Missing

But with no rival wife on the scene, and reporters banned from the church meeting room after the service, Ellie’s neighbors resigned themselves to being on their best behavior. The etiquette for a prayer vigil loomed over by the specter of an absent and bigamous wife, not to mention a possible dead mistress, had to be considered a challenge, even for people who’d known each other for a long time and liked each other pretty well.

For the most part, the men considered their duty had been done when they turned up and listened to Pastor Gruber’s sermon without a single one of them bursting into guffaws of laughter. The women, however, felt obligated to do something more than merely keep straight faces while listening to the pastor’s farcical eulogy. They’d risen to the occasion by preparing a quantity of casseroles, cookies and Jell-O salads that ensured the caloric requirements of everyone in Stark County could be met for several days simply by grazing the laden buffet tables in the church meeting room.

Unfortunately, the bountiful array of food didn’t quite obviate the need to find something tactful to say to Ellie and her kids, but the residents of Stark County were a resilient lot, accustomed to dealing with drought, blizzards, insect plagues and the intrusive hand of the federal government. Determined to do what was right, they formed themselves into a tidy line and slowly wound their way past Ellie, Liam and Megan, mumbling their somewhat sincere wishes for Ron’s safe return—they figured it was just possible she was going to miss the bastard—and their much more sincere offerings of any sort of help they might be able to provide.

Ellie looked ravaged, showing every one of her fifty-five years, but she accepted the good wishes and thanked people for their offers of help with quiet dignity. Liam, tall and even better looking than his dead father, stood at his mother’s side, his city-slicker suit and fancy striped silk tie reminding everyone that he had at least three strikes against him. First, he’d moved away and taken up residence in a big city. Second, he was a lawyer, and third, he hadn’t come back to Thatch more than a handful of times in the past five years. However, his excellent memory for names and faces reassured people that he hadn’t totally forgotten his roots. Despite the fact that he looked a lot like his dad, the neighbors were willing to grant him the benefit of the doubt and accept that in character and morals he took after his mother.

After half an hour of listening to her neighbors’ well-intentioned lies, Megan realized that she wasn’t coping with the multiple hypocrisies of the occasion anywhere near as efficiently as her brother. She wished she could imitate Liam’s expression of bland and friendly courtesy, but the task was beyond her. The urge to scream became increasingly powerful with each hand she shook. Grateful as she was for the support of their neighbors, she could imagine all too vividly the pity lurking behind the polite, Sunday-go-to-church faces. She hated to be pitied—but she hated even more that she felt pitiable. As each excruciating minute slithered by, it took an increasing amount of willpower not to run from the room.

She finally gave up. “I have to get a drink,” she murmured to Liam. “Would you like some punch? A cup of coffee?”

He shook his head, leaning down to speak softly in her ear. “You okay?”

“More or less. I need some breathing room. Can you stay here with Mom for a few minutes?”

“Not a problem. Take however much time you need.”

Megan helped herself to the alarmingly bright red punch, dry-mouthed enough to sip gratefully. Pastor Gruber was bearing down on her, accompanied by his wife, and she avoided them by dodging behind a mobile book cart. She was thankful for the lies of omission in the minister’s sermon, but she couldn’t take any more pretense. She’d zoomed past her cutoff level for bullshit concerning Ron Raven at least twenty-four hours ago.

There was no escaping outside, she realized. The camera crews were lined up, waiting to pounce, so she’d just have to suck it up and be polite to her neighbors for another hour. Please God, it wouldn’t be more than another hour before this preposterous prayer service was over. What would any of them do if her father actually returned? she wondered. Turn him over to the cops?

She spotted Cody Holmann, the lawyer her parents had used for years, walking purposefully toward her. Cody was probably as restful a person to talk to as anyone, she decided. He was a slow-moving but kindly man in his mid-sixties, who was still known in some local circles as Young Cody in order to distinguish him from his ninety-two-year-old father, Cody Holmann Senior.

