by B. J Daniels
“What happened all those years ago?” Kate asked quietly.
Audie looked at her and Cyrus saw the man weaken. Clearly he wanted to get this over with, and yet the magnitude of what he was about to do had him hesitating.
“You did it for your sister,” Kate said, her voice soft, comforting.
“Katherine told you about someone paying her five thousand dollars to switch the babies,” Cyrus prodded.
“Five thousand?” Audie was shaking his head as if confused.
So she hadn’t told him about the money. “You encouraged her to do it, knowing how much your sister wanted a baby, deserved one, unlike Virginia Winchester,” Kate said, still speaking to him in that calm tone.
Audie’s confusion seemed to clear as he locked onto her words. “That tramp Virginia had no business with a baby. She wasn’t even married.”
“But then Katherine changed her mind,” Cyrus said. “She betrayed you.”
A sadness filled the man’s eyes along with a deep anger. “I loved her. I would have done anything for her. She promised. I heard her talking to her sister on the phone by the nurses’ station. She’d left the cart with the medical supplies in the hallway. I didn’t even realize I’d picked up the scalpel.”
“You had no choice but to kill her sister, too,” Cyrus said.
“You’re the one who left the bracelet on my grandmother’s doorstep,” Kate said.
“It was a foolish, sentimental thing to do,” Audie admitted. “But I couldn’t throw it away and I couldn’t keep it, either.”
Kate began to cry softly.
“I couldn’t let it come out about the babies,” Audie said angrily. “Marie was so happy. Of course she was sad about Virginia’s baby dying. Marie is that kind of woman. I owed her. I had to do whatever it took to make her happy.”
“And you did,” Cyrus said. “Roberta Warren must have known it was you. Was she threatening you? Is that why you had to stop her?”
Audie blinked. “That old hag at the hospital?”
Cyrus felt his stomach clinch. Audie Dennison hadn’t killed Roberta. Nor had he known about the five thousand dollars that had changed hands. “Whose idea was it to switch the babies? Who paid Katherine to do it?”
* * *
It took McCall too long to find Jasmine in the depths of the haunted house. “Where are Kate and Cyrus?”
Jasmine looked surprised and instantly worried. “Cyrus said he sent her to a motel and that he was going to join her. I thought it was odd. No way would Kate have left her haunted house before it even got started good.” Her eyes widened in realization.
“You’ve been right here since the haunted house opened, right?” McCall said. “Who came through at the beginning?”
Jasmine frowned, clearly working to remember. She rattled off a few names of families she remembered. “Wait a minute. The first person who came in didn’t even have a kid with him. I thought it was funny, but I figured he must be a volunteer Kate had recruited and he was late and that’s why he rushed in the way he did.”
“Jasmine, who—”
“Audie Dennison.”
* * *
Audie frowned. “How would I know who paid her to switch the babies?” he demanded. “I thought she was doing it out of the goodness of her heart. I was going to marry her...” He was waving the gun again, clearly upset. “I was in love.” His gaze seemed to focus on the two of them. “Like you.” His voice broke.
“Audie,” Cyrus said, seeing something in the man’s eyes that turned his blood to ice.
“My sister Marie died tonight.”
Before Cyrus could move, Audie turned the gun on himself. The loud report echoed through the nursery, a thunder of pain-ending sound.
Cyrus grabbed Kate, sheltering her from the sight as Audie Dennison dropped to the floor, his gun clattering to the worn tiles. And Cyrus found himself again standing in the old hospital nursery with a body lying in a pool of blood.
As he took Kate in his arms, he heard the sound of sirens in the distance.
Epilogue
Kate heard the racket outside the front door of the shop and hurried to see what was going on. She hadn’t seen Cyrus all morning and now when she looked out, she caught a glimpse of him through the thickly falling snow.
As she opened the door, he dragged in a Christmas tree and stood it up for her inspection. “So, what do you think?” Both he and the tree were covered in fresh snow. She breathed in the scent of pine and snow.
What did she think? That she loved this man more than life.
Love had saved them. As corny as it sounded, Kate knew that the love she and Cyrus shared that moment in the old hospital nursery had saved their lives.
She’d seen the change in Audie Dennison. He’d come there to kill them. He’d killed before. She didn’t doubt that he would have done anything to spare his sister. But Marie was dead and while Audie had nothing to lose, he couldn’t bring himself to kill again. Not two people who anyone could see adored each other.
