Honor Bound
Kitzie shook her head, trying to clear Sawyer from her thoughts. It was a losing battle and had been for some time. She’d fallen for the man. That thought made her chest ache just as it had for months. She loved him, and even though she’d known he didn’t feel the same about her, she’d thought he would eventually.
Fool, she told herself now as she hurried to get dressed for her undercover job overseeing the kitchen for the crew. Sawyer being here was a distraction she didn’t need. She was no closer to solving her case than she had been when she’d hired on. She could feel the clock ticking. The video production company was set to move on in a matter of days. If she was right, the company was a front for the jewel thieves. She just had to prove it.
While other agents were looking into other leads, her gut told her the answer was here. Of the thirty-six mall jewelry stores hit across the country, this production company had been in the area all but one time. The most recent heist had been in St. George, Utah, where Spotlight Images, Inc. had been shooting nearby.
The burglars took only those items that had no serial numbers so were nearly impossible to trace. One of their favorites was a man’s watch known as “the poor man’s Rolex,” which could be resold for five-hundred dollars. The rest of the gold jewelry would be melted down, no doubt.
A security camera had captured three men, all clearly in disguises, before they’d disarmed it. This was another reason she suspected the production crew. They had access to makeup artists and costumes.
They also had access to tools. In one burglary, they had used a battery-powered saw to cut the gate at the jewelry store. So there was some know-how, as well. They knew how to cut power to the store, shutting down the surveillance cameras. From what she’d seen of the small crew, they all seemed pretty capable of doing a variety of jobs.
The thieves had worn gloves, since no fingerprints had been found or any other evidence she could use to pin the heists on these men. So far they had eluded both the police and the FBI.
“Just because they’re handy with tools doesn’t mean they’re jewel thieves,” her partner, Pete Corran, had argued.
“They were in the area for all the heists but one,” she’d argued back.
“Proof, Kitzie. And soon, or we’re going to be pulled off onto something else. I am doing my best to keep an eye on the people who are capable of fencing that much loot. But nothing so far.”
“This shoot will be over in a few days. They’re talking about taking some time off, maybe going south for the winter,” Kitzie had told him. “I’m telling you, they are going to fence the goods here in Montana in a few days. I can...feel it.”
“I’m a believer in your gut instincts, partner, so give me something I can work with.”
She wished she could. She’d been watching the bunch of them, but she hadn’t turned up anything. What if her instincts were off? Her boss thought they were. Since she’d screwed up, and Sawyer had had to save her months ago, she’d felt that her boss didn’t trust her instincts anymore. She had to prove herself.
She needed this arrest because, without Sawyer, all she had was her career, and her boss was getting antsy. No mall jewelry stores had been hit for weeks now. Also, there were no close towns with mall jewelry stores. Either they were taking a break before the holidays or... Or they were here to fence the goods.
So was there a fence in Montana who could handle a major deal? Pete was busy on that end of things. In the meantime, she’d already scoped out the men on the crew who she believed were involved based on the one surveillance video, her experience with men and criminals. She even had a good idea who the leader was. She was putting her money on Gunderson. But she had no proof. Yet.
Now it was just a matter of waiting for the burglars to make a move. The one thing she couldn’t do was let Sawyer distract her. Or worse, blow her cover trying to protect the Hamilton woman.
* * *
SAWYER DIDN’T OPEN the plastic bag in his pocket until he reached his own cabin. He gingerly removed the note he’d found the night before taped to Ainsley’s door.
The handwriting looked hurried, a scrawl of letters that he feared said too much about the writer.
I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you today in the canyon. Please forgive me. I would never hurt you. You are the most precious thing to me.
Sawyer felt a chill as he pulled out his cell phone. He’d seen notes like this before from “fans” who could turn ugly in an instant.
“Any chance of getting some fingerprints run?” he said in the phone when Sheriff Frank Curry answered.
“You’ve already found Ainsley’s stalker?” Frank asked, sounding surprised, before he laughed. “I knew you were the man for the job.”
“We’ll see about that.” He related what had happened the day before. “I do think it was an accident, but she still could have been killed.”
