Trey's Secret

by Lois Faye Dyer

  TREY’S SECRET

  LOIS FAYE DYER

  Published by Silhouette Books

  America’s Publisher Of Contemporary Romance

  In memory of my uncle, Karl Jacobson,

  of Akra, Norway. The world is lesser

  for his absence.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Coming Next Month

  Chapter One

  Wolf Creek, Montana

  Early Spring

  On a windswept hilltop a mile outside Wolf Creek, twelve-year-old Trey Harper hunched his shoulders against the spatter of raindrops that chilled his face and hands. Beside him, his twin sister Raine shivered and tucked her chin lower into the neckline of her hooded sweatshirt.

  They lay flat on their bellies, hiding behind a three-foot-tall sagebrush. Scattered chunks of shale littered the hard clay and sand soil beneath them. When Trey leaned to his left and peered around the lowest branches of the bush, he had a clear view of the cemetery below. A single, uniformed officer stood several feet behind the grieving family while the other black-clad mourners clustered across the open grave.

  “He looks different,” Raine said, her voice troubled. “Don’t you think Chase looks different, Trey?”

  He stared intently at the group of McClouds. “He looks sad.” Of course he does. His grandpa Angus is in that coffin. Trey knew about being sad at funerals. Their older brother, Mike, had been buried barely three months ago. “And older. Maybe thinner. I wonder if he gets good food in jail?” And I wonder if he minds having that cop standing behind him, watching him.

  “I hope so.”

  Below them the pastor lifted his Bible and began to read. The faint sound of his voice reached them, although Trey couldn’t make out the words.

  “I miss Mike,” Raine continued, her voice breaking. “And I miss Chase, too. I wish this year had never happened.”

  Trey hoped she didn’t start crying again but he thought she might. He always knew when Raine was upset, just as she seemed to know the same about him. Their mother said twins were telepathic. He didn’t know why his mom seemed to think it was such a big deal. They were brother and sister, that’s all.

  “Well, it did.” He couldn’t look at her, afraid that if he saw tears on her face, he’d cry, too. Guys his age didn’t do that.

  “I don’t believe Chase hurt Mike on purpose, do you?”

  “People say he did. Mom believes he did.” Trey didn’t like to think about his mom. She’d started staying in bed after Mike’s funeral. He rarely saw her dressed in anything except her nightgown and robe anymore. Sometimes he was afraid she’d never come out of her bedroom again. And the sound of her soft weeping behind the closed door made his heart hurt.

  Even his dad had stopped smiling and, despite his and Raine’s efforts to get him to eat the dinners they made after school, he was losing weight. His jeans hung loose on his hips and the bones of his face seemed to stick out more each day. And too often Trey could smell the sweet odor of whiskey when his Dad got home from work.

  Maybe if Raine and I were better cooks, Dad and Mom would eat more, he thought gloomily. I’m really tired of mac and cheese and hamburgers, too.

  “Dad said Chase says he didn’t.” Raine’s comment broke into Trey’s thoughts. “Do you think he did?”

  “No.” Trey looked at her. Her gray eyes were anxious. “I don’t.”

  “Me, neither.” Her gaze left his to focus on the group in the cemetery below. “But he’s still gone away and we never get to see him — just like Mike. Only Mike’s dead and Chase isn’t. Do you think Chase will ever come back?”

  “I don’t know.” I want him to, he thought fiercely. I know Mike never can, but Chase could. He’s like my other brother and he can help me make Lonnie Kerrigan pay for what he did to Mike. Maybe life would be normal again if Chase came home. He wasn’t sure how he could change things, though, unless he could find a way to prove Chase hadn’t been driving his truck when it crashed into Mike’s car. But that seemed impossible. “Maybe someday, when I find out what really happened.”

  “Do you think Mom will believe you?”

