Lucky Shot

by B. J Daniels

  At the gate, she looked around for Max’s old pickup. No sign of it or him. She couldn’t help but wonder where he might be. He had to know she would come back to the ranch to look for the information on her mother right away. She’d thought for sure he would be anxious to hear what she’d found.

  Was he that convinced that she wouldn’t find anything?

  The thought made her all the more determined to discover proof and squash his crazy theory.

  As she pulled up in front of the main ranch house, she was surprised to see that her father and stepmother had returned.

  “That will make this easier,” she said as she got out and hurried inside.

  “Kat!” her father said the moment he saw her. He’d been standing at the breakfast bar, but now put down his coffee cup to give her a hug. “I was hoping we’d get to see you while we were home. How are the photos coming along?”

  “Fine.” She glanced toward her stepmother. Angelina hadn’t said a word of greeting. Kat picked up tension between them, but then again, there’d been tension from the moment the first Mrs. Buckmaster Hamilton had come back.

  “I need to talk to you,” Kat said to her father as he offered her coffee or breakfast. She declined, saying she’d just eaten. “Could we step into your den?”

  “If this is about your mother...” Angelina said.

  “Actually, it is,” Kat said and heard her father sigh.

  “Then by all means, Angelina should join us,” he said.

  Once the three of them were settled in the den, Kat got right to it. “I was wondering if I could see some things of my mother’s from her years in college. I’m sure she must have saved something.”

  Her father shook his head. “Maybe she did, but I don’t have—”

  “There must be photos or yearbooks or something from her earlier life.” Kat noticed that Angelina seemed to be listening with interest.

  “I’m sorry, but anything of that nature was probably destroyed in the fire,” Buckmaster said.

  “Fire?” Kat and Angelina echoed.

  He glanced at both of them in surprise. “I thought I might have mentioned...” He brushed that off. “A fire destroyed Sarah’s family home not long before she came out West. From what Sarah said, she lost everything but the clothes on her back. Both her parents died in the fire.”

  Kat stared at him in shock. “I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve heard about this.” She’d known that both sets of her grandparents were gone, but that her mother’s side was killed in a fire? Worse, she could well imagine what Max was going to say when she told him why there was nothing of her mother’s from college, since she was thinking the same thing. How convenient.

  He shook his head, looking miserable. “There really is no reason either of you would have known about it. It happened so long ago—”

  “Still, those were my grandparents,” Kat said.

  Her father nodded. “I’m sorry that you never got to know any of your grandparents.”

  Stunned, Kat tried to get her head around this news. “But surely any important papers would have been kept in a safety deposit box at the bank.”

  Again he shook his head. “Her parents were in the process of moving. Downsizing since Sarah had graduated from college and wouldn’t be living at home. They’d packed up everything, closed their bank accounts... I’m sorry, but why are you so interested in things from your mother’s earlier life?”

  Kat pushed back her hair. The last thing she wanted to tell her father was that she was looking for the information because of an encounter with a reporter doing a story on Sarah.

  “I thought maybe something from her past might help her remember,” she said lamely. While the explanation was possible, she knew what it would sound like to Max.

  Angelina’s expression was one of disbelief. “Something from her college years? Why would you think that would trigger memory of the past twenty-two years?”

  Kat shrugged. “It was just a thought. I was especially interested in photographs of her from back then for an album I thought about putting together.”

  “How sweet.” Her stepmother’s words dripped with sarcasm. “Better put some current snapshots in it, so that way you girls can remember what she looked like when she disappears again.”

  Her father ignored Angelina. Either that or he’d heard it all before and was desensitized to her remarks. “I think that is a wonderful idea, but I’m afraid there are no photographs either. Over the years they’ve been either lost or somehow misplaced.”

  Angelina looked away. They all knew how the photos had gotten lost. “Well, it was worth a shot. I’d better get going.” Kat turned toward the door.

  Her father walked her out to her SUV. “I’m glad you came by. We’re only home for a few days, then it is off again, but I’ll be back for your photo exhibit.”

  She started to tell him it wasn’t necessary, but he didn’t give her a chance.

  “Have you seen your mother?” he asked, worry furrowing his brows.

  Kat shook her head. “I’ve been so busy with the exhibit.”

  “Then you haven’t heard the news.”

  She felt her stomach drop. “The news?”

  “I probably should wait and let your mother tell you herself. I just assumed she would have by now.”

  “What?” Kat demanded. She’d never liked secrets and had a feeling she wouldn’t like this one either.

  “She told me that she’s getting married.”

  Kat could see that this was tearing her father up. “Married? To whom?”

  “Russell Murdock.

  * * *

  IT WAS ONE of those clear, crisp fall mornings with Montana’s big sky a splendid blue. While a few puffy white clouds hung over the Crazies, the sun caught on the needles of the pine trees and made them glisten.

  Russell had driven up, taken out several sacks of groceries he’d brought and come inside the cabin, bringing the smell of the cold fall day with him.

