Distrust Read online

  OUTSTANDING PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS

  OF LISA JACKSON

  YOU BETRAYED ME

  “Exhilarating . . . the constant twists will keep the readers hooked. This is a nonstop thrill ride.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The propulsively paced plot has a definite Lifetime Movie Channel vibe, but Jackson effectively juices things up with plenty of sexy suspense and a generous amount of high-octane thrills.”

  —Booklist

  PARANOID

  “Jackson gradually builds up the layers of this tangled psychological thriller, leading to a stunning finale. Jackson knows how to keep readers guessing and glued to the page.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  LIAR, LIAR

  “The author’s managing of the past and present separately is an effective method of clue dangling to keep readers in the dark until the huge OMG reveal.

  Fans of Lisa Gardner, Paula Hawkins, and J.T. Ellison will devour this one-sitting nail-biter.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  YOU WILL PAY

  “This suspenseful thriller is packed with jaw-dropping twists.”

  —In Touch Weekly

  AFTER SHE’S GONE

  “Jackson generates near-constant suspense, weaving together disparate plot turns, directing a large cast of characters, and playing up movie-star egos and show-biz gossip to give the novel a vintage Hollywood feel.”

  —Booklist

  Books by Lisa Jackson

  Stand-Alones

  SEE HOW SHE DIES

  FINAL SCREAM

  RUNNING SCARED

  WHISPERS

  TWICE KISSED

  UNSPOKEN

  DEEP FREEZE

  FATAL BURN

  MOST LIKELY TO DIE

  WICKED GAME

  WICKED LIES

  SOMETHING WICKED

  WICKED WAYS

  SINISTER

  WITHOUT MERCY

  YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW

  CLOSE TO HOME

  AFTER SHE’S GONE

  REVENGE

  YOU WILL PAY

  OMINOUS

  RUTHLESS

  BACKLASH

  ONE LAST BREATH

  LIAR, LIAR

  PARANOID

  ENVIOUS

  LAST GIRL STANDING

  DISTRUST

  Anthony Paterno/

  Cahill Family Novels

  IF SHE ONLY KNEW

  ALMOST DEAD

  YOU BETRAYED ME

  Rick Bentz/

  Reuben Montoya Novels

  HOT BLOODED

  COLD BLOODED

  SHIVER

  ABSOLUTE FEAR

  LOST SOULS

  MALICE

  DEVIOUS

  NEVER DIE ALONE

  Pierce Reed/

  Nikki Gillette Novels

  THE NIGHT BEFORE

  THE MORNING AFTER

  TELL ME

  Selena Alvarez/

  Regan Pescoli Novels

  LEFT TO DIE

  CHOSEN TO DIE

  BORN TO DIE

  AFRAID TO DIE

  READY TO DIE

  DESERVES TO DIE

  EXPECTING TO DIE

  WILLING TO DIE

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  DISTRUST

  LISA JACKSON

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  ZEBRA BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Compilation copyright © 2021 by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  Renegade Son © 1987 by Lisa Jackson

  Midnight Sun © 1985 by Lisa Jackson

  Both titles comprising Distrust were originally published by Silhouette Books by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4201-5243-2

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4201-5244-9 (eBook)

  ISBN-10: 1-4201-5244-0 (eBook)

  Table of Contents

  Praise

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Renegade Son

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Midnight Sun

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Renegade Son

  Prologue

  Boise, Idaho

  April 18, 1985

  Chase McEnroe stared down at the cashier’s check, greatly annoyed. Distrust darkened his clear blue eyes. Two-hundred-thousand dollars. More money than he’d made in all of his thirty-two years and it was being handed to him on a silver platter. Or with strings attached.

  “So what’s the catch?” he asked cautiously as he dropped the slip of paper onto his letter strewn desk. Ironically the check settled on a stack of invoices that were already sixty days past due.

  “No catch,” Caleb Johnson replied with a satisfied smile. “We’ve been over all this before, and everything’s spelled out in the contract.” The older man grinned encouragingly and thumped the partnership agreement with his fingers. “I trust you had your attorney go over it.”

  Chase stared straight at Caleb’s ruddy face and nodded, but still he frowned and his chiseled features didn’t relax. His tanned skin was drawn tight over angular cheekbones, square jaw and hollow cheeks.

  “Let’s just say that I don’t trust strangers bearing gifts.”

  “It’s not a gift. I own fifty percent of your company if you take the money.”

  Ah, there it was: the trap!