  “Probably not.” His voice was bleak as the swift mental image popped into his head of his mother as he’d last seen her, drifting around the darkened house like a ghost. But I’ll find out, anyway. Chase wouldn’t lie, and he said it was Lonnie’s fault Mike wrecked his car. Losing their brother, Mike, had been devastating, but losing Chase, too, had made Mike’s death that much worse. The two older boys had spent long hours hanging out at the Harper family home. Chase was cool. He’d let Trey tag along with them, even if Mike hadn’t wanted him to. Now they both were gone, and he felt as if a giant hole had been blown in his world.

  Down in the cemetery, the small crowd of mourners stirred, some paying their respects to the McCloud family while others moved toward the parked cars.

  “Come on, Raine.” Trey used his elbows and the toes of his sneakers to maneuver backward. “We don’t want anyone to see us. We’ll be in trouble with Dad for sure if he knows we came out here.”

  Rocks and twigs scratched his palms. When the slope of the hill hid them from view, he stood, and with Raine close on his heels, they raced to their bikes. Soon they were pedaling furiously down the little-used dirt road back to town, intent on reaching home before they were missed.

  Fifteen years later

  Wolf Creek, Montana

  “Raine, you’re too sick to leave the house.” Trey frowned at his sister. The afternoon sunlight slanted through the window, highlighting the slender form on the blue sofa. Her legs were tucked beneath her and her head rested against the cushion. Her face was flushed and her gray eyes seemed bright with fever.

  “I have a summer cold,” she insisted. “That’s all.” She stopped talking as a sudden bout of coughing doubled her over.

  Trey handed her a glass of water and a box of Kleenex from the coffee table. “It may be a cold but I bet you’ve got a fever.” He laid his palm against her cheek.

  Raine ducked away from him before he could do more than register the heat radiating from her skin. She glared at him and sneezed. “Sometimes I run a temperature when I have a cold.” She dabbed at her watering eyes with a tissue. “It’s no big deal. I’ll be fine by tonight.”

  He sighed. “Be reasonable, Raine. Chances are this trip is a dead end and the letter just an attempt to con us into handing over money. The writer didn’t say there was any hard evidence.”

  “Nevertheless —” Raine’s chin jutted with determination “— it’s the first new clue in fifteen years. Don’t try to convince me you aren’t dying to find out who wrote it, Trey, because I know you are.”

  “I’m interested,” he acknowledged. “But that doesn’t mean I think we’ll find out at the Bull ’n’ Bash who caused the crash that killed Mike.” He glanced at the framed photo hanging on the wall behind Raine, taken at their ninth birthday. Their mother smiled sunnily at the camera, her arm around their father’s waist. Standing beside her was a laughing fourteen-year-old Mike, and in front were Trey and Raine. The happy faces in the photo conveyed no inkling that a short three years later, Mike would die in an automobile accident and life as Trey knew it would change forever. Within six years, both his parents were dead, too. Though the official medical ruling for his mother’s passing was a heart attack and, in the case of his dad, swift-moving lung cancer, he’d always believed their deaths were accelerated by their broken hearts. They’d kept going through the motions
of living after they lost their oldest son, but some essential part of his parents had died with Mike. Now he and his sister were the only remaining members of a once-happy family.

  “At least there’s a chance. Maybe it’s a slim one, but it’s more than we’ve had before,” Raine said, interrupting his thoughts.

  “Still not a good enough reason for you to leave the house when you’re ill. Besides,” Trey added, “the Bull ’n’ Bash is a rough place. I’d feel better if you weren’t with me.”

  “I’ve been in dodgy bars before,” Raine told him, her expression stubborn.

  Trey glanced at his watch. “It’s four hours before I leave for Billings. Get some sleep. If you’re feeling better later, we’ll talk about this then.”

  “Fine.” Raine sneezed and shuffled off to her bedroom.

  Trey shook his head and let himself out of her house, closing the door quietly behind him. He didn’t think she was well enough to make the three-hour trip to Billings, let alone spend the evening in a crowded bar, followed by another long drive back home. Besides, the person he was meeting might not have information about their older brother’s death.

