Lucky Shot

by B. J Daniels

  Kat couldn’t help but balk at all of this. It was too crazy. Anyone who knew her mother wouldn’t be able to imagine her as this...Red woman.

  “So other than this questionable photograph, do you have anything that connects my mother with this...gang of domestic terrorists?” she asked.

  “Not yet. But I have a plan to find out the truth.”

  “I figured you did. Just don’t involve me in it.”

  “Sorry, Kat, but you were involved long before I came along. If you have a problem with that, take it up with your mother.”

  * * *

  ANGELINA BROADWATER HAMILTON got the call on the way to the airport.

  “Mrs. Broadwater?” the woman on the other end of the call asked.

  Referring to her by her maiden name threw her for a moment. From behind the wheel of his SUV, Buckmaster asked, “Is everything all right?”

  Belatedly she remembered that Broadwater was the name she’d given the latest private investigator she’d hired.

  She nodded at her husband and said, “This is she,” into the phone.

  “I’m calling because you hired private investigator Curtis Olsen.”

  “Yes,” she said cautiously.

  “I’m his secretary. Was... Mr. Olsen has been killed. I’m calling all of his clients to let them know. If he was in the middle of an investigation for you, the police will be in contact with you.”

  Police? “What were the circumstances?” she asked, knowing that her husband was listening.

  “He was stabbed during a mugging.”

  A mugging? She felt herself relax. It had nothing to do with her case.

  “The police still might be contacting you to question whether or not his death might have a connection to the case he was working on for you.”

  “I can’t imagine how there could be. You said it was a mugging.”

  “In any case, I wanted to let you know.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Are you all right?” Buckmaster asked. “What was that about?”

  “Nothing.” She looked out the side window as they neared the airport turnoff. Moose had told her that if she hired another private investigator she’d get him killed. No, she thought. It was merely a coincidence. Curtis was killed in a mugging. Moose had been scared and trying to scare her.

  But, if not, she couldn’t help but wonder what was buried in Sarah Hamilton’s past that was so bad that someone was willing to kill to keep it quiet.

  She tried to assure herself that the investigator’s death might have nothing to do with her case. He could have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or it could involve someone else’s case.

  Angelina turned to her husband, plastering a smile on her face as she did. “It is nothing for you to worry about.” Unfortunately, she feared that might not be true.

  * * *

  MAX COULDN’T HIDE his disappointment. Kat had recognized the man. He’d seen that flicker of acknowledgment. But either she really couldn’t remember or she hadn’t wanted to share that memory with him.

  Not that he could blame her. Who’d want to admit that their mother was a domestic terrorist in the ’70s? He could see that Kat was having a hard time accepting that the woman who’d called herself Red was her mother. But between her mother’s missing college years and this photograph, there seemed to be little doubt.

  “What did this...group do?” she asked as if she didn’t really want to know. Her gray eyes were large and luminous. He remembered them in the light from the waning sunset just before he’d kissed her.

  “They were antigovernment terrorists,” he said. “They blew up government buildings, robbed banks, defaced institutions they considered evil.”

  “Robbed banks?”

  “Stealing from the capitalists to further their cause,” he said with a shrug. “I think they stylized themselves after the SLA—”

  “The group that kidnapped Patty Hearst,” she said. “But they didn’t do anything like that, right? Kidnap people?”

  He wasn’t sure how much she could handle right now. But it would all be coming out if he could find enough proof to support the article he would write. “A couple of maintenance staff were in one of the courthouses they hit. They blew it up in the middle of the night, probably assuming no one would be inside.”

  “The maintenance staff were...killed?”

  He nodded. “Three more people were killed in a bank robbery that went badly, including a security guard and two bank employees. One of the tellers was pregnant. Two of the group were caught and are still doing time.”

  Kat looked as if she might be sick. She got to her feet and, hugging herself, walked to the wall of windows that overlooked the Pacific. “Why haven’t they caught the others?”

  “They’re on the FBI’s most-wanted lists, but no one has been able to find them, apparently. It’s been...thirty-six years.”

  She turned. He saw the hope in her expression. “If the FBI isn’t interested in my mother, then doesn’t that mean she isn’t...Red?”

  “They probably had no reason to tie Sarah Johnson Hamilton to it. The group dissolved in 1979, the same year your mother came out to Montana. A year later she married your father and was then part of a distinguished family. The members burned down their safe house and destroyed all evidence before they disbanded.”

  “Except for that one photo,” she pointed out.

  “They released it before the deaths, before they were killers. The photo is like the one the SLA had released. I suspect the Prophecy hoped to get the same kind of publicity. They didn’t. They had wanted people to know about them, wanted to make sure they got credit for the crimes they committed—until the deaths. Then they seemed to have just...dissolved and gone their separate ways. Except for the two in prison.”

  “So it’s over. The group dissolved, so why bring it up again?” she asked, pleading in her tone.

  She knew the answer.

  “You can’t write this story until you have proof, correct?” she said, still seeming to grasp at any hope.