There was no risk that he would want to discuss legal business with her, Megan decided. Liam had already met with Cody on Friday afternoon and the news from their meeting had been mostly positive. Ellie’s financial and legal situation was complicated by the fact that Ron Raven hadn’t yet been officially declared dead. However, Cody was confident he would be able to find a judge willing to authorize payments from Ron’s accounts to cover living expenses for Ellie and salaries for the two full-time ranch employees. In addition, Cody had been able to confirm that the copy of their father’s will in Ellie’s possession was an exact duplicate of the document he had drawn up for Ron three years earlier.

Amazingly, after all the startling revelations following their father’s death, it seemed that the disposition of Ron’s estate was going to generate few surprises. The provisions of their father’s will turned out to be more or less what Megan and Liam would have expected. Most importantly, the ranch had been left to their mother, along with an annual income that would be sufficient to subsidize the cattle operation in bad years.

Despite the basically good news, the clarity of the will didn’t remove all their worries. The family in Chicago wasn’t mentioned and Cody warned that Avery Fairfax and her daughter would most likely protest their exclusion. Liam agreed that a lawsuit was almost inevitable. In their professional opinions, even if the courts dismissed Avery’s claims, they were likely to view Kate’s situation sympathetically. She had been raised to believe she was Ron Raven’s legitimate daughter, as well as his only child, and she was an innocent victim of her father’s bigamy. Cody believed that a substantial award to Kate was entirely possible. Still, Liam and Cody were both confident that Ellie would eventually be left in sole possession of the ranch, and that the courts would ensure she had sufficient income to continue living comfortably while any legal challenges wound their way through the justice system.

Megan had been relieved to learn that, at least in terms of making financial provision, her father had behaved decently toward their mother. Ron’s total silence regarding his Chicago family ought to have been welcome, but Megan had found herself fighting the impulse to feel sorry for them. She wasn’t quite willing to admit that Ron’s other wife and daughter deserved better treatment than they’d received, but she’d worked out in her own mind that if the fancy Chicago penthouse where they lived turned out to be titled in Avery’s name, she wouldn’t be altogether unhappy.

“Megan, how are you doing?” Cody reached up to touch a couple of fingers to the brim of his Stetson, then remembered he wasn’t wearing what amounted to the uniform headgear for men in Stark County. He let his hand drop awkwardly to his side. “We don’t get all the neighbors together like this nearly often enough. I’m sorry today’s gathering was for such a sad occasion.”

“Yes. The neighbors have been great. We’re grateful for their kindness.” Megan searched for something more to say and came up flat empty.

Cody abandoned his fleeting attempt to pretend the circumstances were normal. “Discovering the truth about your dad has been a hell of a shock to me,” he said. “Can’t begin to imagine how much of a shock it’s been for you and your family.”

Megan wasn’t sure they had discovered the truth about her father. She had a depressing suspicion they’d merely lifted off the outer layer on a Chinese box of multiple deceptions.

“We’re coping with a lot of unanswered questions, that’s for sure,” she said. “There are dozens of decisions Mom needs to make, but it isn’t easy when we seem to be missing so much vital information.”

“Wish I didn’t have to add to your troubles.” The lawyer scratched his head, visibly uncomfortable. “I guess there’s no point in beating around the bush, Megan. I’ve got another problem to add to your list.”

“The Chicago family is fighting the will already?” She drew in a quick, shallow breath. “They couldn’t even wait until the weekend was over?”

Cody grimaced. “Worse than that. Fact is, I received a special-delivery package yesterday afternoon. A set of documents that came from a firm of fancy lawyers in Chicago. I thought I recognized the name of the firm, but I looked them up just to be sure. Fenwick Jaeger. They’re a sixty-year-old law firm, entirely reputable. Twenty active partners, another forty associates and God knows how many paralegals. The covering letter came from somebody called Walter Daniels, senior partner. I decided not to trouble your mother with the details of his communication, at least until after today’s services, but I’d like to give you a heads-up.”

Megan’s stomach lurched in anticipation of disaster. “What were the documents Mr. Daniels sent you?”

