by Lisa Jackson
As much as she’d loved Brig, she’d never, ever wanted to sacrifice Chase—one brother for the other. Her stomach convulsed and she ran to the bathroom, locking the door and throwing up over and over again until there was nothing left but stomach acid. She scooted back on the cold tile floor, shaking as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, tears splashing down her cheeks. Had she ever cried more in her life?
“Cass?” He rapped on the door with his knuckles, and her heart knocked wildly. Brig! Oh, Brig! Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to block out the feelings of betrayal—her betrayal to her husband. “Hey, are you all right, darlin’?”
Sweet Jesus, don’t let him be kind to me. I can’t take any tenderness right now.
“Cassidy.” His voice was stronger now. How had she not known? Her insides quivered, her hands shook, she couldn’t think straight…
“If you don’t answer me, I’m going to break down this damned door and—”
“Leave me alone!”
“I swear, Cass, you come out of there now, or I’ll bust it.”
“Just leave me the hell alone, Brig!” Again she retched over the toilet and she heard him swearing under his breath, the words indistinguishable, the meaning clear.
Standing, she felt the pain between her legs, reminding her of their lovemaking, how long, how furious, how hot it had run. “Oh, God, Chase, I’m sorry,” she whispered, then bent over the sink and washed out her mouth. Her reflection, ghostly pale with condemning gold eyes, glared at her, silently accusing her of horrid crimes of the heart. “Oh, just go away,” she told her image and splashed cold water on her face. She could wallow in self-recriminations and guilt for the rest of her life, and it wouldn’t do one bit of good. No, the only way she could atone for her unwitting indiscretion—the sin of not loving her husband as much as she should have—was to find Chase’s killer.
And what if it’s Brig? What if it’s the man who’s been posing as your husband for weeks? The man who left you? Who deceived you? Who betrayed himself, his mother, and his brother? The man who made love to you and turned you inside out? What do you really know about him? Nothing! Nothing!
But she wasn’t afraid. No matter what, she would never be afraid of Brig McKenzie. She just wasn’t certain that she could trust him.
He was in the den, waiting, a drink in one hand. She glanced at the glass of amber liquid and he said, “I figured I owed myself. Already gave up the other kind of crutch.”
“You said you wanted to show me something.”
“While you’ve done your investigation of Marshall Baldwin—including all the information you’ve gotten from Oswald Sweeny and your connections in the business, I’ve done some digging myself. And while I was at it, I’ve thrown some information Sweeny’s way, so he could report back to you. He didn’t know it, of course.”
“Of course,” she said dryly. What kind of man was she dealing with?
“I called some people in Anchorage, Fairbanks and every place I lived as Baldwin. Just the people I trust. People who trust me. They gave Sweeny and Wilson and Laszlo the information I wanted them to have.”
“You are a true bastard.”
His smile was positively wicked. “No doubt. But I couldn’t have you or the detective or Billy-boy Laszlo find out too much before I was ready, could I?”
“That’s why you didn’t tell anyone that you saw Derrick at the sawmill—because sooner or later someone would recognize you and you’re still a suspect in Angie’s death.” Her heart was pounding loudly in her ears and the conversation felt surreal. After all these years. All these damned years.
Nodding, he swirled his drink. “Anyway, while you were all on your wild-goose chases checking out Baldwin, I’ve been doing research of my own.”
“Have you?” She sat in a chair and watched him, listening to the cadence of his voice, wondering why she’d taken so long in discovering the truth. There was an energy that surrounded Brig McKenzie that hadn’t been a part of Chase. She tucked her feet beneath her and accepted a glass of Scotch without any argument.
“Obviously whoever set the first fire, if it’s the same culprit and not some copycat, lived here then as well as now. And—”
“And Angie was pregnant.” Why she blurted this out now, she didn’t know, but it was important, had been nagging at her for years. Cassidy’s heart seemed to stop as she stared at him and her fingers clenched so tightly around her glass they hurt.