  “This is more than just some article, and you know it. If I’m right, then you have to ask yourself why your mother came back to Montana and your family now. Is it just a coincidence that a woman I believe was involved with an antigovernment group in the ’70s was the wife of a man who is now running for the presidency?”

  “My father...” Her voice broke. She turned back to the window. Past her he could see the silvery glow of the moonlight on the rippling sea. “You think my father is in danger.”

  It wasn’t a question. That she even asked it meant she’d come to the same conclusion he had.

  He moved across the room to her. A cool breeze blew in, billowing the sheer curtains tucked at each side of the wall of windows. “I will talk to the two men who have been serving time for the killings. They’re both almost sixty now and have spent the past thirty-six years locked up after receiving life sentences without parole. I’m thinking they might want to talk.”

  She didn’t look over at him. “If they wouldn’t talk when they were arrested—”

  “Even the most devout sometimes have second thoughts after that many years in prison. You look tired,” he said. “You should get some sleep.” He wanted to tell her what came next, but he feared she wasn’t ready to hear it, not tonight.

  He felt as if he was getting in over his head. Not with the story, but with his feelings when it came to this woman. He’d always been attracted to a story. Kat had a story of her own—not to mention the story surrounding her mother and family.

  Max had always been able to put his feelings aside. But this time, he wasn’t sure he could do that.

  * * *

  KAT LAY IN the bed, staring up at the ceiling, unable to sleep. No sound came from inside the bea
ch house. When Max had suggested that she might want to call it a night, she’d agreed, telling him she had a headache.

  “We fly out at eight. I’ll wake you so we can get to the airport on time,” he’d said. “I know it’s been a lot to take in.”

  He had no idea.

  “Just a minute,” he’d said as she’d started toward the spare bedroom.

  He’d left her for a moment and come back with a couple of pain relievers and a glass of water. She’d been touched by that small kindness and had to remind herself that for him, this was only about an article that might get him a Pulitzer.

  For her, so much more was at stake. Now, alone in the spare room and listening to the sound of the ocean waves on the beach below, she pulled out her cell phone. Just as she had from the time she was little, she reached out to her big sister, Ainsley, for comfort.

  She dialed her number, even though it was late.

  Ainsley answered on the second ring. “Kat?”

  “I’m sorry if I woke you.”

  “You didn’t. I was reading.” She could hear shifting as Ainsley likely pushed her book away and sat up, giving Kat her undivided attention. That was the older sister she knew so well. “Is something wrong?”

  Everything was wrong. “Do you have memories of our mother?”

  If the question surprised her, Ainsley didn’t show it. “Some. Not as many as I thought I would since I was ten when she...left.”

  “Mine seem to all be bad memories of her scolding me or me crying and upset. She was always busy. I remember our nannies better than my own mother.”

  “I’m the same way. I know she loved us, but she did seem...overwhelmed a lot of the time, but who can blame her?”

  “Whose idea was it to have six kids, I wonder.”

  “Not Dad’s,” Ainsley said. “I know he was angry at her for leaving him with six daughters to raise alone. Of course, he knew that she’d committed suicide long before we did.”

  “Or apparently tried to commit suicide. I’m glad I didn’t know. I would have blamed myself.” When she thought of her early childhood, she had snapshots of memories. Her mother scolding her for tracking up the floor. Her mother scowling at her across the dinner table. Her mother angry at her over a birthday cake.

  “Do you remember my last birthday before she was gone?” Kat asked.

  “The horse cake,” Ainsley said with a sigh.

  Her mother had baked the cake and made a brown horse out of frosting. When Kat saw it, she’d burst into tears. “My horse isn’t brown. It’s black,” Kat recalled crying in frustration. Her mother had followed her up the stairs. Kat had never seen her so angry. She’d been terrified of her. She’d screamed for their father, and her mother had put her hand over her mouth. Kat hadn’t been able to breathe. She remembered looking into her mother’s eyes and seeing...

  “I’m sure you must have some good memories if you really think about it,” Ainsley said.

  “Do you?”

  Her sister sighed. “I used to think so. But, honestly, the woman who’s come back, I have a hard time remembering her at all.”

  “Me, too. Have you talked to her?”

  “No,” Ainsley said. “And I feel guilty about that. But that day that we met with her at the Branding Iron? It was too weird, didn’t you think?”

  “Yes.”

  “Also knowing what pain Dad’s been going through because of all this. I know it’s not her fault—”

  “How can you say that?” Kat said. “She’s the one who left us. She tried to kill herself to get away from us, and when that didn’t work, she disappeared for twenty-two years.”

  “We don’t know that. She could have been suffering from depression. All us kids and Dad busy with the ranch. Even then he was involved in local, and then state politics and gone a lot.”

  She hadn’t thought about what it must have been like for her mother. Six daughters. That winter Ainsley was ten, Bo was five, Olivia three and Harper and Cassidy were only a few months old.

  “Had it been postpartum depression? Or were we all just too much for her? Or was I just too much for her? I remember overhearing her tell Dad that I was irascible. I didn’t even know what it meant. I had to look it up in the dictionary. Grumpy, petulant, ill-tempered. I was never the ‘good one,’ like you and Bo and Olivia.”

