Forty-two
He should have told her in the beginning. Hell, he’d meant to. Planned to. He’d never intended to deceive her, not this way, but he’d had no choice. His back was to the wall. And now she detested him. Standing defiantly in front of him, trembling, afraid to take a step nearer, she didn’t move.
“Why did you lie?” she demanded.
“I didn’t. You all assumed that I was Chase.”
“Your identification—the medal…” Her voice was stronger now, filled with new, conflicting emotions.
“Switched. Chase was pinned, I tried to get him free but couldn’t, and it was his idea,” Brig admitted, the horror of that night haunting him as it had since the fire…
Bang!
Brig was thrown across the large room as an explosion boomed through the mill. He landed on the floor, a dozen feet from where he and Chase had stood.
Beams broke and fell, bringing the ceiling with them.
Supports buckled.
Flames crackled skyward.
Brig scrambled to his feet. He had to get out. Now.
Smoke billowed through the hole in the roof. “Chase!” he yelled, his voice already raw. “Where the hell are you?” He squinted, eyes searching the rubble, burning from the acrid smoke. “Chase!”
“Here! Get out. Now!” Chase was heading toward him, dragging a leg.
Bam! The second explosion ripped through the mill and the roof above Chase tumbled downward, old wooden beams, steel roof, metal girders, collapsing.
“Chase, run!”
But it was too late.
One of the beams slammed across Chase’s body. With a wail of pain, he went down, the beam pinning him to the floor.
“No!” Brig dashed through the smoke and dust, finding his brother bleeding, half-conscious, the lower part of his body crushed. “Come on, come on,” he said to his brother as Chase moaned. “I’ll get you out of here.”
And he meant it. Despite the wall of flames, the blistering heat and the smoke that burned his lungs, making him cough and retch, he was going to pull his brother from this inferno.
He tried to lift the beam. On his knees, wedging his body beneath the heavy timber. “I’ll push up, you crawl out!” he ordered.
“I can’t, man. I can’t move.” Chase’s voice was panicked.
“Sure you can, it’s the beam.”
“No, Brig, I can’t feel anything down there. Oh, God.”
Brig pushed the beam with all his strength, his muscles quivering, sweat running in his eyes. “Damn it, Chase, move!” he yelled, willing his brother out of this funeral pyre.
“I’m telling you, I can’t!”
“Get out now!” Brig’s muscles were straining, bulging, his teeth bared with the effort, searing, smoky air burning through his lungs. “Chase, now, dammit!”
“Brig, stop. Just take my wallet,” Chase said. “I can’t move.”
“I’ll get help.”
The fire roared around them in hot, wild waves.
“It’ll be too late. Hell, Brig, take the damned wallet!” Chase yelled, his voice a rasp as he lay pinned to the floor, his face bloody, his back crushed. “Leave yours with me!” he insisted as the smoke billowed to the sky and fire roared all around them.
“No way, I’m getting you out of here!” The heat blistered, the fire raged, and when Brig threw all of his strength into moving the beam again, Chase screamed in pain.
“Get out! Now.” Blue eyes looked up desperately through the smoke. Somehow, he’d been able to pull his wallet from his pants. “Take my ID, leave yours with me,” he pleaded, coughing…“say you’re me. For God’s sake, save yourself!”
“No. You’ll be fine.” You’ve got to be!
“For Christ’s sake, Brig, it’s over!”
“I’ll get help!”
“Switch the damn wallets! And take my ring. Do it for Cassidy!”
“No, Chase, I’ll get—”
“Shut up and do this. For Cassidy and me!” Chase was breathing hard, blood running from his nose and mouth, his teeth bared against the pain. “For once in your life don’t be so damned selfish!”
He’d done it. Quickly, taking the wallet from Chase’s outstretched hand and yanking off Chase’s wedding ring before placing his billfold into Chase’s palm and curling his fingers over the worn leather.
“Good.” Chase’s voice was frail. His eyes rolled back in his head as Brig jerked the chain from his neck and threaded it through Chase’s fingers.
