Boots and Bullets

by B. J Daniels

  For some time now, she had suspected it had been more than Dimple just not being truthful with her.

  If her grandmother had lied about the way Aunt Katherine died, then didn’t it follow that she’d lied about Kate’s mother’s death, as well?

  So what had really happened to them?

  She quickly reminded herself that Cyrus Winchester’s coma dream might be just that, nothing more than a weird nightmare. But like him, she was having a hard time believing that, given that he’d identified her aunt as the murder victim in his dream—a woman who’d been dead for almost as many years as Cyrus had been alive.

  According to Cyrus, Katherine had been murdered in the Whitehorse hospital nursery. Kate thought of the postcard from her mother that she’d found hidden in her grandmother’s jewelry box—and the postmark on it. The card had been dated thirty years ago this December—several years after her grandmother had sworn both daughters had died.

  The postcard from her mother made it clear that both her aunt and mother had been in Whitehorse. Wasn’t it possible that Cyrus Winchester’s dream was the missing piece of the puzzle she’d been searching for?

  Suddenly, Kate felt a chill. What if the reason no one believed Cyrus’s story was because the murder hadn’t happened three months ago—it had happened thirty years ago?

  CYRUS MENTALLY KICKED himself as he’d stepped out into the cold fall evening air and heard Kate lock the shop door behind him. She was afraid of him, probably thought he was a psychopath or at the very least a sadist.

  He should have realized that the only reason she’d shown him the photograph of her mother was that she wanted him to tell her the murdered woman wasn’t her mother.

  He’d been shocked when he’d recognized the aunt’s photograph. That was definitely the woman he’d seen. But how was that possible? Kate said her aunt had died of a weak heart more than thirty years ago—she hadn’t been murdered in the hospital after switching two baby boys in the nursery. What was wrong with him going to Kate with all this?

  Because he’d hoped that she held the answers.

  Now all he had was more questions. Still he was reeling from what she had told him. Both her mother and aunt had died thirty years ago when Kate was only a baby?

  And neither had been murdered?

  All he’d done was bring up bad memories for her. He wished to hell he’d never had the dream. But then he would never have met Kate. Yeah? Well, he should have just left it alone. Because Kate didn’t want anything to do with him now. Not that he could blame her.

  Cyrus drove to the Whitehorse Hotel and sat for a while in his pickup, unable to face the desolate room, cursing himself and trying to make sense of all this. Since he’d awakened from his coma he hadn’t thought about anything else. All it had done, though, was give him a headache.

  He’d been so sure Kate was the reason he’d been drawn back to Whitehorse.

  Now he didn’t know what to think.

  Shaking his head, he climbed out of the pickup behind the old brick hotel. He had no memory of this place, but it was here in this very poorly lit parking lot that he’d almost lost his life.

  The night was cold and clear, trillions of stars flickering over his head and a moon as large and golden as any he’d ever seen. He stopped for a moment to find the Big Dipper, just as he had done as a kid, and then went inside to climb the stairs to his fourth-floor room.

  What he hated the most was that he couldn’t get the mess out of his mind. If Katherine Landon had died from a weak heart thirty years ago, then how could he have seen her lying in a pool of blood in the old hospital nursery? And what about the babies he swore he saw her switch? What had become of them—if they ever existed?

  As much as he hated upsetting Kate, he still felt as if the damned dream was real and that not only was the answer here in Whitehorse, but Kate was the key.

  KATE PACED THE FLOOR after Cyrus left, too shaken to sit still. Her mind was racing. None of this was true. It had just been a dream. Dreams meant nothing.

  So why was she so upset?

  Because she hadn’t told him everything.

  She stopped pacing. Standing in the middle of her shop, she tried to talk herself out of what she was about to do, but it was useless. Retrieving the envelope from the safe behind the counter, she grabbed her jacket and purse, locked up the shop and headed for her van.

  Wisps of clouds drifted across the harvest moon that seemed to hang over Whitehorse. An omen? She laughed at that. She’d already seen the future—and the past, she thought as she parked behind the Whitehorse Hotel.

  At room 412, she almost changed her mind.

  Cyrus opened the door to her quiet knock. He seemed surprised—and pleased—to see her standing there and maybe a little wary. “Kate,” was all he said as he held the door open.

