Missing

“Thirty-six years?” Avery’s lips were bloodless. “Ron was married to another woman for thirty-six years?”

“It seems that way.”

“How could he?” Avery asked, her voice low but shaking with anger. “How could Ron do this to us? And where was this woman when Ron took us to visit the ranch?”

“I don’t know. I can’t even begin to guess at his motives. Most of all, I can’t wrap my mind around the sheer stupidity of it. This isn’t the Victorian era. Why in the world didn’t he get a divorce before he married you?”

“I have no idea.” Avery was still alarmingly white, but her voice was stronger. “However, it’s fortunate for all of us that he appears to be dead, because otherwise I’d kill him.”

Three

May 4, 2006, Thatch, Stark County, Wyoming

Megan heard the sound of a car braking to a halt alongside the porch and the pounding inside her head instantly grew worse. She peeked through a crack in the living-room blinds, her stomach knotting at the prospect of seeing yet another reporter parked on the driveway.

The car was a red Ford Freestyle, not one of the roaming TV-satellite vans that had been tormenting her for the past day and a half. Unfortunately, the absence of a broadcast antenna wasn’t necessarily good news. She’d discovered that print journalists could be every bit as aggressive as their on-air counterparts.

Tucking her gingham shirt into her jeans, Megan prepared herself to walk outside and repeat for the umpteenth time that she had no comment. The trick, she’d found, was to head off the journalists before they could bang on the door and disturb her mother. The next trick—even more difficult—was to get rid of them without losing her temper and providing them with juicy copy.

A tall man got out of the car, dressed in a gray business suit, his thick, light brown hair blowing in the late-afternoon breeze and his tie hanging loose around his unbuttoned shirt collar. The sun was shining through the window into Megan’s eyes and it took her a second to recognize her brother.

“Liam!” She ran out of the house, flying down the porch steps, the dogs bounding at her heels. “Liam!” She hurled herself into his arms, hugging him as hard as she could, caught off guard by the rush of her own emotions.

Liam wasn’t usually what you’d call a warm-and-fuzzy kind of a guy and she felt his split-second hesitation before he hugged her back. But for all his reserve, his voice was deeply affectionate when he spoke. “Hey, squirt. You look great, especially considering everything that’s going on.”

He patted Bruno and Belle, who thrust their muzzles against his legs and whimpered ecstatically, tails thumping. “How are you holding up, Meggie?”

“Better now that you’re here.” Megan not only loved Liam, she’d worshipped him as her hero, ever since she was three and he was the twelve-year-old big brother patiently leading her around on the pony their father had just bought as her birthday present. Still, she didn’t know him as well as she would have liked. With their nine-year age difference, Liam had been off to college by the time she was starting fourth grade and he’d almost never visited the ranch over the past few years. He lived in Denver and she’d spent time with him there as often as she could, but she always sensed a barrier that allowed her to get just so close and no further. Despite that, the bond between the two of them was important to her. She suspected it was equally important to Liam, for all that he was so emotionally guarded.

“It’s really good to see you.” Her voice, embarrassingly, was thick with emotion. “I didn’t realize how much I needed you until I saw you getting out of the car.”

Liam ruffled her hair, then uncharacteristically dropped a kiss on the top of her head, an easy spot for him to reach since he was a good ten inches taller than her five foot three. “I never expected to live long enough to hear my kid sister admit that she needed me.”

“It’s been a rough couple of days,” Megan acknowledged.

“I can imagine.” Liam’s words sounded more ironic than sympathetic, but he crooked his finger under her chin and tilted her face up, using his thumb to brush away the tears that kept welling up in her eyes despite her best efforts to contain them. Unlike her brother, she was cursed with emotions that bubbled over at the slightest provocation.

He knew how much she despised her own easy tears and, with welcome tact, he bent down and gave the dogs his full attention, allowing her a moment to regain control. “Hey, Bruno. Hey, Belle. Hate to tell you guys this, but you’re getting fat.”

The dogs ignored the insult and licked his hands in slobbery friendship, clearly remembering him fondly, although it was at least two years since they’d last seen him.