  She’d seen the fear in her mother’s eyes that night. Her mother had quickly taken her hand from her daughter’s mouth and nose. As Kat had gasped for breath, her mother had begged her forgiveness. But Kat hadn’t forgotten what she’d seen in her mother’s eyes. And her mother hadn’t forgotten either, she suspected.

  “I think I’m the reason she left.” Because Kat had reminded her of a past she’d tried to put behind her?

  “Kat, that’s crazy. You know that’s not true,” Ainsley said.

  “Do I?” She’d never told anyone about that night, not even Ainsley.

  “Our mother had troubles that had nothing to do with us.”

  Kat got up and walked to the window. She had a view of the beach. The sea was silvery, the sand white in the moonlight. Maybe Ainsley was right, and their mother had more troubles than even she could have imagined before today.

  “Do you think she was unhappy with Dad?” she asked.

  “Who knows? I don’t think he was unhappy. Olivia said he admitted to her that Mother is the only woman he’s ever truly loved. Also he still seems mystified by her attempted suicide—and still so hurt by it.”

  Hurt. “You don’t think she’d hurt him again, do you?”

  Ainsley said nothing for a moment. “I hope not. I never thought I’d say this, but I think it’s good that Dad is married to Angelina.”

  “He would have taken Mother back otherwise, huh.” That would mean that “Red”—Sarah Johnson Hamilton—would be living on the ranch and maybe even be the next First Lady.

  “Kat, are you sure you’re all right?”

  She thought about telling Ainsley everything. But what did she really know? And what would it accomplish at this point? She had to be sure before she laid anything about their mother’s past on her sisters. But in her heart, she feared it was all true.

  “I’m fine,” Kat said after a moment. “I couldn’t sleep thinking about...things. I just needed to talk to my big sister.”

  “I’m glad you called.” Ainsley sounded touched.

  Kat saw a lone figure coming up the beach. She recognized Max Malone’s lazy gait. He walked with his head down, the moonlight making his blond hair shine like the sun. “I should let you go. Is it a good book you’re reading?”

  “It is. How’s the exhibit coming along? Lots of great photos?”

  “We’ll see.” She thought of the photo of the Prophecy and the redheaded woman with Kat’s features.

  “It’s going to be great. We’re all planning to be there. I talked to Harper and Cassidy. They’re having a ball in New York City, but you know how they are. They’re anxious to get back to the ranch. Apparently nothing can take the cowgirl out of us Hamilton girls.”

  “What do you expect? Dad put us on the back of a horse before we could walk,” Kat said, smiling to herself at the memories. “Thanks for the talk. I think I can sleep now.”

  “Good night, then.”

  She disconnected and watched Max walk the rest of the way up to the beach house. He’d been excited about being back here earlier. Now there was a melancholy air to him that made her suspect he was visiting with his own demons from the past.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “SHERIFF FRANK CURRY?”

  The woman’s voice on the other end of the line sounded vaguely familiar.

  He turned on the lamp next to the bed and saw that it was after ten. He was trying to place the woman when she said, “I’m Becca Thorson, a
nurse in White Sulphur Springs?”

  He felt his pulse jump with anticipation. “Ms. Thorson, of course,” he said and sat up. Lynette, who’d awakened at the sound of the phone, rolled over to look at him. She’d recognized the name, as well.

  “Please, call me Becca. I’m sorry to call so late, but this is the first time today that I’ve had a moment to myself.”

  “It’s good to hear from you. Is everything all right?”

  “Your wife said if I ever heard anything more about the things that went on at the sanitarium—” she dropped her voice “—or about Dr. Venable, that I should call you.”

  Frank held his breath for a moment before releasing it. “You heard something?”

  “One of the women here in the rest home collects stamps. She loves showing them off, though with her dementia, I really doubt she even knows what they are anymore. I couldn’t help but notice one of the postcards had an unusual stamp. That’s when I saw where it was from—and who it was from.”

  “Dr. Venable,” he guessed.

  “Yes. The postcard was from Brazil. I’d forgotten that the doctor rented a room from this woman and that she was sweet on him. The postcard said he was doing fine and not to worry about him.”

  “Where in Brazil was the card mailed?”

  “Santa Cruz do Sul.”

  He wrote it down as she spelled it. “And you said the postmark was dated shortly after the sanitarium closed?”

  “A couple of months later. Does that help?”

  “It just might. Thank you.” He was already getting out of bed after he disconnected to get his laptop so he could look up the city on the internet. “Dr. Venable went to South America,” he said when Lynette joined him after pulling on her robe. “He sent a postcard to his landlady from Santa Cruz do Sul. According to what I can find on the browser, it’s a city of about a hundred and thirty thousand not far from the Uruguay border. It’s a product of an immigration policy to populate Brazil.”

  “So they welcomed him with open arms.”

  Frank nodded. “A doctor from America looking for a new home? I would have imagined they did indeed.”