“Hang in there! I’ll be right back.” Scared witless, Brig ran back to the office. Flames crackled and hissed, devouring sawdust, chips, lumber, anything in their path and licking to the night-black sky. Heart drumming, Brig coughed as black, cloying smoke billowed toward the heavens and filled his lungs. “Please God—”
This couldn’t be happening! Not again! He yanked the door to the office open. Heat seared his lungs. The door was wrenched from his hand as another explosion rocked the mill. Sparks spewed upward in a geyser of fiery embers. His feet were blasted off the ground. He flew backward. The sky was a blur—black and orange, alive with flames and so damned hot! He tried to break his fall. His wrist snapped as he smacked against the ground and his leg twisted back on itself. Pain ripped up his arm and knee and he screamed. A flying piece of metal slammed against the back of his head. “Chase!” he yelled as the lights behind his eyes nearly blinded him. Pain exploded in his temple near his right eye. Screaming, he felt the blackness surround him. Just before he lost consciousness he was thankful that he wouldn’t feel the agony of the flames that were sure to devour him body and soul.
Days later he awoke in the hospital and everyone was calling him by his brother’s name.
Now, it was time to come clean. Just as he’d told himself he would, once he was out of the hospital and on his feet again.
“Who did this?” Cassidy demanded. “Who set the fires? Derrick?” She blinked rapidly and he saw that she was holding on to her composure by a thin, unraveling thread.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’m going to find out. I promised Chase.”
“Lies, Brig,” she accused, white and shaking and staring at him as if he were Satan incarnate. “You were there! Both times!”
“I didn’t start either of the fires. Swear to God.”
She stared at him as if she wanted desperately to believe him. “Who would want to kill Chase?”
Guilt settled over him like lead, weighing his shoulders, squeezing his insides. “Lots of people, I think. He knew that Derrick was skimming money, knew about Rex and Sunny, knew way too much. He’d made his share of enemies over the years, but in the beginning, when the first fire was set, no one would want him dead.” He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “I think they were trying to kill me in the fire in the gristmill that killed Angie. I think whoever was behind the first fire mistook Jed Baker for me. They expected me to be with Angie that night. I’d been her date at the Caldwells’ party.”
“You think they were trying to kill you,” she repeated, as if a light were dawning in her mind.
“Maybe this time, too.”
“Then—and now? But who? No one knew you were back—”
“Someone did.”
“Who?” she repeated as she thought of all the enemies Brig had made in the years he’d been in Prosperity.
“Willie knew. He was at both fires. He saw me.”
Her eyes turned dull. “You’re not going to blame this on a poor man who can’t—”
“My mother knew, too. She sensed it, I think. That day in the hospital, she knew who I was. Touched my hand and didn’t even blink, just said she’d been waiting to see me again for a long time. Called me by name.” Brig was moving slowly toward Cassidy, closing the distance, dying a little as she shrank away from him and surveyed him with wild, frightened eyes.
“Sunny didn’t set fire to the mill. For God’s sake, Brig, listen to you!”
“Of course she didn’t. But if Sunny and Willie knew, others did, too.”
“Or else someone was trying to kill Chase,” she whispered, “and when they find out they missed, they’ll try again.” She looked up at him, fear shining in her eyes. “They’ll murder you, too.”
“Unless we stop them.” He touched the side of her face with a finger and she closed her eyes for a second. He felt her quiver, then she yanked backward, repulsed.
“I…I can’t…Brig…I…for God’s sake, please don’t touch me. I can’t even believe that we’re having this conversation.” But she’d known. Part of her had sensed that he wasn’t the same, wasn’t her husband. Though she’d denied it consciously, she’d felt a difference, not only in him, but in her response as well. Why else had she decided against the divorce that she was so adamant about before the fire, why else had she pleaded for a second chance, why else had she clung desperately to him when he’d so callously tried to keep her at arm’s length? Because of some skewed sense of loyalty? Because the fire had made her see how much she loved her husband? Because her faith prevented her from divorcing him? Or because some sixth sense had told her that he was Brig?
Sick with herself, with him, guilt riding heavy on her shoulders, she walked past him and into the den to Chase’s private stock of Scotch, but as she retrieved the bottle, she saw herself in the mirror over the bar and Brig’s reflection as he stood in the doorway.