“Okay, you’re great dogs, both of you, and now I’d like my hands back.” He snapped his fingers and pointed to the ground. The dogs, who considered Megan’s commands no more than playful suggestions, instantly quieted. They seated themselves with their front paws on top of Liam’s shoes, tongues lolling out of the side of their mouths as they panted their enthusiasm for his return.

Liam turned his attention back to Megan. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner, squirt.”

“That’s okay—”

“No, it’s not. As usual, I was unavailable when you needed me.” He took off his tie and shoved it in the pocket of his suit jacket. “I wasn’t ignoring you, Meg.”

“It never occurred to me that you were. When I didn’t hear from you last night, I assumed you weren’t home.”

“You were right. I didn’t get your message until this morning. Then I had to reschedule my court appearances for the next few days before I could leave Denver. I tried to call on my way to the airport, but the ranch phone was constantly busy and your cell number kept switching me to voice mail.”

“I took the ranch phones off the hook because I got tired of telling reporters that I had nothing to say, and cell phones still don’t work out here so I can’t pick up my messages.”

Megan asked no questions about Liam’s absence the previous night, although she could make a pretty good guess as to why he’d been away from home. If her brother had been running true to recent form, he’d spent the night with some gorgeous woman he would almost certainly never see again.

In high school, Liam had been a jock more interested in football and skiing than girls. During the entire seven years he spent in college and law school, he’d dated no more than half a dozen different women. Then he’d moved to Denver, taken the bar exam and joined a partnership of criminal-defense attorneys. He’d gone out with a fellow lawyer for over a year and Megan had expected to hear at any minute that the two of them were engaged. Instead, their relationship abruptly ended. Overnight, Liam seemed to acquire the ambition to have sex with every attractive single woman in the state of Colorado. Megan wished he could find a woman he liked enough to settle down, but since her own relationships seemed to have all the depth and staying power of wet tissues, she wasn’t exactly in a position to criticize.

“I hoped the ranch might be too far off the beaten track for TV crews to waste time driving out here.” Liam leaned into the rental car and took out a soft leather duffel bag. With a skill acquired in childhood, he stuck out his foot and blocked the dogs from jumping into the backseat. “Obviously I underestimated the news appeal of Dad’s disappearance.”

“It’s not just the fact that he’s disappeared. It’s the fact that he was a bigamist. You don’t get too many of those nowadays.” Megan stopped Bruno from chasing a rabbit by scratching the precise spot behind his ears that guaranteed to make him squirm in ecstasy.

Liam pulled a face. “Just how bad have the reporters been?”

She gave a short, hard laugh. “Somewhere north of rabid. A crew from Channel Six drove down from Jackson Hole within a couple of hours of our hearing the news. The producer demanded an exclusive interview. He informed me that we owed him an interview because Channel Six is our local station and the people of Wyoming have a right to know how Mom feels about Dad’s other wife and daughter!”

Liam muttered an expletive beneath his breath. “I trust you told him precisely where he could shove his demands.”

“I sure did, for all the good it did me. The crew from Jackson Hole was only the first, and not even the most pushy. I’ve developed a whole new sympathy for movie stars who punch out paparazzi. Living with these people in your face 24/7 would be enough to drive anyone crazy.”

“Since you’ve been sweeping reporters off the front porch all day long, I guess you won’t be too surprised to hear that when I drove into the ranch a roving camera crew was busy setting up shop at the entrance gates.”

Megan sighed. “Not surprised, just sick to death of having to deal with them. I finally called Harry a couple of hours ago and asked for help. He came right out, thank God, and ordered them to clear off our land. Unfortunately, I guess there’s no way to stop people parking on the public road outside the boundary fences.” She shaded her eyes from the sun and stared down the long driveway. “I don’t see anyone coming.”

“Hopefully we won’t. I told the crew I was the family lawyer and threatened to have them arrested for trespassing if they drove so much as their front wheels onto ranch property. They seemed to listen.”

“Maybe they’ll get bored and go away if there’s no activity.”

“In your dreams.” Liam clearly didn’t think there was a chance in hell that the reporters would leave.

“The neighbors might refuse to talk.” Megan was more wistful than optimistic. “They’re a pretty nice bunch of people and they don’t have much patience for big-city folk.”