  The desire to learn what really happened to Mike that terrible night still burned as hot and strong in Trey as it had all those years ago. If anything, his curiosity to know the truth had grown more intense with time. He had to check out the letter — he couldn’t ignore it. Neither he nor Raine believed Chase McCloud had been responsible for the highway smash that ended Mike’s life. The attorneys hired by Chase’s family had done their best, but he’d been convicted of vehicular manslaughter and, at seventeen, incarcerated in a Montana state juvenile facility for three years.

  Trey had seen him only once in the decade and a half since he and Raine had hidden on the hill and watched the burial of Angus McCloud. During his senior year in high school, he’d heard a rumor Chase was visiting his parents. He’d driven out to the McCloud property and found him alone in the horse barn. But this wasn’t the laughing teenager he remembered, this was an older, harder man. When he’d told Chase he wanted to help him find evidence that would prove to the world he hadn’t killed Mike, Chase had stared at him, his eyes cold as winter.

  He’d never forgotten Chase’s words. Mike’s death is old history, kid. Forget it and get on with your life. You can’t live in the past and you can’t change it.

  He’d tried taking Chase’s advice. But fifteen years after the accident, Trey still wanted to explore any lead that might prove his theory that Lonnie Kerrigan should have been convicted of causing Mike’s death, not Chase, the man who had loved his friend like a brother.

  The injustice nagged at him like a sore tooth.

  The wall thermometer mounted on the corner post of Raine’s porch read ninety-four degrees. Heat shimmered in waves above the concrete sidewalk, the air heavy with the rich fragrance of the roses edging the path. He settled his Stetson lower over his brow, shielding his eyes from the late-afternoon sun that slanted low over the small ranching community of Wolf Creek. Tall old maple trees lined the broad avenues in Raine’s neighborhood of family bungalows, located only ten blocks from Main Street. Within minutes Trey was locking his car in the alley that ran behind the Wolf Creek Saloon and Restaurant, grateful as always that he and Raine, both business owners, had assigned parking slots.

  His apartment above the saloon was cool and dim, the air conditioner humming softly to keep the sweltering heat outside at bay and the interior at a comfortable seventy degrees.

  He dropped his hat and keys on the kitchen counter, checked his machine for phone messages and left almost immediately to jog down the stairs and into the bar through the alley door.

  “How’s Raine feeling?” The bartender wore jeans and a pristine white T-shirt with Wolf Creek Saloon printed across the front, his silver hair military short.

  “Not good, Sam.” Trey joined him behind the long, circa-1880’s polished bar. He dropped ice in a tall glass and filled it with water, which he drained in three swallows, then held it under the spigot again. “I’m sure she has a fever, but she won’t admit it’s anything except a simple cold.”

  “Huh,” Sam grunted. “I suppose she’s insisting she’ll be at work tomorrow?”

  “Yeah.” Trey shook his head. “She’s got to be the most stubborn woman on earth.”

  “She’s got a mind of her own,” Sam agreed. “Always has.”

  Trey leaned his elbows on the gleaming surface of the mahogany counter and swept the room with an assessing gaze. Barely a third of the tables and booths were full and only a quarter of the comfortable bar stools held customers. He knew the relative quiet would quickly disappear when the evening crowd arrived, especially as one of the regular evening-shift waitresses had called in sick. Trey wondered briefly if she was suffering from the same symptoms as Raine. “You think you’ll be okay here tonight with only Sheila and Rocky to help?”

  “We can manage.” Sam winked. “If the crowd gets too rowdy, I’ll hit the panic button and the Sheriff’s Office will send a deputy over to break it up. Don’t worry about us.”

  The possibility of Sam calling the sheriff to break up a fight was so unlikely that Trey had to laugh. “Nevertheless, I hate to leave you short-staffed. If I could, I’d reschedule my meeting.”

  Sam snorted. “Your dad and me ran this place when you and Raine were still in diapers. I think I can manage to keep things ticking over for one night without your help.”

  “Hell, Sam,” Trey said with amused affection. “You could probably run this place single-handed. What was I thinking?”

