by B.J. Daniels
CHAPTER ONE
MAX MALONE SCRATCHED his dark head of hair and squinted at the sunrise as light 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.
There’d been more news vans parked at the gate three months ago when the senator’s first wife had returned from the dead. Now only two vans remained along with a few reporters who drove out some mornings after a hot shower, a latte and a night in a warm bed. They were always hoping to get something on the days they’d 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. He was a print journalist, one of a dying breed. But he had a reputation that preceded him, so he made them all nervous because they knew this wasn’t his kind of story.
Which meant he might know something they didn’t.
He smiled to himself. Let them wonder what he was up to. If he was right... Well, he wasn’t going to let himself ride that train of thought, not yet.
The only one of the bunch waiting at the ranch gate who’d given him more than a nod was an old former print 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 picture and her driver’s license mug shot from years ago?” Max asked about the senator’s first wife.
“Rumor is the new wife disposed of them all,” 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 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 shot at least in passing,” he said.
Harvey shook his head. “No one knows where she is. She couldn’t move back in here after her unexpected return, not 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 their 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.”
Senator Buckmaster Hamilton’s bid for the presidency was far from a sinking ship. He was a front-runner in the polls, and the 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, it makes it hard to get much background other than what is already known about her. Do you know how many fifty-eight-year-old women there are with that name?”
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. 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 glided through college, coming out with a bachelor of arts degree in literature. She’d married well and had six children. Then one winter night, for some unknown reason, she’d driven her car into the Yellowstone River. Her body was never found.
That was twenty-two years ago. Now she was back—with no memory of those years or why she’d 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, 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 at the ranch.
“I think I’m going into town for coffee,” Max announced and walked back to his pickup. The senator had been gone for months and only recently returned following a series of fund-raisers across the country. While he came and went from the ranch, often with his current wife, this morning Senator Buckmaster Hamilton was alone.
Max crossed his fingers as he started his pickup. Maybe luck would be with him this morning. He’d tried to follow the man before but had lost him. The senator drove like a bat out of hell and had the luxury of knowing the roads. Add to that the dust that boiled up behind the senator’s SUV... 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 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. The smells of fall blew in. He breathed them appreciatively. Growing up in California, this kind of fall was new to him. He loved the scents as well as the snow that capped the Crazy Mountains.
He also loved what he did for a living. As an investigative reporter, he got to snoop 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.
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 giving him even 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.
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.
Meanwhile, Max could see the senator’s dust dissipating in the distance. Just a little farther.
He’d followed Buckmaster Hamilton on another occasion when he’d left about this time of day and headed in this direction. Max was betting the senator was going to the same place. What had thrown him before was that there hadn’t been any ranches or houses near the spot where he’d lost him.
Since then, Max had had plenty of time to explore the area. He had an idea where the senator was going. He moved over and let the news van pass him, knowing the van would never be able to catch up to Hamilton now. The newsman flipped him off as he went by.
Max smiled and slowed, turning at the next dirt road and hoping his instincts paid off. Sometimes at night, with nothing to do, he would just drive back roads. He’d found this one quite by accident and had been surprised to end up on a tall rocky outcropping. The view had been incredible. He figured teenagers knew about the spot because he’d seen rock fire pits and a lot of smashed empty beer cans.
Driving up the road, he stopped short of the top of the rocky hill and got out. He grabbed his camera case and, closing the door quietly, headed up to the pinnacle. He’d almost reached the top when he heard a vehicle on the narrow dirt road below him. He recognized the senator’s SUV as it came to a stop at the edge of the tree-lined creek.
He smiled to himself, pleased that he’d been right as Hamilton got out. Fifty-nine, the senator was a large, distinguished-looking man with thick salt-and-pepper hair. No one had been surprised when he’d thrown his hat into the ring for the presidency. The Montana rancher was well liked and moderate enough that he had friends on both sides of the aisle.
Max watched him get out and walk down to the water as if waiting for someone. Max was betting that someone was Sarah Hamilton, the wife who’d only recently come back from the dead. As he watched the senator, he reminded himself that he could be spying on the next president of the United States. That is, if nothing happened to derail the man’s run for the top political seat.
Five minutes later, a pickup truck came down the road from the other direction and slowed. Max took a photo of the dust trail the truck had left across the canyon and up into the pines of the foothills. It wouldn’t be easy, but maybe he could track down where that pickup had come from—and find Sarah Hamilton’s hideout.
Excited now, he was betting it all on who would climb out of that truck. It had to be the senator’s first wife, the woman who’d left behind six daughters, the youngest twins and only a few months old, to plunge her vehicle into the icy Yellowstone River.
Her body was never found. Buckmaster Hamilton had her declared dead and buried her memory before marrying Angelina Broadwater fifteen years ago. Needless to say, Sarah’s return had caused an uproar even before everyone found out about her memory loss.
Everyone wanted her story, forcing her underground. Even the man she’d been staying with, a rancher named Russell Murdock, refused to say where she’d been hiding.
As the pickup came to a full stop, Max had his camera ready. Everything about this clandestine meeting in the middle of nowhere told him it was going to be worth the hours he’d spent driving these back roads.
With the telephoto lens, he snapped a shot of the driver behind the wheel, recognizing him as Russell Murdock. He quickly focused on the other side of the truck as the passenger door opened. As an older blonde woman stepped out, he knew he’d hit pay dirt.
Sarah Hamilton? Obviously she’d changed during the forty-plus years since the photos from her high school yearbook and driver’s license mug shots were taken. But he told himself this had to be her.
He snapped a half dozen photographs of her as she headed down to the creek. The senator looked up, frowning as she approached him. Snap. Snap. Snap. He took several shots with the two of them in the frame, although he couldn’t see her face. But even from here he could read their body language and see the tension between them.
Max wondered what it would be like to think that no time had passed, only to return home to find your children all grown and your husband married to someone else.
The woman looked around as if worried that she was being watched. She glanced in his direction. Although dozens of yards away, Max froze. She turned back to the man she’d obviously come here to meet.
What had driven her to leave behind her husband, six daughters, money and a huge ranch? That was the question everyone was asking. That, and why had she returned now—right when Hamilton was making a run for the White House with his current wife, Angelina?
The media had jumped on the lovers’ triangle angle. But even that was getting old. Everyone was looking for something more. He wished he could hear what was being said, but they were too far away and talking too softly. He watched them, snapping photos, intrigued by the way they were acting. Not quite like strangers. They’d known each other too well for that. There was definitely some chemistry. Good or bad, he couldn’t quite tell.
Hamilton might have remarried, but he still had feelings for his ex. Maybe the tabloids were right and the current wife, Angelina Broadwater Hamilton, did have something to worry about.
Everyone wanted to know the real story.
Everyone but Max Monroe. Right now he couldn’t have cared less about why Sarah was back, where she’d been or if she’d end up getting her man. He was too pleased with himself. If he was right and this woman was indeed Sarah Hamilton, what he had in his camera was money in the bank.
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