The day after Labor Day, Cole pulled up outside the Texas Cattleman’s Club. This visit was no social call, nor was he here to talk ranching or catch up on the latest gossip in Royal. Cole was here to propose a plan to his team, involving going undercover and hopefully catching Billy Orson, the crooked sheriff who had helped Richard Lowell by falsifying death records and saying that Rich had died in the plane crash that claimed Jason Phillips’s life. Orson had received several large influxes of cash since then, which they were certain had come from Rich. It was a bit crazy, but Cole was prepared to do anything to catch Sheriff Orson.
After speaking with Aaron Phillips the other day and then receiving the results of the DNA testing of the ashes in the urn that were once believed to belong to Will Sanders, they knew for certain that it was Aaron and Megan’s brother, Jason, who had died in that plane crash. This was a murder investigation. There was a lot on the line, and time was not on their side. Rich was on the run, and it was only a matter of time before he fled the country with the money he’d siphoned off from Will’s personal and business accounts, as well as the TCC. They had to catch him. And fast.
But as he strode into the TCC, Cole’s run-in with Dani and the revelation that she had twin sons wouldn’t stop running laps in his mind. Had his eyes played tricks on him? His gut was telling him no. His gut was telling him that those boys might look like Taylor Blake, but they looked even more like him. And the timeline—especially if Dani was lying—worked. Had she gone to New York and discovered she was pregnant? Was that what the letter she’d sent six months after she’d left was really about? Had it been a call for help?
If any of this was true, he and Dani had a holy mess between them, one that would demand untangling. But for the next hour or so, Cole needed to focus on work. He had to set aside one potential headache for an entirely different one.
He entered a small meeting room down one of the long halls at the back of the building. They were keeping a tight lid on the investigation, but this was the best central meeting place. Too many flapping mouths at the sheriff’s office.
Will Sanders was speaking to Sheriff Battle and his deputy, Jeff Baker. Several other deputies were on hand as well, in addition to new full-time members of the task force, courtesy of the FBI—Special Agents Thomas Bird and Marjorie Stanton. Cole had pulled some strings to bring these two on board, but the new DNA evidence had helped convinced the bureau that he needed the extra hands. Bird and Stanton were a crucial part of cracking this case.
Thomas Bird, a reedy man with a thick mustache, was an expert in money laundering, having made his name working on cases involving organized crime. He fully understood the intricacies of the money trail Rich had left behind, especially everything uncovered by Luke Weston’s financial tracking software. Marjorie Stanton, a poker-faced redhead, was a tactical expert specializing in sting operations and undercover work. She was also expecting her first child in three months. Her pregnancy had left her doing investigative work and less of the hands-on work she loved. She wasn’t happy about it, or so she had mentioned to Cole several times when they’d talked.
Sheriff Battle gave Cole the high sign and informally called the meeting to order. “Now that we have Cole Sullivan on hand, we can get down to business. Cole, why don’t you brief everyone on where we stand?”
Cole stood at the front of the room while everyone took a seat. “Sure thing. I believe Deputy Baker has given out the latest brief, but DNA tests have confirmed that Jason Phillips was killed in the plane crash in Durango City, California. We believe Richard Lowell was on that plane and managed to escape. We also believe that he bribed Sheriff Billy Orson to have Phillips’s body cremated before it could be identified. Orson identified the body as Will Sanders. Of course, we all know that Will Sanders is alive and well. Shortly before the plane crash, we got an eyewitness report from Abigail Stewart of an argument between Jason Phillips and Richard Lowell posing as Will Sanders. That was the last time Jason Phillips was seen alive. We believe now that Jason was confronting Rich, and that’s what got him killed. Although we don’t have direct evidence linking Sheriff Orson to the cover-up, it seems pretty clear that he did it. The information given to us by his deputy was invaluable and all pointed to him.”
Stanton raised her hand. “This deputy. Is she a credible source? How do we know she isn’t trying to lead us on a wild goose chase?”
