Boots and Bullets

by B. J Daniels

  “Yeah, I want to talk to you about that.”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “No, it’s just that, well, you’ve met Raine,” Cordell said.

  Cyrus smiled. He’d been pleased when his brother had introduced him to the woman he’d been seeing for the last three months. Raine Chandler, he’d been surprised to hear, was the woman he’d saved up in Montana.

  “So I brought you two together.” Cyrus had never believed in divine intervention. But as eerie as this was, he felt as if it had all happened for a reason. And that reason, he feared, was so he could be at the hospital that night and make sure justice was done.

  But that surprise was nothing compared to realizing his brother had fallen head-over-heels in love with the woman. After Cordell’s horrible marriage and divorce, no one had expected him ever to consider marriage again—especially his twin.

  But when he’d met Raine, he’d seen that she was wearing a gorgeous diamond engagement ring and Cordell was always grinning when he was around her.

  “Raine and I made a deal back in Montana,” Cordell was saying. He looked uncomfortable. “She said she’d marry me only when you could be my best man.”

  Cyrus was surprised. “She was taking one hell of a chance I was going to come out of my coma.”

  “Raine has a lot of faith. I think she knew how much I would need you at my side on my wedding day.”

  Cyrus laughed. “True enough. Congrats, Cordell, and I’d love to be your best man. So when is the big day?”

  “We haven’t set it yet. We were waiting to see…”

  If Cyrus really was going to be all right. That was the problem with being twins: sometimes you knew exactly what the other one was thinking.

  “I’m fine, really. This is just something I need to do. I’m not crazy, no screws loose from the head injury. If you had seen what I did, you’d be doing the same thing. It was that real, Cordell.”

  His brother nodded. “So go to Montana, do what you have to do and—”

  “Set a wedding date. I’ll be there for you. This thing in Montana won’t take that long, unless you’re thinking of getting married right away.”

  “No, we were considering a New Year’s wedding. Did I mention that our cousin McCall is getting married at the ranch at Christmas?” Cordell asked.

  “You aren’t seriously considering—”

  “Raine and Grandmother hit it off.” Cordell shrugged. “Grandmother thinks we should move our investigative business to Montana. I know,” he said quickly, putting up a hand. “I told her you’d never go for that.”

  Cyrus had to laugh. Cordell was the one who had wanted nothing to do with his grandmother. He’d tried to talk Cyrus out of even going to Montana in the first place. Now he was actually considering another wedding at the ranch after Christmas?

  “Hey,” he said, “whatever you and Raine decide. Count me in.” He hugged his brother and headed for the door.

  “Call me when you get there and keep in touch,” his brother called after him. “If you need me, I’ll be there in a heartbeat. Or if I don’t hear from you.”

  Cyrus stopped at the door to look back at him and laughed. “Stop worrying about me. I’ll probably be back within the week. By the way, thanks for taking care of my pickup.”

  “Sure.”

  Cyrus got the feeling there was something his brother wasn’t telling him. “You didn’t let your girlfriend drive my pickup, did you?”

  “The way Raine drives? Are you kidding?”

  He started to step out into the hallway. “Cyrus!”

  Turning, he looked back at his brother and saw more than worry on Cordell’s face. “Be careful.”

  Cyrus felt that bad feeling he’d awakened with rise to the surface again. If the murder had been nothing more than a bad dream, then why did his brother look scared for him?

  Chapter Three

  His first morning in Whitehorse, Montana, Cyrus headed straight for the new hospital. The squat, single-level building sat on the east end of the small western town. There was an empty field behind it, the Larb Hills in the distance.

  For a moment, he stood outside, hoping the cool October day would sharpen his senses. He felt off balance, confused and a little afraid that the blow to his head had done more damage than anyone suspected—and all because of what he believed he’d seen that night in the old hospital.

  The doctor had said he might have some memory lapses, either short- or long-term. He’d been warned that he might not feel like himself for a while.

  “There are things you might never get back.”

  Like my sanity?

  When he’d reached town last night, he’d returned to the Whitehorse Hotel on the edge of town and taken the same room he had planned to stay in more than three months earlier.

  He hadn’t slept well and when his brother had called and he’d told him where he was, Cordell threatened to come to Montana. Cyrus had talked him out of it, assuring him he wasn’t losing it.

  Now, as Cyrus stepped into the new hospital’s reception area, he wasn’t so sure. Maybe he was wrong. Who saw a murder that never happened?

  It wasn’t just that no one believed him. They all made it sound as if it would have been impossible for anything he said to have actually happened. All of them couldn’t be wrong, could they?

  Of course, his first thought was conspiracy. But did he believe that even his cousin was in on it?

  The hospital was smaller than most, but then Whitehorse wasn’t exactly booming. Like a lot of small Montana towns, its population was dropping each year as young people moved away for college and better-paying jobs.

  “May I help you?” The receptionist was in her early twenties with straight blond hair and a recently applied sheen of lip gloss. He stared at her name tag, not registering her name as he suddenly had a flash of his so-called murder dream. The woman lying dead in the nursery hadn’t been wearing a name tag. So maybe he was right and she wasn’t a nurse. Or maybe she’d lost her name tag in the struggle. “Sir?”

