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Shane would have liked to have met his father, just once. He would have liked to stand toe to toe with Bill Sheenan and look him in the eye. It would have been easy to do. They were the same height. Six-foot-one.
Shane had seen pictures of him as a young man, and Shane definitely had the Sheenan cheekbones, jaw, and mouth—one of the reasons he wore a beard—but he had his mother’s nose, as well as her coloring. All his brothers but Cormac had her coloring. He wished there were photos of her as a young girl. He would have liked to see what she looked like as a child. He’d been surprised when he moved in last spring that there were no photos of her in the house. He’d wondered if they were all in the master bedroom, locked away. The master bedroom was the only room that had a lock. Shane was free to roam the house, but the master bedroom was strictly off limits.
Shane hadn’t cared initially. Now, knowing he had just a month left here, he wondered what secrets there were behind the locked door.
Shane stroked the page with his mother’s name one last time, and then down the page before flipping it over to a page with a list of events and dates. Important events that needed to be recorded—her confirmation, and then years later, her marriage to William Sheenan on September 1974, and then the birth of each baby.
1975 Brock
1979 Troy & Trey
1981 Cormac
1982
1985 Dillon
He froze. There it was. It was what he’d been looking for all these years—not for the Douglas story, but his. 1982, his birth year. And no, his name hadn’t been recorded, but the year he’d been born had been recorded with all the others.
He stared at the blank space next to the date, finding it significant, wondering if anyone else in the family had ever bothered to look at her Bible, and noticed the empty spot next to the year. Perhaps it meant nothing to his brothers. Perhaps they thought it referenced a miscarriage or still birth.
But it meant something to him. It meant that his mother had recognized the birth, and she’d included it in her Bible, in the record of her life, in the history of her family.
In a very small way he mattered. In a very small way he’d existed…even if only for her.
Chapter Seven
Jet usually attended the nine a.m. church service with Harley and the kids at St. James, but when she woke Sunday morning there was a text from Harley saying that Mack had woken up in the night with a stomach bug and Harley didn’t want to risk exposing anyone so they were staying home. Which meant Jet was free.
Jet could have skipped church, but she didn’t. She went to the hour-long service and then afterwards walked to Main Street where she joined the line at Java Café for a croissant stuffed with scrambled eggs and cheese, but the line moved with agonizing slowness. Finally she placed her order for the eggs and croissant and a latte with an extra shot, and then searched for a place to sit.
A couple at a table for four said she could join them and then returned to their conversation. Jet didn’t want to listen in so she pulled out her phone and pretended to be checking email and Instagram, but it was impossible to ignore the conversation when she realized they were discussing the Douglas family and the murders on the ranch.
“Only three of the six Douglas kids survived, all the older ones,” the woman said to her boyfriend. “The oldest son was gone, driving someone to a party, so that’s why those two survived, but the rest were shot.”
“They all died?” the man asked.
“Everyone but Quinn. You know Quinn Douglas. He’s that outfielder that was just signed by Seattle.”
“His family was killed?”
“And he was shot like four or five times. He was supposed to die. The fact that he didn’t was a miracle.”
“But everyone else died?”
“Yes.”
“Why was he left alive?”
“I don’t know…maybe they thought he was dead?”
Jet couldn’t move. Her ears felt like they were burning while the rest of her was icy cold. She didn’t want to sit here and listen to them discuss the murders, feeling a fierce protectiveness towards McKenna, understanding for the first time what it felt like hearing absolute strangers discuss a family she knew as if they were the Kardashians.
This was why the Sheenans were angry about the book. This was why they didn’t want the book to happen, and yet, listening to the details, she found herself drawn into the conversation, and she knew it wasn’t because of McKenna but Shane. “Excuse me,” she said, interrupting the couple’s discussion. “I’ve just recently moved to the area. Do you live here?”
“I used to,” the girl answered, tearing a chunk from her bagel. “I’m going to grad school in Missoula but Michael and I thought it’d be fun to head this way for a weekend ski trip and a visit to Marietta.”
“Did you live here at the time of the Douglas ranch tragedy?” Jet asked.
The girl nodded. “I was only five but I remember hearing my parents talk about it late at night in their bedroom. My dad told my mom to keep a gun on her always and not to be afraid to use it. He said with a murderer on the loose it was better not to take chances.”
Jet was fascinated. “What did your mother say?”
“She cried. She was scared. She didn’t want Dad to leave her for work, but he had to. He was one of the foremen on the Circle C Ranch and work had to be done.”
“The Circle C Ranch?”
“The Carrigans’ ranch in Paradise Valley. We lived on the ranch, so we were right there where it all happened.”
Jet pushed her half-eaten croissant away. “So you were neighbors?”
She nodded again. “Just up the road from the Douglases. That’s what made it so scary. The killer could be any one of the people living in the area, or hiding in the hills, or in one of the old homesteads, or maybe even in one of the abandoned mines…” Her voice drifted away. “Mom couldn’t handle it. Eventually we moved to town, and then later, they divorced.” She was silent for a beat and then added, “My mom used to say that whoever did it killed two families…the Douglas’ and ours.”
The girl’s boyfriend reached over and covered her hand with his. Jet looked at their linked fingers and then blurted, “You know that a book is being written about the tragedy.” She didn’t know why she said that, but she was curious about the girl’s response.
“Good,” the girl answered firmly. “Maybe they’ll finally catch that a-hole—or a-holes. Whoever did it should be punished.”
“Do you think most people feel that way?”
“That the murderer should be punished?”
“About the book being written.”
“I think people will be okay with the book if it solves the crime. Otherwise…what’s the point?”
The girl’s boyfriend began stacking their plates and Jet knew they were about to leave but she had to ask one last question.
“Who did your mom think did it? Did she ever say?”
The girl shrugged. “She didn’t know. That’s why she started to hate the ranch. It made her feel crazy.”
The boyfriend stood and the girl stood. Jet did, too. “So no theories?”
“Lots of people said it might have been one of those seasonal ranch hands, or even someone who’d once worked for Mr. Douglas, but my mom thought it wasn’t about Mr. Douglas, but Mrs. Douglas.”
“Why Mrs. Douglas?”
“She was really beautiful. Many people say she was the most beautiful girl to ever come out of Crawford County. She was Miss Montana, did you know that?”
Jet shook her head.
“I don’t know exactly what happened,” the girl added, “but she gave up her crown after just a few months. She didn’t like being in the spotlight—I think she had some weird fans or maybe just one really obsessive fan—but it freaked her out and she left midyear, which was a big scandal in and of itself, and then got really religious afterwards, always attending church and Bible studies and revivals.”
“So whoever committed the cri
mes could have been obsessed with Mrs. Douglas?”
“That’s what my mom says. Maybe even some sicko involved with that weird church.”
“Weird church?”
“Traveling preacher. Thought he was the new Messiah or something. Now that is an interesting story.”
The boyfriend had exited onto the street and the girl hurried to catch up. Jet accompanied her out. “Where is your mom now?”
“She lives in Polson. Runs a shoe store with my step-dad.”
