Keeping Christmas Part 19

"What are you going to tell her?"

"I don't know. Maybe to go to a neighbor's and stay put until we get there. Or not to answer the door." She reached Information and asked for Amelia McCarthy. No listing. Dixie asked about any other McCarthy's in the Ashton area. Only one. Buzz and Rita McCarthy.

Dixie dialed the number on her cell.

It was answered by a woman on the third ring. She sounded breathless. "h.e.l.lo?"

"I'm trying to locate an Amelia McCarthy. Amelia Hardaway McCarthy?"

"Yes, she was my sister-in-law," the woman said.

Dixie couldn't help the disappointed sound that escaped her. "She's deceased? deceased?"

Chance looked away from his driving in surprise.

"Yes, six months ago. Can you tell me what this is about?"

Dixie told her as briefly as possible that her mother had been friends with Amelia and she was hoping to talk to her since her mother had died when she was very young.

"I'm so sorry. What was your mother's name?"

Dixie caught herself before she said Sarah. "Elizabeth Sarah Worth."

"Oh, my gosh. My sister-in-law used to talk about her all the time."

Dixie tried not to get her hopes up. "I don't know much about my mother. I was wondering if Amelia and my mother remained friends after my mother moved to Texas."

"They sure did," Rita McCarthy said. "Your mother wrote my sister-in-law nearly every week. Amelia was so worried about her. Elizabeth was calling herself Sarah and was so unhappy. Then she wrote that she'd found a wonderful man who loved her daughter as his own. She said she had to keep her past a secret, and that bothered her. She really struggled with that. I suppose you know all that, though."

"About the man my mother had two children with before moving to Texas," Dixie said. "Did you ever meet him?"

"No. I wasn't living here then." She seemed to hesitate. "Maybe I shouldn't say this..."

"Please. I'm trying to find out who he was. The man used the name Beauregard Bonner, but that wasn't who he was."

"Oh, my goodness. Well, I can tell you this. My sister-in-law didn't like him. She didn't trust him. He wasn't very nice, I guess."

So Dixie kept hearing. "You said my mother wrote Amelia?"

"That's right. Sarah, that's what she was calling herself then, was worried that he'd find out that Amelia was writing her so she got a post office box outside Houston. That's how my sister-in-law knew something had happened to her. When a bunch of her unopened letters were returned, she contacted the post office and was told that the box holder hadn't paid her rent for some time and the mail had been returned to the sender."

Dixie felt sick. Her mother had lived a lie all those years.

"It was so wonderful that your mother had finally found happiness. Well, as much as that horrible man would let her. Not her husband, the other man," Rita said. "Amelia told me about how your mother didn't find out that he'd been lying to her until she got to Texas and met the real Beauregard Bonner and was forced to play up to him for money."

Dixie couldn't breathe. She could feel Chance's gaze on her. "What is it?" he whispered.

She shook her head, sucked in a breath and said into the phone, "So it was all about money?"

"Honey, she had no choice. She had her baby girl to take care of and..." Rita seemed to hesitate. "Amelia said that your mother feared for her life if she didn't do what he wanted."

Dixie felt sick. This woman had been her mother. A weak woman who'd fallen for the wrong man, had two children out of wedlock, lied and cheated for money. Was this why her father had no photographs of her? Why he never wanted to talk about her? Because he'd found out the truth?

Dixie didn't know what to say. No wonder her father hadn't wanted her digging into the past, finding out the truth about her own mother.

She realized that Rita was saying something and tried to focus on the woman's words.

"...the last letter she got from your mother. Sarah wanted to tell your father the truth about her past. She loved him and couldn't go on deceiving him, she said. She said she was going to tell him and asked my sister-in-law to pray for her."

Her mother had fallen for the real Beau Bonner? "Did she tell my father?" Dixie asked.

"Amelia a.s.sumed she did. But then the letters stopped and she later found out that your mother had died. I probably shouldn't say this, but Amelia always believed that he killed her."

"My father?" Dixie asked, unable to keep the shock out of her voice.

"No, no, the other one. The one masquerading as Beauregard Bonner. The one who used the past against her to keep getting money out of her."

"Are you saying he blackmailed blackmailed her?" her?"

"He threatened to tell her husband that she'd only married him for his money and once your father knew about her past... It would give a man pause if he knew that she hadn't truly loved him at first. That it had been about the money. What man would believe she'd really fallen in love with him?"

Dixie looked over at Chance. Had her mother told Beauregard the truth about her past? Or had she died before she could? Dixie felt cold inside.

"Amelia finally contacted the newspaper down there and found out about the car accident."

"Her car went into the lake," Dixie said, her voice breaking.

"How horrible for her," Rita said.

Had she also planned to tell the other man? Maybe refused to be blackmailed anymore?

The thought sent a spear of ice down her spine. "Did Amelia keep the letters from my mother? Or any photographs?"

"I'm sorry. Amelia destroyed the letters and all the photos just as Sarah made her promise to do. I think she was afraid for my sister-in-law."

Dixie could understand that. "Is there anything about the man, anything Amelia might have mentioned, that would help me identify him?" The cell phone connection was growing dim as the highway cut through the mountains.

"None I can think of. He was nice-looking enough, I gather. Quite the charmer. But it was so long ago, you know."

Yes, she knew. "Well, thank you. I'm so sorry to hear about Amelia's pa.s.sing. I wish I could have met her."

"I hope you find what you're looking for, dear."

Dixie glanced over at Chance. She already had.