  Cyrus stirred, blinking the receptionist back into focus. He removed his Stetson. “I need to speak with your hospital administrator.” He realized he should have made an appointment. Had he been afraid the person wouldn’t see him once he recognized the name and knew what this was about? “Your name?”

  “Cyrus Winchester.”

  The receptionist picked up the phone. “Let me see…oh, here she is now.”

  A woman in her sixties with short gray hair walked toward them. She was dressed in a suit and had an air of authority about her.

  “This man needs to see you,” the receptionist said.

  The hospital administrator gave him only a brief glance. “Why don’t you come back to my office.”

  Cyrus followed her into a small, brightly lit room. The light hurt his eyes. Another side effect of the coma, this sensitivity to light?

  “Would you like me to close the blinds?” She was already closing them, dimming the room a little.

  “I’m Cyrus Winchester.”

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Winchester?” She didn’t introduce herself but the plaque on her desk read Roberta Warren.

  “Were you also the administrator at the old hospital?” he asked.

  “Yes. I’ve been the administrator for the last thirty-four years.” She clasped her hands together on her desk and seemed to wait patiently, although her demeanor said she had a lot to do and little time.

  He kneaded the brim of his hat in his lap, surprised he was nervous. “You know who I am.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you probably know why I’m here.” He realized he was nervous because he was sitting in front of a health care specialist who was looking at him as if he might be nuts.

  “Your brother called us about an incident you thought you’d seen while at the old hospital the night you were there.”

  “That incident was a woman murdered in the nursery.”

  She shook her head. “There was
no murder at the hospital.”

  Another chunk of memory fell as if from the sky. “There were two babies in bassinets,” he said as he saw the nursery clearly in his memory. Why hadn’t he recalled that earlier? Because it hadn’t registered? Or because it hadn’t mattered when there was a dead woman lying just inside the nursery?

  Now, though, he thought the fact that the two babies were there did matter for some reason. He tried to remember, but that only made his head ache and the memory slip farther away from him.

  Roberta Warren was still shaking her head. “There were no babies in the nursery that last night the old hospital was still open. I’m afraid you’re mistaken about that, as well.”

  He tried another tactic. “Do you know a woman with long auburn hair, greenish-blue eyes, tall, slim, maybe in her late twenties or early thirties?”

  “As I told your brother, there is no one employed at the hospital who matches that description.”

  “Do you know anyone in town who matches that description?”

  She raised a brow. “I thought you said it was a nurse who you thought you saw murdered.”

  “She wasn’t wearing a name tag when I found her. Maybe she was only pretending to be a nurse.”

  The administrator looked at her watch pointedly. “I’m sure you’ve spoken with the sheriff. Had there been a murder—”

  “I’d like to speak to the two nurses on duty that night,” he said.

  “I won’t allow that.”

  “Why not?” he asked, thinking he might be on to something.

  “I’ve questioned both of them at length, Mr. Winchester. One was always at the desk that night. The sheriff also questioned them as well and looked at the monitor readings. You never left your bed that night. If you decide to pursue this, it will have to be with a subpoena and just cause.” Her tone said good luck getting either. “I won’t have you accusing my nurses of something that never happened.”

  He rose to his feet. He wasn’t going to get anything from this woman. “Thank you for your time.”

  She sighed and gave him a sympathetic look. “I’m sure your doctor explained to you that what you thought you experienced was a coma-induced hallucination of some kind, perhaps stemming from your line of work. There is no cover-up, no murder, no reason for you to waste your time or anyone else’s. I would think you would be glad to be alive and have better things to do with your time.”

  “I am glad to be alive. Unfortunately, the woman I saw lying in a pool of blood in the old hospital nursery isn’t and for some reason no one cares.”

  He saw that his words finally hit home because she had paled. But that gave him little satisfaction. He turned and walked out of her office and reception area into the bright October morning.

  He was shaking inside. Where had that come from about the babies? But now that he thought about it, he was certain there’d been two babies in the nursery.

  Just as he was certain there’d been a murder. Now all he had to do was prove it—against all odds, because his instincts told him he was right. If that woman was ever going to get justice, it would be up to him.

  THE MOMENT the office door closed, Roberta Warren let out the breath she’d been holding. Her hands were trembling as she reached into the drawer for the small bottle of vodka she kept there disguised in a water bottle.

  Taking a sip, she told herself that there was no reason she should be so upset. But when Cordell Winchester had called questioning whether or not there had been a murder more than three months ago at the hospital, she hadn’t thought anything of it.

  That was because he hadn’t mentioned that the murder his brother thought he’d seen had been in the hospital nursery. Or that the woman had been found in a pool of her own blood. Or that there had been two babies in bassinets in the nursery the night of the murder.

  Roberta Warren took another sip of the vodka and quickly put the lid back on the water bottle. Her hands were a little steadier, but her heart was still pounding. The man couldn’t have possibly dreamed any of this. Who dreamed a murder in such detail? But was he just fishing or did he know something?