“I heard.” His blue eyes were steady. “I wasn’t the father, Cass.”
“How do you know?”
“I didn’t—”
“As if I can trust you! You’ve lied to me. Over and over. Each day you didn’t call or write or try to reach me and tell me that you were alive and well and…you lied, damn it. So why should I believe that—”
“I wasn’t the father,” he repeated, fury snapping in his eyes.
“But—”
Drink falling to the floor, he crossed the room in three long, cumbersome strides. His hands grabbed her shoulders. “I didn’t do it, Cass, and you can believe anything you want, but I never made love to your sister. Oh, I came close a couple of times, damned close, but I didn’t go through with it, and do you know why?”
She couldn’t answer. Couldn’t move.
“Do you?”
Her throat was cotton, her heart a snare drum.
“Because of you, damn it. The hottest number in the county was wagging her pretty little ass in my face, trying like hell to seduce me, and I couldn’t think of anything but her scrawny, beautiful tomboy of a sister!”
“I don’t believe—”
“Oh, hell.” He jerked her close to him, his mouth fitting over hers perfectly, his taste, his smell, his feel so achingly familiar. She felt her body sagging against him, kissing him feverishly, hungrily as one of his hands slid lower to untie the knot at her waist and part her robe. Strong fingers cupped the bend of her waist, touching skin already inflamed, leaving a brand as real as it had been so many years before. “Cass,” he whispered. “Sweet, sweet, Cass.”
She sighed loudly, her voice thin and breathy, filled with a need so great it scared her. Her fingers linked around his neck and she was kissing him again, opening her mouth to him, feeling the tingle deep between her legs. His fingers tangled in her hair and his lips were hot, wanting, searing. His tongue plundered her mouth and she moaned deep in her throat before the horror of what she was doing sank into her passion-dazed brain. “Oh, my God!” She slapped him then, her flat palm smacking hard against his cheek, making him wince from pain in a jaw not completely healed.
“Shit!” He sucked in his breath, held his face and stamped a foot to counter the pain.
“Chase—Brig—oh, God, I didn’t mean to—” She stumbled away from him.
He glared at her for a frightening moment, then turned, walked to the window and, fists clenched in fury, swore again. “No more rules, okay, Cass? I won’t tell you what to do and you sure as hell won’t order me around. I’ll call you whatever I want to and you can do the same, but we won’t sleep together, we won’t touch each other and we won’t pretend like we’re married.”
His fingers flexed and stretched, as if he were physically trying to hold on to his patience. “Just bear with me for a few days until I clear this up, then…then we’ll put everything straight and I’ll leave.”
Leave? Again? A horrid ache spread through her. From the pit of her stomach to the tips of her fingers. She felt suddenly dead inside and knew she couldn’t face the thought of never seeing him alive again. “I don’t know if I want you to leave,” she said, and when he faced her again, his features were hard and set.
“You don’t know what you want. While you were married to Chase, you wanted me. Now that he’s gone, you want him back.”
A squeak of protest passed her lips.
“All I need is a week, maybe more—”
“For a crime that hasn’t been solved in seventeen years? You can figure it out in
a week? Come on—”
One side of his mouth lifted. “I’ve been working on this a long time. Why do you think I came back when I did?”
“You know who started the fires?”
“Not yet, but I’m getting close, I think. I’ve got someone nervous.” He sighed and his eyes narrowed on her. He paused, as if considering his words.
Now what? She couldn’t stand another emotional battle.
“There was another reason I showed up at the mill that night,” he admitted.
Steeling herself, she asked, “What was that?”
“I came back for you.”
“What?”
Leaning on his good leg he scrutinized her reactions. “Chase had told me, and I believed him, that you wanted out of the marriage. That you were hell-bent on divorcing him. He knew that it was over and…and he was going to stand aside, Cassidy. If I wanted you, and you wanted me, he was going to give you up.”
“You expect me to believe that?” She shook her head. This was too much.
