Read Online Hard Rain by B. J. Daniels - Free Book Online

of them.
    “Quite frankly, I don’t know what to believe.”
    “How was it that her body turned up now?” he demanded. With him so close to winning the primary election, it felt as if his opponents had to have literally dug this up.
    “We had a bad storm the other night. The body had been buried in a wooden box up on a hill near the fence between the properties. The rain must have loosened the earth... Harper happened to be riding her horse in the area when—”
    “Wait.” Buckmaster opened his eyes and pushed off the wall. “You say my daughter found the body?”
    “She and Brody McTavish.”
    “What the hell were those two doing together?” The words were out before he could call them back. He heard a door open.
    “You’ll have to ask your daughter,” the sheriff said.
    One of his advisers motioned that they were waiting on him.
    “I’ll do that. In the meantime, you’ll keep me informed on your investigation.”
    “Of course. Are you planning to be home soon?” Frank said quickly, as if hearing in Buckmaster’s voice that he was anxious to get off the line. “I really do need to talk to you. I’ll call Sarah—”
    He didn’t want the sheriff talking to Sarah alone. “I’ll fly home. Don’t bother Sarah with this until I get there.” Silence. “She doesn’t know anything anyway.” When the sheriff still didn’t say anything, he swore. “No matter what you suspect about my...” He almost said wife , but he caught himself before he did. Even though he thought of her as his wife, he and Sarah weren’t married. Not yet anyway. “Sarah, she isn’t strong.”
    “Like your mother,” Frank said.
    Buckmaster could hear in the silence that followed that the sheriff hadn’t meant to say that. “My mother is a suspect, as well as my father?” He swore.
    “Everyone is a suspect until I find out who killed her. Call me when you get in,” Frank said.
    Buckmaster disconnected and started back toward his meeting. His stomach roiled. He straightened his tie and reached for the doorknob. For years he’d been following in his father’s footsteps. First senator, now a candidate for president...
    His father’s damned legacy, he thought with a bitter laugh. He’d thought any secrets had been buried with JD. What did you do, Dad? What the hell did you do?
    * * *
    S TILL REELING FROM the morning she’d had, Harper called the one person she’d always been able to count on—her older sister Ainsley. She quickly told her about their gruesome discovery.
    “Oh, Harper, I am so sorry. Are you all right?” Her sister had quit law school to find locations for movie sites in Montana. Their father hadn’t been happy about it, Harper had heard that much at least on the family grapevine. But Ainsley seemed happy and swore it was only temporary.
    “It was awful, but I’m okay. I’m just glad Brody was there.”
    She heard a smile in her sister’s voice. “I am, too.” They fell silent for a moment. “Do they know whose body it is?”
    “The sheriff said they won’t know anything definite until the autopsy,” Harper told her.
    “So it could have been there for years?”
    “Apparently it was. You should have seen it,” she said. “It was the creepiest thing I have ever seen. I haven’t told Dad. Mother wanted to do it. I don’t know if she was going to wait until we knew something definite or not.”
    “Probably a good idea. No reason to upset him until she has all of the facts,” Ainsley agreed. “He has enough going on. I’m sure if there is something to worry about, the sheriff will let him know.”
    Harper thought about that. “I had a visitor when I returned today. Ariel Crenshaw, the sister of the private investigator Angelina hired to dig up something on Mother.”
    Ainsley groaned. “Angelina. That woman, rest her soul. Why would the PI’s sister come by to talk to you?”
    “She’s looking into her sister’s death. She said some members of an anarchist group called The