"AMELIA MCCARTHY IS DEAD," Chance said as Dixie snapped off the phone and leaned back in her seat.

She nodded, devastated. She'd been so sure that Amelia might be able to help them find the man. "I talked to her sister-in-law, Rita McCarthy." She told him what she'd learned about the letters and what her mother had planned to do just before her death.

Dixie sighed. "Apparently, my father made her happy." She had to admit knowing that made her feel a little better. Maybe they had loved each other. Wasn't that what every child wanted? For her parents to have loved each other. Even if it ended badly.

But she couldn't shake the feeling that her mother had been murdered-and by a man she had once loved. "He killed her so she couldn't tell my father the truth."

"The police ruled it was an accident, right?"

Dixie rolled her eyes. "Just like Glendora's. My mother decides to tell my father the truth and ends up at the bottom of a lake. Don't tell me the timing doesn't make you suspicious."

"Everything makes me suspicious. What if it does turn out that he's a killer, that he not only killed your mother, but is the one who hired the men to come after you? He's Rebecca's father. father."

His words chilled her. She was looking for a man who was contemptuous, probably capable of anything. She hadn't focused on the fact that this man, whoever he was, was Rebecca's father.

Dixie shook her head, fighting emotions she wasn't used to. Normally she was in control. But she'd set something in motion and there seemed to be no stopping it. She wished she'd never begun digging into the past.

"Can you imagine how this will hurt Rebecca?" Chance said. "This will devastate her."

She nodded, fighting tears, as he reached over to squeeze her hand. "There's no reason to go to Idaho."

"No."

"What do we do, Chance?"

"We meet your father's plane tomorrow. We tell him what we know. Maybe with the information you've gathered and his help, we can figure out what the h.e.l.l is going on."

She studied his handsome face. "You think my father knows the man, don't you?"

"I think it's a real possibility," he said as the land stretched ahead of them in rolling wheat fields. "Otherwise, why was your mother so afraid to tell him the truth? She saw that other man as a threat. I think he stayed around to get money, to make sure she never told."

"This man has gotten away with it all these years," Dixie said, aching at the thought of what her mother had gone through. "Who could he be?"

"That's the million-dollar question, isn't it?"

"Million and a half, half," Dixie said, remembering what Chance had told her about the ransom demand. "He tried to make it look like a kidnapping to cover up the real reason I was going to be killed."

She felt Chance look over at her, then back at his driving. "Looks that way." She watched him glance into her rearview mirror, saw his expression.

She turned, afraid of what she would see. Her fear ratcheted up another notch as she saw a van that looked exactly like the one she'd seen in the parking garage the night this had all begun.

Chapter Fourteen

Chance had expected trouble once they left the interstate and got on the two-lane Highway 287 headed north toward Townsend. There had been enough traffic that he hadn't been able to spot a tail, but he now suspected they'd been followed since Livingston.

Traffic was horrendous around Bozeman, but once they left there and drove west, it began to thin out.

Most of the cars had ski racks on top. Some out-of-state plates, people up here for the Christmas vacation. With Big Sky Ski Resort only forty miles to the south and Bridger Bowl about twenty to the north, Bozeman had become a winter destination along with being the home of Montana State University and ten-thousand-plus college students.

Chance swore under his breath as the van closed the distance between them, but didn't even attempt to pa.s.s even when he slowed down.

The road narrowed along the Missouri River, dropping away on each side. There was no guardrail on either side and little traffic. This was the stretch of highway where the van driver would make his move.

Chance sped up. The van sped up, as well, keeping the same distance between them. The road curved as it wound by the slow-moving, dark, ice-rimmed river.

The van closed some of the distance between them.

"That's the two men who attacked me in the parking garage," Dixie said, looking back.

He heard the tremor in her voice. "Put the dog on the floor," he ordered. "And brace yourself."

They were almost to the bridge. The van filled the rearview mirror just an instant before the b.u.mper slammed into the back of the pickup.

Chance swore as he fought to keep the truck under control. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dixie's face. It was leeched of all color, her blue eyes wide with fear. He met her eyes and saw something flicker in her gaze.

"Give me your gun," she said, her voice breaking.

"What?"

The van slammed into the back of them again. The pickup fishtailed, one tire going off the edge of the road and kicking up snow that blew over the van's windshield, forcing the driver to hit his wipers and back off a little.

Dixie unhooked her seat belt and got on her knees to face the back window. The pickup was made for a camper in the bed so it had a small sliding window that she now unlatched. Cold air rushed in.

"Get back in your seat!" Chance yelled as the van came at them again. He sped up, but ahead was another tight curve, the drop-off much steeper on each side of the road.

"Give me your gun," she said over the roar of the van's engine as it came at them again.

The van slammed into the b.u.mper. Chance gripped the wheel, fighting to keep the truck on the road as Dixie held on to the back of the seat with one hand and reached under his coat, unsnapped the holster and withdrew the gun.

"You don't even know how to shoot a gun," he said, swearing as he heard her snap off the safety.

"Slow down," she said, sounding almost too calm.

He shot her a look. She was braced on the back of the seat, the weapon gripped in both hands and pointing out through the small window opening, the cold wind whipping her hair, her eyes narrowed in concentration.

A sharp turn was just ahead with steep drop-offs on each side of the pavement. The van driver started to make another run at them.

"Hang on," Chance said, and hit his brakes.

The move took the driver of the van by surprise. In his rearview mirror, Chance saw the driver literally stand on his brakes. The van fishtailed wildly just before it struck the back of the pickup with a force that sent the pickup rocketing forward.