Her Brand of Justice
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B.J. Daniels
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16,5K
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23
Chapter One
It wasn’t the first time Ansley Brookshire had noticed a black SUV following her after an argument about finding her birth mother. It was, however, the first time she’d seen her adoptive father leave his office to rush home. What was different about this time? she wondered as she saw his driver pull into the estate. Her mother—adoptive mother, she mentally amended—must have called him. Which meant this time, because she’d threatened to hire a private investigator, it was serious. How far would they go to stop her?
The thought made her nervous—as if the black SUV now tailing her wasn’t enough cause for concern. It only made her more determined. Her adoptive parents should know that once she decided to do something, she did it.
Except that she’d never felt they knew her. She’d spent most of her twenty-eight years feeling as if she didn’t belong. An only child, she’d always been looking for someone who resembled her. Both Maribelle and Harrison were blond, fair skinned with dark blue eyes. Then there was Ansley, their only child, hair so dark it was almost coal black, eyes a washed-out blue like old denim and her skin olive instead of fair like her adoptive parents’. She’d never looked anything like them.
Now she knew why. Neither of her parents could have been responsible for her conception. At first she’d thought that she must have been adopted and they had just never told her.
But now she suspected that her whole life was a lie wrapped in secrets. When she’d asked for the truth, they’d lied to her. When she’d gone to public records to find details about her adoption, they weren’t there. Had they stolen her as a baby? She still wasn’t sure that hadn’t been the case, even though Maribelle said it had been a private adoption and that’s why she couldn’t find any record of it.
Even private adoptions had records, which led her to believe that if she had been adopted, it had been illegal. Otherwise, she must have been stolen. Why else would Maribelle and Harrison be so adamant that she not look for her biological mother?
That’s when she decided she would find out the truth no matter what.
Except the most recent “no matter what” appeared to be her father’s bodyguard, Lanny Jackson, following her in the large black SUV he drove. What was it her adoptive parents were so afraid of her finding out? She felt a shiver of trepidation. Since her discovery, they’d done everything they could to keep her from learning the truth—or had they?
She glanced in the rearview mirror again. If they thought she could be intimidated, they were wrong. Maybe before all this began, she would have turned around, gone back to town to her apartment and waited for another day to follow the only lead she had as to who she really was. But she no longer felt safe even in her apartment. Since she’d discovered the big lie, she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that she was constantly being watched.
Never one to back down from a challenge, Ansley wasn’t waiting another day. She finally had a lead. She wasn’t going to put off chasing it. Even so, she’d tried again this morning to reason with her mother before she was forced to hire a stranger to help her.
That’s why she’d gone to Brookshire Estate this morning, as it was commonly known, determined to give her mother one more chance to tell her the truth. Had she really thought that if she asked this time, it would be different?
Earlier she’d found Maribelle upstairs in the massive house where she’d grown up, standing in her huge walk-in closet, holding up one dress after another in front of her as she considered each in the full-length mirror. Clearly, she was getting ready for one of her many luncheons. Ansley had lost track years ago of how many boards her mother served on.
“What do you think, dear?” Maribelle asked, flashing her daughter a smile before returning to her image in the mirror. She hadn’t seemed surprised to see her, even though Ansley had moved out of her room in the far wing right after high school and seldom showed up without calling. “I’m afraid the navy one says the wrong thing, don’t you?”
“I’ve found a private investigative firm I’m going to hire,” Ansley said, getting right to the point. It had been something she’d decided after running into nothing but dead ends on her own. “I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”
Her mother met her gaze in the mirror. This was far from the first time this discussion had come up since she’d stumbled across at least part of the truth.
Yet her mother looked genuinely perplexed. “Whatever for?”
“I need to know who I am.”
“You know who you are,” she said with a dismissive scowl. “Ansley Brookshire. Do we really have to go through this again?”
“I’m going to find my birth mother with or without your help.” The look her adoptive mother gave her said it would be without her help, as usual. She recalled the fear she’d seen in Maribelle’s eyes the first time she had confronted her after finding proof that she wasn’t related to either of her parents.
“Why are you so afraid of what I’m going to find?”
“I’m your mother,” Maribelle had said with finality. “I think the coral dress. It wouldn’t hurt to stand out today,” she said flipping her chin-length blond hair back as she returned her attention to the mirror.
Ansley moved to stand next to her until they were reflected side by side in the huge mirror. The contrast between them was startling. Maribelle was a natural blue-eyed blonde, a former beauty queen, tall and leggy. Ansley stood five foot five, with her obsidian-black hair, the palest of blue eyes and an athletic build. No one had ever believed that they were mother and daughter—not that her mother’s social circle would have ever mentioned it, at least not to Maribelle’s face.
