by B. J Daniels
The pendulum gleamed in the overhead light. Hurriedly, Nettie picked up the thin strap, letting the pendulum swing free. As it dangled from her trembling fingers, she closed her eyes, waiting for it to slow and finally stop.
Opening her eyes, she stared at it and asked the question that was killing her. “Is Frank all right?”
For a moment, the pendulum didn’t move. Her heart lodged in her throat and she almost cried out when she heard the sound of a vehicle coming up the road. Hastily, she tossed the pendulum back into the box, hid it again and rushed to the door in time to see Frank getting out of his patrol SUV. Her relief made her sway and grab the doorjamb.
From the slump of his shoulders, she knew that his visit with Tiffany hadn’t gone well. But he was alive! She’d had the worst premonition that something was going to happen to him. Throwing open the door, she rushed to him.
“What’s this about?” he asked in surprise as she threw herself into his arms.
She couldn’t speak her throat was so choked with tears of relief.
Frank’s family of crows began to caw down to him from the telephone line. They were worse chatterboxes than Mabel Murphy, Nettie thought.
Her husband called greetings to the crows. She heard his voice break and frowned against his broad chest. Had Tiffany threatened the crows again? Or was he still regretting what that girl had done to one of them?
Her husband hugged her tightly for a long while before holding her at arm’s length. “Lynette?” he asked, studying her face.
She made a swipe at the errant tears on her cheeks. “It’s nothing. I just had a bad day.” She could see that he knew what it was. “I was worried about you.”
“Well, I’m fine.” He wasn’t, but whatever had happened, he wasn’t ready to talk about it. “What’s for dinner?” he asked jovially as he put his arm around her and ushered her toward the house.
“I made your favorite, pot roast.”
He took a deep breath as if he could smell it cooking and sighed. “Bless your heart. That is exactly what I need right now. Pot roast and you,” he said with a laugh. One of the crows tried to imitate his laugh, making him laugh harder.
Nettie luxuriated in the warmth of that laugh and his strong arm around her as she tried to tell herself that everything was fine now that he was home.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CASSIDY WATCHED HER mother toy nervously at the charm at the end of her necklace. Her heart was pounding like a war drum. She realized that a part of her had wanted to believe it was all a case of mistaken identity in her mother’s case.
But the woman standing before her was Red, the alleged leader of The Prophecy. She was the woman in the photo. Cassidy felt sick to her stomach as her mother took the photograph she handed her and glanced down at it.
She saw her mother’s expression change. She became guarded. She looked from the photo to Cassidy then to Jack and back. For a moment, Cassidy thought she would try to lie her way out of it.
“Where did you get this?” she asked.
“From an old metal box that my father kept locked up in a drawer in his office,” Jack said.
Sarah looked at him in surprise. “Your father?”
“Tom Durand. You knew him as Martin Wagner. I’m his son, Jack.”
Her mother said nothing, but she’d visibly paled.
“Along with photographs of all of you, there were newspaper clippings of The Prophecy’s...accomplishments,” Jack said with obvious revulsion.
Sarah stepped back to drop onto the edge of a chair. As she lowered her head, her trembling hand went again to her necklace—just as it had in the one photo that Cassidy had recognized.
“Did you give the order to have me kidnapped?” Cassidy demanded.
Her mother’s head snapped up, her blue eyes wide with alarm. “No! Of course not.”
“Why should we believe you?” Jack asked. He was still standing by the door. Cassidy knew that if her mother made any kind of move to get a weapon, he would pull his gun. She hoped it didn’t come to that as she stared at the woman who’d given birth to her and wondered if she could trust anything she said.
* * *
ALL THE WAY into Big Timber, Montana, Russell Murdock told himself that the best thing he could do was wash his hands of the whole mess. The whole mess being Sarah and the way he felt about her. He’d warned her not to trust Dr. Venable and yet she had. He’d warned her not to trust Buck and yet she had. He told himself there was nothing more he could do. She’d made her choice when she’d chosen Buck over him.
He’d tried to help her. He’d put his ranch up for sale, but only because he knew that he and Sarah would need money to get out of the country once... Once whatever was going to happen happened.
This morning at the ranch, the idea had come to him after pacing the floor for an hour. Dr. Venable had to be staying close by, probably in Big Timber, the closest town with a motel. Since there were only a few motels there, how hard would it be to find the man? Not that hard at all since he knew what the man looked like.
Now, as he pulled up in front of the motel he thought Venable was most likely to stay in, he saw that there was only one vehicle still parked in front of the last unit. It had local plates. A rental car, he thought with satisfaction.
Parking, he got out and walked along the sidewalk that linked the units to number eleven. He actually thought about breaking down the door like he’d seen in the cop movies. His love for Sarah had made him do things he’d never imagined. But he reminded himself that he was a rancher in his fifties and while in good shape, breaking down the door was a bad idea.
