Read Deadly Valentine (Special Releases) Online
Authors: B. J. Daniels
Deadly Valentine (Special Releases) (11 page)
She laughed at the image. ‘‘Randall had to hit him with a wrench. Unfortunately, Oliver regained consciousness before he could strangle to death.’’ She pretended dismay. ‘‘It was downright ugly to watch.’’
‘‘I’ll just bet. But why did you do it?’’ Jack asked.
‘‘I figured once Oliver was dead, that would be the end of the investigation,’’ Mitzy said. ‘‘You know, tie up all those loose ends.’’
Randall had sat down, his hand over his face.
‘‘I meant, why did you kill Peggy? Why not just let Oliver take off with her?’’
Mitzy looked shocked. ‘‘That bastard thought he could leave me for someone like...Peggy?’’ Mitzy sneered. ‘‘I’d spend the rest of my life in prison before I’d let him leave me for
her.
’’
‘‘Be careful what you wish for,’’ Randall said.
‘‘Don’t worry, darling,’’ she replied sweetly. ‘‘Jack can’t prove anything. It would just be my word against his and I’m still a Sanders and the name carries a lot of weight in these parts. Jack can’t prove a thing or he would have brought his
under
sheriff and those two cute deputies of his.’’
‘‘Oh, but I did, Mitzy. Tempest? Deputy Reed?’’
Tempest stepped out, the tape recorder in her hand, Deputy Reed behind her. ‘‘Got it all on tape, including you reading them their rights,’’ Tempest said to him.
Mitzy looked as if she’d been slapped.
‘‘I knew your weakness, too, Mitzy,’’ Jack said to her. ‘‘You just couldn’t stand the thought that you’d pulled this whole thing off and no one might ever know just how amazing you were.’’
‘‘I told you to shut up,’’ Randall said. ‘‘I want an attorney. None of this was my idea. It was all hers and I’ll testify to it,’’ he said, glaring at Mitzy.
‘‘Why, you bastard—after everything I’ve done for you.’’ Mitzy lunged at him, but Jack grabbed her wrist before her hand could reach its mark. He snapped a pair of cuffs on her as Tempest stepped in to cuff Randall.
Deputy Reed took the two into custody, leaving Jack and Tempest alone in the penthouse.
‘‘I suppose River’s Edge will be looking for a new sheriff now,’’ she said studying the chocolates in the heart-shaped box on the coffee table.
At that moment, he realized that he’d never planned to stay. That’s why he hadn’t bothered to look for a place to live other than the motel.
He watched Tempest reach down to pick up a chocolate cream from Mitzy’s box of Valentine’s Day candy. Maybe he could stay around for a while. It wasn’t like he had to be somewhere else. And no matter where he went, a part of Frannie would always be with him.
‘‘I don’t know,’’ he said. ‘‘You and I make a pretty good team. And I’ve always wanted to learn to ski. Maybe it’s not too late.’’
‘‘Just my luck,’’ Tempest said as she popped the chocolate cream into her mouth, her lips closing around it, her eyes fluttering shut. She let out a long satisfied sigh and smiled.
* * * * *
NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY
bestselling author
B.J. DANIELS
takes you into the rugged wilderness of Montana with her thrilling
Montana Hamilton
series:
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“Daniels has succeeded in joining the ranks of mystery masters.”
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Read on for an excerpt of
the latest installment in
The Montana Hamiltons
by
NEW YORK TIMES
bestselling author
B.J. Daniels
Hot-shot reporter Max Malone is on the story behind a decades-old disappearance. The problem is he needs the help of his subject’s daughter, Kat Hamilton. He’s determined to uncover the truth—and if he’s right, it could get them both killed.
CHAPTER ONE
M
AX
M
ALONE SCRATCHED
his shaggy sandy-blond hair and squinted at the sunrise that cast the awe-inspiring Crazy Mountains in a pale pink glow. He’d camped just outside the Hamilton Ranch, sleeping in the back of his pickup and hoping it wouldn’t rain.
He needed a haircut, and he also had a couple days’ growth of beard. All part of the job, he thought as he surveyed the news vans parked outside the Hamilton Ranch gate. There’d been more vans parked here nine months ago when the senator’s first wife had returned from the dead. Now only two vehicles remained, along with a few reporters who drove out some mornings after a hot shower, a latte and a night in a warm bed. Like him, they lived in hope of getting something newsworthy on the days they heard the senator was back from Washington.
Max had met the other reporters and photographers the first day he’d shown up here. They would have looked down their noses at him even if he hadn’t been driving an old pickup and sleeping in the back of it under the camper shell. He was a freelancing investigative journalist, one of a dying breed.
But he had a reputation that preceded him so he hoped he made them all nervous as they worried about what he was up to. Anyone who had ever read his articles would know that this wasn’t his kind of story.
Which meant he might know something they didn’t.
He smiled to himself. Let them wonder. If he was right… Well, he wasn’t going to let himself go down that trail of thought, not yet. He didn’t want to jinx it.
The only one of the news bunch waiting at the ranch gate who’d given him more than a nod was an old-timer newspaper journalist named Harvey Duncan. It was Harvey he stood with this morning at the fence.
