A solitary tear slid down her cheek. “I don’t want to hear any more of this…”
“But you’re going to, lady. You’re going to hear every piece of incriminating evidence I have.”
“Why, Trask?” she demanded. “Why now? Dad’s dead—”
“And so is Jason. My brother was murdered, Tory. Murdered!” He fell into a chair near the desk. “I have reason to believe that one of the persons involved with the horse swindle and Jason’s death was never brought to justice.”
Her eyes widened in horror. “What do you mean?”
“I think there were more than three conspirators. Four, maybe five…who knows? Half the damned county might have been involved.” Trask looked more haggard and defeated than she had ever thought possible. The U.S. senator from Sinclair, Oregon had lost his luster and become jaded in the past few years. Cynical lines bracketed his mouth and his blue eyes seemed suddenly lifeless.
Tory’s breath caught in her throat. “You’re not serious.”
“Dead serious. And I intend to find out who it was.”
“But Judge Benton, he would have taken everyone down with him—no one would have been allowed to go free.”
“Unless he struck a deal, or the other person had something over on our friend the judge. Who knows? Maybe this guy is extremely powerful…”
Tory shook her head, as if in so doing she could deny everything Trask was suggesting. “I don’t believe any of this,” she said, pacing around the room, her thoughts spinning crazily. Why was Trask dredging all this up again. Why now? Just when life at the Lazy W had gotten back to normal… “And I don’t want to. Nothing you can do or say will change the past.” She lifted her hands over her head in a gesture of utter defeat. “For God’s sake, Trask, why are you here?”
“You’re the only one who can help me unravel this, Tory.”
“And I don’t want to.”
“Maybe this will change your mind.” He extracted a piece of paper from his wallet and handed it to her. It was one of the photocopies of the letter he’d received.
Tory read the condemning words and her finely arched brows pulled together in a scowl of concentration. “Who sent you this?” she demanded.
“I don’t know.”
“It came anonymously?”
“Yes. To my office in Washington.”
“It’s probably just a prank.”
“The postmark was Sinclair, Oregon. If it’s a prank, Tory, it’s a malicious one. And one of your neighbors is involved.”
Tory read the condemning words again:
One of your brother’s murderers is still free. He was part of the Quarter Horse swindle involving Linn Benton, Calvin Wilson and George Henderson.
“But who would want to dig it all up again?”
Trask shook his head and pushed his fingers through his hair. “Someone with a guilty conscience? Someone who overheard a conversation and finally feels that it’s time to come clean? A nosy journalist interested in a story? I don’t know. But whoever he is, he wants me
involved.”
Tory sank into the nearest chair. “And you couldn’t leave it alone.”
“Could you?”
She smiled bitterly and studied the letter in her hand. “I suppose not. Not if there was a chance to prove that my father was innocent.”
“Damn it, Tory!” Trask exclaimed. “Calvin had the opportunity to do that on the witness stand. He chose to hide behind the fifth amendment.”
Tory swallowed as she remembered her father sitting in the crowded courtroom. His thick white hair was neatly in place, his gray eyes stared straight ahead. Each time the district attorney would fire a question at him, Calvin would stoically respond that he refused to answer the question on the basis that it might incriminate him. Calvin’s attorney had been fit to be tied in the stifling courtroom. The other defendants, Linn Benton, a prominent circuit court judge and ringleader of the swindle and George Henderson, a veterinarian and local rancher whose spread bordered the Lazy W to the north, cooperated with the district attorney. They had plea bargained for shorter sentences. But, for reasons he wouldn’t name to his frantic daughter, Calvin Wilson accepted his guilt without a trace of regret.