“Her father was the sheriff before Orson. He was a good man, and she hates seeing her father’s legacy ruined like this. She actually put herself in great danger by going to Aaron in the first place. Orson has eyes and ears all over that county.”
Stanton nodded and scribbled down a few notes while her partner, Bird, raised his hand. “We’re still tracing the payoffs from Lowell to Orson. There’s a chance that some of it was cash, but I have to think for this big of a cover-up, it would’ve been too much money to go that route.”
“Orson is a greedy man,” Cole said. “He has a massive house up in the hills. He’s got his fingers in everything within his jurisdiction. The more I dig, the more dirt I find. All kinds of shady dealings and a lot of evidence of bribes and kickbacks. I’m sure Rich had to make a substantial payoff.”
“Everything hinges on Orson right now,” Sheriff Battle said. “If we can find a way to get him to talk and admit that Rich bribed him to have Jason’s body cremated and falsely identify the body as Will, we could blow the case wide-open.”
“And find the money,” Bird added. “We still have to find where Lowell has stashed the small fortune he stole. That’s crucial to our case against him. A big part of his apparent motive for impersonating Will Sanders was to siphon cash from his personal and business accounts. My search for offshore and shell accounts has turned up nothing. I think we’re looking for a physical stash, and my gut is telling me we’re looking for gold.”
“Really?” Deputy Baker asked. “Isn’t that a little impractical? How do you skip the country with gold?”
“It’s not about the how. It’s about the why. It’s the one currency that works anywhere. The disclosure laws are easy to work around, especially if you know what you’re doing, and gold is untraceable by electronic means.”
This really got Cole’s mind going. Did Rich have a stash somewhere in or around Royal? That might explain why they were still sporadic Rich sightings, most recently when Aaron thought he saw Will at the Glass House, when the real Will was miles away at the Ace in the Hole. Was Rich still trying to hide in plain sight, waiting for the perfect time to get to his money? If so, they had to act quickly.
Cole cleared his throat. Time to make his pitch. “Orson is hosting a cocktail party in a few days for potential investors in a pipeline project he’s trying to get in his county. It just reeks of more kickbacks and skimming. What if I posed as a bigwig money guy and wore a wire and tried to get him to say something stupid?”
“Yes. That’s an amazing idea. I could go with you,” Bird offered.
Stanton cast him a doubtful glance. “At a cocktail party for rich people? You’re too socially awkward. You’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”
Bird pressed his lips into a thin line. “Thanks for that.”
“Hey. I call ’em like I see ’em.” Stanton tapped her pen against her pad of paper. “You need bait. You need a lure. You’re a handsome guy, but something tells me you aren’t Sheriff Orson’s idea of a good time.”
Cole leaned back against the wall and crossed his legs at the ankle. “What’d you have in mind?”
“If you do an internet image search for the guy, you get a lot of pictures of him with women, and they are never the same. We’re talking a real revolving cast of characters. I think we need to send you with a female. A damn good-looking one.” Stanton rubbed her round belly. “I’d do it myself if I wasn’t carrying around a baby disguised as a bowling ball.”
For a split second, Cole had an idea, but it was crazy. Maybe it was the mention of a “damn good-looking” woman that had him thinking of Dani. But she was a mom with two small kids. That was too crazy to make any sense. He couldn’t put her in that kind of danger.
“Sheriff, you have any female deputies right now?”
Sheriff Battle shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. We had one last year but she moved away.”
Stanton eyed Cole, but he could see that the gears in her head were churning. “I doubt the bureau will let me steal an extra agent right now. But I can look into it. Otherwise, you might have to find someone, Sullivan.”
“You really think it’s necessary?” Cole was truly drawing a blank on who he should ask. His brain just wanted to circle back to Dani.
“Honestly? I think it’s essential. I don’t see you catching this guy without a beautiful woman on your arm.”