“Well, there was a little hitch. He wasn’t just going to walk away, not when he’d worked so hard. He wanted all the rest.” Brig waved one arm expansively toward the windows. “The mills, the land, the timber, the offices.”
“I can’t believe he bargained for me,” she said, though the words held a ring of truth. Hadn’t she always known that Chase was more interested in the Buchanan fortune than her?
“It wasn’t easy for him. He wasn’t even being particularly noble, I think. But he knew that he could never possess you, that you didn’t love him, that you never would, and it killed him a little more each day, so he became indifferent, throwing himself into his work.” He rubbed the back of his neck and avoided her eyes.
“There’s something else,” Cassidy guessed.
He sighed.
“Brig—?”
“Shit!” He leaned against the windowsill and tipped back his head. “The truth of the matter is that you weren’t his first choice.”
“Wh–What?” Cymbals seemed to crash in her head.
“That’s the irony of it, Cass,” he said, turning to face her again. “Chase married you because you were the only Buchanan woman left. A long time ago, he was in love with Angie, too. Just like everybody else in this damned town.”
Angie! Angie! Always Angie!
Couldn’t anyone forget that bitch? I felt a tic at one side of my left eye and I could barely breathe as I listened to the argument between Cassidy and her husband. I heard only a little of the conversation, but they were both pissed, their words blurred. Their anger was seething, and it had something to do with Angie.
Seventeen years! The slut had been buried in the ground for seventeen years! So why was it people in Prosperity treated her as if she were a saint—a damned martyred saint!
My blood boiled when I thought of it. Would she never die? Never?
I eased away from my side of the window and slunk through the rhododendrons. If Angie was a saint, then her younger sister was a certifiable idiot. First Brig McKenzie and then Chase had walked all over her from day one.
What kind of a moron was she?
She was so damned pathetic. Always had been. Not ever in the same league with her older sister.
But then few were, I reminded myself and hated the turn of my thoughts. Quickly, I slipped away from this monstrosity of a house Chase McKenzie had built.
Thank God his brother had finally died. Maybe no one else had figured out the truth, but I knew that the John Doe now known as Marshall Baldwin had been Brig. Who else? That’s probably what Chase and Cassidy had been discussing. I’d heard Brig’s name a couple of times and I’d strained to hear Chase’s side of the story, but the air-conditioning unit had been humming and I hadn’t been able to piece everything together.
But I had enough.
My frown gave way to a smile as I remembered how I’d finally been able to get Brig to give up the ghost.
I’d slipped into the hospital several times and, on the fourth try, had been able to sneak into his room and make sure an air bubble reached his heart. Quick. Simple. In and out. By the time the monitors had started squawking, I was in the bathroom downstairs, stripping off my gloves, lab coat and scrubs. Any camera or witness would never recognize me.
At least I hoped.
I had seen one person I recognized in my escape. A reporter from the Times, someone who worked with Cassidy, but she’d looked through me, as if I weren’t there.
For the most part I’d been invisible all of my life. It had been a pain in the backside as a teenager. Until I’d learned how to use my adeptness at fading into the background to my advantage. I knew I could have the limelight when I wanted, but it was better to plot and plan, appear not as bright or good-looking, keep my mouth shut and carefully and methodically make things work.
I didn’t have much time.
If things were going to work out the way I’d been planning, both Cassidy and that damned husband of hers would have to die. As soon as possible.
I eased away from the house, down a path near the lake and through the surrounding trees. My truck was parked on federal land on the other side of a barbed-wire fence.
If I played my cards right, no one would ever know that I’d been here. No one would guess that I’d been behind it all.
Forty-three
“I should have your badge!” Rex Buchanan was livid as he walked into the kitchen and found T. John Wilson drinking coffee with his wife. “You and the rest of the department. What have you done besides swill coffee, shoot the damned breeze and mutter ‘no comment’ to the press! Who burned down the mill? Who tried to kill my son-in-law? Where is Sunny McKenzie? And who the hell is Marshall Baldwin?”
