by B. J Daniels
“You must have been incensed when you found out.”
His grandmother smiled at that. “I could have killed Virginia.”
“Instead you made sure her baby died by paying to have her baby switched with Marie Dennison’s.”
Pepper met his gaze and slowly shook her head. “Is that what you think I did?”
“Someone paid Candace Porter five thousand dollars to switch the babies, then killed her.”
“Oh, so now you think I not only let Virginia believe her baby had died, I also killed someone?” Pepper asked.
“You have to admit, you don’t have the best record when it comes to people dying around you,” he pointed out, referring to her husband, Call, who’d allegedly ridden off on horseback one day, never to return.
Pepper turned to stare into the fire. Cyrus wondered if she was contemplating burning in hell. “I have done a lot of things in my life that I’m ashamed of, but that isn’t one of them.”
“That doesn’t answer the question,” Cyrus said. “I’m sure it was justified in your warped mind. McCall is going to be paying you an official visit soon. She is getting proof that the babies were switched. Once she traces that money back to you...” He shook his head.
“Candace Porter was my aunt,” Kate said. “My mother was visiting her. I’m not sure what happened to her, but we believe whoever killed Candace Porter and my mother did it to cover up the crime.”
Pepper turned to meet her gaze, held it for a moment, then looked away. “I’m sorry for your loss, but I didn’t kill anyone and I’m sorry, but I know nothing about your mother.”
“I hope not, for your sake and your family’s,” Kate said quietly.
“Virginia needs to be told that Jace Dennison could be her son,” Cyrus said.
His grandmother slowly turned to look at him. Her eyes were dark as caverns. “Did you ever consider that Virginia might have been the one who paid the nurse to switch the babies? Jordan McCormick dropped her like a hot piece of pipe when she told him she was pregnant. He never would have married Virginia and she knew it. Her baby dying let her save face.”
* * *
“I believe her,” Kate said as they walked out to his truck. This time the dog, an old blue heeler, didn’t even lift his head.
Cyrus glanced over at Kate as if she’d lost her mind. “My grandmother is guilty as hell.”
“Probably. But I don’t believe she had anyone killed. If she had the babies switched, it was for her daughter.”
Cyrus slid behind the wheel, slammed his palm against the steering wheel and swore before reaching for the key in the ignition where he’d left it.
Kate looked up to see his grandmother standing in the doorway. She was leaning on her cane, looking all of her seventy-two years.
“Her number was in Katherine’s address book,” Cyrus reminded Kate. “Don’t let her frailty fool you. My grandmother has always been a force to be reckoned with.” He shoved his hat back and started the pickup.
Kate noticed that Pepper was still standing in the doorway watching them leave, an expression of terrible sadness on her face. “I feel sorry for her.”
Cyrus swore as he looked over at her. “Don’t. I have a feeling she is finally going to get what she deserves.”
“She lost her husband and youngest son, Trace?” Kate asked. “I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose the man you love, let alone a child.”
“Believe me, she didn’t miss my grandfather. I doubt she ever loved him. As for Trace, well, him she idolized, but in the end she turned him against her, too. Trace was McCall’s father. My grandmother did everything she could to break up Trace’s marriage to McCall’s mother, Ruby.”
“Is that what happened to your father’s marriage to your mother?” Kate asked quietly.
“No woman was ever good enough for Pepper’s sons. Or man for her daughter. Now my grandmother is obsessed with finding out if someone in the family was a co-conspirator in Trace’s death. That’s why she was asking about the third-floor room.”
Kate listened as he explained this room Call Winchester had used to punish his children. “It sounds horrible. Your grandmother believes one of you saw Trace’s murder?”
“Or at least who else was involved. I have to admit, it is strange that Trace was killed within sight of the ranch. You see now what a screwed-up family I have?”
“Is that why you were afraid of getting involved with me?”
Cyrus shot her a look, then turned quickly back to his driving. “It doesn’t matter my reasons. I am involved.” He didn’t sound happy about it.
“So your grandmother locked herself away in that ranch lodge for the past twenty-seven years.” She feared Cyrus had locked himself away, at least emotionally, as well. As they drove under the Winchester Ranch sign, Kate realized something.
“Your grandmother wasn’t the only one who would have been unhappy about Virginia and Jordan McCormick,” she said. “If the rumor was true about Pepper and Hunt McCormick...”
Cyrus swore. “Joanna McCormick hates my grandmother with a passion, so I would imagine there is something to the rumors about Pepper and Hunt.”
“So what is this Joanna McCormick like?” she asked.
He hit the brakes, surprising her. “The McCormick Ranch is just back down the road. I say we pay her a visit.”
* * *
Cyrus hated that his visit to his grandmother had upset him more than he wanted to admit. Being back on the ranch had brought back so many memories. Good memories of when they’d all been a family.
“You never mention your mother,” Kate said as if reading his mind.
He chuckled. “That’s because she left when I was little. She wasn’t strong enough to stand up to my grandmother, so she hit the road. I’ve heard she remarried and has four sons.”
“I’m sorry.” She squeezed his arm and let go.