“Maybe he’ll leave her alone now,” Frank said.
“I don’t think so. He’s upset about yesterday, but I don’t think it will deter him, especially if he’s been following her for months. At least now I know that he is out here. He taped the note to her cabin door. That means he isn’t worried about anyone seeing him around the cabins. Also, he had access to paper from a scratch pad like the ones I saw in the main office.”
“You sound more worried,” the sheriff said.
“I was hoping the reason he was following her had something to do with her father and the presidential race.”
“You’ve ruled that out?”
“Not entirely. But I’d rather have a political fanatic than a romantic one. This guy seems a little too desperate that she might not like him after what happened yesterday. I’m anxious to find him and put a stop to this. The commercial will be over in a few days. He’ll be easier to find here than when Ainsley leaves. At least I hope that is the case.”
“Be careful.”
Sawyer laughed. “You know me.”
“That’s what is starting to worry me. You’ve already been injured. I don’t want to see you get killed because of me. What do you think of Ainsley?”
Sawyer thought of her naked in the moonlight. “She’s quite the woman.” He chuckled. “I’ll send the note he left her. I’m betting he was upset enough that he didn’t think to be careful about leaving his prints.”
CHAPTER SIX
“HOW’S YOUR GIRLFRIEND?” Kitzie asked as she sat down next to Sawyer in the kitchen at breakfast. Everyone had already finished and gone back to work, so they had one of the tables to themselves.
He didn’t take the bait. Kitzie knew that Ainsley wasn’t his girlfriend—not that it stopped her from being jealous. “She isn’t feeling so hot today.”
“Really? Must be something going around.”
“Yup,” he said, knowing that Kitzie had purposely gotten Ainsley drunk last night. But he wasn’t about to get into it with her. “Must be.”
She chuckled.
“Thanks for the information you slipped under my door.”
Kitzie glanced toward the back part of the kitchen where both teenagers were supposed to be cleaning up. Instead they were texting on their cell phones. “I did remember something that might help you.” She lowered her voice. “Bobby LeRoy. I’ve seen him watching her. I didn’t think anything about it until you told me what you’re doing here. What caught my attention was that he wasn’t looking at her like a man looks at a woman. He seemed...protective, you know what I mean?”
He considered that. “The security guard, Roderick? He seems a bit odd. Has anyone else been hanging around?”
“Not really. We’re isolated here, so we don’t get many visitors. The hotel owner comes up occasionally. The delivery guy brings up supplies every day or so.” She shrugged. “He’s been trying to butter up to Gunderson, thinks he can get into the movies. Don’t we all?”
He was taking this all in as he finished his breakfast. Bobby LeRoy was young and foolish, from what he’d seen. Roderick? He was something else altogether. So was the wannabe movie star.
“I’m surprised you got a cabin,” Kitzie said, studying him openly. “Murph must have liked the looks of you. I heard she turned down all the other cowboys who came up to audition.”
“Murph?”
“Murphy Hillinger, the woman who hired you.”
“Who has access to the four-wheelers and the horses?”
Kitzie shrugged. “Anyone who needs them.”
“Including security?”
“I believe Roderick patrols the area every night on horseback. If that’s all, I have to get my crew lined out on the lunch menu.” She got to her feet.
He turned to look at her. “Thanks for your help.”
“Anything for an old...friend.” She left, having hardly touched her breakfast. “Good luck.”
* * *
AS LUCK WOULD have it, the first person Ainsley had to deal with this morning was Gunderson.
“The canyon scene isn’t going to work out. I need you to find some other locations we can use, and I need them by noon,” he ordered. “By the way, you look terrible.”
“Thanks.” Her cell phone rang as she was heading for the stables. It was her sister Kat. “Good morning,” she said by way of greeting. “I can’t talk. I need to get saddled up and off to work.”
“You call that work?” Kat said but quickly got to her reason for phoning. “Dad asked me to call and make sure you were going to be home for election night.”
“Mother already called me early this morning to confirm that I would be there. Did she mention to you that there is going to be a party, kind of a celebration of their marriage? Apparently we’re putting it on for them. I said we would help.”
