Charade

by Sandra Brown

  “And about what I did…” He turned his head and gazed out to sea for a long moment before coming back to her. “There was never any closure to my life with Amanda. I never got to apologize for being such a selfish bastard and not marrying her. Never got to say thanks for all the times she listened to me bitch about my troubles. Never got to grieve with her over the loss of our son.”

  He closed his eyes as though willing her to understand. Then he looked at her bleakly, all cockiness and self-assurance gone. “I never got to say goodbye, Cat. I wanted to tell her goodbye.”

  “I understand,” she said huskily. “In fact, I think I’m very lucky to be loved by a man who has loved so well before.”

  He folded her hands between his and raised them to his lips. “Can you forgive me?”

  “I love you.”

  He bent his head to kiss her, but caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see a young woman approaching.

  “Oh, Sarah, you’re back,” Cat said. “Did you enjoy your walk?”

  “Very much. It’s beautiful here.”

  The slender woman gazed at Alex tentatively from beneath the wide brim of her hat. She had on jeans and sneakers and a Bruins sweatshirt. The sleeves covered her arms to her wrists. Her hair was straight and dark. She had large, coffee-colored eyes.

  “Sarah Choate,” Cat said, taking her arm and drawing her forward. “This is Alex Pierce. Alex, Sarah’s a devoted fan of yours.”

  “I always enjoy meeting a fan. Hello, Sarah. It’s a pleasure.”

  “Likewise,” she replied breathlessly.

  He indicated her sweatshirt. “Are you a student at UCLA?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m an English major.”

  “Terrific. What year?”

  “Sophomore.”

  “Sarah’s too modest to tell you that she’s a genius,” Cat said. “She’s written several award-winning stories and has had them published.”

  “I’m impressed,” he said. “Congratulations.”

  She blushed to the roots of her hair. “Thank you. But I’ll never be as good as you.”

  “Do you write fiction?”

  “Nonfiction mostly.”

  Cat said, “Actually, she’s written several critically acclaimed articles on her experiences as a heart transplantee.”

  Alex, who’d obviously been basking in the girl’s hero worship, suddenly tensed. His gaze swung from Sarah to Cat, then back to Sarah, who was now looking up at him through a veil of tears.

  “Thank you so much.” The rushing sounds of surf and wind muffled her words, but Cat and Alex could easily read her lips, as well as her expressive eyes.

  She grabbed Alex’s hand and clasped it tightly. “I’m sorry about Amanda and your baby son. Cat told me the hell you went through when you lost them.

  “But thank you for making the decision you did. I mean, I know that Amanda had specified on her driver’s license that she wished to be an organ donor, but you made good her intentions. Without her heart, I would have died. I owe you my life and can never thank you enough. Never.”

  Cat held her breath, uncertain what his response would be.

  He searched the girl’s eyes for a moment, then laid his wide hand over the center of her chest. She didn’t recoil. Instead, she smiled.

  When she did, he pulled her into his arms. They embraced for several long minutes, rocking back and forth while the wind whipped around them. When at last he released her, his voice was gruff, his eyes suspiciously wet. “Amanda would be very pleased with you. Extremely pleased.”

  “Thank you,” she replied, licking tears off her lips. “For a long time, I didn’t want to know anything about my donor or the family. I felt the same as Cat about it. She still doesn’t know, and doesn’t want to.

  “But, not too long ago, I changed my mind. I can’t explain why. All of a sudden I felt very strongly that I should look up the person responsible for my new heart and say thank you. So I asked the organ bank for information. I was awaiting word when Dr. Spicer contacted me.

  “He explained that the situation was rather unusual, but asked if I would speak with Cat before meeting my donor family. Of course I knew who she was, I said, sure, I’d love to meet her!

  “I was really astonished when they told me that my favorite fiction writer was…well…you know. Cat asked me to stay a few days with her. We’ve had long talks. She explained everything that happened. She said she didn’t think you’d mind if she told me the story about you and Amanda.”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t mind. In fact, I’m very glad we found you, Sarah. It has more significance than you know.”

  He looked at Cat in a way that made her breath catch in her throat. He slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to his side.

  Sarah must have sensed that she was now a fifth wheel. “Well, I think it’s time I left,” she said with a knowing smile. “Dr. Spicer promised to drive me back to campus before he’s due at the hospital.”

  She looked at Alex shyly. “I think it was intended that we meet, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Would you mind if I wrote to you every now and then? I won’t bug you or anything, I promise. I just thought—”

  “If you don’t stay in touch, I’ll be terribly disappointed. Amanda would be, too. She’d want us to be friends.”

  Sarah’s radiant smile came straight from her heart.

  They watched as she made her way up the steps to the deck, where she paused to wave before entering the house.

  “She’s wonderful,” he said.

  “I thought you’d like her.”

  “It sounds crazy, but I wish Amanda could meet her.”

  “It doesn’t sound crazy at all.”

  He turned to face her and clasped her shoulders. “Thank you.”

  “I did it for me, too, Alex. I had to know who you really love.”

  “You know who I love,” he whispered.