“Yeah, but there’s always one neighbor who’s dying to see himself on TV and won’t care what lies he needs to invent as long as his story gets him on camera.”

“You’re probably right. Unfortunately.”

“Count on it. And even if the reporters can’t squeeze any good copy out of our neighbors, you can bet Dad’s other family in Chicago will have plenty of so-called friends who are only too willing to gossip for the cameras.”

Megan shrugged. “Personally, I’d be thrilled if the media gave up on us and fixated on them. At least Mom would be left in peace.”

Liam sent her a sympathetic glance. “They’re victims, too, you know.”

She sighed. “I know. One day I may start to empathize with them, but right now I can’t. There’ve been too many shocking revelations and too little time to absorb them.” Megan was reluctantly fascinated by the idea that she had a half sister, but she wasn’t yet ready to cope with the tumultuous emotions precipitated by her existence.

“Have you seen pictures of them?” The question was torn from her against her better judgment. She’d been loath to switch on the TV today not only for fear of seeing herself and the ranch house plastered all over the airwaves but even more for fear of being inundated with images of her father’s other family.

Liam nodded. “You can’t avoid seeing them. The story of Dad’s disappearance was the lead story on every channel when I walked through the airports in Denver and Jackson Hole.”

Megan grimaced. “Complete with pictures of the ranch, I suppose?”

“’Fraid so. Along with endless shots of the penthouse in downtown Chicago where Dad’s other wife apparently lives. The media are fascinated by the contrast between the two homes.”

Megan drew in a quick breath. “I don’t mind being portrayed as a country bumpkin if that means the journalists get bored with us sooner.”

“That’s good, because they already have you and Mom typecast as exactly that. Apparently Avery Fairfax is big on the social scene in Chicago—she’s chaired several important charity events and the TV stations have photos and file footage of her looking incredibly sophisticated and glamorous. Mom comes off sounding as if she’s Mrs. Homebody from 1950. It makes for great copy and who cares if there’s no truth to the images they’re creating?”

“In a way, the distortions protect Mom’s privacy, so I’m not sure she’ll mind.”

“Maybe not. Although the cable news channels keep mentioning the fact that the penthouse where Avery and Kate are living is currently valued at six point five million dollars, whereas Mom’s house would probably sell for less than fifty thousand. That might irritate her somewhat.”

Megan brushed the information aside. “Thank goodness the journalists don’t dig deep with their research. The truth is, some resort-development company offered Mom more than a million dollars for the Flying W land only a couple of months ago.”

Liam didn’t look impressed. “A million dollars for six thousand acres, as opposed to six point five million dollars for five thousand square feet of Avery’s penthouse. That would pretty much piss me off if I were Mom.”

She couldn’t let herself get caught up in anger over the money, Megan decided. There were so many other things her father had done that were more worthy of her rage.

“What do they look like?” Part of her wanted desperately to know. Another part of her wasn’t ready to give substance to her cloudy mental images of her father’s second wife and her half sister.

“Tall, blond, very photogenic,” Liam said. “Actually, the daughter has facial features that are a lot like Dad’s. The same wide-set eyes and high cheekbones.”

“Your features are a lot like Dad’s, too.”

“I know.” Liam shrugged. “Unfortunately, I can’t change my face short of plastic surgery and I’m not willing to grant Dad that much importance in my life.”

“I didn’t mean that. I meant if you and…Kate…both look like him—she must look like you. Especially since she’s tall.” Megan drew in an unsteady breath. “She probably looks more like your real sister than I do.”

“Maybe.” Liam gave her a quick, reassuring grin. “But she’s a stranger despite the biological link, whereas you’re the annoying kid that for some crazy reason I’ve loved since the moment Mom brought you home from the hospital. Looking mighty wrinkled and unappetizing if you must know, although Mom tried to make the best of you with a frilly hat and cute socks.”

She answered his smile. “And that’s your way of reassuring me? If so, I have to tell you, your charm offensive needs work.”

“Hey, I’m your brother. It’s the best I can do. Besides, think about what Kate is going through right now. She doesn’t even have a sister or brother to share her frustrations with. We’re the lucky ones.”