  “So you talked to your daughter,” Sarah said after Russell had put the groceries away in the small cabin where she’d been hiding out for months.

  He nodded without turning around. But she’d seen his expression when he’d driven up, his real emotions before he’d quickly covered them up with a smile.

  “She’s not happy about it, is she?” Sarah said with a nervous laugh.

  He turned quickly and took her shoulders in his big hands. “She’s concerned that we haven’t known each other very long.”

  “She’s right.”

  “She just needs to get to know you.”

  “Too bad I don’t know myself.” That wasn’t quite true. She’d been experiencing—not memories, but...fleeting though odd, disturbing images. Russell thought she was starting to remember. He said it didn’t worry him. But then Russell liked to believe that everything would turn out for the best.

  He really seemed to believe he could handle whatever might surface from her past. Maybe he could. More than likely he would be shocked, horrified, repulsed and, if the past were half as bad as the images, it would probably get them both killed.

  She’d tried to reason with Russell, but he loved her and wanted her, and he knew that she needed him. Maybe he needed her even more. Why else would he want to marry her?

  Anyway, what was the alternative? To just hang around Beartooth until...until what? Buck was married to Angelina and campaigning day and night for the presidency. When Russell had suggested marriage, she’d told herself she couldn’t do that to him.

  Later, she’d given it more thought and realized it might be the answer. Russell loved her. She cared about him. Mostly, though, she’d seen it as a way to free Buck and maybe herself. Buck needed to concentrate on his election campaign. She needed to let him go. Not that she thought s
he could ever stop loving him.

  Russell, on the other hand, believed that one day she would remember why she’d driven her car into the iced-over Yellowstone River in a suicide attempt. He was convinced it had something to do with Buckmaster, and once she remembered there would be no love lost between them.

  The last thing she remembered was giving birth to her twins, Harper and Cassidy, both of whom had now graduated from college. She had no memory of why she would have tried to kill herself all those years ago. Buck had sworn he didn’t know. The press had decided she’d been desperate with postpartum depression and mentally unstable. She thought the truth, if it ever came out, might be closer to what the press believed.

  What she hadn’t considered when she’d agreed to marry Russell was how hard Buck would take the news. She’d thought he might be relieved. He’d seemed caught between her and Angelina, and the press had certainly made the most of the lovers’ triangle stories, whether true or not.

  Buck had pleaded with her to wait until he returned to Montana before she announced her engagement to Russell.

  She had agreed, even against Russell’s protests. But now he was back. Yesterday, when she and Buck had met, though, he’d begged for more time.

  “We’ll get you your driver’s license and a vehicle so Russell doesn’t have to bring you every time we meet,” Buck had said.

  “He’s the man I’m going to marry.”

  Buck had held her gaze. “No. You’re still my wife.”

  “Not legally. You’re married to Angelina now.”

  He’d groaned as if in pain. “I can’t let you go, Sarah. Please, I’m trying to work this out.”

  “There is no way to work it out, Buck. If you leave her to be with me...the voters will turn on you. If you have any hope of being our next president...”

  “I can’t lose you,” he said. “Two weeks. Surely you can give me that much more time, yes?”

  “Two weeks or even two months, what will it accomplish? There is no way we can be together.”

  “Let me see what I can do.”

  Now, as she looked into Russell’s handsome, trusting face, she knew what she had to do. “Buck wants us to wait another two weeks before we announce our engagement.”

  Russell looked upset but not surprised. “Why two weeks? I don’t understand why we’re waiting. What will be different in two weeks?”

  “Maybe it has something to do with the campaign.” She had no idea what Buck was thinking or what he might do. Probably nothing, because he was caught, and there was no way out.

  Russell shook his head, his look sympathetic. “Sarah, if he was going to leave Angelina, he would have done it already.”

  She hid the sting of his words, willing herself not to show how much the truth hurt. “Buck just needs a little more time to accept it.” She stepped to him and cupped his jaw in her hand. “That isn’t too much to ask, is it?”

  He weakened at once, just as he always did. He loved her. She had no doubt of that. Loved the woman he thought he knew.

  “What’s two weeks? We will have the rest of our lives together.” Even as she said it, she didn’t believe it. Her life felt too tenuous to plan more than a few minutes ahead. In truth, she felt as if she was waiting—not for Buck to do anything—but for her past to show up and destroy any future she’d planned.

  Russell took her into his arms. He was a tall, strong, attractive man, and he was kind and good. She closed her eyes as she breathed in his outdoor scent.

  She’d needed him from the moment they’d crossed paths that day on the road in the middle of nowhere. But was she seriously planning to marry him? If so, then why couldn’t she see the two of them married and living on his ranch? Why did she keep seeing herself back on Hamilton Ranch? Back with Buck? When she knew it was impossible?

  “Do you believe in fate?” Russell asked as he hugged her.

  Did she? Something told her she didn’t. “You think all of this is fate?” That would be just like Russell. Fate that he was the one who found her that day? Or had that been planned all along? Didn’t he say he went to the cemetery the same time every week? She could see how easily a person watching him would see his routine.