He was sorry to lose her touch. When he glanced over at her, she had tears in her eyes. She quickly wiped at them. “Hey, it wasn’t all bad. I was just thinking of all the great memories I had at the ranch. It was a wonderful place to grow up. Cordell and I learned to ride when we were two. We used to ride every day. We literally had the run of the ranch by the time we were seven.”
“But then you were exiled,” she said. “It’s so sad. You have this big family and yet...”
“There’s the McCormick Ranch,” he said, as if needing to change the subject. “You up to this?”
She nodded. “Does Jordan still live here?”
“He was killed in a hay-baling accident about a year after Virginia gave birth.”
Kate shot him a shocked look. “How horrible.”
Cyrus nodded. “Joanna has two daughters, both much younger than Jordan. I haven’t seen them for the past twenty-seven years and have no idea what happened to them.”
As he turned into the McCormick Ranch, he thought about the bad blood between the two families and wondered what kind of reception they would get.
He also wondered what his grandmother would do with the information he’d given her about the two McCormick girls being in the third-floor room the day Trace Winchester was murdered within sight of the ranch.
That day he and his brother had had a small pair of binoculars they’d been arguing over. The last thing he remembered was Cordell letting the girls look through them. They had looked out toward the distant ridge.
What if one of them had seen the murder?
But if one of them had, why wouldn’t they have said something—especially if they’d seen more than one Winchester on that ridge that day?
* * *
As Cyrus drove into the McCormick Ranch, Kate saw a man shoeing a horse over by an old barn. He looked up, watching them drive by.
She looked away from his intense gaze, suspecting they weren’t going to get a warm welcom
e anywhere on this ranch.
Cyrus parked in front of the large ranch house. As Kate got out, she looked back toward the old barn. The man was still watching her and Cyrus with interest.
“Looks like everyone is over by the corral,” Cyrus said and they walked over to see what was going on.
Kate knew at once that the older woman sitting on the corral fence was Joanna McCormick. At sixty-eight, Joanna was a tall, athletic-looking woman with short brown hair and a weathered face that told of many hours spent outdoors.
She was watching intently as a trainer worked with a horse in the ring. Several cowboys sat a little farther down the fence, also watching.
Kate had heard that Joanna McCormick was known for the quarter horses she raised. Cyrus said he’d seen her once years ago at a quarter-horse sale outside of Laramie, Wyoming, on a ranch where his father had been working at the time.
Her husband, Hunt, had been with her. Cyrus had described Hunt as a large, gentle-looking man with a kind face. Not handsome like Call Winchester had been. Cyrus had wondered at the time what his grandmother had seen in Hunt. And, if it was true that his grandmother had had an affair with him, why Hunt hadn’t left his tightly wound, brittle wife for Pepper.
Joanna gave them only a glance from under her Western straw hat as they joined her on the corral fence. “Do I know you?” she said without looking at them.
“I’m Cyrus Winchester.” Her brows shot up as she turned to give him a hard look. “And this is Kate Landon.”
“What do you want?” Joanna said, turning back to what was going on in the corral.
“We need to talk to you about Jordan and Virginia,” Cyrus said.
The older woman acted as if she hadn’t heard him as she called to the trainer to keep the horse’s head up.
“If you prefer to talk to the sheriff...” Cyrus said.
“My son is dead and I could give a damn about Virginia Winchester,” Joanna replied. “So I can’t imagine why the sheriff would want to talk to me.”
“So you didn’t pay Candace Porter to switch the babies so it appeared Virginia’s had died?” Cyrus asked.
The cowboys down the fence weren’t looking in their direction, but they were clearly listening.
Joanna McCormick swung her legs over and dropped off the corral fence, her face crimson with anger. “How dare you—”
“Candace Porter was my aunt,” Kate said, keeping her voice low. “The other woman who disappeared at the same time was my mother. We believe whoever paid to have those babies switched killed both women to keep the secret that Jace Dennison is really your grandson.”
Without a word, Joanna started for the house. Cyrus shot Kate a what-the-hell look and they followed her.
The McCormick ranch house was a sprawling two-story. Like the Winchester Ranch, it had many of the same amenities, including the western décor, Native American rugs and antler lamps and fixtures. A huge wagon wheel hung down from the ceiling in the massive living room, lights glittering from it.
A fire in the massive fireplace had died to only glowing embers.
Joanna McCormick walked to it, picked up the poker and stabbed angrily at the coals. “Isn’t it enough that your grandmother tried to take my husband?” she demanded, turning to glare at them. “Now you want to try to take another woman’s son?”
“You don’t seem all that surprised,” Cyrus said. “I think you knew all about the baby switch.”
“I know nothing of the kind,” she snapped. “Why would I let someone else raise my grandson?”
“Because you couldn’t bear the alternative. I think you were afraid Jordan would marry Virginia.”
“He would never have married her.”
“Was that his idea or yours?” Cyrus asked.
“I told him that if he married her, he was off the ranch. That was all I had to do.”
“Didn’t you care that Virginia’s baby was your flesh and blood?” Kate asked.