“You want a drink?” she asked.
“Yeah, but I don’t think it’s the time.”
“Wh—what are you going to do?” Her hands were unsteady and she forced them deep into the pockets of her robe. Dear God, what now? She was married to Chase and he was dead; she’d slept with Brig, given herself to him, closed her eyes to the blatant lies, just as she had in the past.
She was angry with him for deceiving her, angry with herself for falling for him again and scared out of her mind. There was a lunatic on the loose. Someone who wanted Chase or Brig dead.
“What am I going to do?” he repeated. “I’m going to figure out who did this. Wait here.” He hurried down the hall with his uneven gait, and Cassidy collapsed in a corner of a couch. She held her head in her hands, hoping that the throbbing in her head and the ache deep in her soul would disappear. She’d always been in love with Brig, but now it seemed vile, a schoolgirl fantasy turned the work of the devil.
As much as she’d loved Brig, she’d never, ever wanted to sacrifice Chase—one brother for the other. Her stomach convulsed and she ran to the bathroom, locking the door and throwing up over and over again until there was nothing left but stomach acid. She scooted back on the cold tile floor, shaking as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, tears splashing down her cheeks. Had she ever cried more in her life?
“Cass?” He rapped on the door with his knuckles, and her heart knocked wildly. Brig! Oh, Brig! Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to block out the feelings of betrayal—her betrayal to her husband. “Hey, are you all right, darlin’?”
Sweet Jesus, don’t let him be kind to me. I can’t take any tenderness right now.
“Cassidy.” His voice was stronger now. How had she not known? Her insides quivered, her hands shook, she couldn’t think straight…
“If you don’t answer me, I’m going to break down this damned door and—”
“Leave me alone!”
“I swear, Cass, you come out of there now, or I’ll bust it.”
“Just leave me the hell alone, Brig!” Again she retched over the toilet and she heard him swearing under his breath, the words indistinguishable, the meaning clear.
Standing, she felt the pain between her legs, reminding her of their lovemaking, how long, how furious, how hot it had run. “Oh, God, Chase, I’m sorry,” she whispered, then bent over the sink and washed out her mouth. Her reflection, ghostly pale with condemning gold eyes, glared at her, silently accusing her of horrid crimes of the heart. “Oh, just go away,” she told her image and splashed cold water on her face. She could wallow in self-recriminations and guilt for the rest of her life, and it wouldn’t do one bit of good. No, the only way she could atone for her unwitting indiscretion—the sin of not loving her husband as much as she should have—was to find Chase’s killer.
And what if it’s Brig? What if it’s the man who’s been posing as your husband for weeks? The man who left you? Who deceived you? Who betrayed himself, his mother, and his brother? The man who made love to you and turned you inside out? What do you really know about him? Nothing! Nothing!
But she wasn’t afraid. No matter what, she would never be afraid of Brig McKenzie. She just wasn’t certain that she could trust him.
He was in the den, waiting, a drink in one hand. She glanced at the glass of amber liquid and he said, “I figured I owed myself. Already gave up the other kind of crutch.”
“You said you wanted to show me something.”
“While you’ve done your investigation of Marshall Baldwin—including all the information you’ve gotten from Oswald Sweeny and your connections in the business, I’ve done some digging myself. And while I was at it, I’ve thrown some information Sweeny’s way, so he could report back to you. He didn’t know it, of course.”
“Of course,” she said dryly. What kind of man was she dealing with?
“I called some people in Anchorage, Fairbanks and every place I lived as Baldwin. Just the people I trust. People who trust me. They gave Sweeny and Wilson and Laszlo the information I wanted them to have.”
“You are a true bastard.”
His smile was positively wicked. “No doubt. But I couldn’t have you or the detective or Billy-boy Laszlo find out too much before I was ready, could I?”
“That’s why you didn’t tell anyone that you saw Derrick at the sawmill—because sooner or later someone would recognize you and you’re still a suspect in Angie’s death.” Her heart was pounding loudly in her ears and the conversation felt surreal. After all these years. All these damned years.