* * *
Dani had really been looking forward to going out to lunch with Megan. Between getting settled in the new house and navigating the landscape of her new job at the Glass House, Dani hadn’t had nearly enough time for her best friend. They were supposed to meet up at the Labor Day celebration, but Megan had decided she couldn’t deal with questions from well-meaning folks about her husband, the man she’d thought was Will Sanders but turned out to be Richard Lowell. Dani still couldn’t comprehend the betrayal Megan must be feeling, having built a life with a man who had been lying to her all along. As bad as that was, the death of her brother Jason was worse. Megan knew that he was dead, but most residents of Royal had no idea. Because of the investigation, it had to stay a secret.
Dani pulled into the circular drive in front of Megan’s gorgeous French chateau–style home on the edge of town. There had been a time when Dani might’ve been a little envious of her friend, living in a big beautiful house like this, from the lush landscaping softening the hard edges of the stone facade, all the way up to its grand arched windows peeking out from beneath the roofline. But Dani had made her own strides since she’d first moved to Royal as a teen, and Megan, the beautiful spark plug with deep roots in town, had inexplicably befriended the girl who’d had almost nothing.
Megan came outside, wearing curve-hugging jeans, cowboy boots and a cute black-and-white gingham blouse, along with oversize sunglasses. She had her black designer handbag in the crook of her arm and carried a small soft-sided case in the other hand. “Nice,” Megan called out as she approached the car. “You not only brought the convertible, the top’s down.”
“The minivan makes it hard to pick up guys.”
Megan laughed. “Maybe we just keep it to the two of us today. Men are not my favorite people in the world right now.” She leaned over and gave Dani a big hug. “I’m so damn happy to see you.”
“Me, too. This was half of the reason to move to Royal—to be able to hang out.”
“Not that I didn’t enjoy coming to visit you in New York every now and then. That was fun, too.”
“What’s in the bag?” Dani asked as she pulled out of the driveway.
“You up for a little shooting before we go to lunch? I bought a .380 and I could use some practice. I just joined the Royal Gun Club.”
Dani hadn’t been to a firing range since her dad had taken her when she was a teenager. “Yeah, sure. Just tell me which way to go.”
Dani followed Megan’s direction, taking back roads. “The boys and I missed seeing you on Labor Day.” Dani raised her voice a bit since the top was down.
“I missed seeing you, too. I ended up holing up in my office and working on new shoe designs. Did I miss any excitement?”
“I ran into Cole. With the boys.”
“It was going to happen. I told you.”
“I know you did. I just didn’t think it was going to happen so soon.”
“What happened?”
What had happened? Everything had whizzed by so fast, Dani was hardly able to keep up. She’d known that day would come, but just like she hadn’t been fully prepared to deal with Cole on her own, she hadn’t been ready to see him with the boys. “He’s suspicious. I could see it in his eyes.” She stopped at a red light. “He asked the boys if they like horses, which of course got them all riled up. I’m supposed to take them out to the ranch tomorrow.”
“Great idea. Since your last visit to the ranch went so well.” Megan knew that Dani had nearly ended up in Cole’s bed the other night and did not hold back on the sarcasm.
“What was I supposed to say to them when Cole offered? I’d already gone and filled their little heads with how much fun we were going to have when we moved to Texas. Getting to ride horses and spend time on a ranch are high on the list of things they want to do.” The light turned green, and Dani shifted and sped away. Talking about the visit to see Cole tomorrow had her all tied up in knots. She hated the way she acted around him, almost like she was a different person, casting aside her normally rational thoughts.
“What’s your plan then?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. I made a plan for the other night, and it was a disaster. I’m thinking this time, I just go with it.”
“Do you plan on telling him someday?”
Deep in her heart, Dani knew she would have to tell Cole, but her protective instinct with her boys was impossible to ignore. Could she trust Cole? She wanted to think she could, but she needed to know it. He’d lied when he broke up with her—Megan had snooped and there had been no other woman. Then he’d quit his Texas Ranger job a few months after she went to New York. She’d begged him to do that after the accident, but he’d refused. And of course there was the letter she’d sent about a week before the boys were born, asking him to call her so they could talk about what had happened. She’d meant that as an open door. All he would’ve needed to do was walk through it. But he hadn’t. He’d simply left it to close on its own.