  “I believe there’s a reason you came into my life.”

  Was he a fool? Or were they both fools? She drew back to look into his eyes, and suddenly she knew she couldn’t keep hoping that Buck would find a way back to her. “You’re right. We shouldn’t wait. Let’s announce our engagement. Do we put a notice in the newspaper or—”

  “Leave it to me,” Russell said, sounding happier than she’d ever seen him. “I’m going to take care of you, Sarah. You’ll always be safe with me.”

  * * *

  MAX DROVE TO Big Timber Java, got a cup of coffee and opened his new laptop. He’d considered buying a new camera, but he liked the idea of using Kat’s for the time being.

  Before coming to Montana, he’d done as much research as he could on Sarah Johnson Hamilton. Now, though, as he stared at the empty screen, he remembered everything he’d said to Kat. It had been a good argument, one he’d never verbalized before, so he must have been thinking about this for some time.

  A stirring in his gut told him that there was something there. Something he’d missed. Something... He realized with a start that he needed to look at in the bigger picture.

  If Sarah hadn’t been attending college classes, then what had she been doing? Whatever it had been, it was something she had kept from her parents—and as it turned out, something she’d hidden well from everyone. Every reporter worth his or her salt had looked into her past and found...nothing.

  But that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. It just meant she’d managed somehow to keep the rest of the world from finding out what it was. So she hadn’t dropped out of college and gotten a job. There would have been a record.

  Nor had she run off with some boy. All of that would have come out by now with hundreds of reporters digging into her past—and some now-fifty-something old boyfriend looking to make a few bucks.

  He had a sudden thought. Where were all of Sarah’s old boyfriends from college? The high school boyfriends had already been vetted by the press. None of them had produced anything of interest. In fact none of them had even professed to having taken her virginity.

  Max mulled that over, frowning as he considered why a beautiful woman—she had been a beauty back then and still was a knockout—hadn’t had a bevy of boyfriends at college. One of them would have come forward by now for his fifteen seconds in the limelight. But none had.

  He felt himself getting more excited as he realized he really was onto something. Another question popped up in his thoughts. Let’s say Sarah Johnson had something to hide when she’d met the son of an up-and-coming politician. Would she have known about the extent of Buckmaster’s political ambitions all those years ago when they’d married? Maybe not. Maybe she hadn’t realized that her life would be thrust under a microscope. That her secrets would no longer be safe.

  The next thought made him let out a low whistle. Fortunately the coffee shop was empty and the barista was busy in the back. The thought had come on the heels of two others. Buckmaster’s father had been a senator who had started to run for president when Sarah had married into the family. Buckmaster hadn’t himself been involved in politics back then.

  Max was almost too excited to type. What year was that? As the answer came up on the screen and he sat back, the realization made it hard to catch his next breath.

  He felt as if he had one of those two-thousand-piece puzzles in front of him. But he’d managed to put together at least part of the border.

  Six children and twelve years later, Buckmaster made his first run for state government. Only a matter of months later his wife had driven into the Yellowstone River.

  * * *

 
; “WHERE ARE YOU taking me, Frank?” Nettie asked that morning as he turned onto a dirt road that led up into the foothills outside White Sulphur Springs. Peering ahead, she could make out a dilapidated old building through the trees. “When you suggested driving up here on your day off, I just assumed you were taking me to lunch.” She looked over at her husband and saw the intensity in his expression. “This has something to do with an investigation. I know you, Frank Curry.”

  “Not officially an investigation, and I promise you we will get lunch—just not yet.” He pulled up in front of the large old structure. She could make out what was left of the faded print on the sign: Spring Creek Sanitarium.

  “You brought me to a sanitarium? Thinking of having me admitted?”

  “Fortunately for you, it’s closed. But it once housed the mentally ill. Let’s take a look around,” he said as he opened his door and exited.

  Curiosity alone would have made her get out of the SUV. Why had her husband brought her here? It had something to do with his work. It always did. As much as he threatened to retire, Frank Curry couldn’t give up snooping and solving any more than she could. The fact that he’d brought her along could mean only one thing.

  “You need me,” she said, sounding as happy as she felt as she caught up to him. “You thought I’d come in handy. But I can’t help unless you tell me what this is about.”

  He wiped a small portion of dirty glass that had been missed at one of the partially boarded up windows. After peering in for a moment, he turned to her. “Along with enjoying your company on such a beautiful fall day, I admit I do need your...talents. I thought this might be right up your alley.”

  “Crazy people? That’s what you think is up my alley?”

  “I did some asking around. I was surprised to find out that a man by the name of Dr. Ralph Venable worked here. A few years before that, the good doctor had published an article in a medical journal about brain wiping.”

  “Brain wiping?”

  “He believed he could take the bad memories out of the brain—and put them back—or replace them with false memories. It was rumored at the time that he was doing his research on real patients instead of rats.”