Mortal Danger

lies.
    Kate had attempted to convince his daughters—particularly Tamara—that their father was dangerous. The next woman he became involved with might go through what she had—and quite possibly endure an even worse fate. She never managed to get through to Tamara in person, having been reduced to sending messages through Tamara’s fiancé. Maybe his daughters really didn’t know where he was. After that, it became too risky for Kate to even try. She didn’t want John to be able to track her down on the windswept island where she was hiding.
    After a few years on Orcas Island, Kate tentatively began to feel a bit out of harm’s way. There was no way to get off-island without the ferries, and new faces in town drew attention. But she would never feel completely secure until she knew John was behind bars. And she dreaded hearing what he might have done, wherever he was.
    That is, if he was still alive.
     
    He was. In the first years of the twenty-first century, John Branden emerged from hiding, as shiny and renewed as a snake who’d just shed its tattered outer skin. He was close to sixty now, five years younger than Turi Bentley (although he looked older), and his hair had thinned to baldness with a few “comb-over” strands. But his eyes werejust as bright and hypnotic as ever. As always, he was full of moneymaking ideas and grand plans. He wasn’t John Branden any longer, though; he was John W. Williams. He’d always had his clutch of driver’s licenses and identification cards, and he still did. He had plenty of “paper” to support his image as John Williams. He didn’t call himself a doctor now, except to a very few people close to him, in whom he confided that he was a naturopathic “physician.”
    He was simply “Mr. Williams.”
    Turi was sixty-one when she met John, and like most older women who are alone, she doubted that there would be another man in her life. Her three children were grown and on their own, and she was a very loving and proud “Grambar” to ten grandchildren. She had too many friends to count, and she was full of joy in her life despite the disappointments she had known.
    After meeting John Williams, she began to hope that she might have a second chance at love.
    Shortly after the turn of the century, John was living in a cabin in Northern California near Mount Shasta. He may have led Turi to believe that he owned it, along with the meadows surrounding it. In truth, he was the house-sitter. The true owner lived in Switzerland and trusted John to take care of his property. How John met the property owner is anybody’s guess. Without having his permission to do so, John rented out rooms to strangers and kept the rent he collected. He would later brag to a friend in Gig Harbor that he not only had a free place to live but he also had an income of about $800 a month from the rent.
    In his phone conversations with Turi, he spoke mysteriously about the six months he’d spent living in a Buddhistmonastery, trying to sort out his life. That was apparently before he moved to Mount Shasta.
    Tamara Branden was a Buddhist. Perhaps he’d hidden on her property, which was rife with many of the religious icons and tranquil gardens favored by the religion. Perhaps that was what he meant when he said he’d been in a monastery. At any rate, he had outrun the dogs tracking him in Napa, California, had apparently spent time in some sort of religious retreat, and lived quite comfortably on the Mount Shasta estate.
    John Branden-Hennings-Jewell-Howell-Williams preferred pretty women with good figures, and Turi Bentley certainly fit that category. He sought out those who would indulge him, and Turi was kindness and consideration personified, always concerned for others. He cared only that she doted on him. He wasn’t interested in her religious beliefs and was annoyed that she interacted with her family and with so many friends of all ages. Her brilliant smile drew people to her and made them remember her.
    Turi was an intelligent woman who had never been a goody-goody. She could be quite bold and witty. She taught her daughters to always speak the truth and face their fears head-on. Because she told the truth, she didn’t recognize that John had lied to her from the beginning. She didn’t even know his real name, and it’s possible that he planned his scenarios so she never would.
    John convinced Turi to invest in “his” Mount Shasta property. She paid to have the garage attic