelry box…”
“Your mother kept them obviously because she couldn’t part with them and had no idea that someday you would find them and this would happen,” he said. “What you’re not considering is that the man in the photograph has known about Glendora for years.”
“Maybe he didn’t know where she was, though, until I led him to her.”
Chance shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense. Why kill Glendora? What did she really know? That Rebecca was another man’s child? She didn’t even know the man’s real name. The photos were gone. So why kill her? We’d already been there. She’d already told us everything she knew.”
Dixie knew what he was saying was true. It didn’t make any sense. She took the photographs from her purse and studied them again. “He’s tying up all the loose ends, probably wishing he’d done it years ago. But now maybe he has to.” She looked over at Chance. “For whatever reason, he is more desperate to keep that life a secret.”
“To protect himself?” Chance asked. “Or someone else?”
She shook her head. “Rebecca’s his illegitimate daughter. What if he doesn’t want her to know who he is?”
“Maybe.”
“And why did my mother change her name from Elizabeth Worth to Sarah Worth when she went to Texas?”
They had more questions than answers as Chance headed out of town, all the time watching his rearview mirror. They hadn’t been followed to Livingston. He was sure of that. Just as they hadn’t been followed to Glendora Ferris’s apartment.
“I know you’re going to think this is crazy,” she said as she glanced behind them. “But I feel as if the man has more to lose now than ever before. He’s determined to bury the past and me with it.”
THE FIRST TIME Beau had seen Sarah Worth she’d been in the small café not far from the Bonner farm, sitting with Carl and Mason, talking.
He recalled how she’d looked up, their gazes meeting. Carl or Mason had introduced him.
“Beauregard Bonner?” She’d smiled as if she’d liked his name. Liked him.
Hell, he’d always told himself it was love at first sight. But now he knew that she was more than familiar with the name. Because her lover had been using it. Rebecca’s real father.
“So did Sarah tell you anything about her baby’s father that first night before I came in?” Beau asked his brother now, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice.
Carl shook his head.
“Damn it, Carl, if you know who he is…”
“Did you ask Mason?”
Beau stared at his brother. “You think she told Mason?”
Carl shrugged. “Mason’s the one who bought her a cup of coffee and invited her over to our table.”
“Mason has always been a womanizer.” Sarah was a beautiful woman. What man wouldn’t have been interested? He remembered how surprised he’d been when he’d seen the baby sleeping peacefully in the carrier on the chair next to her. He’d fallen in love with both of them. “I’m sure Mason lost interest the moment he realized she had a baby.”
Carl shrugged again. “I saw Mason talking to Sarah quite a few times in town. Looked like pretty heated conversations.”
“Come on, you were always talking to Sarah. Looked pretty serious at times.” Beau regretted his words instantly. But he was sick to death of Mason and Carl constantly back-biting. They were more like brothers than Beau and Carl, jealous and convinced Beau liked one more than the other.
Carl was smiling now. “Sarah and I liked to talk about books. You were always busy trying to make more money. If you think I envied you because you had Sarah…” His smile broadened. “You’re damn right I did. She was a fine woman and you were damned lucky that she loved you.”
Beau felt even more like a heel. “I’m sorry.”
“Look,” Carl said reasonably, “Sarah’s dead. What difference does any of this make now?”
“Because Dixie is determined to find out,” Beau snapped. “I’m afraid for her. She’s convinced that I hired someone to…kill her to keep her from learning the truth.”
Carl raised a brow.
“You don’t really think I would do that, do you?” Beau demanded. “All I can figure is that the man Sarah was with before me got wind of what Dixie was doing and doesn’t want her digging in the past.”
“Why do you think that?” Carl asked.
“Who else? I guess he doesn’t want any of this coming out especially considering that when he was with Sarah he called himself Beauregard Bonner.”
Carl laughed and shook his head. “Everyone always wanted to be Beauregard Bonner.”
“Even you?” Beau asked.
Carl laughed harder. “Not a chance. I like being in the background, out of the line of fire. But it would explain how Sarah came to this part of Texas. Otherwise it is one hell of a coincidence to just happen to meet the real Beauregard Bonner, wouldn’t you say?”
“You think she came here looking for him?”
“Or his family. After all, he’d abandoned her and her daughter, right?”
Beau nodded. Carl was right. It would explain the way she’d looked at him the first night he’d met her. By then, she must have realized the other man had been an imposter. And worse.
“You’ll have to tell Rebecca. You don’t want her to find out from someone else.”
Beau rubbed his hand over his face, his head aching. This was the last thing he’d ever wanted to tell his oldest daughter. There was already bad blood between them. And now this.
“I know how I felt when the old man used to swear I wasn’t his son,” Carl said thoughtfully. “Was all right by me. I always hoped I wasn’t related to the son of a bitch. He used to say he had more bastards around than a female barn cat.”
Beau had always heard rumors that Earle Bonner had children all over Texas. He hadn’t married Carl’s mother, so Beau could definitely understand why Carl would want anyone for a father other than the one he’d had.