  She took a mint from her drawer and chewed it, debating how to handle this. The best thing was to ignore it. Cyrus Winchester would tire soon since he would keep running into dead ends, and he would eventually go back to Denver.

  But then again, she hadn’t expected him to come all the way to Whitehorse to chase a nightmare. She’d heard the determination in his voice. The fool really thought he was going to get justice for the dead woman.

  Calmer, Roberta picked up the phone and almost dialed the number she hadn’t called in thirty years. She put the phone down. She was overreacting. That was probably what he hoped she would do. But still she worried that this would get all over town, hell, all over the county, if he continued to ask questions.

  If he didn’t give up soon, she would have to come up with a way to dissuade him.

  She stood, smoothed her hands over her skirt and walked to the window, half expecting to see Cyrus Winchester standing outside her office, staring in as if he thought he could make her feel guilty enough to panic.

  Well, he didn’t know her, she thought, but she was glad to see him drive off anyway.

  THE OCTOBER DAY WAS sunny and blustery. Golden leaves showered down from the trees and formed piles in the gutters. The air smelled of fall with just a hint of the snowy winter days that weren’t far off.

  He was driving down a wide, tree-lined street when he saw the single-level brick building. Even with the sign removed, Cyrus recognized the old hospital. The realization gave him a chill.

  As he pulled to the curb, he saw that apparently the movers hadn’t completed the job of removing the furnishings, because there was a large panel truck parked out front and both front doors of the building were propped open.

  Getting out of his pickup, Cyrus walked along the sidewalk past the truck. The back was open, a ramp leading into the cavernous, dark interior. He glanced in and saw a dozen old wooden chairs, some equally old end tables and several library tables.

  As he passed, he saw that on the side of the truck were painted the words Second Hand Kate’s. Under that in smaller print, Used Furnishings Emporium.

  “Hello?” he called as he stepped through the open front doors of the old hospital. The interior still had that familiar clinical smell and that empty, cold feeling he remembered. He reminded himself that it had been empty now for more than three months. “Hello?”

  No answer.

  He walked down the hallway, his boot heels echoing on the discolored worn tile. He hadn’t realized where he was going until he reached the nursery windows.

  His breath caught in his throat as he shoved back his Stetson and, cupping his hands, looked through the blank glass. The cribs and furnishings were gone, the room bare, but he could see it as the nursery had been in his memory.

  A half dozen bassinets, but only two babies. Both boys with little blue blankets and ribbons on the bassinets, he recalled with surprise.

  He touched his fingers to the pane, then quickly pulled them away as a memory moved through him like a spasm. With a jolt, he remembered seeing the murdered woman right before she was killed.

  He had stood in this very spot and watched her switch the babies in the bassinets.

  “CYRUS, DO YOU REALIZE what you’re saying?”

  He’d had to go outside to get cell phone service.

  “I saw her purposely switch the babies. Cordell, she stood there for a long moment as if making up her mind.”

  He could almost hear his twin’s disbelief.

  “I know how crazy it sounds, but when I saw this place as I was driving by, even without the sign, I knew it was the old hospital because I recognized it. Cordell, I walked straight to the nursery. When I touched the glass—” He shuddered at the memory. “I felt something so strong, I can’t explain it.”

  “Okay, let’s say you saw this woman who was later murdered after switching the babies,” h
is brother said finally. “It should be easy enough to find out if there were two baby boys in the nursery while you were there.”

  He sighed. “I already asked the hospital administrator. She swears there were no babies in the nursery that night.”

  “So you think she’s lying? The whole town is lying? Why would they do that?”

  Cyrus had no idea. He was more concerned with how he was going to prove it. “The hospital administrator won’t let me talk to the nurses who were on duty that night without a subpoena.” He heard his brother sigh. “I have to go see the room I was in. I’ll call you later. Stop worrying about me. I know what I’m doing.”

  He disconnected and walked back into the hospital. He felt scared as he entered the long corridor of worn tile. He’d heard the fear in his twin’s voice. Maybe he couldn’t trust his own judgment. Or maybe it was just that no one else trusted it.

  Cyrus heard someone singing from one of the maze-like hallways deep in the building. At least that was real, he thought. The woman had a good voice and he recognized the country-western song. It was one of his favorites.

  Past the nursery, he walked down to what he was certain had been his room. It was right beside what had been the nurses’ station. Didn’t this prove that he had regained consciousness at some point while still in this hospital that night?

  He started to step into the room when he saw her. She came out of a doorway at the end of the hall and started toward him, a pair of iPod buds in her ears. She was singing along with the song, completely lost in the music.

  As she came closer, Cyrus felt all the air rush out of him.

  It was her!

  The woman he’d seen switch the babies in the hospital nursery. The woman he’d found murdered right here in this old hospital more than three months ago.

  Chapter Four

  Cyrus stared at the woman as if she were an apparition. Everyone was right. He was losing his mind. Fear turned his skin clammy. He told himself he was seeing things, imagining her the same way he had the murdered woman.