  She entered and heard him close the door behind her. Out of habit and no doubt to keep her mind off the real reason she was here, her gaze went to the furnishings. A couple of pieces in the room she wouldn’t mind having for her shop—after she’d refinished them.

  “I’m not sure why I came here,” she said, turning to look at him.

  “It doesn’t matter, I’m just glad you’re here. Would you like something to drink? I can get us a cold soda from down the hall.”

  “That sounds good.” After he left, she walked to the window, glanced out at the darkness and told herself she had to be honest with him. She knew how hard it had been for him to tell her about his dream.

  And more than ever she believed that they’d both ended up here in Whitehorse for a reason.

  Kate turned as he came back. She took the icy-cold can of diet cola he handed her, glad to have something to do with her hands, and opened it to take a sip. It felt good going down. She met his gaze and was strengthened by the kind look on his face.

  “I thought we should talk,” she said.

  Cyrus sat down on the edge of the bed, motioning for her to take the only chair in the room. It was a straight-back wooden chair much like the ones she’d purchased from the old hospital.

  “The reason I got so upset earlier was that I’ve never understood why my mother would leave me when I was just a baby,” she said after taking a seat. “The truth is I don’t know what really happened to my mother or my aunt. But I know my mother didn’t die of pneumonia. My grandmother—”

  “Dimple.”

  Kate smiled. “Yes, Dimple. She used to tell me stories about my mother and aunt and what they were like growing up. I’m not sure anything she told me was the truth. I know my mother, Elizabeth Landon, left me when I was six months old. This I know from a postcard I found in my grandmother’s jewelry box after her death. It was postmarked Whitehorse, Montana.”

  “That’s why you came here,” Cyrus said.

  She nodded. “It was the last place I knew my mother had been. But once I got here, I couldn’t find any evidence of that. Whitehorse was the end of the trail.”

  “In more ways than one,” he said.

  Kate nodded. “Not everyone appreciates Whitehorse. From the moment I arrived here, I just felt that the answer was in this town.” She caught his change of expression. “You believe that, too, don’t you?”

  He did, but he wasn’t ready to admit it. Any more than he was ready to admit that any of this made any sense at this point. “You don’t know why your mother was in Whitehorse?”

  She shook her head. “All the postcard said was that she was sorry she had to leave when she did and was grateful to my grandmother for taking good care of me and that she would be home soon. She said she was bringing my aunt Katherine home with her.”

  “You don’t know if that was the last time your grandmother heard from her?”

  “No. The date on the postcard was months after my grandmother said both my mother and aunt had died. I’d always thought it peculiar that my aunt and mother would die within weeks of each other. But Dimple said she thought it was because they had been so close and loved each other so much
.”

  “You have reason to believe that isn’t true?”

  Kate knew what he was asking. Did she have reason other than just her intuition? “My grandmother saved everything. All her important papers, like my birth certificate, were in her safe-deposit box. There were no death certificates other than my grandfather’s in the box.”

  Cyrus shook his head as if he wasn’t sure what she was saying. “Maybe she never put them in the safe-deposit box at the bank.”

  “There are no death certificates for either my aunt or my mother. She made up the stories because she didn’t know what happened to them.”

  “Surely your grandmother would have notified the authorities,” Cyrus said. “She would have had someone out looking for her daughters.”

  “Unless they vanished. Or appeared to.”

  He got up and moved to the window to gaze out. “There has to be a logical explanation.”

  “I’m sure there is. I think you saw what really happened to my aunt in your dream—not three months ago, but thirty years ago.”

  Cyrus laughed as he turned back to her. “You can’t believe that.”

  Kate pulled out the envelope she’d taken from her safe. “When I first came to town, I asked around about my mother. I knew she’d at least passed through town because of the postcard. Whitehorse was the only lead I had.”

  “I take it you didn’t learn anything?”

  “No one had heard of her and I couldn’t find any evidence she was here.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “But my efforts weren’t wasted. After a few weeks of asking around, I received this.” She handed him the envelope.

  There was nothing written on the envelope but Cyrus could see that it had been dusted for fingerprints. He opened it and pulled out the brief note inside. The printing was childlike, almost a scrawl.

  Unless you want to end up like your mother, stop looking for her.

  He glanced up at Kate. “You took this to the sheriff?” he asked even though he knew she had because of the fingerprint dust.