“I promise to feel sorry for her sometime soon. Right now, I can’t. I’m too busy alternating between feeling betrayed and totally, incredibly stupid.”

“You weren’t stupid,” Liam said. “Dad was criminally deceptive. Don’t take his crimes onto your shoulders.”

“I’m working on it.” Megan managed another smile although she could feel it wobble at the edges. “Let’s go inside. You must want to see Mom. She’ll be so glad to know you’re here—”

Liam put out his arm, preventing her from walking into the house. “Talk to me for a minute longer before we go into the house. Somehow it’s easier not to get eaten up with anger out here in the fresh air. How’s Mom holding up?”

Megan considered for a moment. “She broke down when she first heard about Dad’s other wife, but now I’m not sure what she’s feeling. You know how she tends to keep people at arm’s length by occupying herself with some chore or other? That’s what she’s doing right now. She won’t let me get close enough to offer real sympathy. Just scurries off insisting she has some vital new task that has to be attended to. Immediately, of course.”

“She’s always been the queen of busywork,” Liam said, his expression showing his frustration. “It’s very effective as a distancing mechanism and it’s driven me crazy for years.”

“Me, too.” Megan gave a rueful smile. “I wish she’d bend her steel spine a little and confess that she needs a friendly shoulder to cry on. Or at least admit that she’s angry as hell at Dad.”

Liam whistled to call Belle back from chasing a squirrel. “Has she? Admitted that she’s angry at Dad, I mean?”

“Not to me, that’s for sure. To herself? Who knows.”

“Is she in denial? Clinging to the hope that Dad isn’t dead?”

Megan shook her head. “She resisted the idea that he was dead for a couple of hours, but she’s definitely not in denial anymore. Every report that comes in from Miami seems a bit more conclusive. She spent the morning going through papers, sorting out relevant documents to establish that she’s Dad’s legal wife and we’re his legitimate children. Then this afternoon she started working on organizing a prayer service for Dad—”

“Right after she’d spent hours trying to prove she was actually married to him?” Liam’s voice rose incredulously. He shook his head. “Why am I surprised? It’s so typical of Mom to ignore the fact that the son of a bitch totally screwed her over.” His mouth tightened. “What she ought to be doing is celebrating the fact that he’s met the end he deserved.”

Megan flinched at the venom in her brother’s tone. “Nobody deserves to be murdered.”

“I’ve reminded myself of that several times since I got your message, but I can’t pretend I’m in deep mourning—”

“He was a great dad when we were growing up,” Megan protested.

“Yeah, I guess. But anytime I start to feel grief-stricken, I just take another look at the TV images of Avery and Kate. Somehow, that dries all the emotion right up.”

Liam’s rage at their father was palpable, and Megan could certainly understand why. Oddly, she wasn’t angry with their father, at least not yet. She had enjoyed growing up on the ranch and Ron had been a loving parent, despite his frequent absences. Did she have to discard hundreds of happy childhood memories because they were now tainted by the knowledge that her father had been a liar? It was going to take her a while to come to terms with the fact that her idyllic childhood on the ranch had been sustained only at the cost of a series of lies spanning more than twenty-five years.

Megan turned the conversation back to the subject of their mother, which was marginally easier to deal with than her own confused feelings about their father. “Despite the brave facade, I’m pretty sure Mom is devastated. But she’s told me in no uncertain terms that she can handle everything herself, including the arrangements for the prayer service. I suggested that maybe since we don’t have Dad…since we don’t have his body…we could use that as an excuse not to have any sort of memorial service.” She raised her shoulders in a frustrated gesture. “Mom told me to butt out.”

Liam gave a disbelieving shake of his head. “Has Mom considered that it might be a tad awkward to throw a prayer service for a man who hasn’t yet been officially declared dead? Not to mention the even more awkward fact that he was a bigamist when he was alive? What in the world does she expect our neighbors to say when they try to offer their condolences?”