Russell knocked and waited. The curtain on the window next to the door twitched and he realized that if there was a back way, Dr. Venable might be headed for it right now. This was why the cops kicked in the door, so the bad guy didn’t get away.
He was debating running around back to cut the doctor off, when the door opened. Dr. Venable was much older than the photograph Russell had seen of him, but there was something keen in his blue eyes—and cold.
“Hello, Russell. I wondered how long it would be before we met,” Dr. Venable said as he pushed the door open wider. “Please, do come in. We need to talk about Sarah. That is why you’re here, right?”
* * *
“I DON’T KNOW what you want me to say,” Sarah said, stalling for time to think. She couldn’t believe what was happening and yet, hadn’t she known it was going to come out the moment Dr. Venable had returned those memories?
The members of The Prophecy had protected her so far. That was what scared her the most. They had already proved how far they would go to make sure nothing stood in the way of the plan. Not only would they use her family, they would kill them if they got in the way.
And now her daughter knew. She felt sick. Fear had curdled her stomach. What if Cassidy and Jack foolishly went to Buck with this? She couldn’t let them do that because they would be risking not only their own lives, but those of her sisters and their families.
“Seriously? You don’t know what to say?” Cassidy cried as she stepped to a chair near her and sat down on the edge. She leaned forward, her beautiful face contorted in anger. “Some men tried to kidnap me!”
“I’m so sorry. Thank God you managed to get away.”
Her daughter shook her head in obvious aggravation before looking to the man with her for help. Martin’s son. No wonder he had looked familiar.
“We know that you’re involved,” Jack said as he, too, moved closer. “That you may even have told them to abduct your daughter—”
“No,” she cried. “I didn’t have anything to do with it. I swear.”
“But you’re a member of The Prophecy,” Cassidy said. “So you do have something to do with it.”
She couldn’t argue that.
“We have killers after us,” Jack said slowly as if she was hopelessly stupid. “We need you to call them off.”
Sarah looked into his blue eyes, eyes so like his father’s. He made it sound so simple. He thought she was the leader. No doubt his father had told him that.
“How long have you known about your father?” she asked Jack.
He told her how he’d seen his father at his mother’s grave giving another man an envelope full of money. When he’d followed the man, he’d been able to foil the kidnapping. It wasn’t until he’d gone to his father’s office that he’d found out about The Prophecy—and his and Cassidy’s connection.
“I see.” What had Joe been thinking ordering that Cassidy be abducted. She balled her hands into fists, hating this man she had apparently once loved. Now her daughter and Martin’s son knew the truth. It was over. Once they told... “I don’t know what I can do. I have no control over these people. Instead, they are the ones controlling me through my children.”
“You’re one of them,” Cassidy snapped. “You are their leader.”
Sarah cleared her voice, swallowing down the bile that had risen in her throat. This was all her fault. She’d chosen the Hamilton family to go after. This had once been her plan. Had it also been her plan to have six children with Buck so The Prophecy could use them later? Apparently, the only part she hadn’t planned on was falling in love with him and her children.
“I won’t lie to you. I’m told I was the leader,” she admitted.
Cassidy groaned. “Not this ‘I can’t remember anything’ story you came back here telling.”
“It’s true, I can’t remember a lot of it, but I was a member of The Prophecy. Possibly the leader all those years ago. But I’m not now. I’m a pawn, just like you. They’re using me to get what they want.”
“What do they want?” Jack asked, finally taking a seat.
“They want your father to be president,” she said to her daughter.
“Why?” Cassidy asked frowning.
“That part is unclear. Maybe just so they can control him through me and all of you.”
“Or?” he asked.
“Or they have something more...violent planned.”
* * *
“LEAVE SARAH ALONE,” Russell said as he stepped into the motel room and turned to face Dr. Venable. The man was much shorter and slighter in build than he’d thought Venable would be. He had to be in his seventies and yet he looked stronger and more vital than he should have for his age—and his size.
“Why don’t you sit down so we can discuss—”
“I won’t be staying long enough to sit down or to discuss Sarah with you,” he said. “Either you stay away from her or the next time I come by—”
“Please, no threats. They are wasted on me. I came back to help Sarah. Not hurt her.”
“The way you helped steal twenty-two years of her life?”
“Those years weren’t stolen,” Venable said. “The memories are still there. That’s why I’ve come back. To retrieve them for her.”
Russell shook his head in disbelief. “She missed seeing her children grow up. You stole her life.”
“That was her choice.”
Russell tried to control his temper. “Her choice?”
“She knew I’d been experimenting with brain wiping. She begged me to take away those memories because she couldn’t live with them. She’d tried to kill herself. This was a woman who needed my help.”
He shook his head. “And your answer was to erase her life and take her to Brazil.”
The doctor said nothing for a moment. “She was happy in Brazil, maybe happier than she’d ever been. But ultimately, she needed to remember. I am giving her back her memories. It’s a gradual process, but soon, she will remember everything. I know you care about her, but interfering will only make things worse for her and certainly for you.”