“When I tell him, it’ll be for the boys’ benefit, not his. I gave Cole plenty of chances, and he hasn’t done much good with any of them.”
“But he did kiss you. Does that make you think he wants to get back together?”
“No. It makes me think he enjoys kissing me, which does nothing to fix the past.”
As Dani pulled into the drive at the Royal Gun Club, she realized she’d managed to avoid the topic of Rich, but she knew she was going to have to bring it up at some point. She couldn’t ignore the elephant in the room forever. Megan didn’t always like to talk about the things that made her vulnerable, but how could she not be feeling that way? She’d married a man who was assuming someone else’s identity, and that man had, in turn, killed her brother. Every nerve in her body had to be raw right now. She was hiding it well, too, which only made Dani worry more.
“I sort of hate to ask this, but did the Rich situation precipitate the gun purchase?” Dani asked as she and Megan walked through the parking lot toward the sprawling one-story cedar-clad building housing the firing range.
“I need to protect myself. It’s most likely that he killed my brother. There’s no telling what he’s going to do next, or who he might go after just to get what he wants.”
“That’s some scary stuff.” Dani could only imagine what Megan was enduring. Dani might’ve felt betrayed by Cole, but what she’d gone through didn’t come close to this. “Are you going to keep the house?” Add that to the list of nightmares Megan was currently living—sleeping in the same house where she and her lying “husband” had once lived as a happy couple.
“Will thinks I should move to the ranch for my personal safety. I don’t want to move. I’ll feel like I’m letting Rich win if I do that.”
Just outside the main entrance to the building, Dani put her arm around Megan and pulled her close. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’ll feel better once I pull the trigger.” Megan patted Dani on the back and stepped back. “Plus. I’ll be honest. Will’s a little too tempting and I’m not ready to go there. The last thing I need is romance.”
Dani wasn’t surprised. How could Megan not be attracted to the real version of the man she thought was her husband? “You do what’s best for you.”
Dani and Megan walked inside and made their way to the reception desk for the indoor firing range. As a member, Megan had already completed the necessary paperwork, but Dani was asked to sign a waiver and present identification. She decided to rent a gun so she could shoot as well, choosing the same model Megan had bought, minus the pink pearl handle.
“Are you two sisters?” the man behind the counter asked.
Dani and Megan looked at each other, each trying hard not to roll their eyes. They used to get this all the time in high school. Even though Megan had blue eyes and Dani’s were brown, they were nearly the same height, both with long dark hair. “We’re not, but people ask us that all time.”
“We might as well be sisters,” Megan said. “We tell each other everything.”
The man behind the counter simply nodded. “You’re free to go through the airlock. You have lanes five and six.”
They put on their ear and eye protection and headed in. There was only one other person in the range and it appeared as though they were packing up. Dani got settled in her lane, arranging her ammunition to one side, placing the gun on the ledge pointing downrange and carefully loading the magazine just as her father had taught her years ago. As a police officer, he’d been thorough about gun safety, drilling it into her head. She’d found it a bit annoying as a teenager, but she could appreciate it now.
Both women sent their targets downrange and began shooting. Dani was impressed with this little gun. It fit perfectly into her hand and had very little kickback. She had to admit that she was proud of her aim, too. She hadn’t lost it after all these years. Between reloads, she watched to see how Megan was doing. Shot after shot, she hit close to dead center of the target, the usual outline of a faceless man. Wherever Richard Lowell was lurking these days, he’d better give her a wide berth.
Dani used up her practice ammunition and stood back, watching Megan as she kept going. She waited for Megan to quit, or even just notice her, but she didn’t. She kept reloading round after round. Megan’s shoulders were tense. Her jaw was set with determination. After about ten minutes of this, Dani noticed that Megan was trembling as she went to reload. Dani stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder.
