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

get inside the house for a story.
    “She says she has information about your mother.”
    Still annoyed with her mother’s attitude toward Brody, she told the guard to let the woman in. If it turned out the visitor was lying, she could call the guard and have him escort her away.
    Harper felt anxious. She’d gone to her mother’s hoping for some reassurance after the grisly scene she’d witnessed earlier; instead, she had left even more upset.
    Now she opened the door to find a young, pretty woman standing there. “I’m Ariel Crenshaw.” When Harper didn’t react, she added, “I’m Ace’s sister.”
    “I’m sorry, I don’t know who Ace is,” Harper said, wondering now if she had been too quick to let in a complete stranger. Since her father had joined the race for president and her mother had returned, they’d been inundated with reporters. Harper hated that they had to have guards at the front gate. She yearned for the days when they came and went without being under such scrutiny.
    “Addison ‘Ace’ Crenshaw, the private investigator your mother hired,” the woman clarified.
    Her mother had hired a PI? “I’m sorry. This is news to me.” Harper was just beginning to realize how much her family kept from her. “Won’t you come in,” she said, moving aside. “You say my mother hired your sister?”
    “Before she was killed,” Ariel said. “My condolences, by the way.”
    “Wait, no. You’re referring to my stepmother , Angelina.”
    “My mistake. I’m so sorry.” Ariel had stopped in the middle of the large living room as if not sure what to do next.
    Harper wasn’t sure there was anything she wanted to know about the Ice Queen, as she and her sisters called Angelina. They had never been close to the woman their father had married. She had always treated them as if Buck’s six daughters were a burden she had to bear.
    “Let me start at beginning,” Ariel said. “My sister was murdered. I’m trying to find out why. It seems to have had something to do with an anarchist group called The Prophecy?”
    Harper shook her head. “I’ve never heard of it.”
    This surprised Ariel. “Your father didn’t tell you that two members of the group have been implicated in the death of my sister, as well as the death of your stepmother?”
    She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I was out of the country, but the last I heard, it was an accident.” She motioned the young woman into a chair. “Would you like something to drink?”
    Ariel declined but took a seat. She sat on the edge and leaned eagerly toward Harper. “My sister was investigating a woman by the name of Sarah Johnson. Is that anyone you know?”
    Harper hesitated. “That is my mother.”
    “Oh.” Ariel sat back, wariness replacing the earlier eagerness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. This is all quite confusing.”
    Their family had been in the news for months, especially because of her mother. “You must not read newspapers or watch the news.”
    “I had been working with my church group in a remote part of Africa until my sister’s death. We had neither newspapers nor television and little news filtered in from outside.”
    Harper didn’t like talking about her family’s situation since her mother’s return, but this young woman had lost her sister possibly because Angelina had hired her to dig up dirt on Sarah.
    “I grew up believing my mother was dead,” Harper explained. “She drove into the river when I was only a few months old and drowned. At least that’s what we all thought. Apparently, she was trying to kill herself for some unknown reason and failing that, she disappeared for twenty-two years. She suddenly reappeared a year ago. What makes it even more bizarre is that she swears she doesn’t remember anything from the birth of my twin and me until she ‘woke up’ in the middle of a dirt road outside of Beartooth. According to her, she has no idea where she’d been those twenty-two