McCall had arrived moments after the sound of the gunshot died away. She’d come barreling in, weapon drawn, fear that she’d arrived too late in her eyes. Maybe blood was thicker than water, because Kate could see that McCall had true affection for her cousin. It would be nice for McCall to have family again. And Cyrus, too.
She knew how relieved he was to find out that his grandmother had had nothing to do with switching Virginia’s baby with Marie’s. Kate thought maybe Virginia and Pepper’s relationship might have a chance to heal and that McCall’s Christmas wedding could bring the entire Winchester family back together.
Cyrus was still concerned that his grandmother was up to something and anxious about the wedding. He didn’t want anything to go wrong for McCall and Luke. Only time would tell, but Kate, always the optimist, thought this could be the most perfect Christmas ever for all of them.
She was looking forward to the Christmas wedding, which was now only two weeks away.
Whitehorse had been shocked when the news had come out that Joanna McCormick had been arrested for the murder of Roberta Warren. McCall had found proof, not only in Roberta’s real confession, but also in phone records, bank accounts and DNA from the scene at Roberta’s house.
Faced with all the evidence, Joanna McCormick had confessed it all. She was the one who had paid Roberta ten thousand dollars to switch the babies. Joanna would have done anything to keep her son from Virginia Winchester—including letting him believe his infant son had died.
What Joanna didn’t know was that Roberta used blackmail and five thousand dollars to try to coerce Katherine into making the switch.
Joanna had hired Audie to do more than shoe some of her horses. She’d paid him to try to scare off Kate, and when he’d balked, she’d taken the job into her own hands. She’d been the one to cut the cable and put the doll in the nursery. She’d had a key to the old library back when her husband, Hunt, had been on the library board.
After the shock and horror of what had happened, Kate had been filled with a deep sadness, but Cyrus had been there for her. It turned out that Roberta Warren wasn’t the only one to leave a detailed true confession of her part in all this. Audie Dennison had left one as well at his house.
That confession had given Kate the greatest peace of mind. He’d told her where he’d buried her mother. She’d been able to have her mother’s remains buried properly next to her aunt’s at the local cemetery.
The sisters were now buried side by side, with matching headstones and inscriptions with their real names and the dates they had died. Earlier Kate had gone by the cemetery to put Christmas wreaths on her aunt’s and mother’s graves. It seemed fitting that they were together again.
“I know the tree is a little flat on that one side, but I thought we could put it against the wall,” Cyrus said now, looking worried that she didn’t l
ike it.
She smiled, still taken aback sometimes at how lucky she’d been to have him come into her life. She liked to think her aunt and mother had had something to do with that.
“I love the tree,” Kate said as she stepped toward him. “And look what I have.” She held mistletoe over their heads and saw his dark eyes shimmer with love. His kiss made her toes curl and her heart pound.
But it was nothing like his proposal that night under their first Christmas tree. An odd thing happened when she said yes. She thought she heard the sound of tiny tinkling sleigh bells and glanced toward the glassed-in case where her mother’s and her aunt’s bracelets now rested side by side.
* * *
WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS BOOK FROM
Seek thrills. Solve crimes. Justice served.
Dive into action-packed stories that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Solve the crime and deliver justice at all costs.
6 NEW BOOKS AVAILABLE EVERY MONTH!
Love Harlequin romance?
DISCOVER.
Be the first to find out about promotions, news and exclusive content!
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
Instagram.com/HarlequinBooks
Pinterest.com/HarlequinBooks
ReaderService.com
EXPLORE.
Sign up for the Harlequin e-newsletter and download a free book from any series at
TryHarlequin.com
CONNECT.
Join our Harlequin community to share your thoughts and connect with other romance readers!
Facebook.com/groups/HarlequinConnection
ISBN-13: 9780369704788
Cold Case at Cardwell Ranch & Boots and Bullets
Copyright © 2021 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Cold Case at Cardwell Ranch
Copyright © 2021 by Barbara Heinlein
Boots and Bullets
First published in 2010. This edition published in 2021.
Copyright © 2010 by Barbara Heinlein
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
For questions and comments about the quality of this book, please contact us at [email protected].
Harlequin Enterprises ULC
22 Adelaide St. West, 40th Floor
Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada
www.Harlequin.com