Beau cursed their father’s soul to hell for the way he’d treated Carl. Beau had tried to make up for it, but all the money in the world couldn’t take away the hurt from a father who hadn’t wanted his child. Just as Mason had said.
“I would give anything if none of this came to light,” Beau said as his brother fell silent. “I tried to convince Dixie not to do this but—”
“She’s Dixie and definitely your daughter.”
Beau lifted his head, hearing something in his brother’s voice he’d never heard before. “Do you hold a grudge about the old man’s will?”
Carl leaned back in his chair. “I wondered when you’d get around to that.” He laughed and shook his head. “Hell, Beau, I don’t know what to do with half the money I have thanks to you. You’ve been more than generous when the fact is, you didn’t have to give me a cent. Our old man is rolling over in his grave right now because of what you’ve done for me.”
Beau didn’t know what to say. The old man had always shown favoritism, making it no secret to anyone, especially Carl, that he preferred Beau. But when Earle Bonner had left Beau the farm, he hadn’t thought he was doing him a favor. In fact, he’d talked about leaving the farm to Carl, saying Carl deserved to be stuck on the farm the rest of his life. The old man died before the first oil well came in a gusher.
“It was a crappy deal, the way things turned out.”
Carl grinned. “Are you kiddin’? Things turned out great. Stop beating yourself up.” He rose to his feet. “Just for the record, I didn’t know there were any photos hidden in that jewelry
box. I retrieved it from where you’d thrown it in the trash because I thought Dixie should have something of her mother’s one day.”
Beau nodded. “I wasn’t thinking clearly back then. I couldn’t bear to see anything of hers. You did right.”
“I try,” Carl said. “Tell Rebecca before she finds out from someone else.” He paused. “You don’t look good, Beau. You’ve got to start taking care of yourself.” He tapped his fingers over his heart. “Life is short, Beau. Enjoy it a little. Hell, it could all end tomorrow.”
Carl left, leaving Beau staring after him. He couldn’t help feeling there was still a whole hell of a lot unsaid between them, no matter what Carl professed.
Hadn’t he known there were secrets from the past? Secrets that, when they came to light, were going to blow his life to hell.
DIXIE LOOKED OUT at the Montana landscape of towering mountain peaks, snow and endless sky, all her fears coming together in a rush. “What if Glendora was murdered and before she died, she told her killer about Amelia? We have to warn her,” she said, digging out her cell phone.
“What are you going to tell her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe to go to a neighbor’s and stay put until we get there. Or not to answer the door.” She reached Information and asked for Amelia McCarthy. No listing. Dixie asked about any other McCarthy’s in the Ashton area. Only one. Buzz and Rita McCarthy.
Dixie dialed the number on her cell.
It was answered by a woman on the third ring. She sounded breathless. “Hello?”
“I’m trying to locate an Amelia McCarthy. Amelia Hardaway McCarthy?”
“Yes, she was my sister-in-law,” the woman said.
Dixie couldn’t help the disappointed sound that escaped her. “She’s deceased?”
Chance looked away from his driving in surprise.
“Yes, six months ago. Can you tell me what this is about?”
Dixie told her as briefly as possible that her mother had been friends with Amelia and she was hoping to talk to her since her mother had died when she was very young.
“I’m so sorry. What was your mother’s name?”
Dixie caught herself before she said Sarah. “Elizabeth Sarah Worth.”
“Oh, my gosh. My sister-in-law used to talk about her all the time.”
Dixie tried not to get her hopes up. “I don’t know much about my mother. I was wondering if Amelia and my mother remained friends after my mother moved to Texas.”
“They sure did,” Rita McCarthy said. “Your mother wrote my sister-in-law nearly every week. Amelia was so worried about her. Elizabeth was calling herself Sarah and was so unhappy. Then she wrote that she’d found a wonderful man who loved her daughter as his own. She said she had to keep her past a secret, and that bothered her. She really struggled with that. I suppose you know all that, though.”
“About the man my mother had two children with before moving to Texas,” Dixie said. “Did you ever meet him?”
“No. I wasn’t living here then.” She seemed to hesitate. “Maybe I shouldn’t say this…”
“Please. I’m trying to find out who he was. The man used the name Beauregard Bonner, but that wasn’t who he was.”
“Oh, my goodness. Well, I can tell you this. My sister-in-law didn’t like him. She didn’t trust him. He wasn’t very nice, I guess.”
So Dixie kept hearing. “You said my mother wrote Amelia?”
“That’s right. Sarah, that’s what she was calling herself then, was worried that he’d find out that Amelia was writing her so she got a post office box outside Houston. That’s how my sister-in-law knew something had happened to her. When a bunch of her unopened letters were returned, she contacted the post office and was told that the box holder hadn’t paid her rent for some time and the mail had been returned to the sender.”
Dixie felt sick. Her mother had lived a lie all those years.
“It was so wonderful that your mother had finally found happiness. Well, as much as that horrible man would let her. Not her husband, the other man,” Rita said. “Amelia told me about how your mother didn’t find out that he’d been lying to her until she got to Texas and met the real Beauregard Bonner and was forced to play up to him for money.”