  Rubbing a hand wearily over his beard-roughened jaw, Chase stood and walked over to the window of his small office, which was little more than a used construction trailer. He poured a cup of coffee from the glass pot sitting on a hot plate beneath the window.

  “I don’t like partners,” Chase said almost to himself as he glared through the dusty glass to the empty parking lot. Sagebrush and grass were growing through the cracks of the splitting asphalt, as if to remind him how much he needed Caleb Johnson’s money.

  “The way I understand it, you could use a partner right now.
”

  “How’s that?”

  “Didn’t most of your staff walk off the job five weeks ago?”

  Chase didn’t answer. Instead he frowned into his chipped coffee cup. But Caleb’s point had struck home; the unconscious tightening of Chase’s jaw gave his anger away.

  “And aren’t they planning to start a rival company in Twin Falls with a man named Eric Conway as president?” Johnson added.

  “There’s a rumor to that effect,” Chase replied tightly.

  “So they’ve got the expertise, the money to back their project, the manpower to work efficiently and all the contracts that you worked ten years to develop. Right?”

  “Maybe.” Chase felt his muscles bunch with tension. The deceit of his best friend still felt like a ball of lead in his stomach. He’d trusted Eric Conway with his life, and the man had kicked him in the gut.

  “So, the way I see it, you’re just about out of options.”

  “Not quite.” Chase took a long swallow from his coffee and set the cup on the windowsill. “I still like being the boss.”

  “You would be.” Caleb smiled and shrugged his broad shoulders. “Think of me as a silent partner.”

  “So what’s in it for you?”

  “Your guarantee that when I’m ready with the resort—”

  “Summer Ridge?”

  “Right. I’ll let you know, then you can come up to Martinville and make Grizzly Creek viable for trout. When the job’s complete, I’ll pay you by returning twenty-five percent of Relive, Inc., just the way it’s outlined in the agreement.” Satisfied that he’d taken care of everything, Caleb pointed a fleshy finger at the document.

  “And what about the final twenty-five percent?” Chase asked, his blue eyes narrowing.

  “Oh, that you’ll have to buy back.”

  “For a substantial profit over what you paid,” Chase guessed.

  “Market value. Whatever that is.”

  “Sounds fair enough,” Chase thought aloud. Not only had he looked for catches in the agreement, but he’d had his attorney poring over the documents for two weeks. Everything appeared legal. And too good to be true.

  He returned to his chair, glanced again at the check on the thick pile of invoices and then studied the slightly heavyset man in front of him. He’d never laid eyes on Johnson before in his life, and suddenly the man was here, in his office, offering him a godsend.

  “So why me?” Chase finally asked. “Why not go with Conway’s outfit?”

  The easy Montana smile widened across Caleb Johnson’s face. “Two reasons I suppose—you’ve got a track record and, even though you’re slightly overextended right now, you plow all of your money back into the operation of Relive. Unless Conway was the brains behind this operation, you’re the best in the business.”

  “And the other reason?”

  Caleb Johnson’s eyes glittered a watery blue. “I knew your mother,” he said with a reflective grin.

  Something in the older man’s voice brought Chase’s head up. His gaze narrowed speculatively on the big man. “I never heard her speak of you,” he drawled.

  “It was a long time ago,” Caleb replied. He tugged thoughtfully on his lower lip and gauged Chase’s reaction. “Before you were born.”

  “And that was enough to convince you?”

  “Any son of Ella Simpson had to be a scrapper.”

  “Her name was Ella McEnroe,” Chase said slowly.

  “Not when I knew her . . .”

  The wistful ring in Caleb’s voice rankled Chase. How had this slightly unsavory man been connected with his mother? The thought that she’d even known Caleb Johnson bothered Chase more than he’d like to admit.

  In the distance the sound of a freight train whistle pierced the air as the boxcars clattered on ancient tracks. The noise broke the mounting tension in the room. Caleb glanced at his watch and then, shrugging off the memories of a distant past, stood abruptly. “Look, I’ve got a plane to catch. Do we have a deal?”

  Chase glanced down at the check. Two hundred grand. Damn, but that money could make the difference between making it or not, especially with Conway intent on ruining him. With a nagging feeling that he was making the worst decision of his life, Chase clasped Caleb Johnson’s outstretched hand.

  “Deal,” he said and then reached into the drawer of his desk for a pen and signed all four copies of the partnership agreement.

  “You’ve made the right decision.”

  Chase doubted it but tried not to second-guess himself.

  Caleb stuffed his copies of the paperwork into the pocket of his expensive, Western-style jacket and smiled in satisfaction. “Oh, there’s one other thing,” he said, walking to the door.

