Forty-one
Oswald Sweeny confirmed what Cassidy already knew. Marshall Baldwin didn’t have a past. No childhood, no adolescence, no first love, no damned history whatsoever. No kindly grandmother responded to any inquiries, no forgotten sister who called for more information, no grade school teacher who remembered him.
“Yep,” Sweeny said, his voice clear though he was still in Alaska, “looks as if our boy just appeared at age nineteen or so. I checked California records and guess what? There was a Marshall Baldwin born in Glendale in 1958, but when I checked further, I found out he’d died six months later. Sudden infant death syndrome. Talked to his mother myself; she lives in Fresno now.”
Cassidy’s stomach tightened. This wasn’t surprising news—she’d heard basically the same thing from Michael Foster, but it meant that Bill Laszlo and his sources would have the same information soon.
“There weren’t any other boys by that name?”
“Quite a few—but I checked ’em all out and they’re living or dead, but can be accounted for. But the baby from Glendale—now there’s an identity that could be easily assumed.”
Oh, God!
“Can’t help but wonder if Baldwin was Brig McKenzie,” Sweeny said, as if divining her thoughts.
“Seems possible,” she said, her mouth as dry as dust.
“He wouldn’t have looked all that much the same, considering the accident.”
“Accident?” she repeated.
“Yeah, Baldwin was in kind of a freak milling accident. Something backfired in one of the chippers, a piece of wood flew out and hit him on the left side of his face. Had to have surgery. Anyway, doesn’t mean the guy isn’t McKenzie. Want me to look into it?” He sounded anxious, as if he had finally found something to set his teeth into.
“No, thanks…” She could barely concentrate on the conversation. “You’ve done more than enough. If you could just send me a bill…here, to the office.”
“No problem.”
She hung up the phone and glanced up from her desk to find Bill Laszlo leaning against the partition, his eyes centered on her. “Bad news?” he asked, his cocksure grin in place.
“Just you.” Selma rolled her desk chair around the corner of the partition. Bill had to move quickly to avoid being hit. Finger-combing her springy curls, she said, “You know if you don’t quit bugging her, she really will have to take up smoking.”
Laszlo ignored her and picked up a paperweight from Cassidy’s desk. “Looks like you just saw a ghost.”
“What is it you want, Bill?” Cassidy asked.
“Confirmation.”
“Of?”
“That Marshall Baldwin was really Brig McKenzie.”
“I don’t know that.”
“That McKenzie was the arsonist in fire one”—he held up a finger—“and fire two.” Another finger popped up.
“You’re creating news now, not reporting it.”
“More than a coincidence that he was here for both of them, wouldn’t you say?”
“I wouldn’t say anything. You don’t have any facts, Bill. Just pure conjecture and last I heard the Times doesn’t print speculation.”
“This isn’t something you haven’t thought about, nor the police. Everyone thought John Doe was Brig, then he turned up with this identity of Baldwin, but I think it’s all just a smoke screen. The real question is why your husband’s lying.”
“You don’t know that he’s—”
“Just tell him I’ll be stopping by.”
“He won’t talk to you.”
“He’ll talk.”
“How? Gestapo tactics?”
“Get a life,” Selma muttered. “Come on, Cassidy. It’s time for a little lung-cancer break.” Bracelets rattled as she hiked her purse over her shoulder.
Bill’s irritation showed in the tight little corners of his mouth. “You can’t avoid me, you know. The way I look at it, you can work with me or against me. You could make a name for yourself or just be another source in the paper.”
“I’ll pass. On both.” Cassidy flipped off her computer and reached for her briefcase and purse. “I’m taking the next couple of days off.” She couldn’t stand being in the building another minute, didn’t want to try and avoid the hard-edged questions in Bill’s eyes, knew that attempting to concentrate on some story she didn’t care about would be useless.
All she could think about was that Brig was dead and Chase had lied. How many times had she asked him about Brig? How often had she suggested that the John Doe might be his brother? And he’d lied. Because he’d known. He’d had to have known.
As she drove home, her thoughts spun as rapidly as the tires of her Jeep. If Brig had been living in Alaska under an assumed name, with a new identity, why did he return to Prosperity? When did he get back? How long had Chase known the truth about a brother he’d pretended was dead? Had they planned Brig’s reunion? Did Sunny know?
Her head was throbbing by the time she parked the Jeep in the garage. She didn’t bother calming herself, didn’t stop to count to ten. She wanted answers and she wanted them now. No more lies. No more games.