Megan drew in a sharp breath. “I don’t believe she’s allowed herself to think through the practical realities. Part of the problem is that she didn’t sleep last night, so she’s exhausted, and of course you can guess how she reacted when I suggested taking a sleeping pill. The other problem is that she’s walled herself off so completely that she’s getting no input from anyone. She refuses to see anyone except Harry, and although she accepts that Dad is likely dead, she won’t talk about the fact that he seems to have been violently murdered, much less ask at least a few questions as to why. Most especially she won’t talk about the fact that he had another wife and daughter. Last night she cut me off every time I tried to discuss Dad’s bigamy. This morning she flat out told me not to mention those women in Chicago again. Almost as if they were the people to blame instead of Dad.”

“The past few hours have obviously been even rougher for you than I imagined.” Liam dumped his duffel bag onto the swing and put his arm around her. “The truth is, I haven’t been pulling my weight for the past several years. You’ve been left alone to deal with family crises far too often.”

“You’re giving me way too much credit,” Megan said. “I’ve been nowhere near as close to Mom and Dad as you’re assuming. Jackson Hole is only ninety miles from here, but it might as well be on another planet in terms of lifestyle.” She sent him a regretful sideways glance. “I had no more trouble burying myself in my work at the hotel than you did burying yourself in becoming Denver’s most successful divorce lawyer. Somehow, I’ve managed to kid myself for the last five years that if I kept my sights fixed on the goal of being promoted to assistant manager at the hotel, all the problems in my life would be resolved.”

And now that she’d spelled out what she’d been doing, she realized how pathetic her coping mechanism had been. She could have given an ostrich advanced lessons in head-burying, Megan reflected ruefully.

Liam was quiet for a moment. “I guess we’re the poster kids for our dysfunctional family—”

“I guess we are. But until I heard the sheriff say that Dad had another wife and daughter in Chicago, I never even realized we were dysfunctional. How dumb is that?”

“Not dumb necessarily. We were carefully conditioned by our parents—both of them, not just Dad. We were taught not to probe too deeply into the family dynamics and we obeyed our training. You have to keep reminding yourself that Dad’s the person who screwed up, not us.”

“Why do you think he didn’t just divorce Mom?” Megan asked. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s a bigger mystery than who killed him.”

“Who the hell knows? It can’t have been lust, can it? Not for twenty-five years.” Liam’s voice was harsh. He swiveled around on the porch steps and looked out over the land to the distant pasture where a few heifers grazed. “Do you think Mom knew about Dad’s bigamy before he died?” he asked.

“Good heavens, no! Absolutely not!” Megan was shocked by her brother’s question.

“Why are you so sure?” he asked. “The two of us grew up accepting what we were told about Dad traveling a lot on business and getting caught at the airport in snowstorms so he couldn’t make it home for Thanksgiving and so on and so on. But Mom was an adult. How could he have scammed her?”

“Well, he worked hard at it, I guess, and he was a really good liar—”

“Twenty-five years of lying and she never twigged? A quarter of a friggin’ century?”

Megan felt her stomach knot even tighter as she searched for an explanation. “When he was here, he always seemed so happy and committed. There was no reason for us to wonder if he might be leading a double life. Even now, knowing the truth, I have a hard time accepting that he was deceiving us.”

“He was definitely deceiving the two of us. But Mom? She’s a smart woman. How come she never noticed there was something totally screwed up about her marriage? I love Mom, but I can’t buy into that level of blindness.”

Megan threw the question back at him. “If she’d discovered the truth, why would she have stayed?”

“Maybe for some of the same fucked-up reasons Dad didn’t get a divorce.”

“Such as?”

“Follow the money,” Liam said cynically. “If there’s one lesson being a divorce lawyer drums home, it’s that when married couples behave weirdly, there’s always money involved. Money—or power that potentially leads right back to money.”

Megan rejected that idea at once. “Mom couldn’t care less about that. Good grief, Liam, I’ve never met anyone less motivated by money than Mom!”

“I agree that she doesn’t care about cash in the bank or the stock market, but what about the ranch? More than a third of the land that’s now part of the Flying W came from her family, remember. That’s over two thousand acres of her direct family heritage at stake.”

“True, but any divorce settlement would take that into account.”

Liam conceded her point. “Yes, Dad would have had a hard time selling the ranch without her consent, however expert his lawyer was in finding loopholes in marital property law. But the ranch has no practical value without money to run it.”