Hard Rain. B.J. Daniels

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СКАЧАТЬ neither her astonishing return from the dead nor Angelina’s death in a car accident four months ago had derailed Buck’s propulsion toward the presidency. Instead, the polls had him rising even higher seemingly because of it.

      Where Sarah fit into it, though, was still to be decided.

      “It’s too early for us to announce that we’re getting back together,” Buck had said. “But I have my staff ready to put a spin on our reunion as soon as it is time.” Jerrod Williston was his campaign manager. She’d never met him, but she knew from what Buck had said that he didn’t approve.

      “I’ll keep after Jerrod,” Buck had told her. “He always comes down on the cautious side in these things. But it won’t be long, I promise,” he’d said as he’d taken her in his arms. “We will be together as husband and wife in the White House.”

      Sarah had tried to see herself there with him and couldn’t, and that frightened her. Sometimes, like now, alone in the middle of the huge ranch Buck had built, she thought she should have married Russell. He had promised her a “normal” life. Isn’t that what she’d always wanted?

      Outside, she saw with growing concern that a storm was rolling in. Dark clouds shrouded the Crazies, as the locals called the massive mountain range. The wind wailed, making the tree limbs lash the house. She shuddered at the thought of another thunderstorm like the one from a few nights before.

      She’d always hated storms—just like her daughter Bo had when she was young. Russell knew how she hated the thunder and lightning, the unrelenting rain. He would never have left her alone with a storm coming in. Not that Buck could have come to her even if he’d been in town. He was at some caucus or other and not expected back for days.

      Her phone rang. She hurriedly pulled it out, hoping it was Russell. She needed to hear his voice, to know he was all right, to be assured that he had forgiven her for hurting him. Forgiven Buck for drawing her back.

      Russell was determined that the reason she’d tried to kill herself all those years ago was because of something unforgivable that Buck had done, something she’d pushed into the dark recesses of her memory, unable to face it. Or worse, Russell had a crazy theory that Buck had somehow had her brain purposely “wiped” so she couldn’t remember.

      Russell’s hatred of Buck scared her. Her fear was that she’d changed the loving, caring man and that now he might do something crazy in an ill-conceived attempt to save her from Buck.

      She glanced at the phone, saw who was calling and felt a rush of guilty disappointment that she quickly smothered. It was her daughter Harper calling. The only one of her six daughters who had reached out to her.

      * * *

      SHERIFF FRANK CURRY shoved back his Stetson and gazed up the hillside. He was a big strong man, even now that he was in his midsixties, with a gunfighter mustache that was more gray than blond anymore.

      Earlier, he’d been having lunch with his wife, Lynette, on a picnic table outside the Beartooth General Store when he’d gotten the call.

      “One of these days we’re going to get through a meal without being interrupted,” he’d said as he’d tossed his half-eaten sandwich into the small brown bag.

      “And you would be bored to tears and driving me crazy,” Lynette had said. She’d said it jokingly, but there was underlying worry in her expression.

      He’d been threatening retirement but hadn’t been able to quit just yet. There was one case—not even an official one—that he couldn’t leave until he saw it through to the end. But after that...

      The return of Sarah Johnson Hamilton from the grave had been like a pebble thrown into a quiet pond. The ripples just kept getting bigger. He knew he was waiting, all his instincts telling him there was more to her return. The fact that her former husband was running for president only made him more concerned.

      But when he’d had the FBI look into it, they had found nothing that threw up any red flags for them. Some people saw Sarah as a nutcase. Others were convinced she’d been suffering from postpartum depression after giving birth to the twins. Still, it left a lot of unanswered questions.

      Unfortunately, Frank was left to worry alone. Now standing at the bottom of a hillside on Hamilton Ranch, Frank had a bad feeling that this was another ripple that eventually would be like a tsunami, threatening to drown the entire community, if not the country.

      “I figure that gully washer of a storm we had the other night loosened the soil up on the hilltop,” Undersheriff Dillon Lawson was saying. “The old wooden casket swept right down the hill to end up broken open in the pines.”

      Frank nodded in agreement at Dillon’s assessment as he shifted his gaze to the corpse. He’d seen photographs of mummified bodies, but this was his first in the flesh. The skin was dark and hard, stretched over the bones in a gruesome grimace. The victim had shrunk to skin and bones, her clothing pooling around the shriveled torso and limbs.

      What made the sight even more ghastly was the long hair still attached to the skull. Now, covered with mud, the woman’s hair lay in muddy waves above her.

      “This is remarkable,” Coroner Charlie Brooks said as he knelt next to the corpse. “I’ve never seen one preserved quite this well. The body had apparently been buried in this wooden box, which kept it from animals, but the fact that it didn’t decompose...” He scratched his head. “Remarkable.”

      Frank thought about what a shock it must have been for Harper Hamilton and Brody McTavish when they’d found it. He’d taken both of their statements after getting the call and rushing to the scene. While the two had come by horseback, he and Dillon had taken an old logging road that ended at the top of the hillside—and the original burial site, given the hole left there.

      Brody had assured him that they hadn’t touched anything. “We called as soon as we saw what it was.”

      Harper had been visibly upset. “Who is it?” she’d asked in a whisper.

      “We don’t know yet, but it appears to be an old grave,” he’d told her.

      “So, not anyone we might know,” she’d said, sounding relieved.

      “More than likely not,” Frank had said, though he couldn’t be sure of that until after Charlie did his job. Unfortunately, he had his own suspicions. He just hoped he was wrong.

      “You’re both free to go, but we’re going to treat this area as a crime scene until we know more,” he’d told them.

      “What would make it mummify like that?” Dillon asked Charlie now.

      “Probably a variety of things. There are two kinds of mummies, anthropogenic, those created by the living, and spontaneous, which are created unintentionally due to natural conditions. I’d say this one is spontaneous.”

      “Spontaneous?” Dillon asked.

      Charlie looked up from his inspection of the corpse. “The internal organs are removed from the anthropogenic mummies and chemicals are used to preserve the bodies. Spontaneous ones have occurred in extreme heat or cold or conditions such as those found in bogs.”

      “This certainly isn’t a bog,” Dillon pointed out.

      “True,” СКАЧАТЬ