Kat groaned. Besides refusing to call her mother, she still acted suspicious of everything Sarah did. “Whatever,” she said of the party. “Election night we’re all going to be at the Beartooth Fairgrounds, along with a thousand well-wishers and who knows how many crazies who might want the family dead.”
“What are you talking about?” Ainsley asked. “This isn’t about The Prophecy, that anarchist group from the 1970s that you’re convinced our mother was a part of, is it?”
“She was the leader.”
Ainsley rolled her eyes as she entered the stables. Ted was already saddling her horse. He grinned at her and mouthed, “Knew you’d need it this morning.”
She mouthed thank you back.
“Security will be a nightmare, but you know Dad,” Kat was saying. “We’ve all done our best to talk him out of it. The Republican Committee wanted it in the capital in Helena, but Dad wants it here. We should all wear bulletproof vests, not that it would probably do any good since Sarah’s MO is bombs.”
Kat had always been the doomsday negative sister, so it was hard to tell if there really was a security problem or if this was just Kat being Kat. Except since she’d met Max and fallen in love, she’d been more upbeat.
“I’m sure there will be dozens of Secret Service to protect him,” Ainsley said, trying to lighten the conversation. “Let’s just be happy for Dad.”
“There will be a lot of Secret Service, but only because Sheriff Curry insisted on it. You know Dad. He thinks he’s invincible. Frank is calling in local law enforcement as well as the National Guard.”
“So it should be fine.”
“Yep, one big happy family on parade.”
Ainsley knew her sister’s sarcasm stemmed from her problems with their mother and this crazy idea of hers that their mother was some kind of terrorist. “Now that Dad and Mom are married again—”
“I’m not worried about putting on a party for the two of them. There’s a lot you don’t know. Let’s just hope Dad survives election night. Let’s hope we all do. I have to go.”
Ainsley disconnected, her headache pounding. Kat couldn’t forgive their mother for disappearing for twenty-two years from their lives. Since it had only been months after the twins were born, Ainsley had speculated that maybe their mother had been suffering from postpartum depression. Why else would she leave six children and a husband she professed to love to try to kill herself that night in the river?
She sighed. Kat’s problems with their mother aside, what was that about Dad surviving election night? Why did Kat always have to be so dramatic? And what was this about Mother being the leader of The Prophecy? She wondered where Kat got this kind of stuff. As far as Ainsley knew, some of the members had tried to throw their mother under suspicion to hurt their father’s presidential campaign, but it hadn’t worked.
Ainsley wasn’t looking forward to election night either for her own personal reasons. She hated being in the spotlight. But this wasn’t about her. It would be their father’s night. He’d worked hard for this and deserved to have his family by his side when he won the election, which according to the polls, was in the bag.
She felt goose bumps along with a surge of pride. Her father would make a wonderful president. She just hoped it was everything he thought it would be. As for their mother... Just a few more days and she would be home. Then she could decide if Kat’s concerns were valid.
“Good, I’m not too late to catch you.”
She turned to find Kitzie standing in the stables doorway, silhouetting her against the bright October day. “A peace offering,” Kitzie said and held out what looked like a small breakfast burrito wrapped in plastic. “I just ran into Gun, so I know you missed breakfast. Sorry about spiking your tea last night.”
Ainsley took the burrito. “Thank you. Actually, you might have done me a favor last night. Now I’ll never drink again.” They both laughed.
“Well, I’d better get to work,” Kitzie said and turned to leave.
She looked down at the burrito. Just the smell was enough to make her want to barf. “Hungry?” she asked Ted.
His blue eyes lit up. “Always.”
“I thought that might be the case,” she said, and thanked him again for saddling her horse before riding out.
* * *
BUCK STOOD AT the window of another nondescript room in yet another city. He was tired, but he could see the end just days away. Except there was a bone-weariness about him this morning that he couldn’t seem to shake off. He knew it well. It was a feeling of impending disaster. It had been with him now for almost two years—not long before Sarah dropped back into their lives.
He told himself that he was too busy finishing up his campaign to worry. But late at night he would suddenly come out of a deep sleep and sit straight up in bed, terrified for apparently no good reason.