“Was it?” Joanna asked pointedly. “Even Jordan wasn’t sure of that.”
Cyrus laughed. “You remind me so much of my grandmother. You know, I wouldn’t put it past the two of you to have come up with the baby switch together. You both had motive for switching the babies. Coming up with the five thousand dollars to pay off the nurse wouldn’t have been that hard, even though that was a lot of money thirty years ago. You could have split it. Would be easier to cover up.”
Joanna looked at him, aghast. “Your grandmother and I? We can’t be in the same room together.”
“Unless you had a common goal. My grandmother wasn’t about to let your son marry into the Winchester family.”
Joanna raised a brow at that. “Why? She tried to marry into the McCormick family.”
“That was years ago,” he pointed out.
“I have a good memory,” she said. “Do you really believe Jace would have been better off being raised by Virginia?”
“You stole her baby and any chance she might have had for happiness with your son,” Cyrus said. “So I guess we’ll never know how different she might be today.”
Kate knew Cyrus was winging it, hoping for a reaction, but Joanna McCormick, other than being furious, wasn’t giving him much.
“The only thing I’m not sure about is which one of you killed Candace Porter and her sister, who was in town because she knew about the switch,” Cyrus continued. “It’s a toss-up which of you is more cold-blooded.”
“I’ve heard enough,” Joanna said. “If you had any evidence, the sheriff would be here, not you two. Now get out. If you don’t leave I am going to call the sheriff.”
“You won’t have to bother calling Sheriff McCall Winchester,” Cyrus said. “She’ll be paying you a visit soon enough.”
Joanna made an angry sound. “Too many damn Winchesters around here.”
“More Winchesters than you want to admit,” he said.
Some of the steel seemed to leave Joanna’s spine. “What is the point of ruining Jace Dennison’s life if somehow the babies did get switched? I watched him grow up, saw him at every rodeo. He’s a fine young man and Marie is a wonderful mother. Are you really going to take that away from them when you aren’t even certain the babies were switched?”
She looked to Kate as if hoping to find sympathy with her. “Maybe your aunt getting killed had nothing to do with either of the babies.”
“Or are you worried about Jace Dennison?” Cyrus asked. “Or what’s going to happen to you and the McCormick Ranch when you go to prison for murder? Maybe my grandmother will come after your husband again.”
“Get out!” Joanna screeched.
Cyrus turned to leave, Kate leading the way.
“If I ever see you on my land again, I’ll shoot first and ask questions later,” Joanna McCormick yelled after them. Behind them they heard something break. Neither looked back.
But as they were leaving, Kate saw the man she’d seen watching them earlier. He was standing just outside and she got the impression he’d been listening to their conversation.
As Cyrus slid behind the wheel, she asked, “Who is that man?”
“What man?” he asked as he started the pickup.
“The one standing by the side of the house,” Kate said. “He was watching us earlier and I think he was eavesdropping on our conversation with Joanna McCormick.”
Cyrus glanced up, but when Kate followed his gaze, the man was gone.
Chapter 14
“Boy, have you been stirring the pot,” McCall said when she got Cyrus on his cell the next morning. “Joanna McCormick called. She is hotter than a pistol and it sounds like with good reason.”
“I know I probably shouldn’t have gone by there. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision,” Cyrus said.
“She said you accused her of baby switching and murder and taunted her with our grandmo
ther coming after her husband—once Joanna was behind bars.” McCall laughed. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“I couldn’t help it. Damn, she is just like Pepper. Only I swear I think she’s meaner,” he said.
“She wants me to arrest you for everything from trespassing to slander. I calmed her down a little. She did make it clear that if I run for sheriff again, she won’t vote for me. As if she did this time.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Yeah, that was a real heartbreaker.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if she paid to have the babies switched. As for the murder or possible murder... I don’t know. She’s mean enough.”
“Cyrus, I didn’t call you just about Joanna,” McCall said, her tone suddenly serious.
He knew at once. “Roberta.”
“We found a suicide note. She confessed to paying Candace Porter to switch the babies. She also confessed to killing Candace when she saw her switch the babies back.”
Cyrus shot Kate a look. Moments earlier they’d been sitting at the kitchen table having cinnamon rolls and coffee. Kate had stopped what she’d been doing and was now staring at him.
“She confessed to killing Kate’s mother, as well.”
He was trying to get his mind around this. He’d known Roberta was involved but he hadn’t expected this. “How did she kill herself?”
“Pills.”
“Did she say anything else?” he asked.
“No. The confession was handwritten, the writing deteriorating pretty quickly as the pills must have taken effect.”
So they might never know what she’d done with Kate’s mother’s body.
“Would you like me to tell Kate?” McCall asked.
“No, I’ll do it.” He hung up and looked at Kate. Before he could say anything, she stepped into his arms.
* * *
Kate felt as if she was in shock. Roberta Warren had confessed? She’d known the hospital administrator was involved, but she’d suspected the person who’d paid her aunt to switch the babies would be Pepper Winchester or Joanna McCormick or Audie Dennison.