Lisa Jackson - The Mccaffertys - Matt

Like clockwork, the engine fired and she drove away from the warm little bungalow with its patches of golden light and wide front porch. Her parents were aging, more rapidly as the days went by. Her father had never been his robust self after the gunshot blast that had ruined his career and crippled him for life, and her mother, strong woman that she was, had never complained, had taken care of a convalescing, depressed husband and two young daughters. She’d landed a job with John Randall McCafferty as his personal secretary to help make ends meet. John Randall had promised her raises, promotions, bonuses and a retirement plan, but his fortunes had changed, and after his second divorce and a downturn in the economy, he’d been left with nothing but the ranch. Eva had lost her job and all the promises of a substantial nest egg had proved to be empty, the money that was supposed to have been set aside dwindled away by bad investments—oil wells that had run dry, silver mines that had never produced, stock in start-up companies that had shut down within months of opening their doors.

There had been talk of a lawsuit, but Eva hadn’t been able to find a local attorney ready to take on a man who had once been a political contender in the area, a man who had been influential and still had connections to judges, the mayor and even a senator or two.

“Don’t dwell on it,” Kelly told herself. She drove across the town where she’d grown up, wheeled into the parking lot of her row house and used the remote to open her garage door.

Though there hadn’t been a lot of money in her family, she’d grown up with security and love from both her parents. That was probably more than any of the McCafferty children could say. She climbed up the stairs to her bedroom on the upper floor, changed into her flannel pajamas and a robe, then made herself a cup of decaf coffee and sat at the kitchen table, scouring the notes she’d taken on Randi McCafferty’s accident and Thorne McCafferty’s plane crash.

So many questions swirled around John Randall’s only daughter and no one, it seemed, could come up with the answers. Kelly had interviewed all the brothers, everyone who worked on the Flying M Ranch, all of Randi McCafferty’s friends in the area. All the while she’d kept in contact with the Seattle police, who had handled interviewing Randi’s friends and associates there, in the city where Randi had lived and worked. It wasn’t usual procedure, but this case was different with Randi being pregnant, giving birth, then lying comatose in the hospital, her half brothers crying foul play.

But until Randi McCafferty came out of the coma, the mystery shrouding the youngest of John Randall’s children would most likely remain unsolved.

Kelly glanced down at the notes she’d taken and two questions loomed larger than the others. First and foremost, who was the father of Randi’s son, and second, was she writing a book and what was it about?

Doodling as she sipped her coffee, she thought about the case, then, as a headache began to cloud her mind, she finished her coffee and leaned back in her chair. In her mind’s eye she saw Matt McCafferty as he had been at the office and later in the hospital. Chiseled features, dark eyes, square jaw and hard, ranch-tough body. He came on like gang busters, looking as if he was ready to spit nails, but there was more to him, deeper emotions she’d witnessed herself as he’d stood over his sister’s bedside. Feelings he’d tried to hide had crossed his features. Guilt. Worry. Fear.

Yes, she decided, there was more to Cowboy Matt than met the eye.

She stretched and yawned, scraped her chair back and started for the bedroom when the phone jangled loudly. She picked it up on the extension near the bed and glanced at the clock. Eleven forty-seven. “Hello?” she said into the receiver, knowing it was bound to be an emergency.

Espinoza’s voice boomed over the line. “Kelly? We’ve got a situation. Meet me down at St. James Hospital ASAP.”

“What happened?” she asked, already stripping off her robe.

“It’s Randi McCafferty. Someone just tried to pull the plug on her.”

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