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 of an anarchist group called The Prophecy were connected to both Angelina’s death and that of her sister, the private investigator Angelina hired to look into Mother’s past. Did you know about this?”
“No. Angelina thought Mother was involved with this group?”
“Apparently. She hired the PI to find out something about Mother’s college years, in particular, the late seventies.”
Ainsley was quiet for a long moment. “That is odd.”
“I can’t believe we didn’t hear something about this.”
“There must not have been anything to it,” Ainsley said. “So, was it nice seeing Brody again?”
* * *
SARAH HEARD SOMETHING in Buck’s voice when he called to tell her he’d already heard the news about Maggie McTavish. She braced herself. With the primaries coming up, she knew the kind of stress he was under. He didn’t need this. Worse, he didn’t have anyone he could lean on in DC.
She couldn’t be with him and that worried her. The problem was that she knew Buck only too well. He was already having second thoughts about his run for president. With this latest news, he would start having even more doubts. He could still pull out before the primaries. She couldn’t let that happen. Somehow, she had to give him the strength to continue, because she knew how much the country needed him. And how much he needed this, even if he was starting to question it.
“I’m flying in tomorrow morning. Meet me at the airport,” he said to her surprise. “It will give us extra time to talk. I can’t stay away long.”
“I thought you were in meetings with your advisers for the next few days?” That he wanted her to meet him at the airport was odd. He always left his SUV at the airport. Unlike a lot of politicians, he didn’t have a staff car or hire limos to take him places. He drove himself because, at heart, he was a Montana rancher. No private jet. No driver. No expenses that would raise eyebrows from his constituents.
“What’s this about a body Harper found on the ranch? I assume that’s why you called me earlier.”
“I didn’t want to upset you and since there is nothing you can do here—”
Buck swore. “Frank says the remains are Maggie McTavish’s. He wants to question the two of us in connection with murder.”
Something hard and cold settled in her stomach. “Question us? About what?”
“What the hell do you think?” he snapped. “I knew all this was going to come back someday and bite me in the ass, but I never expected this. Pick me up at the airport. We need to get our stories straight before we meet with the sheriff.”
* * *
BRODY HAD HEARD his father’s pickup engine rev and knew he was on his way