Megan jumped and pulled off her earmuffs. “What’s wrong? Is something wrong?”
“No, honey. Everything is just fine, I hope. But if you don’t slow down, you’re going to cut that target clean in two.”
Megan’s brow was glistening with sweat. Her eyes were wild. She sucked in a deep breath and blew it from her lips. “I think I need to get out of here.”
“Good idea. Let’s scoot.” Dani gathered her things and met Megan at the door. She turned in the gun she’d rented, and they made their way outside.
As soon as they were back in fresh air, Megan leaned over and rested her hands on her knees, like she was exhausted. “I feel like I’m losing it. Some times it feels like somebody is trying to squeeze the life out of me.”
Dani again went to comfort her. “You’re grieving, honey. You lost your brother. Your marriage isn’t what you thought it was. Honestly, I’m surprised you’re even able to get out of bed in the morning and go to work. I don’t know if I could do that.”
Megan straightened and held her hand to her chest, taking more deep breaths. “It’s not so much what he did to me. It’s Jason. My brother is gone. My sweet, amazing brother. He had his whole life ahead of him and he’s gone. And my niece, Savannah, not only had to lose her mom, she’s lost her daddy, as well. It’s just not fair, Dani. It’s not fair.” The tears rolled down Megan’s cheeks and Dani knew that her best friend was in agony. Megan never cried. She was always tough about everything.
“You’re absolutely right. It’s not fair at all.”
“I would kill him if he was here. I’d just kill him. I’d shoot him dead and the police could come and cart me off and I wouldn’t care.”
“Let’s not think about that right now. I don’t want my best friend to go to jail.” She took Megan’s hand and led her back to the car. They both climbed in. “Cole is on the case, and I know he’s determined to catch him.”
Megan shook her head and stared down into her lap, picking at her fingernail. “I hope to hell he does. If he doesn’t, I’m going to have to do it myself.”
Dani wished at that moment that she could do something to help. Anything. Maybe keeping her distance from Cole was the best course of action. She didn’t want to be a distraction. That being said, she couldn’t exactly go back on her promise to bring the boys to his ranch tomorrow. They were already so excited about it.
“I think you need some closure,” Dani said. “I mean, you’re caught in this impossible situation—you can’t even talk about Jason or Rich because of the investigation. But maybe it would be helpful if you had a small memorial for Jason. Something private where you and Aaron and Savannah can say goodbye.”
Megan hung her head, the tears falling onto her lap. “You’re right. Maybe I just need to say goodbye.”
“I think you’ll feel better. You can’t keep everything bottled up inside forever. And until Rich is caught, you know that’s going to be the way things have to be.”
Megan sat a little straighter and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue she’d pulled from her handbag. “Maybe we could have it at Aaron’s house. Savannah is living there full-time now. I don’t want it to be too much of a disruption for her. She’s still so little.”
“I think it sounds wonderful. I’m happy to help in any way I can.”
“I’d want Will to be there, too. He’s been so great to me since this happened. He’s the one who brought Cole on board with the investigation in the first place. I’d like to invite Cole, too, but only if it’s okay with you.”
Dani had to think about that for a minute. “This isn’t a ploy, is it?”
“I tend to think of situations that are a bit more romantic than a memorial service if I’m trying to set up a couple.” Megan looked up and flashed her trademark smile, making Dani feel one hundred times better.
“Perfect. Just name the day and I’ll be there.”
“I’ll talk to Aaron, but I’d like to do it sooner rather than later. Maybe Saturday.”
“I’ll keep it open.”
Megan reached for Dani’s hand. “Thank you. For everything. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“You’re welcome, and I feel the exact same way. Now, let’s go get some lunch. I’m buying.”
“Cocktails, too?”
Dani turned on the ignition and shifted the car into gear. “Of course. I think we both could use one.”