Of course there was a reason. Not that he let himself go down that particular perilous trail during his waking hours.
“This is it, Buck,” Sheriff Curry had said to him the last time he was home. The sheriff had stopped by the ranch and said they should take a walk.
Buck hadn’t wanted to hear whatever it was that Frank wanted to tell him. For more than two years since Sarah had returned, the sheriff had been warning him about Sarah and what Frank feared she was capable of doing.
“The election is only days away,” he’d argued. “Whatever it is you have to tell me—”
“Let’s walk,” Frank had insisted.
When they were out of hearing distance of the house, the sheriff had stopped and turned to him. “We only have a few more days. I’m just concerned about the venue—”
“Sarah isn’t going to do anything.” He’d wished that he’d sounded more convincing. The woman he’d married hadn’t come back. Instead, this different Sarah had returned. Not a bad different necessarily. But definitely an unsettling different.
She was...stronger in some ways. Maybe scarier because of it. Add to that what had been happening since her return from the dead. People had been dying around them and all because of an anarchist group from the 1970s called The Prophecy.
He thought of the pendulum tattoo on Sarah’s buttock. She swore she had no idea how it had gotten there or that she had nothing to do with the group—even though she’d known the members back in college. And it did appear that they had tried to implicate her—and failed.
So why was he so worried during those dark pre-dawn hours?
His campaign manager, Jerrod Williston, came into the room. A bright young man in his mid-thirties with blond hair and blue eyes, Jerrod had proven that he was the best at what he did.
He was on his cell, talking rapidly, but stopped when he saw Buck standing by the window.
“I’ll get back to you,” he said into the phone. Pocketing the cell, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Buck tried to shake off the premonition of disaster. “Just a little tired.”
“It’s Sarah,” Jerrod said with a groan.
“Why do you say that every time?” Buck demanded, instantly annoyed. He’d spent the past two years defending Sarah to not just Jerrod, but also his daughters and everyone else, including the sheriff.
“Because every time it is Sarah. What has she done now? I thought all was well. Married, living in the main house on the ranch, none of the six daughters causing trouble. What could be wrong with Sarah now?” Jerrod sounded as testy as Buck felt.
“Nothing is wrong with her. I was just resting for a minute.” He’d never been a good liar. “Okay, maybe since the sheriff is worried about election night,” he sighed, “well, then, I guess maybe I should be, too.”
Jerrod shook his head. “Your sheriff has called in the National Guard as well as local law enforcement and Secret Service agents. The only way to make you safer is to move the venue. You want to do that?”
His campaign manager knew he didn’t. “No. Like I said, everything is fine.” He worked up a smile. “If anything, it’s the realization that this is almost over, and a whole other lifetime of dramas is about to begin.”
The younger man laughed. “That’s more like it, Mr. President.”
“Not yet. Don’t jinx it.”
Jerrod made a mocking face. “You got this one. It isn’t even going to be a close race. So relax. A few more days. You up to it?”
Buck straightened, fixed his tie and nodded as Jerrod began to go over his schedule for the last hours up until the election. He half listened, the rest of his mind back on Sarah.
The sheriff was convinced that something was going to happen election night. Buck tried to reassure himself. At least he didn’t have to wonder much longer if his wife would try to kill him.
* * *
SARAH JOHNSON HAMILTON found herself wandering around the huge rambling two-story house feeling empty. Her phone call to her daughter Ainsley had left her feeling a little better. But ultimately her children didn’t know her. She’d lost them, just as she’d lost those missing twenty-two years from her memory.
Since her return from the dead, she had wanted desperately to be back here in this home that she’d shared with Buck and her children. But it felt...strange after all the years she’d been gone. It also felt...temporary since after Buck won the election, they would be living in the White House.
But she knew that wasn’t the only reason she felt out of sorts. During the twenty-two years she’d been presumed dead, her children had all grown up. Now they were all busy with their own lives—lives that had little to do with her. She couldn’t blame them. The younger ones had no memory of her. Her six beautiful daughters had turned out fine without her. Probably better than if she had been here, she thought miserably.