  “Damned if I know,” the older man grunted in mild affront, but his eyes twinkled. “Once you’re sixty years old, like me, you’ll stop worrying about all this minor stuff.”

  Trey stayed in the saloon for a while, chatting with Sam and the occasional customer, then he left to check in with the restaurant staff and found the busy kitchen functioning smoothly under the guidance of Raine’s assistant, Charlotte. He strolled through the dining room, pausing to say hello to many of the familiar diners, before heading back upstairs to shower and change. Hoping to fade into the crowd at the Bull ’n’ Bash, he purposely chose to wear a plain black Western shirt with pearl snaps, faded Levis, and his favorite black cowboy boots.

  Deciding not to call Raine, within the hour he was driving south from Wolf Creek toward Billings.

  Eleven hours later

  He was lying face-down in a roadside ditch. The half inch of water covering the dirt and gravel beneath him had soaked the front of his shirt and jeans. The tarry smell of hot asphalt, the scent of sun-dried weeds and the sharp bite of sagebrush mixed with the smell of damp earth.

  He stirred, grimacing when his cheek scraped over something hard, cold and wet. Opening his eyes required concentrated effort, and when he lifted his head, pain shafted through his right temple. He squinted, clenching his teeth against the agony, and looked about him.

  He pushed to his hands and knees, swaying as he fought off a wave of dizziness before he stood. Staggering sideways, he struggled to stay upright.

  The hurt in his head was vicious, pounding in time with the beat of his pulse. He brushed his fingers over his forehead, then held his hand inches from his half-closed eyes. Rust-colored blood mingled with traces of bright scarlet on his fingertips.

  “Damn.” The smears were visible proof that the pain wasn’t just from a bad headache. The sore, bruised muscles in the rest of his body made him wonder how long he’d been lying unconscious in the ditch.

  Where the hell am I?

  Shielding his eyes with his hand, against the sun’s rays, he turned carefully, looking up and down the stretch of blacktop. Acres of rolling prairie edged the road on both sides and were lined with barbed-wire fences, but he could see no cattle or horses, not even wild deer or antelope.

  In fact, he realized, he was alone except for a hawk soaring high above him in the cloudless sky. The sun was low on the horizon but its rays were already hot on
his face and hands. Given the clear quality of the light and the dew still beading the coarse roadside grass, he thought it must be early morning, maybe 7:00 or 8:00 a.m.

  He glanced at his wrist to confirm his guess, but instead of his watch he saw only a lighter band of skin against the darker tan of his arm. Frowning, he shoved his hands into his front jeans pockets. They were empty, as were the back ones. The long-sleeved cotton shirt he wore had a breast pocket, but a quick check netted only an empty gum wrapper.

  “Son of a bitch!” he muttered out loud.

  Without thinking, he bent over, wincing at the instant throbbing in his head, and checked the inside of his left cowboy boot. A pocket in the lining held a folded hundred-dollar bill, and an identical compartment in the right one contained a knife. He hefted the balanced weight of the blade, relieved to find something familiar.

  He had the feeling there should have been something else in his pockets but trying to remember what was missing sent shards of pain shafting through his temple. Carefully keeping his head as still as possible, he turned his body until he could see the length of the ditch where he’d been lying. An envelope lay half-hidden in a tuft of flattened rough grass.

  The gravel lining the shallow ditch rolled beneath his feet as he half walked, half slid to reach the bottom and bent to retrieve the paper.

  The envelope was wet and dripped water onto his boots when he picked it up. All that remained of the address were a few damp streaks of smeared blue ink. Only the postmark was legible, half-covering the stamp in the top right corner.

  “Granger, Montana,” he read aloud. The place didn’t seem familiar.

  He slid a single sheet of folded paper from the envelope. The note was typewritten, and the ink unsmudged. “If you want to know what really happened the night your brother died, come to the Bull ’n’ Bash this Friday at midnight.”

  The cryptic sentence did nothing to clear up his confusion.

  Did the letter belong to him? Or was it merely trash, tossed into the ditch from some passing vehicle?