Brandon's Bride Read online

  Contents:

  Prologue

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

  Epilogue

  Special thanks to Ted Johnson, Assistant Fire Management Officer Ochoco National Forest, and Lance Honda, Superintendent Redmond Hotshot Crew, for sharing their time, expertise and war stories. I am not sure any book can do the true heroics of the Hotshots justice, but I have done my best.

  And to the gang from Penn—Jenn, Drew, Chris, Jon, Mark, Gabi, Parris and Michelle. Here's to all the New Year's Eves to come.

  Finally, to Anthony, my love, my life, my anchor. Thank you.

  Prologue

  ^ »

  Ray Bands could count the cumulating days by the number of crumpled pretzel bags and empty diet sodas piling up on the surveillance van's metal floor. In the beginning, he'd thought absently of bringing a wastebasket for his next shift. Now he waded through the crinkling, salty cellophane without a second thought. It wasn't his van, anyway. And in his line of work, neatness didn't count.

  Results did.

  He stretched up his arms again, rolled his old, creaking neck, then adjusted his headphones. The screens in front of him remained static, the large reels of tapes frozen, waiting for a sound to trigger them to action. Still nothing happening. Ray propped his feet on a milk crate, opened a fresh bag of fat-free pretzels and stared at them morosely. He wanted French fries.

  Ray had grown up during the days when food was just food and you were happy you got some. No fat-free this or free-range that. For God's sake, who ever would have believed that food that contained so much less—less fat, less sodium, less cholesterol, less taste, for crying out loud—could actually cost more. It defied the imagination.

  But then last year, he'd started dating a granola-crunching, sassy-mouthed aerobics instructor who was a fraction of his age and so damn beautiful she took his breath away. She had him eating puffed rice cakes, lean meats and fresh vegetables. He'd given up cigarettes. He'd given up beer. He'd joined a health club where young, nubile bodies preened in front of mirrors so shamelessly he didn't know where to look.

  And there were nights he woke up just so he could watch Melissa sleep, her dark hair like a satin frame around her pale, ethereal face. God, she was gorgeous. And then he would wonder what a sweet girl like her was doing with a beat-up old geezer like him. Sometimes, he thought she had to be KGB, but those days were gone, of course. No more cloak-and-dagger. No more evil empire. He'd survived it all without seeing half the glory he'd thought he would. Hell, he was four years from retirement and they'd pulled him off his current case to eavesdrop on a semiretired Wall Street investment banker.

  On cue, the screens in front of him abruptly blinked to life. Sound waves undulated across the black backdrop, spiking to indicate louder noises. Brandon Ferringer was finally awake in his Manhattan apartment.

  From the little the powers that be had deemed to tell Ray, Ferringer was one of those Richie Rich thrill-seeker types. In the four years since his young wife's death, he'd been running around the globe hell-bent on either adventure or suicide, depending how you looked at it. He'd just returned from Nepal, which must have been something because the man had been asleep for five straight days. Now, at last, Ray could hear him moving about.

  Ray adjusted the headphones and focused on the four primary screens. The mike in the bathroom reported the sound of a shower running, then the brisk whisk, whisk of someone toweling off. Footsteps pattered down the hall, and the kitchen mike transmitted the sound of a coffee grinder roaring to life.

  Brandon's cell phone was turned on. Finally getting some action, the van's reel tapes kicked to life and recorded the call. Ferringer didn't have phone service reconnected to his apartment yet. A big break for Ray. Bugging a landline phone sometimes caused interference or small clicks that gave the wiretapping away. Cellular phones, on the other hand, didn't require a bug. If you knew the frequency, you could eavesdrop or trace a call to your heart's content. Ferringer had obviously been monitored before—the frequency, serial number and PIN of his cell phone had been included in his dossier.

  The ringing was staticky. The high-rises didn't always get the best reception—too many steel girders got in the way. At the other end, a man finally picked up.

  "C.J.'s Mortuary. You stab 'em, we slab 'em."

  "C.J.," Brandon said.

  "My God!" the other man replied.