“Chase!” she yelled, storming through the back door, her stomach in knots, fury racing through her blood. Ruskin, lying under the kitchen table, bounded to greet her. She patted him on the head a second, then continued through the house. “Chase?”
She found him just hobbling out of the door of his room. Stripped to the waist, he was wearing gray sweatpants, wet near the waistband, his chest bare and soaked in sweat. His face was flushed, his hair damp as if he’d been working out, doing the painful physical therapy exercises to strengthen his muscles. Ever since his run-in with Derrick, he’d pushed himself to the limit each day. Now, he braced himself against the side of the wall.
“Marshall Baldwin didn’t exist.” She launched right in, pinning him with her harsh glare.
“What’re you raving about?”
“I checked, the Sheriff’s Department has checked, Bill Laszlo and Oswald Sweeny have checked.”
“Sweeny—the detective you hired?”
“Sweeny used to live in Portland but moved to Anchorage.” She took two steps closer to her husband. “Before Marshall was nineteen and working on some kind of maintenance for the pipeline, Marshall Baldwin had no life. Not in Alaska, not in California. And guess what? The only Marshall Baldwin that could possibly have been born at the right time age-wise in California died as a baby. SIDS.”
“Who said Baldwin was born in California?”
“Don’t lie to me, Chase!” she nearly screamed. “I know.” She hit his chest with the flat of her hand, fingers splayed. “I know that the John Doe, or Marshall Baldwin, or whoever you want to call him was Brig. It’s just a matter of time before it’s proved.”
“Christ, Cassidy! Listen to you—”
“I know, damn it!” So angry she was shaking, she grabbed him by the forearms, her fingernails digging deep into his muscles. “I deserve the truth!”
His jaw clenched and relaxed, and his eyes turned the color of midnight. With the look of a condemned man, he sighed and closed his eyes. “All right. You want to hear it so badly. Brig was Baldwin.”
Her world collapsed. The truth, hidden so long, crushed her with its weight. “Oh, God,” she whispered, her arms falling from his as if weighted. She nearly stumbled as she tried to step away from him, to face her grief. Strong arms surrounded her. “You knew.” Her throat caught and a wave of emotions tumbled over her. “Why didn’t you tell me? How could you lie?”
The arms tightened and she struggled, trying to break free.
“Why, Chase?” she cried, tears tumbling from her eyes. She’d promised herself that she would never cry another tear for Brig McKenzie, would consider him dead years ago, but always there had been a tiny ray of hope that had lingered in her heart.
“He wanted it that way.”
“I don’t understand—”
“He knew that if you thought he was still alive, you might never get on with your own life, never find yourself.”
“You knew all along?” Her voice was a whisper, her lips moving against his chest as he crushed her to him.
“For a long time.”
“Before we were married?”
He hesitated. His breath rushed out. “Yes.”
“Oh, God.”
“He swore me to secrecy.”
“Chase—” She tilted her head up and felt his lips against hers. She tasted the salt of her tears and smelled the perspiration clinging to him. Warmth invaded her, and despite the pain, or because of it, she surrendered to the pure physical yearnings that swelled deep within her.
Instinctively her arms wound around his neck, and when his tongue pressed urgently against her teeth, she willingly opened to him. Distant thoughts flitted through her mind, treacherous ideas that she was making love to the wrong man, that giving herself to him would be condoning his lies, but she closed her mind to everything but the feel of his hard muscles against her body, the male smell that tickled her nostrils, the taste of his skin. Lifting her from her feet, he struggled to carry her into his bedroom, where he dropped her onto the bed.
Still kissing her, he lay beside her, his fingers anxiously shoving buttons through unwilling holes. “Cassidy.” He murmured her name across her skin. Spreading open her blouse, he kissed the center of her chest, lips wet and hot, as if feeling the beat of her heart pounding fast beneath her breast bone.
She could barely breathe, and when she heard the soft hiss of her zipper being lowered, she closed her eyes. It had been so long. She touched him all over, feeling flesh that was firm, muscles hard, hips lean.
He opened her bra and nuzzled at her breasts, his breath whispering across her nipples. His tongue teased, his lips suckled, his teeth nipped and desire was a warm and welcome whirlpool that began to spin in ever-widening circles, enveloping her.