Worse, her secret would be coming out soon—unless she did something. Exhausted and anxious after being on the campaign trail for months, she had begged off Buck’s one last swing through the worrisome states, and returned home.
Buck had been disappointed, but his campaign manager, Jerrod Williston, had said it was exactly what she should do.
“I think it would be smart for you to do some charity events back in Montana these last few weeks before the election,” Jerrod had said. “In fact, I’ve already scheduled one for you.”
She’d started to argue that she didn’t want to do any more of them right now since she knew they had nothing to do with Buck being elected. She suspected that Jerrod just wanted to keep her busy and out of trouble.
“Just one, I promise,” he said. “You need to rest up. Things will get crazy by election night.”
She had laughed at that, fearing how crazy it could get. That and her secret were what kept her awake in the wee hours of the morning. For so long she’d felt trapped, unable to change what she feared was coming until she got all of her memory back. She’d been waiting now for weeks to hear from the one man who could give her the final piece of her memory, Dr. Ralph Venable.
As she moved restlessly through the huge house, she was terrified. Terrified he wouldn’t call. Terrified he would. Dr. Venable had been experimenting with brain-wiping for years. Until recently, she wasn’t sure she believed he had wiped her mind of Buck and the kids all those years ago.
But then she’d seen what he could do. Now she lived in fear of the day he would show up and give her back the rest of her memories—including the one she didn’t want.
After disappearing for twenty-two years and not being able to remember any of it, she’d been petrified of what she’d done those missing years. But as it turned out, it wasn’t those years that she had to worry about. It was her college ones and what she’d done that had now come back to haunt her. How had she gotten involved with an anarchist group that thought they could change the world by bombing buildings and killing innocent people? The answer was love. Or was it lust?
A charismatic handsome young man named Joe Landon must have seen how vulnerable the bright-eyed, innocent Sarah Johnson had been. She’d fallen for him—and his cause, becoming a co-leader of the group for a while. Worse, she’d been told that she had been the true leader of the group, The Prophecy. Since then, though, Joe had taken back over, and, as her scorned former lover, he was determined to pull Sarah in again or die trying.
Sarah stopped in front of a mirror and stared at her reflection. Often she didn’t recognize herself. When you thought you were twenty-two years younger than you were, it messed with your mind.
In the mirror, a blonde, blue-eyed fifty-nine-year-old woman stared back at her. She was still in good shape, still felt no more than thirty-seven, still believed she could do anything. Just as she had in college, she reminded herself with a tremor.
Her fear was that Joe Landon had something big planned for election night. She imagined a huge explosion that would kill them all once the polls were in and Buck had won.
She’d once believed that killing herself would save her family from ever knowing about The Prophecy and her part in it. Failing that, she’d disappeared for twenty-two years only to return with no memory of The Prophecy or the missing years.
But slowly, it was all coming back, thanks to Dr. Venable and Joe’s determination that she would be the woman she’d once been—an anarchist who went by the name of Red. She’d even dyed her hair red, according to the photographs Dr. Venable, or Doc as he was known back then, had shown her of the group.
When she’d realized that Joe and The Prophecy were using her to get to Buck and the presidency, she’d decided to stop them by confessing all to Buck and the sheriff. But Joe, knowing her...intimately, had seen that coming and threatened her daughters to stop her.
Joe had also put a man she loved in the hospital in a coma. Russell Murdock had befriended her when she’d returned to find the life she’d left gone. Buck had remarried, her children didn’t know her, and she didn’t even know this older version of herself.
Russell had been the only one she could trust, the only one she could lean on. He’d also been the one who’d found out the truth about her memory loss and its tie-in to the anarchist group pulling her strings like a puppeteer.
And look what The Prophecy had done to him. Even if he came out of his coma after he’d been attacked, the doctor didn’t have much hope that Russell would ever recover.
No wonder she was terrified. Election night loomed. Her six daughters would be coming home, so they could all be together when their father gave his acceptance speech. When she’d called Ainsley, she’d hoped she would say she couldn’t make it home for election night. But of course all six of Buck’s daughters planned to be there.