  Frowning, Ray dug through the pile of empty pretzel bags until he found Ferringer's file. Who the hell was C.J., and why would Ferringer call a mortician? After a moment, Ray solved the mystery. According to the file, Ferringer had two half-siblings, Maggie Ferringer and C.J. MacNamara. They all shared the same father, Maximillian Ferringer, whose plane went down in Indonesia in 1972. His body was never found.

  The MacNamara son had entered the Marines, Force Recon. Now he lived in Sedona, Arizona, where he owned a bar and worked part-time as a "bail enforcement officer."

  Ray snorted. Bounty hunters were nothing but a bunch of cop wannabes who couldn't make the cut. Loser bastards, every last one of them. Then again, judging by the grainy black and white, MacNamara probably didn't do too badly with the ladies.

  "Holy smokes, look what the cat dragged in," C.J. said at last. "It's been what, four, five months? How are you, Brandon, and where the hell have you been?"

  "Everest."

  "As in the mountain? Hell, Brandon. People die on Everest!"

  "I didn't."

  "Obviously God does look after fools then."

  "Which you also know firsthand," Brandon replied wryly. "How are you, C.J.? And how is Tamara?"

  Tamara Allistair was listed in the file as a public relations executive who currently lived with MacNamara. See file, Senator Brennan. Ray had no idea what that meant.

  "Oh, we're fine. Tamara just set up shop here in Sedona, and it's going well. We've set the wedding date for September. I don't suppose you'll be in the Northern Hemisphere sometime around then."

  "Actually, I'm planning on spending the next six months in Oregon. I was selected to be a hotshot."

  "What?" Ray seconded C.J.'s surprise.

  "Our father gave Maggie a locket," Brandon said quietly. "Did she ever tell you that? Inside, there's a picture of a beautiful woman. She's not one of our mothers."

  "Surprise, surprise. Now what does that have to do with Oregon?"

  "I—well, Julia—also discovered that Max had two business partners, Al Simmons and Bud Irving. Lydia says they were all best friends from Tillamook High School. They formed the partnership right after graduation, and according to the Chamber of Commerce records, it's never been dissolved. Don't suppose you know about that?"

  "Maximillian and partners? Give me a break, Brandon, the man didn't even send postcards to his wives or children. Can you picture him working with two other people?"

  "Al Simmons disappeared in 1970," Brandon said softly, "but I've traced Bud Irving to Beaverville, Oregon."

  "Uh, Brandon. When you say this Al guy disappeared, what do you mean by disappeared?"

  "I mean I can't find any trace of Al Simmons after 1970. No taxes, no driver's license renewals, no credit cards, no bank accounts. No death certificate. As of 1970, Al Simmons ceased to exist."

  "That's not a good thing. Ceasing to exist is never a good thing."

  "No, it probably isn't."

  "Brandon…" C.J.'s sigh was audible over the line, but the brothers' argument must have been old, because Brandon cut him off at the pass.

  "You think it's too dangerous," Brandon supplied.

  "Absolutely."

  "You think Max has been dead for twenty-five years, why mess with it now?"

  "Let sleeping dogs lie," C.J. agreed.

  "C.J., don't you think it's odd that in a par
tnership of three people, two have disappeared without a trace? One in 1970 and one in 1972. I've been to the wreckage of Max's plane in Indonesia. There's no good reason his body wasn't found. Something is going on here, C.J. And the answer lies with Bud Irving in Beaverville, Oregon."

  On the other end of the line, C.J. was silent.

  "I have to know," Brandon said quietly.

  "Brandon, this isn't a walk in the park. I've gotten threatening phone calls about Max. You—"

  "I may have lost my wife," Brandon stated.

  "The police said she was shot by a mugger."

  "She was researching Max for my family tree and then she was shot? Bloody hell, it was a mugger!" His voice was abruptly savage.

  "You don't know—"

  "And neither do you, C.J. Neither do you!" Brandon exclaimed.

  Whoa. Ray sat back, impressed. MacNamara was a Marine, and Marines were known for their temper, but he never would have picked an intellectual Wall Street banker as the passionate type. Apparently, Brandon had inherited more of Maximillian the Chameleon's genes than either of the brothers realized.