“I’d forgotten how beautiful you are.” He kissed her again, and his hands clamped over her bare buttocks, fingers grazing her inner thighs. Shivering in anticipation, she writhed beneath him, felt him spread her legs with his knees, noticed vaguely that he shifted so that his weight was on his strong leg.
“Do you want me, Cass?” he asked.
“Yes.” She could barely speak.
“For how long?”
“Forever.”
A shadow passed over his eyes as she stared up at him. “If only—” Clamping his jaw shut, he moved suddenly, entering her. Fiercely. Hungrily. As if in so doing he could thrust away the past, the pain, the lies. As if he were branding her from the inside out, and her body responded in kind, moist and hot, a willing partner.
Fingers digging into his shoulders, she clung to him as her blood ran hot, her back arched and she wrapped her legs around his waist. The room seemed to fade away, the house no longer existed and they were alone in the universe. One man. One woman. One love.
Chase. Brig. Love. Images spun and whirled behind her eyes.
“Oh, God, I can’t stop—” he cried as his body became rigid and he gave out a desperate yell.
She convulsed beneath him, the world exploding, the stars colliding, the air so hot she couldn’t breathe.
Gasping, he fell against her and she welcomed his weight, her arms surrounding his sweat-slickened torso, her fingers lacing over the strong muscles of his back. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered, tears stinging her eyes.
“And I missed you. If you only knew.” He was still breathing with difficulty, his words edged in a hopelessness she couldn’t understand.
“Just hold me.”
“As long as I can, darlin’,” he whispered against the damp strands of her hair. “As long as I possibly can.”
Sunny felt a jolt. As if the earth had cracked. Her old heart hammered and she looked up at the threatening sky. Clouds blocked the sun. The wind was angry, and though the temperature was sweltering, reaching high into the nineties every afternoon, Sunny felt a chill as cold as death. It crept through her bones each morning, then settled back down like a dog circling before lying down. Restless. Unsatisfied.
She was tired of being a prisoner. It seemed wherever she went, there were guards. The hospital was the worst, but after that, Rex had insisted she stay on his grounds. There was a little house in the foothills where he’d harbored her. Where Willie had come to visit her. Where she’d almost felt safe. Until she’d seen Rex’s weakness and knew that he would eventually be forced to tell the authorities where she was.
She’d left then and began wandering through the woods. Her boys needed her. She knew that much. The images of fire and water had risen behind her eyes again. There was trouble. The worst kind. She looked to the moon and the stars, but they were hidden and darkness covered the forest.
She wasn’t afraid, she tried to convince herself. And she was patient. She’d wait for a sign.
Cassidy stretched on the bed and found it empty. Chase had already left, but it didn’t matter. They’d spent the night making up for lost time, making love and dozing only to make love again. She tingled all over and felt sore between her legs.
She threw on one of his shirts, buttoning it as she walked barefoot into the kitchen, where coffee was already brewed. Staring through the back window, she saw him standing by the lake, staring across the water. Waiting for her.
She didn’t disappoint him, but hurried outside, the tails of his shirt flapping around her bare legs, the soft caress of morning cool against her skin. He glanced her way, but didn’t smile. She wondered if all the old barriers they’d torn down last night were being resurrected.
“Last one in’s a rotten egg,” she said as he turned to face her. For a minute her heart stopped. He looked so much like Brig, she didn’t dare breathe.
“Something wrong?”
“No—I—” She was being silly, of course. Too many emotions all at once. “Come on.” She ripped the buttons through their holes, let the shirt fall on the sand and ran into the icy water. Before she could let her traitorous mind wander dangerously, she submerged, diving low, skimming the bottom, only to resurface and let the breath out of her straining lungs.
Chase wasn’t standing beneath the tree. He wasn’t—
She saw a movement and suddenly he was beside her, treading water, arms outstretched. “This is insane,” he said, drops clinging to his beard shadow as he took her into his arms.
“Hey, wait! I’ll drown.”
“No way. I’d save you.” His lips found hers. His arms and legs surrounded her, and she felt his body hardening despite the cold, her blood heating in the frigid lake, her passion rising instantly.
She closed her eyes and let go of the doubts, gave herself to this man, her husband, a new beginning.
It wasn’t until later, when they were sitting on the back porch, cradling steaming cups of coffee, watching the few horses Cassidy had raised graze in the fields beyond the lake, that she realized her mistake. Rays of sun pierced the clouds and burnished the hides of the mares and geldings as they swatted at flies with their tails and plucked at the dry grass.