Dixie couldn’t breathe. She could feel Chance’s gaze on her. “What is it?” he whispered.
She shook her head, sucked in a breath and said into the phone, “So it was all about money?”
“Honey, she had no choice. She had her baby girl to take care of and…” Rita seemed to hesitate. “Amelia said that your mother feared for her life if she didn’t do what he wanted.”
Dixie felt sick. This woman had been her mother. A weak woman who’d fallen for the wrong man, had two children out of wedlock, lied and cheated for money. Was this why her father had no photographs of her? Why he never wanted to talk about her? Because he’d found out the truth?
Dixie didn’t know what to say. No wonder her father hadn’t wanted her digging into the past, finding out the truth about her own mother.
She realized that Rita was saying something and tried to focus on the woman’s words.
“…the last letter she got from your mother. Sarah wanted to tell your father the truth about her past. She loved him and couldn’t go on deceiving him, she said. She said she was going to tell him and asked my sister-in-law to pray for her.”
Her mother had fallen for the real Beau Bonner? “Did she tell my father?” Dixie asked.
“Amelia assumed she did. But then the letters stopped and she later found out that your mother had died. I probably shouldn’t say this, but Amelia always believed that he killed her.”
“My father?” Dixie asked, unable to keep the shock out of her voice.
“No, no, the other one. The one masquerading as Beauregard Bonner. The one who used the past against her to keep getting money out of her.”
“Are you saying he blackmailed her?”
“He threatened to tell her husband that she’d only married him for his money and once your father knew about her past… It would give a man pause if he knew that she hadn’t truly loved him at first. That it had been about the money. What man would believe she’d really fallen in love with him?”
Dixie looked over at Chance. Had her mother told Beauregard the truth about her past? Or had she died before she could? Dixie felt cold inside.
“Amelia finally contacted the newspaper down there and found out about the car accident.”
“Her car went into the lake,” Dixie said, her voice breaking.
“How horrible for her,” Rita said.
Had she also planned to tell the other man? Maybe refused to be blackmailed anymore?
The thought sent a spear of ice down her spine. “Did Amelia keep the letters from my mother? Or any photographs?”
“I’m sorry. Amelia destroyed the letters and all the photos just as Sarah made her promise to do. I think she was afraid for my sister-in-law.”
Dixie could understand that. “Is there anything about the man, anything Amelia might have mentioned, that would help me identify him?” The cell phone connection was growing dim as the highway cut through the mountains.
“None I can think of. He was nice-looking enough, I gather. Quite the charmer. But it was so long ago, you know.”
Yes, she knew. “Well, thank you. I’m so sorry to hear about Amelia’s passing. I wish I could have met her.”
“I hope you find what you’re looking for, dear.”
Dixie glanced over at Chance. She already had.
“AMELIA MCCARTHY IS DEAD,” Chance said as Dixie snapped off the phone and leaned back in her seat.
She nodded, devastated. She’d been so sure that Amelia might be able to help them find the man. “I talked to her sister-in-law, Rita McCarthy.” She told him what she’d learned about the letters and what her mother had planned to do just before her death.
Dixie sighed. “Apparently, my father made her happy.” She had to admit knowing that made
her feel a little better. Maybe they had loved each other. Wasn’t that what every child wanted? For her parents to have loved each other. Even if it ended badly.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that her mother had been murdered—and by a man she had once loved. “He killed her so she couldn’t tell my father the truth.”
“The police ruled it was an accident, right?”
Dixie rolled her eyes. “Just like Glendora’s. My mother decides to tell my father the truth and ends up at the bottom of a lake. Don’t tell me the timing doesn’t make you suspicious.”
“Everything makes me suspicious. What if it does turn out that he’s a killer, that he not only killed your mother, but is the one who hired the men to come after you? He’s Rebecca’s father.”
His words chilled her. She was looking for a man who was contemptuous, probably capable of anything. She hadn’t focused on the fact that this man, whoever he was, was Rebecca’s father.
Dixie shook her head, fighting emotions she wasn’t used to. Normally she was in control. But she’d set something in motion and there seemed to be no stopping it. She wished she’d never begun digging into the past.
“Can you imagine how this will hurt Rebecca?” Chance said. “This will devastate her.”
She nodded, fighting tears, as he reached over to squeeze her hand. “There’s no reason to go to Idaho.”
“No.”
“What do we do, Chance?”
“We meet your father’s plane tomorrow. We tell him what we know. Maybe with the information you’ve gathered and his help, we can figure out what the hell is going on.”
She studied his handsome face. “You think my father knows the man, don’t you?”
“I think it’s a real possibility,” he said as the land stretched ahead of them in rolling wheat fields. “Otherwise, why was your mother so afraid to tell him the truth? She saw that other man as a threat. I think he stayed around to get money, to make sure she never told.”
“This man has gotten away with it all these years,” Dixie said, aching at the thought of what her mother had gone through. “Who could he be?”