  Here it comes, Chase thought, bracing himself for the elusive catch in the agreement. “What’s that?”

  “One of my neighbors is fighting me about developing Summer Ridge.”

  “Just one?”

  “So far . . . oh, well, it’ll all be cleared up by the time you come to Martinville. There’s always a way to get people to come ’round to your way of thinking, y’know.”

  Yeah, like two-hundred-thousand dollars, Chase thought cynically.

  Caleb waved a big hand and opened the door of the trailer before walking down the three worn steps to the parking lot. Chase watched the big man from Montana drive off in a rented white Cadillac and tried to ignore the absurd feeling that he had just sold his soul to the devil; the same devil who had known his mother all those years ago.

  Chapter One

  Hawthorne Farm

  Martinville, Montana

  August 16, 1987

  The sun blazed hot in the summer sky. Dry grass crackled and grasshoppers flew from the path of the buckskin gelding and its rider as the horse headed toward the clear stream slicing through the arid field.

  Sweat beaded on Dani’s forehead and slid down her spine. She lifted the rifle to her shoulder and cocked it, her eyes squinting through the sight at the target: a tall, blond man with broad shoulders, a tanned, muscular torso, slim hips and the nerve to trespass on her property by wading in Grizzly Creek. No doubt this stranger was another one of Caleb Johnson’s men.

  The element of surprise was on her side and definitely to her advantage. The stranger’s back was to her, his sweat-glistened muscles rippling as he waded in the mountain stream, his eyes scouring the clear ice-cold water. It didn’t appear that he had heard the warning click of the hammer of her Winchester or seen the horse and rider approach.

  Dani’s elegant jaw hardened with determination and her lips tightened though her hands shook as she took aim. “Move it, mister!” she shouted.

  The target looked up and visibly started, the muscles of his naked back bunching as he spun around to face her. Water sprayed upward from his sudden movement.

  “Get the hell off my property!”

  The stranger just stood in the middle of the creek as if dumbstruck, his eyes narrowing against the bright Montana sun and his body poised as if to run. But there was nowhere to hide. Aside from a few scraggly oaks, the fields of brittle sun-dried grass offered no cover. The gently sloping land was barren and dry as a bone.

  Dani softly kicked the buckskin and advanced on the object of her outrage. When she was near enough to see the man clearly, she smiled at the mixture of indignation, horror and fury in his sky-blue eyes.

  “I said, move it,” she repeated, stopping the gelding a few feet from the creek and cocking her head in the direction of the bank where a pile of his belongings—shirt, fishing reel and worn boots—lay on the grass.

  His square jaw was thrust forward, his tanned skin nearly white over his face as he slowly waded out of Grizzly Creek. He kept his gaze on the barrel of the rifle as she moved forward. The steel glinted a threatening blue in the afternoon sun. Dani kept the Winchester trained on the stranger’s every move as he bent down, picked up a plaid work shirt and angrily stuffed his sinewy arms through the sleeves.

  She placed t
he rifle across her thighs. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing on my land?” she suggested, breathing once again when she realized that this man was complying with her orders. Some of Caleb Johnson’s thugs hadn’t been so easily buffaloed.

  The intruder didn’t flinch, but slowly buttoned his shirt. His lips were tight over his teeth, making his mouth seem little more than an angry line. “I was told this land belonged to Daniel Summers.”

  “Danielle Summers,” she corrected.

  “And you’re she,” he deduced.

  “That’s right.” Dani almost grinned at his reaction. “Now, suppose you tell me just who you are and what you think you’re doing on my property?”

  “Why not?” he asked rhetorically and then muttered an angry oath under his breath.

  “I’m waiting.”

  He shook his head and looked up at the cloudless sky. “How do I get myself into these things?” he muttered with a grimace before letting out a long, angry sigh and dropping his gaze from the heavens to horse and rider. “Okay, if you want to play out the bad B Western scenario, I’ll state my name and business.”

  “Good.” She stared down at him without a smile, her eyes glued to his chiseled features. She guessed him to be around thirty-five, give or take a couple of years. From the looks of him, the poor bastard had probably been on Caleb Johnson’s payroll less than a week. Otherwise he wouldn’t appear so clean-cut or have been so stupid as to wander blatantly over the property line in broad daylight.

  “The name’s McEnroe.”

  “Like the tennis player?”

  He snorted at the inference, as if he’d heard it a million times. He probably had. “No relation. I’m Chase McEnroe.”