She’d never bought a colt or a stallion. Remmington had been her last.
Wrapped in a robe, she sat on one chair, her feet propped on the table, Ruskin lying on the floorboards beside her. Chase stretched out on a lounge, his injured leg raised slightly, his faded jeans slung low on his hips. He wore the shirt she’d pulled on when she’d climbed out of bed. It was still wet in places and he hadn’t bothered with the buttons.
“You’re waiting,” he finally said as he finished a swallow. “For me to tell you about Brig.”
“I think I deserve to know.”
He trained his blue eyes on hers, then glanced far away to the horizon. “Fair enough, I guess.” Hesitating a second, he rubbed the back of his neck before beginning. “Brig contacted me about four or five years after he left. Tracked me down in Seattle. Told me he was living in Anchorage, had spent a few years working on the pipeline, then worked in a sawmill and finally was buying one. He wanted everyone—you, Mom, the whole damned town—to think he was missing in action or dead or whatever you want to call it. He was never coming back.”
“This was before or after I met you again?”
“Before. But I didn’t hear from him again for a long time. We were dating then and…he told me to tell you he was dead.”
“He said that?” she whispered, trying to ignore the old pain in her heart.
“Thought it would be best.”
Her thoughts were unraveling. Chase had lied from the beginning. To everyone. “He—he didn’t care that we were seeing each other?”
His eyes turned cruel. “No.”
“He didn’t try to talk you out of it, to—”
“I said he didn’t give a damn, Cassidy. Can’t you accept that?”
Something wasn’t right about this. She could feel it in her bones. Her reporter’s instincts warned her that he was altering the truth. Again. Her hands shook a little and coffee sloshed over to burn her hand.
“He told me he didn’t set fire to the gristmill.”
“I know that.”
“But you don’t know what happened.”
“Do you?” she whispered, her heart beating frantically. Who was this man who knew so much and kept so quiet—this man who was her husband, to whom she’d made love? How many secrets had he harbored over the years? How many thoughts had he kept to himself?
“Brig had gone to the gristmill to have it out with Jed Baker. They’d already fought at our place, but Brig was convinced that Jed was up to no good. And Brig knew that Jed had set up a meeting with Angie. She’d told him so earlier. So he rode his motorcycle to the mill. But it was too late. By the time he got to the mill, it was in flames. He saw Willie there and ran inside, pulling Willie to safety before he went back in and tried to get Jed, to save him.” His eyes seemed suddenly dead, his voice barely a whisper. “He couldn’t, though—a wall of fire was between them.”
“And Angie—?”
Chase’s gaze drifted to a distance she couldn’t see. “He was too late for her, too.”
“Oh, God.” Cassidy felt suddenly cold, as if she’d stepped into a dark, frigid lake. She remembered the fire, the bank of flames that had reached for the sky, the stench of smoke, the ugly, blinding fear…
Chase’s gaze returned to hers. “He said you helped him escape. Insisted he take your horse.”
She nodded mutely.
“And you gave him your St. Christopher’s medal.” He was staring at her with such intensity that she couldn’t look away. “I think he kept it with him all the time. He was wearing it the night he came back.”
Tears filled her eyes, and she clamped her teeth together to keep from crying. Her cup dropped to the porch and rolled off the edge into the sword ferns and azaleas. “He never forgot you, Cass.”
“Why did he come back now?”
He glanced away.
“Chase—? What did he say?”
Chase rolled off the lounge and sat on the coffee table, where she’d braced her bare feet. He straddled her legs and held her ankles, his hands warm and comforting against her skin. “That it was time. He was back because he wanted to find out who set the fire; he felt that he’d been framed, and now that he had the money and what he thought was the perfect disguise, he wanted to start looking for answers. He asked me to help him. Buying lumber and all, that was just a cover-up.”
“But wouldn’t people have recognized him? He didn’t have the beard anymore—”
“No one else would see him for a while and he looked different. His nose had been broken again and he’d been in some kind of accident while he was working in one of the mills. His face had changed quite a bit.”
“Did you recognize him?”
He swallowed, the tips of his fingers grazing her calves before he stood and drew her to her feet. “Of course.”
“Would I?”
He stared down at her for endless seconds. When he spoke, his voice was low, filled with emotions she didn’t begin to understand. “I don’t think so, Cass.”
Clouds shifted, blotting out the sun.