  He kissed her, his mouth open and warm, receiving and giving, full of promise and expectation.

  When at last they pulled apart, and before they began another kiss, she took a moment to adore him—the angles of his face, the unruliness of his dark hair, the irregular shape of his eyebrow. And in his eyes she saw love.

  “Amanda has my gratitude,” she said.

  He cocked his head in puzzlement. “She didn’t have anything to do with your heart.”

  “But she had quite a lot to do with yours.”

  About the Author

  Sandra Brown is the author of over sixty New York Times bestsellers, including most recently Low Pressure; Lethal; Rainwater; Tough Customer; Smash Cut; Smoke Screen; Play Dirty; Ricochet; Chill Factor; White Hot; Hello, Darkness; The Crush; Envy; The Switch; The Alibi; Unspeakable; and Fat Tuesday, all of which jumped onto the New York Times list in the numbers one to five spots. There are over eighty million copies of Sandra Brown’s books in print worldwide and her work has been translated into thirty-four languages. In 2008, Brown was named Thriller Master by the International Thriller Writers Association, the organization’s top honor. She currently lives in Texas. For more information you can visit www.SandraBrown.net.

  Journalist Dawson Scott knows well the horrors of war.

  But when he investigates a pair of domestic terrorists, his true ordeal begins…

  Please turn this page for a preview of Deadline.

  Prologue

  Golden Branch, Oregon—1976

  The first hail of bullets was fired from the house shortly after daybreak at 6:57.

  The gunfire erupted in response to the surrender demand issued by a team of law enforcement agents.

  It was a gloomy morning. The sky was heavily overcast and there was dense fog. Despite the limited visibility, one of the fugitives inside the house got off a lucky shot that took out a deputy U.S. marshal whom everybody called Turk.

  Gary Headly had met the marshal only the day before, shortly after the law enforcement team compri
sed of ATF and FBI agents, sheriff’s deputies, and U.S. marshals met for the first time to discuss the operation. They’d congregated around a map of the area known as Golden Branch, reviewing obstacles they might encounter. Headly remembered another marshal saying, “Hey, Turk, grab me a Coke while you’re over there, will ya?”

  Headly didn’t learn Turk’s actual name until later, much later, when they were mopping up. The bullet struck half an inch above his Kevlar vest, tearing out most of his throat. He dropped without uttering a sound, dead before landing in the pile of wet leaves at his feet. There was nothing Headly could do for him except offer up a brief prayer and remain behind cover. To move was inviting death or injury, because, once the gunfire started, the open windows of the house spat bullets relentlessly.

  The Rangers of Righteousness had an inexhaustible arsenal. Or so it seemed that wet and dreary morning. The second casualty was a redheaded, twenty-four-year-old deputy sheriff. A puff of his breath in the cold air gave away his position. Six shots were fired. Five found the target. Any one of three would have killed him.

  The team had planned to take the group by surprise, serve their arrest warrants for a laundry list of felonies, and take them into custody, engaging in a firefight only if necessary. But the vehemence with which they were fired upon indicated that the criminals had taken a fight-to-the-death stance.

  After all, they had nothing to lose except their lives. Capture meant imprisonment for life or the death penalty for each of the seven members of the domestic terrorist group. Collectively the six men and one woman had chalked up twelve murders and millions of dollars’ worth of destruction, most of it inflicted on federal government buildings or military installations. Despite the religious overtone of their name, they were wholly without conscience or constraint. Over the relatively short period of two years, they had made themselves notorious, a scourge to law enforcement agencies at every level.

  Other such groups imitated the Rangers, but none had achieved their level of effectiveness. In the criminal community, they were revered for their audacity and unmatched violence. To many who harbored antigovernment sentiments, they had become folk heroes. They were sheltered and were provided with weapons and ammunition as well as with leaked classified information. This underground support allowed them to strike hard and fast and then to disappear and remain well hidden while they planned their next assault. In communiques sent to newspapers and television networks, they’d vowed never to be taken alive.

  It had been a stroke of sheer luck that had brought the law down on them in Golden Branch.

  One of their arms suppliers, who was well-known to the authorities for his criminal history, had been placed under surveillance for suspicion of an arms deal unrelated to the Rangers of Righteousness. He had made three trips to the abandoned house in Golden Branch over the course of that many weeks. A telephoto lens had caught him talking to a man later identified as Carl Wingert, leader of the Rangers.

  When this was reported to the FBI, ATF, and U.S. Marshals Service, the agencies immediately sent personnel, who continued to monitor the illegal weapons dealer, and, upon his return from a visit to Golden Branch, he was arrested.

  It took three days of persuasion, but, under advice of counsel, he made a deal with the authorities and gave up what he knew about the people holed up inside the abandoned house. He’d only met with Carl Wingert. He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—say who was sequestered with Wingert or how long they planned to harbor there.

  Fearing that if they didn’t move swiftly, they’d miss their opportunity to capture one of the FBI’s Most Wanted, the federal agents enlisted help from the local authorities who also had outstanding warrants for members of the group and were more familiar with the rugged terrain. The team was assembled and the operation planned.