  The apple never did fall far from the tree.

  And Maximillian the Chameleon had been some apple.

  His sons were taking deep breaths and working on cooling their tempers.

  "Let me come out there," C.J. said.

  "No, you have Tamara. I won't jeopardize that."

  "That's not your decision—"

  "I will call you if there's a problem. Mail my wedding invite to Lydia's, would you? And C.J., congratulations, man. I wish you the best."

  "Brandon…" C.J. sounded disgruntled. Then he sighed. "Just be careful, all right? I want you at my wedding, dammit. And I want my wedding day to be as happy as yours. You know?"

  "That was a special day, wasn't it?" Ferringer said softly. "Yours will be special, too, C.J. Congratulations."

  He hung up before his brother could reply.

  The cell phone wasn't turned on again. No sound came from the apartment for so long Ray almost panicked, but then he replayed the conversation in his mind and got a visual image of Brandon Ferringer standing at the window of his Manhattan penthouse, gazing at a world-class view of Central Park and seeing only his wife, Julia, on their wedding day.

  Ray's eyes got a little moist. Christ, he was becoming a maudlin old fool. But then he started thinking of Melissa again, and wouldn't it be something to see her in wedding whites? And what would he do if something ever happened to her?

  He shook his head, knowing white picket fences would never exist for a man like him. And Melissa really could do better.

  He took off the headphones, found a land-line phone and dialed from memory. In his line of work, phone numbers, names and instructions were never written down. If you couldn't remember it, you deserved your fate.

  "Subject's on the move," he said without preamble.

  "Details."

  Ray recapped the conversation. At the other end, the man fell silent. Ray wasn't sure exactly who he was. He had proper clearance and knew the passwords, which was all that mattered.

  "Follow him," the man said. "Stay on him. If he gets too close, kill him."

  "All right." On the road again. Melissa wouldn't like that, but what could he do? I'm a salesman, honey, I have to travel. But don't worry. I'm four years from retirement. Just four years from retirement.

  "Make it look accidental. Incredibly so. We don't want MacNamara involved."

  The former Marine, Force Recon. That made sense. "All right."

  "Don't call again unless things have changed. The less contact, the better."

  "Sure." Ray hung up, not required to bother with such pleasantries as goodbye. He put on the headphones. No sound. Ferringer must still be at the window. Did he miss his Julia that much? Or was he thinking about his father and how badly he wanted to know the truth?

  Some things aren't meant to be known, Ferringer, not even in this day and age.

  Ray began plotting his strategy. With his feet up and his mind running through a list of the best "accidents," he opened a new bag of pretzels and bit into a rock-hard mass. Traffic accidents were always suspicious, tampering with machinery better. House fires were pretty good, or electrocution. Maybe a nice shove off a cliff.

  He bit the pretzel wrong and almost cracked a tooth. God, he missed potato chips.

  Chapter 1

  « ^ »

  Even with the real estate agent's directions, it took Brandon three tries to find the Lady Luck Ranch. The first time, he assumed the dirt trail splicing off from the main road was a forgotten forestry path. After driving another five miles, he turned and went back. Beaverville, Oregon, wasn't that big. Downtown was a collection of six gray-weathered storefronts that could've been mistaken for a ghost town if not for the single golden pine addition gleaming on the corner.

  Twenty-six people served, the dust-covered sign joked at the corner grocery deli. The new store turned out to be a cattle feed shop, its front porch and back loading docks buried beneath huge burlap bags of grain. Next to it, a hunting store boasted a dozen gleaming rifles in the windows and enough boxes of bullets to make the NRA proud. Next to it was a beat old saloon claiming to be Whiskey Jack's. Two hundred and sixty people served, its sign boasted.

  Brandon got the impression Beaverville might be just slightly different from Manhattan.

  He passed the high school. At first glance, he thought the simple three-story cabin was someone's home, but then he spotted the football field next door and discerned the fallen, two-hundred-year-old tree trunk with Beaverville High School branded into its bark. The town hadn't wasted much money on the slightly tottering school. On the other hand, the taxpayers took football seriously. The lines were freshly painted brilliant white, the wooden bleachers were carefully stained, and a decent size snack bar advertised beer, hot dogs, and Tums, all for seventy-five cents apiece.