“I would have liked to say good-bye.”
His arms tightened around her, pulling her close. “Me, too.”
She slid her hands around his waist and held on tight. “I—I’m sorry for all the pain I caused you. Because of Brig—”
“Shh. It’s over.” His breath stirred her hair.
Tears slid down her cheeks. “Is it?” She wondered if it ever would be, or if the ghost of Brig McKenzie would haunt them forever.
“If we let it die.”
“How can we? Until we find out who burned the mill, who killed Angie, who—” She shuddered and her hands splayed over the back of his shirt, feeling the sinewy strength of his muscles beneath the cotton fabric. “Who was the father of her baby?”
“You think it was his?” Chase asked, not moving, his body suddenly rigid.
“I don’t know, oh, God, I don’t know.” She clung to him desperately, her hands creeping up against the smooth skin of his shoulders. He kissed her then, his lips full, his eyes bright from his own emotions.
“Cass, I love you,” he said, blinking hard, as if the admission were deplorable, as if uttering those three little words would alter the course of their lives.
And then it hit her. Like a lightning bolt thrust from the sky by angry gods. Oh, God, no. Not now! “What?” she whispered in a voice so low it was barely audible. “What did you call me?”
“Cassidy—”
“No—no—” The porch seemed to shift and buckle beneath her bare feet. “You’ve been calling me Cass ever since the fire and you never used to…oh, God…” Pictures spun in her mind. Chase stepping out of the shower, with only a towel slung around his waist, dressed in his sweatpants, his shirt off, naked in bed last night, in the water swimming this morning. She began to shake.
“What—?”
Her hands moved over his shoulders, fingertips searching, finding nothing. Nothing!
“Cassidy?”
“Let me go!” She wrenched away, staring at him in horror. Her palms were sweaty with dread, her heart pumping out of control. “Take it off,” she ordered.
“What?”
“Your shirt, take it off!” she nearly screamed, afraid she was going out of her mind.
“Why?”
“You know why.”
His blue eyes fixed to hers, he slid his arms through the sleeves and held the crumpled shirt in one big fist.
“Turn around.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Turn around, damn it!” she said, and he did, lifting his hands over his head as if he had nothing to hide, and there was his back, smooth and perfect, a few scars from his recent accident visible, but the old injury, the bullet hole in his shoulder, the one Brig had inflicted on Chase by accident when they were children, the one she’d traced dozens of times before, was missing.
“How could you?” she said as he spun slowly and faced her. His eyes held hers for a second that seemed to last forever. She could barely stand, and a noise as loud as the sea roared in her ears. Disbelieving, she watched his chin harden and his shoulders straighten, and all of a sudden the truth was so clear to her—so damned evident she couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it before—that everyone who’d met him hadn’t seen it. “You’re not my husband…not Chase…” Her knees gave way, and she sagged against the wall for support. Her bones felt heavy, and darkness teased the corners of her eyes.
“Cass—”
“Don’t. Don’t call me that!” Hysteria welled up in her throat, blinding her to anything but the damning truth. How could she have been so blind? The intensity of his gaze, the line of his jaw, the arrogance of his lips, the way his shirts stretched across his shoulders. “Chase is dead, isn’t he?” she said, tears filling her eyes. “My husband. He’s dead!”
He reached for her and she shrank away, afraid of his touch, of his gaze, of him. “Don’t!”
“Cass, listen—please, just try and understand—”
“Understand? Understand? Listen to what you’re asking, for God’s sake!”
His fingers closed into a fist. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Like hell! This was all part of your plan! Oh, God, I’ve been such a fool, such a damned fool!” Her voice rose an octave, and her breath was tight in her lungs. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t think. “Of course you meant to. You’ve known the truth all along and you kept it from me—from your mother. From everyone.” Her voice broke and she felt her lips tremble. “I can’t believe I was so stupid, so damned blind.”
Again he stepped forward, and she nearly tripped as she scrambled away from him. “Don’t you ever touch me again,” she warned, her voice threatening, her hands feeling along the wall as she inched toward the door, the skin of her palms scraping against the rough siding.
“If you’ll just stop for a minute and listen—”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“You have to!”
She halted then, stopped dead in her tracks. He was right, though she was loath to admit it. She couldn’t run away, and so there, in the shadows of the porch, she paused, lifting her chin, damning him with her gaze. “For the love of God, Brig McKenzie, what have you done?”