“Now that sounds like a threat,” Russell said. He’d removed his Stetson when he’d stepped in the door. Now he put it back on as he faced Venable. “You’ve messed with her mind enough. Who knows what you’re putting into her head. I want you gone. I’m going outside. You pack up. You’re leaving town one way or another. Your choice.” He pushed past the doctor and out the door.
* * *
SARAH WATCHED JACK rake his fingers through his thick dark hair as he got to his feet.
“Violence? It wouldn’t be the first time The Prophecy had resorted to that, would it? So if you’re just a pawn like us, how do we stop them, Sarah?”
He looked so much like his father with that gesture that she had a flashback. She felt herself standing in some old building where they’d gathered. The sun was coming through one of the dirty windows. Joe was complaining that they weren’t getting the kind of attention they needed. Martin was arguing with him. In his agitation he reached up with his hand... The image was gone as quickly as it had come.
“If Daddy doesn’t become president...”
Sarah cut her daughter off. “He can’t pull out of the race. I know you probably won’t believe me, but if he does that our family will pay dearly. The only way I can stop any of this is to get my memory back so I know what The Prophecy’s plan is.”
“Which means what?” Jack asked.
“I have to make sure Buck stays in the race. If he does, he’ll win.”
“And then what?” Cassidy asked. Her blue eyes were wide with alarm.
Sarah reached for her daughter’s hand and squeezed it, quickly letting go when she saw Cassidy’s revulsion at her touch. “Then I will stop it and bring The Prophecy down.”
Jack let out a sigh. “And why should we believe you?”
Tears blurred her eyes. “I know now why I drove into the Yellowstone River that night all those years ago. I had been contacted by one of the members of The Prophecy. It had been so long since I’d heard from any of them that I guess I’d hoped they’d—” she let out a bitter laugh “—forgotten all of those crazy plans from back in college, especially after the tragedy and several members going to prison.”
She took a breath and let it out, trying hard to control her emotions. She was running scared. If she couldn’t convince Cassidy and Jack...
“I begged and pleaded with them to let me go. I had made this amazing life for myself.” Her gaze fell on Cassidy. “I had these children I adored and a husband who I loved more than life.”
“But they wouldn’t,” Cassidy said.
She shook her head. “I realized they were going to use me. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I thought if I was dead...”
“But you weren’t dead,” her daughter said.
“No. When I survived the river, I called one of the members I thought I could trust to help me, a doctor. His idea of help was to erase the memory of my husband and my children.”
“So you really didn’t know about us?” her daughter asked, sounding shocked and hurt.
“Not for twenty-two years. I apparently lived in Brazil and worked with this doctor. He was doing experiments on helping people who had traumatic memories that were keeping them from leading normal lives.”
“That is just sick,” Cassidy said. “But...wait. You came back so you must have remembered...something.”
“Now I realize that the doctor gave me back some of those memories. I found myself in Montana again, dropped by parachute at night in an isolated area. I didn’t know how I’d gotten there. I thought no time had passed. I thought you and your twin, Harper, were still babies.”
She saw compassion in her daughter’s expression. “That must have been horrible to realize you’d missed so much.”
“It was.” Her voice broke. “I’ve been so confused. I didn’t remember The Prophecy at all. Then things began happening...”
Jack walked to the win
dow and peered out. “So how do you get your memory back so you can stop this?”
Sarah hesitated, but only for a moment. “The doctor who stole them is slowly returning them.”
He turned to stare at her. “You trust him?”
She shook her head. “No, but I have no choice. He swears he will provide the rest when I need to know.”
“What about in the meantime?” Jack asked. “My father’s men are looking for us. I’m not sure what they planned to do with Cassidy, but it was real clear they plan to take me out.”
“Apparently, they were going to use Cassidy to force me to convince Buck to stay in the race,” she told them. “But that isn’t necessary any longer. I’ve agreed to do whatever they ask.”
“What about us?” Cassidy demanded.
“I’ll let them know you’re here and that there is no need for them to take any further action,” she said.
“You’re sure you can convince them?” Jack asked.
She wasn’t.
“My father said they would take Bo if they didn’t get Cassidy,” Jack said.
Sarah felt a wave of panic wash over her. “Bo is pregnant with twins. She isn’t doing well. If they...” She couldn’t finish. “I will contact them and tell them that I have the two of you.”
“Have the two of us?” Jack asked.
“Where are you staying now?”
“At one of Dad’s houses, the one closest to the Crazies,” Cassidy said.
Jack shot her a look as if he wished she hadn’t told her that.
“If you stay there and out of sight until I can talk to them—”
“Wouldn’t it be better if you just told your husband and he pulled out of the race?” Jack asked.
“The Prophecy would retaliate,” she said quickly.
“But your husband could hire people to protect you.”
Sarah shook her head. “You’ve seen how patient the members of The Prophecy can be. Not even Buck would be able to protect his family from them. But he’s stubborn enough to try. He would quit the race if he knew what was going on and it would be the worst thing he could do.”