  But it became immediately obvious to each member of the team that Wingert’s band had meant what they’d said about choosing death over capture. The Rangers of Righteousness wanted to secure their place in history. There would be no laying down of arms, no hands raised, no peaceful surrender.

  The lawmen were pinned down behind trees or vehicles, and all were vulnerable. Even a flicker of motion drew gunfire, and members of the Rangers had proven themselves to be excellent shots.

  The team commander radioed the operations post, requesting that a helicopter be sent to provide them air cover, but that idea was nixed because of the inclement weather.

  Special Ops teams from local, state, and federal agencies were mobilized, but they would be driving to Golden Branch, and the roads weren’t ideal even in good weather. The team was told to stand by and to fire only in self-defense while men in safe, warm offices debated changing the rules of engagement to include using deadly force.

  “They’re playing patty-cake because one of them is a woman,” the commander groused. “And God forbid we violate these killers’ civil rights. Nobody admires or respects us, you know,” he muttered to Headly, who was the rookie of the team.

  “We’re feds, and even before Watergate, ‘government’ had become a dirty word. The whole damn country is going to hell in a handbasket, and we’re out here freezing our balls off, waiting for some bureaucrat to tell us it’s okay to blast these murdering thugs to hell and back.”

  He had a military background and a decidedly hawkish viewpoint, but nobody, especially not he, wanted a bloodbath that morning.

  Nobody got what they wanted.

  While the reinforcements were still en route, the Rangers amped up their firepower. An ATF agent took a bullet in the thigh, and from the way it was bleeding it was feared his femoral artery had suffered damage, the extent of which was unknown, but on any scale that was life-threatening.

  The commander reported this with a spate of obscenities about their being picked off one by effing one unless…

  He was given the authorization to engage. With their assault rifles and one submachine gun, in the hands of the wounded ATF agent, they went on the offensive. The barrage lasted for seven minutes.

  Return fire from the house decreased, then became sporadic. The commander ordered a cease-fire. They waited.

  Suddenly, a man bleeding from several wounds, including a head wound, charged through the front door, screaming invectives and spraying rounds from his own submachine gun. It was a suicidal move, and he knew it. His reason for doing it would soon become apparent.

  When the agents ceased firing, and their ears stopped ringing, they realized that the house had fallen eerily silent except for a loose shutter that clapped against an exterior wall whenever the wind caught it.

  After a tense sixty seconds, the commander said, “I’m going in.” He levered himself up into a crouch as he replaced his spent cartridge with a fresh one.

  Headly did the same. “I’m with you.”

  Other team members stayed in place. After checking to see that they were loaded and ready, the commander crept from behind his cover and began running toward the house. Headly, with his heart tightly lodged in his throat, followed.

  They ran past the body sprawled on the wet earth, took the steps up to the sagging porch, and then stood on either side of the gaping doorway, weapons raised. They waited, listening. Hearing nothing, the commander hitched his head and Headly barged in.

  Bodies. Blood on every surface, the stench of it strong. Nothing was moving.

  “Clear,” he shouted and stepped over a body on his way into an adjacent room, a bedroom with only a ratty mattress on the floor. In the center of it, the ticking was still wet with a nasty stain.

  In less than sixty seconds from the time Headly had breached the door, they confirmed that five people were dead. Four bodies were found inside the house. The fifth was the man who’d died in the yard. They were visually identified as known members of the Rangers of Righteousness.

  Conspicuously missing from the body count were Carl Wingert and his lover, Flora Stimel, the only woman of the group. There was no sign of the two of them except for a trail of blood leading
away from the back of the house into the dense woods where tire tracks were found in the undergrowth. They had managed to escape, probably because their mortally wounded confederate had sacrificed himself, taking fire at the front of the house while they sneaked out the back.

  Emergency and official vehicles quickly converged on the area. With them came the inevitable news vans, which were halted a mile away at the turnoff from the main road. The house and the area immediately surrounding it were sealed off so evidence could be collected, photos and measurements taken, and diagrams drawn before the bodies were removed.

  Those involved realized that a thorough investigation of the incident would follow. Every action they’d taken would have to be explained and justified, not only to their superiors but also to a cynical and judgmental public.

  Soon the derelict house was filled with people, each doing a specialized job. Headly found himself back in the bedroom, standing beside the coroner, who was sniffing at the stain on the soiled mattress. To Headly, it appeared that someone had peed in addition to bleeding profusely. “Urine?”

  The coroner shook his head. “I believe it’s amniotic fluid.”

  Headly thought surely he’d misheard him. “Amniotic fluid? Are you saying that Flora Stimel—”

  “Gave birth.”

  Look for These Thrilling Sandra Brown Novels!

  Low Pressure

  Lethal

  Mirror Image

  Where There’s Smoke

  Charade

  Exclusive

  Envy

  The Switch

  The Crush

  Fat Tuesday

  Unspeakable

  The Witness

  The Alibi

  Standoff

  Best Kept Secrets

  Breath of Scandal

  French Silk

  LOOK FOR SANDRA BROWN’S THRILLERS