Best-Kept Lies Read Free

under the overhang of the old garage.
    With her baby asleep in his car seat, she pulled out the jack and spare, then got to work. Changing the tire wasn’t hard, just tedious, and her gloves made working with the lug nuts a challenge. She found the problem with the tire: somewhere she’d picked up a long nail, which had created the slow leak.
    It crossed her mind that maybe the flat wasn’t an accident, that perhaps the same creep who had forced her off the road at Glacier Park, then attempted to kill her again in the hospital, and later burned the stable might be back to his old tricks. She straightened, still holding the tire iron.
    Bitterly cold, the wind swept down the roadway, blowing the snow and lifting her hair from her face. She felt a frisson of fear slide down her spine as she squinted, her gaze sweeping the harsh, barren landscape.
    But she saw no one.
    Heard nothing.
    Decided she was just becoming paranoid.
    Which was a really bad thought.
     
    Huddled against the rain, the intruder slid a key into the lock of the dead bolt, then with surprising ease broke into Randi McCafferty’s Lake Washington home.
    The area was upscale, and the condo worth a fortune. Of course. Because the princess would have no less.
    Inside, the unit was a little cluttered. Not too bad, but certainly not neat as a pin. And it had suffered from neglect in the past few months. Dust had settled on the surface of a small desk pushed into the corner, cobwebs floated from a high ceiling, and dust bunnies had collected in the corners. Three-month-old magazines were strewn over a couple of end tables and the meager contents of the refrigerator had spoiled weeks ago. Framed prints and pictures splashed color onto warm-toned walls, and an eclectic blend of modern and antique furniture was scattered around the blackened stones of a fireplace where the ashes were cold.
    Randi McCafferty hadn’t been home for a long, long time.
    But she was on her way.
    Noiselessly, the intruder stalked through the darkened rooms, down a short hallway to a large master suite with its sunken tub, walk-in closet and king-size bed. There was another bath, as well, and a nursery, not quite set up but ready for the next little McCafferty. The bastard.
    Back in the living room there was a desk and upon it a picture, taken years ago, of the three McCafferty brothers—tall, strapping, cocky, young men with smiles that could melt a woman’s heart and tempers that had landed them in too many barroom brawls to count. In the snapshot they were astride horses. In front of themounted men, in bare feet, cutoff jeans, a sleeveless shirt and ratty braids, was Randi. She was squinting hard, her head tilted, one hand over her eyes to shade them, that same arm obviously scraped. Twined in the fingers of her other hand she held the reins of all three horses, as if she’d known then that she would lead her brothers around for the rest of their lives.
    The bitch.
    Disturbed, the intruder looked away from the framed photograph, quickly pushed the play button on the telephone answering machine and felt an instant of satisfaction at having the upper hand on the princess. But the feeling was fleeting. As cold as the ashes in the grate.
    As the single message played, resounding through the vaulted room, it became evident that there was only one thing that would make things right.
    Randi McCafferty had to pay.
    And she had to pay with her life.

Two
    L ess than two hours after his conversation with the McCafferty brothers, Striker was aboard a private plane headed due west. A friend who owned this prop job owed him a favor and Striker had called in his marker. He’d also taken the time to phone an associate who was already digging into Randi’s past. Eric Brown was ex-military, and had spent some time with the FBI before recently going out on his own. While Striker was watching Randi, Brown would track down the truth like a bloodhound on the trail of a wounded buck. It was just a matter