Nodding, he swirled his drink. “Anyway, while you were all on your wild-goose chases checking out Baldwin, I’ve been doing research of my own.”
“Have you?” She sat in a chair and watched him, listening to the cadence of his voice, wondering why she’d taken so long in discovering the truth. There was an energy that surrounded Brig McKenzie that hadn’t been a part of Chase. She tucked her feet beneath her and accepted a glass of Scotch without any argument.
“Obviously whoever set the first fire, if it’s the same culprit and not some copycat, lived here then as well as now. And—”
“And Angie was pregnant.” Why she blurted this out now, she didn’t know, but it was important, had been nagging at her for years. Cassidy’s heart seemed to stop as she stared at him and her fingers clenched so tightly around her glass they hurt.
“I heard.” His blue eyes were steady. “I wasn’t the father, Cass.”
“How do you know?”
“I didn’t—”
“As if I can trust you! You’ve lied to me. Over and over. Each day you didn’t call or write or try to reach me and tell me that you were alive and well and…you lied, damn it. So why should I believe that—”
“I wasn’t the father,” he repeated, fury snapping in his eyes.
“But—”
Drink falling to the floor, he crossed the room in three long, cumbersome strides. His hands grabbed her shoulders. “I didn’t do it, Cass, and you can believe anything you want, but I never made love to your sister. Oh, I came close a couple of times, damned close, but I didn’t go through with it, and do you know why?”
She couldn’t answer. Couldn’t move.
“Do you?”
Her throat was cotton, her heart a snare drum.
“Because of you, damn it. The hottest number in the county was wagging her pretty little ass in my face, trying like hell to seduce me, and I couldn’t think of anything but her scrawny, beautiful tomboy of a sister!”
“I don’t believe—”
“Oh, hell.” He jerked her close to him, his mouth fitting over hers perfectly, his taste, his smell, his feel so achingly familiar. She felt her body sagging against him, kissing him feverishly, hungrily as one of his hands slid lower to untie the knot at her waist and part her robe. Strong fingers cupped the bend of her waist, touching skin already inflamed, leaving a brand as real as it had been so many years before. “Cass,” he whispered. “Sweet, sweet, Cass.”
She sighed loudly, her voice thin and breathy, filled with a need so great it scared her. Her fingers linked around his neck and she was kissing him again, opening her mouth to him, feeling the tingle deep between her legs. His fingers tangled in her hair and his lips were hot, wanting, searing. His tongue plundered her mouth and she moaned deep in her throat before the horror of what she was doing sank into her passion-dazed brain. “Oh, my God!” She slapped him then, her flat palm smacking hard against his cheek, making him wince from pain in a jaw not completely healed.
“Shit!” He sucked in his breath, held his face and stamped a foot to counter the pain.
“Chase—Brig—oh, God, I didn’t mean to—” She stumbled away from him.
He glared at her for a frightening moment, then turned, walked to the window and, fists clenched in fury, swore again. “No more rules, okay, Cass? I won’t tell you what to do and you sure as hell won’t order me around. I’ll call you whatever I want to and you can do the same, but we won’t sleep together, we won’t touch each other and we won’t pretend like we’re married.”
His fingers flexed and stretched, as if he were physically trying to hold on to his patience. “Just bear with me for a few days until I clear this up, then…then we’ll put everything straight and I’ll leave.”
Leave? Again? A horrid ache spread through her. From the pit of her stomach to the tips of her fingers. She felt suddenly dead inside and knew she couldn’t face the thought of never seeing him alive again. “I don’t know if I want you to leave,” she said, and when he faced her again, his features were hard and set.
“You don’t know what you want. While you were married to Chase, you wanted me. Now that he’s gone, you want him back.”
A squeak of protest passed her lips.
“All I need is a week, maybe more—”
“For a crime that hasn’t been solved in seventeen years? You can figure it out in a week? Come on—”
One side of his mouth lifted. “I’ve been working on this a long time. Why do you think I came back when I did?”
“You know who started the fires?”
“Not yet, but I’m getting close, I think. I’ve got someone nervous.” He sighed and his eyes narrowed on her. He paused, as if considering his words.