“A will.” Cody cleared his throat. “Your father’s will.”

“But we already have his will.” Megan’s forehead wrinkled in puzzlement.

“This is another will, with completely different provisions from the one I drew up for Ron. Mr. Daniels claims it’s the last will and testament written by your dad. By Ron Raven,” Cody added, as if she might have lost track of who her father actually was.

She and Liam had obviously rejoiced way too early about her mother’s financial security, Megan thought bleakly. From the way Cody was shuffling his feet, he clearly didn’t like the provisions of this new will.

“Do the documents look authentic to you?” she asked.

“As far as I can tell, they’re the real thing. Format’s impeccable and it looks like Ron’s signature to me. Of course, we can dispute it—”

“The signature or the will?”

“Either. Both. Don’t know where that might get us. Like I said, Fenwick Jaeger aren’t exactly fly-by-nights. I doubt if we’re going to prove that this is a forgery. They have their reputation on the line in sending this to me. No way they’d knowingly be party to any hanky-panky.”

Hanky-panky? Megan was too worried to find the lawyer’s quaintly old-fashioned turn of phrase amusing. How about total betrayal, if he needed words to describe Ron’s behavior toward his wife of thirty-six years? “What are the provisions of the Chicago will, Cody? Are we going to want to dispute them?”

“Yes,” he said flatly.

Megan’s hand was shaking enough that she had to put down her punch. “Give me the main points.”

Cody actually winced. “From our point of view, there’s only one main point. You, your mother and your brother aren’t even mentioned.”

Her mother wasn’t mentioned? A shiver ran down Megan’s spine. “If Mom isn’t named as a beneficiary, what happens to the ranch?”

Cody stared down at the floor, then up to the ceiling. Apparently he found the help he was seeking in neither place. “It’s not good, Meg. According to the Chicago will, your father’s other daughter gets the ranch. That would be Kate Fairfax Raven. She gets the land, the breeding stock, everything.”

Megan stared at the lawyer, literally incapable of speech.

“We can fight,” Cody said quickly. “We’ll fight those particular provisions tooth and nail, trust me.”

“How could he?” Megan was suddenly ice cold with fury. The rage that she’d been struggling to hold at bay ever since hearing of her father’s bigamy spewed out with volcanic force. “How could he give my mother’s property away like that? He had no right!”

Cody laid his hand on her arm. “We’ll certainly make that argument to the probate judge. Don’t know exactly where it will get us. The fact is, none of the Flying W land ever belonged directly to Ellie—”

“What do you mean?” Megan realized her voice was rising and that they were surrounded by people who didn’t need to hear this latest installment in the humiliation of Ellie Raven. She forced herself back under control. “The whole eastern third of the Flying W ranch has been owned by Mom’s family since 1886!”

“Yes, but that’s the problem. It was owned by her parents and her grandparents, not by your mother herself. Ron bought the land from Ellie’s dad and the money he used for the purchase came from his business interests.” Cody lifted his shoulders, the gesture apologetic. “It’s not a slam dunk to get a probate judge to agree that Ellie has any intrinsic right to that land, Megan, let alone the remaining two-thirds of the property. Remember, the majority of the land that makes up the Flying W ranch was your father’s, long before he married your mother.”

“The ranch isn’t just a business. It’s my mother’s home. It’s her life.”

“I realize how much the Flying W means to Ellie, but the ranch was set up years ago as a business with your mother’s full consent. That makes a difference to the legal situation. I’ll fight for her. I consider her a friend as well as a client and I’ll fight hard. But, bottom line, the judge may well decide that the ranch should be sold and the money divided up among the claimants. I’m being honest with you, Megan. In my best judgment, we’re in for a bruising fight.”

“When is the Chicago will dated?” she asked, surprised she could ask such a coherent question in view of her simmering fury. “Did my father sign it before or after he signed the will in my mother’s possession?”

Cody cleared his throat again. “Well, that’s another of the odd things about the situation. The Chicago will is dated the precise same day as the one I drew up for your dad three years ago.”

