Hard Rain. B.J. Daniels

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СКАЧАТЬ to his advisers on what else needed to be done, he glanced at his phone to make sure it wasn’t one of his daughters calling. When he saw that it was the sheriff calling from Montana, he excused himself and took the call out in the hallway.

      “Frank?” he said into the phone. “What’s wrong?”

      “Nothing to do with your daughters,” he told the senator quickly. They’d had a lot of calls like this lately. Buckmaster’s only concern had always been the same. Were his girls all right? “I’m sure you’ve heard about the recent...incident on your ranch from Harper.”

      “Incident?” He had talked to Sarah earlier but only briefly. When he’d told her he was in a staff meeting, she’d said it was nothing and he’d promised to call her later.

      “Harper didn’t tell you about the remains she and Brody McTavish found on the ranch?”

      “I haven’t spoken with Harper. What’s this about remains? On my ranch?” His first thought was a homeless person traveling through on the rails.

      “I wanted to give you a heads-up,” Frank was saying. “Based on what she was wearing when she disappeared and other evidence, the remains appear to be Margaret McTavish’s. We’ll know more after the autopsy.”

      Buckmaster blinked a couple of times. At first the name rang no bells. Then it hit him. Maggie. Maggie McTavish. He swore silently. “I don’t understand.” But he feared he did.

      “She’d been buried in a wooden box on that hillside next to the McTavish place. Buck...” Just the use of his first name by the sheriff told him the news was about to get worse. “We’re investigating this as a homicide. As a professional courtesy, I wanted to call you myself. We should have a positive ID soon. But you know me well enough that I don’t believe I have to tell you I intend to find her murderer, no matter where that trail leads.”

      He didn’t hear anything Frank said for a few seconds. Maggie McTavish. Murdered... Buried on Hamilton Ranch...? Dear God, no.

      “...so I’m going to need to talk to you, and Sarah, as well.”

      Buckmaster shook his head as what the sheriff was saying finally registered. Frank was warning him. He swore again. What was the point of an investigation? There wasn’t a person in the county who wouldn’t have already dug his father up and hanged him for the murder. “Sarah and I don’t know anything. That was years ago.”

      “Thirty-five this fall,” Frank agreed. “But with most everyone else who was connected with Maggie gone...”

      “You mean with my father dead.” He leaned against the hallway wall and closed his eyes. “You can’t believe that he had anything to do with this.” Even as he said it, though, he realized how little he had known about his father. Maybe JD Hamilton had a side that he’d kept hidden from all of them.

      “Quite frankly, I don’t know what to believe.”

      “How was it that her body turned up now?” he demanded. With him so close to winning the primary election, it felt as if his opponents had to have literally dug this up.

      “We had a bad storm the other night. The body had been buried in a wooden box up on a hill near the fence between the properties. The rain must have loosened the earth... Harper happened to be riding her horse in the area when—”

      “Wait.” Buckmaster opened his eyes and pushed off the wall. “You say my daughter found the body?”

      “She and Brody McTavish.”

      “What the hell were those two doing together?” The words were out before he could call them back. He heard a door open.

      “You’ll have to ask your daughter,” the sheriff said.

      One of his advisers motioned that they were waiting on him.

      “I’ll do that. In the meantime, you’ll keep me informed on your investigation.”

      “Of course. Are you planning to be home soon?” Frank said quickly, as if hearing in Buckmaster’s voice that he was anxious to get off the line. “I really do need to talk to you. I’ll call Sarah—”

      He didn’t want the sheriff talking to Sarah alone. “I’ll fly home. Don’t bother Sarah with this until I get there.” Silence. “She doesn’t know anything anyway.” When the sheriff still didn’t say anything, he swore. “No matter what you suspect about my...” He almost said wife, but he caught himself before he did. Even though he thought of her as his wife, he and Sarah weren’t married. Not yet anyway. “Sarah, she isn’t strong.”

      “Like your mother,” Frank said.

      Buckmaster could hear in the silence that followed that the sheriff hadn’t meant to say that. “My mother is a suspect, as well as my father?” He swore.

      “Everyone is a suspect until I find out who killed her. Call me when you get in,” Frank said.

      Buckmaster disconnected and started back toward his meeting. His stomach roiled. He straightened his tie and reached for the doorknob. For years he’d been following in his father’s footsteps. First senator, now a candidate for president...

      His father’s damned legacy, he thought with a bitter laugh. He’d thought any secrets had been buried with JD. What did you do, Dad? What the hell did you do?

      * * *

      STILL REELING FROM the morning she’d had, Harper called the one person she’d always been able to count on—her older sister Ainsley. She quickly told her about their gruesome discovery.

      “Oh, Harper, I am so sorry. Are you all right?” Her sister had quit law school to find locations for movie sites in Montana. Their father hadn’t been happy about it, Harper had heard that much at least on the family grapevine. But Ainsley seemed happy and swore it was only temporary.

      “It was awful, but I’m okay. I’m just glad Brody was there.”

      She heard a smile in her sister’s voice. “I am, too.” They fell silent for a moment. “Do they know whose body it is?”

      “The sheriff said they won’t know anything definite until the autopsy,” Harper told her.

      “So it could have been there for years?”

      “Apparently it was. You should have seen it,” she said. “It was the creepiest thing I have ever seen. I haven’t told Dad. Mother wanted to do it. I don’t know if she was going to wait until we knew something definite or not.”

      “Probably a good idea. No reason to upset him until she has all of the facts,” Ainsley agreed. “He has enough going on. I’m sure if there is something to worry about, the sheriff will let him know.”

      Harper thought about that. “I had a visitor when I returned today. Ariel Crenshaw, the sister of the private investigator Angelina hired to dig up something on Mother.”

      Ainsley groaned. “Angelina. That woman, rest her soul. Why would the PI’s sister come by to talk to you?”

      “She’s looking into her sister’s death. She said some members СКАЧАТЬ