“Is it true there are no photographs of Sarah Hamilton except for her high school yearbook and her driver’s license mug shot from years ago?” Max asked about the senator’s first wife, Sarah Johnson Hamilton.
“Rumor is the new wife disposed of all the photos, photos of Sarah, including the wedding photos,” Harvey said and took a gulp of his coffee from a cup that said Big Timber Java on the side.
Just the smell of the coffee was almost enough to send Max hightailing it into town. He could go without food for several days. But coffee, that was a whole other matter.
“Surely someone’s seen her and gotten a recent shot, at least a candid one,” he said as if merely passing time.
Harvey shook his head. “No one knows where she is. She couldn’t move back in here at the ranch after her unexpected return from the dead, not and live with the senator and his current wife. And after the story came out about her…memory loss…” He pulled a face.
No one believed anyone could forget twenty-two years of her life. “I heard all six daughters have scattered to the wind, as well,” Max said.
“So it seems.” Harvey took another drink. “Abandoned the ranch as if it was a sinking ship.”
Hamilton Ranch was far from a sinking ship. Just as Senator Buckmaster Hamilton’s bid for the presidency was a far cry from the disaster everyone had predicted when his dead wife had shown up. He was a front-runner in the polls, and the gracious way he’d handled his first wife’s return had only garnered him more popularity.
“I’ve been struggling to get a bead on Sarah Hamilton. No one seems to know anything about her,” Max said. “With a maiden name like Johnson and a married name like Hamilton, it makes it hard to get much background, other than what is already known about her. Not that she was probably using either name in the past twenty-two years. That is, if she was trying to hide and really didn’t lose her memory.”
Harvey chuckled. If he knew anything, he wasn’t giving it up. Max had used all of his resources and had come up empty, but apparently so had everyone else. Not that anyone in the world would care about the woman if she hadn’t been married to the future president of the United States—if you could believe the polls and he didn’t do anything to screw up before election day.
Still, Max was fascinated by the woman and more than a little curious about what she might be up to. Sarah Johnson had come from a two-parent affluent home with a squeaky clean past. She’d been the golden girl, high school cheerleader, valedictorian and apparently glided through college without making a ripple, coming out with a bachelor of arts degree in literature. She’d married well, had six children and then one winter night for some unknown reason, she’d driven her car into the Yellowstone River. Her body was never found. Because there were no skid marks on the highway, it had looked like a suicide. Foul play had never been suspected.
That was twenty-two years ago. Now she was back—with no memory of those years or why she’d apparently tried to take her own life.
Max wanted this story more than he wanted a hot cup of coffee this morning. Even better would be a current photograph. Right now a photo of the back-from-the-grave Sarah Hamilton would be worth…hell, he could name his price.
At movement down at the ranch house, the reporters and photographers in the vans hopped out and got ready. Word was that the senator had flown in last night for a short visit. He’d been gone for months and only returned for quick visits between his job and his campaigning. Unlike some of the others who hadn’t declared their candidacy yet, Hamilton had jumped into the ring early.
“I think I’m going into town for coffee,” Max announced, even though that wasn’t his plan at all as he walked back to his pickup. While the senator often came and went from the ranch with his current wife, this morning Buckmaster Hamilton was alone as he drove toward the gate.
Max crossed his fingers as he started his pickup. Maybe luck would be with him. He’d tried to follow the man before but had lost him. Buckmaster was a Montana rancher at heart. Being a senator hadn’t changed that. Nor had money. He didn’t own a private jet, he didn’t have a large staff while at the ranch, and he certainly didn’t have a driver. On top of that, the man drove like a bat out of hell and had the luxury of knowing the roads. If that didn’t make it difficult enough to follow him, add the dust that boiled up behind the senator’s SUV. Because of that Max hadn’t seen where the man had disappeared to during his other attempts to follow him.
This morning, while he would have loved to actually go into town for coffee, he was determined to outfox the man. On a hunch, Max took off down the road that led to the old mining town of Beartooth, Montana. If he was wrong and the senator headed the other way, then he still had nothing to lose. He’d go have coffee and breakfast at the Branding Iron. Maybe he’d pick up some gossip he could use.
But as he glanced in his mirror, he saw the senator’s SUV behind him and grinned. He drove slowly like many of the local ranchers, his window down, his elbow out. The smells of fall blew in. He breathed deeply. He’d grown up in California, and this kind of fall was new to him. He loved the scents, as well as the spectacular leaf show the aspens and cottonwoods put on this time of year in Montana against the snow-capped Crazy Mountains backdrop.
He’d been a lot of places over the years with this job that he loved. As an investigative journalist, he got to delve into other people’s lives. It was like digging through their garbage, which admittedly he’d done a few times when the situation necessitated it. And because he freelanced, he didn’t have a boss he had to answer to, either.
Max was going slow enough that he knew the senator would eventually pass him to get out of his dust. Sure enough, Hamilton finally did, blowing past without a sideways glance. Max was betting the man hadn’t noticed him or his old truck parked away from where the other reporters hung out by the ranch fence.
A news van came flying up behind Max. He moved to the middle of the road and ignored the driver blasting his horn. The driver was a hotshot newsman who looked down his nose at him. Let him eat some dust.