Now what? She couldn’t stand another emotional battle.
“There was another reason I showed up at the mill that night,” he admitted.
Steeling herself, she asked, “What was that?”
“I came back for you.”
“What?”
Leaning on his good leg he scrutinized her reactions. “Chase had told me, and I believed him, that you wanted out of the marriage. That you were hell-bent on divorcing him. He knew that it was over and…and he was going to stand aside, Cassidy. If I wanted you, and you wanted me, he was going to give you up.”
“You expect me to believe that?” She shook her head. This was too much.
“Well, there was a little hitch. He wasn’t just going to walk away, not when he’d worked so hard. He wanted all the rest.” Brig waved one arm expansively toward the windows. “The mills, the land, the timber, the offices.”
“I can’t believe he bargained for me,” she said, though the words held a ring of truth. Hadn’t she always known that Chase was more interested in the Buchanan fortune than her?
“It wasn’t easy for him. He wasn’t even being particularly noble, I think. But he knew that he could never possess you, that you didn’t love him, that you never would, and it killed him a little more each day, so he became indifferent, throwing himself into his work.” He rubbed the back of his neck and avoided her eyes.
“There’s something else,” Cassidy guessed.
He sighed.
“Brig—?”
“Shit!” He leaned against the windowsill and tipped back his head. “The truth of the matter is that you weren’t his first choice.”
“Wh–What?” Cymbals seemed to crash in her head.
“That’s the irony of it, Cass,” he said, turning to face her again. “Chase married you because you were the only Buchanan woman left. A long time ago, he was in love with Angie, too. Just like everybody else in this damned town.”
Angie! Angie! Always Angie!
Couldn’t anyone forget that bitch? I felt a tic at one side of my left eye and I could barely breathe as I listened to the argument between Cassidy and her husband. I heard only a little of the conversation, but they were both pissed, their words blurred. Their anger was seething, and it had something to do with Angie.
Seventeen years! The slut had been buried in the ground for seventeen years! So why was it people in Prosperity treated her as if she were a saint—a damned martyred saint!
My blood boiled when I thought of it. Would she never die? Never?
I eased away from my side of the window and slunk through the rhododendrons. If Angie was a saint, then her younger sister was a certifiable idiot. First Brig McKenzie and then Chase had walked all over her from day one.
What kind of a moron was she?
She was so damned pathetic. Always had been. Not ever in the same league with her older sister.
But then few were, I reminded myself and hated the turn of my thoughts. Quickly, I slipped away from this monstrosity of a house Chase McKenzie had built.
Thank God his brother had finally died. Maybe no one else had figured out the truth, but I knew that the John Doe now known as Marshall Baldwin had been Brig. Who else? That’s probably what Chase and Cassidy had been discussing. I’d heard Brig’s name a couple of times and I’d strained to hear Chase’s side of the story, but the air-conditioning unit had been humming and I hadn’t been able to piece everything together.
But I had enough.
My frown gave way to a smile as I remembered how I’d finally been able to get Brig to give up the ghost.
I’d slipped into the hospital several times and, on the fourth try, had been able to sneak into his room and make sure an air bubble reached his heart. Quick. Simple. In and out. By the time the monitors had started squawking, I was in the bathroom downstairs, stripping off my gloves, lab coat and scrubs. Any camera or witness would never recognize me.
At least I hoped.
I had seen one person I recognized in my escape. A reporter from the Times, someone who worked with Cassidy, but she’d looked through me, as if I weren’t there.
For the most part I’d been invisible all of my life. It had been a pain in the backside as a teenager. Until I’d learned how to use my adeptness at fading into the background to my advantage. I knew I could have the limelight when I wanted, but it was better to plot and plan, appear not as bright or good-looking, keep my mouth shut and carefully and methodically make things work.
I didn’t have much time.
If things were going to work out the way I’d been planning, both Cassidy and that damned husband of hers would have to die. As soon as possible.
I eased away from the house, down a path near the lake and through the surrounding trees. My truck was parked on federal land on the other side of a barbed-wire fence.
If I played my cards right, no one would ever know that I’d been here. No one would guess that I’d been behind it all.