  "Wonderful," Brandon murmured. "Let the good times roll." He'd spent the whole night on a red-eye flight and the whole morning driving. After four years of rigorous hiking in the vast outdoors, he'd developed a healthy loathing of confinement. He wanted to stretch his long, lean legs. He wanted to draw real air into his scratchy throat and feel fresh wind against his face. He wanted out of his car.

  He headed down Highway 26. He still didn't see any signs of a ranch.

  In another couple of weeks, these dry, barren fields would be covered in lush prairie grass and pink foxglove, all rimmed by the snowcapped mountains rising majestically in the horizon. Now, however, the landscape was arid and desolate, a stark compilation of tinder-dry sagebrush and persnickety prairie grass poking out of red, dusty soil. One bolt of lightning, and the whole thing could burst into flame, walls of fire reaching two hundred feet high, sounding like a jet engine and racing eighty miles per hour. Deer would scatter and fall. Hundred-year-old oaks would burn so badly their stumps would smolder well into November.

  Brandon remembered it all vividly—the heat, the smell, the roaring sound, the bloodred sun, the unquenchable thirst. The enormous awe of seeing what nature could do. Boss Hoggins, the superintendent from the White Mountains, had told Brandon that once a man saw a true wildland fire, he never was the same. Four years ago, Brandon had been in the flames. And Boss Hoggins was right—he'd never looked at Mother Nature the same way since.

  Brandon hit the center of town again, scowled and turned around. "The Lady Luck Ranch is just off the highway," the real estate agent had said. "The only ranch around for miles. Just look for the sign. Can't miss it."

  "Can't miss it," he mocked. "Can't miss it."

  Brandon began to contemplate wringing the real estate agent's neck.

  The dirt road loomed to his right again. Abruptly Brandon slammed on the brakes and brought the car to a grinding halt, his gaze glued to one of the more impressive examples of sagebrush. Funny, but that looked like a piece of wood tangled in those prickly limbs. Say, a sign.

  Brandon climbed out of his car,
thinned his lips impatiently and stalked toward the offending plant. Oh, yes, that was a sign, all right. The Lady Luck Ranch sign.

  "Your mother was a cactus," he informed the bush coldly, picked up the sign and stuck it on the barbed wire fence. He turned his red rent-a-wreck down the path. The car jostled over the overgrown dirt road hard enough to rattle his bones.

  If he ever found this damn ranch, he was never getting into a car again.

  The road wove around and around, gradually beginning to climb. The brush gave way to a thick grove of pine trees that blocked the stark sun. Abruptly, the ranch appeared.

  A beat-up pickup truck sat in the circular dirt drive, colored red by more rust than paint. The wooden cabin was small, the patio dusted with yellow soil. Covered by a thick carpet of pine needles and moss, the roof sagged in one corner while the chimney crumbled dangerously. The front door had weathered differently than the rest of the house—a newer addition that already leaned on its hinges. The place obviously needed some work, and the neighboring stables didn't look much better.

  But blue gingham curtains waved cheerily at the square windows. Planters rimming the patio offered red, pink and yellow tulips. Two brightly colored horse blankets were draped over the railings to dry. A rocking chair in one corner had a thick yellow and blue comforter draped over the back and looked well-used. What the place lacked in money, it made up in atmosphere. That was good enough for Brandon.

  He climbed out of his car. He didn't see any sign of people, but an orange striped cat appeared, wrapping its purring form around his legs in a long procession of figure eights. After a minute, Brandon squatted to scratch the tomcat behind his ears.

  "Do you know where I can find Victoria Meese?" he asked the cat, since it was all he had to work with.

  The cat purred smugly, blinking wise gold eyes. C.J. used to have an orange cat named Speedy. For years, there was nothing the Marine could wear that wasn't covered in blond fur.

  "How about renting me a room?" Brandon tried again. "I'll buy you only the best cat food and fill your litter box with shredded money. Why not? I haven't had much luck getting rid of the stuff any other way."