“The same day?” Megan stared at him. “How could Dad have signed a will in Chicago at the same time as he’s signing one here in Wyoming? That’s crazy.” She experienced a flash of hope. “The Chicago will must be a forgery.”

“I don’t believe so. Like I said, your father’s signature looked authentic to me, and the will was properly witnessed and notarized. Have to say, too, that Fenwick Jaeger are too experienced a firm to mess up something as important as the date on a legal document.”

“Then how is it possible that both wills were signed the same day? Thatch and Chicago are fourteen hundred miles apart!”

“Well, it sure doesn’t seem like it could be chance,” Cody acknowledged. His expression suggested he’d prefer to be breaking stones on a chain gang rather than having this conversation. He coughed again. Constricted throat muscles seemed to be an inevitable accompaniment to people trying to discuss Ron Raven, Megan reflected bitterly.

“Guess your dad must have deliberately set out to ensure both wills got signed on the same day,” Cody said. “I checked my appointment calendar and your dad didn’t come in to my office until late in the afternoon—he was my last appointment. If Ron signed the Chicago will first thing in the morning he could have flown back to Jackson Hole and arrived here in Thatch just in time to sign another will in my office that same day. There’s a one-hour time difference between here and Chicago, remember.”

Why in the world would her father have done something as bizarre as sign two wills on the same day? Megan wondered. To cast doubts on the legitimacy of both wills so that his estate would have to be divided up among the two branches of his family by the courts? Or merely to ensure that he caused as much trouble and inconvenience as possible? From what she’d learned over the past few days, she was almost willing to believe the latter.

Cody tried to smile. “There’s one positive aspect of this situation. The will I drew up was signed later in the day than the one the Chicago lawyers have just sent me. Must have been. He couldn’t have arrived back in Chicago during business hours. Totally impossible, even by private jet. That means the will I drew up—the one in your mother’s possession—probably represents your father’s last will and testament—”

“And therefore it’s the one that will hold up in court?”’

“We’ll make the argument.” Cody lifted his shoulders in a defeated shrug. “The existence of another will signed on the same day suggests, at the very least, that your father was ambivalent about his wishes. Any probate judge is going to take the existence of the other will into account in deciding how to dispose of your father’s assets. But here is one more fact that’s in your mother’s favor. She’s your father’s first and legal wife. You and Liam are his legitimate children. That counts for something, even today. But, to be frank, not as much as it would have thirty years ago.”

“Don’t tell my mother about this other will,” Megan said. “Please, Cody, promise me that you won’t burden her with this right now. She’s still struggling to come to terms with all the other bombshells that have been lobbed at her over the past week. She doesn’t need to be worrying that she might lose the Flying W as well.”

“I can’t make that promise, Megan. Wish I could. But I’m your mother’s lawyer. I have an obligation to inform her of all legal developments in regard to her husband’s estate.”

“Give Liam and me a few days to decide how to proceed,” she pleaded. “We’ll fight the Chicago will, of course. Not for me, I don’t care. At this point, I’m not even sure that I want any of Dad’s money—” She broke off. “We need to fight for Mom’s sake. We can’t let the ranch go to…to the women in Chicago. That land’s been in my mother’s family for a hundred and forty years. It’s insane to suddenly hand it over to the child of her husband’s mistress!”

“Maybe not insane,” Cody said, avoiding her eyes. “But certainly vindictive.” He allowed the word to hang in the air, resonating painfully between the two of them.

It was almost as if her father had hated her mother, Megan reflected. Had he? Had he hated his Wyoming children, too? Had his bluff good cheer and seeming pride in her achievements concealed resentment? She closed her eyes, squeezing away the stupid tears that seemed determined to flow whenever and wherever it was most humiliating. She swallowed hard, forcing the tears to stop when she felt the light touch of Cody’s hand on her arm.

“Are you okay, Megan? Although that’s a damn-fool question under the circumstances.”