How she’d come to live in this house as their daughter was only one of the many lies and secrets, she thought now. For years, she’d wondered why she was so different from her parents—and not just in appearance.
“I like the navy dress,” she said to her mother, who smiled distractedly at her in the mirror.
“You would,” Maribelle said. “You’ve always had that stubborn streak—just like your father.”
“My birth father?” Ansley asked, making her mother’s mouth form a thin, straight line of disapproval.
“What can I say to you to make you change your mind?” Maribelle asked with a sigh as she tossed the navy dress aside. “Your father and I were discussing buying a place in the Bahamas just this morning. We’d need you to do the decorating. You have such a good eye for that sort of thing. It would mean a lot of work, but I’m sure you can close your little jewelry shop for a few months while you’re away.”
Her little jewelry shop. Neither Maribelle nor Harrison had ever taken her jewelry making seriously—even when she’d turned it into a very successful business that more than supported her.
“I’m not closing my shop, and I’m not going to the Bahamas,” she said. They’d already tried to buy her off. This was just another stalling tactic in the hopes she would change her mind. Or was it about giving them time to cover their tracks?
When she’d first confronted them with what she knew, Maribelle had offered her anything she wanted to drop this obsession. Then had begun issuing threats when bargaining and bribing didn’t work. But since she was no longer dependent on them financially nor interested in inheriting their wealth, the monetary threats hadn’t worked.
“You know I love you and appreciate everything you and my father have done for me,” she’d said. They hadn’t been a normal family—at least not like her friends’ parents, who often ate together at the kitchen table in a roar of voices and laughter as everyone tried to talk at once.
Ansley had grown up eating in the kitchen with the cook and a nanny. She’d seldom seen her parents except in passing. They would give her a kiss as they left for this event or that. She’d thought when she was young that her father always wore a suit and her mother a fancy dress. She remembered the smear of her mother’s lipstick on her cheek, the smell of her perfume lingering in the air as they rushed out into the night.
Not that she sincerely wasn’t grateful for the advantages she’d had. But there had always been a hole in her heart she hadn’t understood, as if she’d lost a missing piece of herself somewhere. Just as she had always felt there was some secret, something she hadn’t been told, something important that had been left out.
She glanced in her rearview mirror again. The dark SUV was still back there. Harrison wouldn’t pay his bodyguard to physically keep her from the truth, would he? She remembered seeing his driver pull in through the gate at the estate as she was leaving. She’d gotten only a glimpse of her adoptive father in the back with Lanny. Just from his expression through the tinted window, she’d felt a sliver of fear. For him to drop everything and come home at this time of the day... And now, if she was right, Lanny planned to follow her all day and night if that’s what it took.
Ansley sped up. So did the dark SUV. Are you really doing this? Both Maribelle and Harrison had made her question herself, hinting that she wasn’t going to like what she found out. Telling her that they were only trying to protect her from disappointment. What if they were right and she couldn’t handle the truth?
She let up on the gas. The fear was still there. What if there really was something horrible they were trying to shield her from? Are you doing this or not?
Ahead, there was a wide spot on the right and a turnoff onto a side road on the left. The highway continued ahead but curved, quickly disappearing behind the pine trees growing close to each side. There was no other traffic this morning on this two-lane highway outside the city. There was just her and whoever was driving that black SUV.
Ansley put on her blinker to pull into the wide spot and turn around. She didn’t have to do this today. Going by the estate had been a mistake. She should never have told Maribelle her plans.
As she came to a dust-boiling stop beside the highway, the black SUV sped on past. She couldn’t see the driver’s face, but from the large, bulky shadow behind the wheel, she knew she’d been right. It was Lanny Jackson, her father’s personal bodyguard.
The moment he and black SUV disappeared around the curve, obscured by the trees, Ansley gunned her vehicle across the highway and onto the dirt road bordered by pine trees. She knew it wouldn’t take Lanny long to turn around and come back. Ahead she saw yet another narrow dirt road to the right. She slowed just enough to take the turn and kept going.
She took the next road to the left and then one to the right. She had an idea where she was, so she wasn’t surprised when she finally hit the paved two-lane highway miles to the north. She took it. The traffic was sparse in this part of Montana once you got out of the city.
No black SUV appeared behind her as she wound her way north toward Lonesome, Montana, and the only lead she had. She could see a spring squall building in the mountains. An omen that this was a mistake? She kept driving north, even though she knew that once Lanny reported that he’d lost her, there would be an even worse storm at Brookshire Estate.