T. John sighed loudly. “We’re working on all those things. Let’s start with Mrs. McKenzie. We’ve had dogs tracking her, but she’s a slippery one. Just the other night the dogs went crazy, started howling and carrying on somethin’ fierce. I thought we’d found her in a cabin not far from Hayden Lake, you know, up on some of that property you own in the foothills.”
“I know the cabin. I used to go fishing there when I was a kid.”
“Been there lately?” T. John asked.
“Well—” Rex glanced nervously at his wife.
“Oh, Rex, no.” Dena reached for her cigarettes.
“She needed somewhere to live, damn it. If she turned herself in, Chase would have her locked up again and she’s the mother of Willie—”
“And your mistress!” Dena said, puffing up, not caring any longer what anyone thought. She was at the center of all the town gossip as it was.
T. John pushed himself upright. “Well, she’s not at the cabin anymore.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here.” Rex leaned against the table, then sat down heavily in one of the kitchen chairs. He stared out the window to the grounds and the pool. For years he’d tried to recapture a fleeting youth when Lucretia had been alive and he’d failed. Miserably.
“Thought you might know where she is.”
Pulling off his driving cap, Rex worried it between his meaty fingers. “No,” he admitted. “She left me.”
“Oh, Rex.” Dena fought a losing battle with tears.
“Just like Lucretia.”
“You know, I’ve been wondering about that. Your first wife, I mean. I wasn’t around then.”
“She left me.”
“Left you? But I thought—”
“Left me for heaven,” Rex clarified, the lines in his face becoming deep chasms of age. “Couldn’t take it anymore. Because of Sunny.”
“That’s always puzzled me,” T. John admitted as he stared across the table at the man who had once been the most powerful force in Clackamas County. “Why, if you were so in love with your first wife, you fooled around with another woman?”
“Because Lucretia was a cold-hearted bitch who locked him out of her bedroom.”
“Dena!” Rex stood, but she sent him a look that could curdle cre
am.
“It’s true. I know. I had to have the locks removed when I moved in. I don’t know what happened, Rex, or how you managed to father two children with her, but I know she ruined you, treated you like a leper, and then, when you turned to another woman, she got her ultimate glory by sitting in her damned Thunderbird, turning on the engine and listening to Elvis!”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“And she didn’t even care enough about her kids to worry about them. Derrick found her, you know, and little Angie was upstairs in her crib. What would have happened if there was a fire, or Angie had fallen out of her bed and started down the stairs? Have you ever wondered what it was like for Derrick to find his mother dead behind the wheel of her damned birthday present?”
“Dena!”
“No wonder he’s screwed up. Anyone would be. Lucretia deserved to die, Rex. Any decent woman would have taken care of her children first before she turned on the damned record player and the car. She was selfish in life and selfish in death and you’ve spent the last thirty-odd years feeling guilty about it!”
Rex’s face had gone blank. He felt nothing inside, just a growing numbness. “Lucretia was an angel.”
“For God’s sake, Rex, open your eyes!”
“Find Sunny,” he said to T. John. He ignored his wife and her ravings as he had for over thirty years. “I can’t lose her, too.”
T. John reached for his aviator glasses and slid them onto the bridge of his nose. “Where’s Willie Ventura?”
“His name is Buchanan, now.”
“Well, whatever he calls himself these days, he’s missing. You know anything about that?”
“Dena threw him out.”
T. John stared at the second Mrs. Rex Buchanan.
Dena rubbed her arms as if suddenly cold, then found her lighter and lit her cigarette. The flame trembled. “He gave me the creeps, okay? Him padding around here. He got into Rex’s liquor a couple of times, one of the rifles is missing from the gun case, and I found him in Angie’s room, just staring at that damned portrait of Lucretia. I know everyone thinks he’s harmless, but that boy is evil. Pure evil. And he’s not as dumb as he lets on.”