“Yes, I’m fine.” She dashed the back of her hand across her eyes. “Please don’t tell my mother about the other will.” She glanced across the room to Ellie, who was looking unspeakably weary as she attempted to keep up a conversation with Pastor Gruber and the choir director.

“I won’t tell Ellie today,” Cody conceded. “I can’t promise more than that. Tomorrow morning I plan to call Mr. Daniels at Fenwick Jaeger and explain that we believe we have Ron’s most recent will and that its terms vary substantially from the document he sent me. As soon as I’ve spoken to Mr. Daniels, I’ll be in touch with your mother. I have an obligation to report to her on the situation.”

Megan drew what comfort she could from the twenty-four-hour delay. “I’ll talk to Liam tonight and explain what you’ve told me. I’m sure he’ll call you first thing tomorrow morning.”

“If not, I’ll be stopping by at the ranch. Good day to you, Megan.” Cody touched his fingers once more to his nonexistent hat and walked away.

Five

Megan had known that Liam would be upset when he heard about the existence of another will, but she hadn’t anticipated the depth of his self-blame.

“It’s not your fault that Dad wrote a will leaving everything to the Chicago family,” she said when they finally managed a few moments alone on the porch. “For heaven’s sake, Liam, why are you responsible for the fact that Dad seems to have been pretty much a major asshole?”

“Because I knew about Avery Fairfax,” Liam said, leaning down to scratch Bruno’s belly. “I knew and I still kept Dad’s secrets. Dammit! I let him manipulate me precisely because I wanted to prevent this sort of thing happening—and now he’s screwed Mom over anyway. The son of a bitch must be laughing in hell.”

“I don’t think you get to laugh in hell,” Megan said. “That’s kind of the point.”

“He’ll be the exception.” Liam stared broodingly at a cloud of dust on the horizon. The dust resolved itself into a small panel truck, barreling down the driveway at a spanking pace.

“God, I hope that’s a reporter.” Liam got up from the swing. “I’m so in the mood to punch somebody out.”

Judging by his scowl, Megan was pretty sure her brother wasn’t joking. She ran down the porch steps in order to prevent him from throwing the threatened punch. Violence might soothe Liam’s feelings for a couple of seconds, but she could just imagine the vicious media reports if he was hauled into court on assault-and-battery charges.

As soon as the dust cloud settled, she realized the truck was from a package-delivery company. A middle-aged man climbed out, extending a special-delivery envelope toward her. “Ms. Raven?”

“Yes, I’m Megan Raven.”

“This package arrived in our Jackson Hole office yesterday and should’ve been brought out right away.” The man’s voice was high-pitched, making him sound oddly tense. “We were shorthanded and didn’t get to it. Sorry about the delay.”

“That’s okay. Thanks.” Megan took the package and turned to go, but Liam grabbed the envelope from her and scanned the shipping label.

“This isn’t designated for Saturday delivery, much less Sunday,” he said.

To Megan’s surprise, the driver immediately looked guilty. “I don’t know anything about that,” he mumbled.

Liam squinted at the corner of the label. “According to the date and time stamp, it only arrived at Jackson Hole airport four hours ago.”

“Is that so?” The deliveryman shot an anxious glance in the direction of his van, feet scuffling in the dust. “I was just told to bring it out here—”

“I’ll bet you were. But who told you?” Liam shoved past the deliveryman and leaned into the panel truck, hauling out a man who’d been hiding in the windowless rear compartment, camera angled to take pictures through the front side window. The photographer tumbled out, clutching his camera to his chest.

“Whoever you are, you’re trespassing.” Liam’s voice was lethal in its cold fury. “The sheriff has already warned members of the media about staying off our land.”

The photographer apparently wasn’t smart enough to realize that Liam’s cool tones masked blazing anger. He held up an ID card and smiled with patent insincerity. “Hi, there. I’m Brad Stratford with Media International. No hard feelings, I hope? I have some questions for your family—just to set the public record straight, you know? I asked Kevin here to deliver this package right away so that I could—”

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