  Kate nodded. “It was a different sheriff than the one we have now. He checked it for fingerprints but said the person must have used latex gloves, which right there made me suspicious, since the only prints on the envelope or note were mine.”

  “But he didn’t take the threat seriously,” Cyrus guessed.

  Kate shook her head. “He said there wasn’t anything more he could do, but that I was to come to him if there were any further threats.”

  “And there weren’t.”

  “No. The sheriff was convinced it was just someone fooling around, maybe even a kid.”

  “A kid who was smart enough to use latex gloves?”

  “Exactly. That’s why I think something happened to my mother here in Whitehorse to keep her from returning home. She wouldn’t have just abandoned me or my grandmother.”

  He heard the plea in her voice. She wanted desperately to believe that. “There hasn’t been any sign of your mother since the postcard was sent from Whitehorse?”

  She shook her head. “None. As I said, it’s as if she simply vanished.”

  “If your aunt and mother simply disappeared, then how did your grandmother get your aunt’s bracelet and where is your mother’s?”

  Kate shook her head. “My grandmother didn’t have a memorial service for my aunt or mother until I was almost a year old. She told her friends that she wanted to wait until the weather was nicer. She said there was no rush since both my aunt and mother had been cremated.”

  “Did your grandmother say where they died?” he asked.

  “Not in West Yellowstone, that’s for sure,” she said. “You see why I got so upset when you said it was my aunt you saw murdered here in Whitehorse.”

  He put the note back into the envelope. The handwriting was childish, but he assumed that it been on purpose. Whoever had written it had expected her to take it to the sheriff.

  “You didn’t do any more investigating on your own?”

  Kate shook her head. “I’d hit a wall. The note made me believe I was on to something, but I didn’t know what else to do. I ran my mother’s photo in the newspaper. No one ever came forward.”

  Cyrus saw her hesitate. He watched her take a drink of her soda, then put it down on the desk before she said, “There’s more. I’ve never told anyone, but I used to have a recurring nightmare when I was little. My mother was calling to me, trying to reach me, but something was keeping her from coming to me.” She shivered as if the nightmare still gave her chills. “I could hear her voice so clearly. I never doubted it was her.”

  “I’m sorry. I know how real a dream can be.”

  She looked toward the window, hugging herself as if against the cold. “What made the nightmare so frightening for me was when my mother was calling to me I could hear something in the background…” Kate turned to look at him. “It was the sound of a baby crying. There were babies in the nursery in your dream that night, weren’t there?”

  “Two baby boys.” He didn’t mention that he saw the woman he believed was her aunt switch the babies just minutes before she was killed. “But, Kate, I dreamed it was three months ago—not thirty years. How could I have seen something while I was comatose that happened thirty years ago?”

  “I don’t know, but I believe you did. How else do you explain all of this?”

  He couldn’t explain any of it. And maybe worse, a part of him believed it.

  Kate let out a sigh. “You wouldn’t have come all this way and chanced looking like a fool if you didn’t believe that what you saw in that dream was real.”

  “Right now I’m questioning my own sanity.” Did he really believe dreams could reveal the future or the past? He’d come to Whitehorse because he was convinced he hadn’t dreamed the murdered woman.

  “What if it was just a bad dream, Kate, and all of this can be explained rationally?”

  “You mean like explaining how it was that you recognized my aunt?” she challenged. “How old were you thirty years ago?”

  “Four.”

  “Are you going to tell me you just happened to see her and that’s how she ended up in your dream?”

  “Maybe.” He knew his brother, Cordell, would use that as an argument. “I was in Whitehorse thirty years ago. Maybe I saw her at the Fall Festival.”

  “Maybe you did. Maybe that’s why the dream was so real for you, because you had seen her before.”

  He felt a chill snake up his spine. Was it possible that he’d remembered her all these years for some reason? This reason, he thought, looking at Kate.

  “Cyrus, I know my mother mailed a postcard from this town thirty years ago saying she and my aunt would be coming home. My aunt was in this town. I have no idea what she was doing here or why my mother was here.”

  He shook his head. “I have not been able to prove one thing about my dream was true. That is why I’m so sorry that I involved you in it.”

  Kate smiled as she touched his arm, her gaze locking with his. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? Your dream brought you here to me because together we’re going to find out the truth.”

  He smiled back because he wanted to believe they were destined to meet. But to find a murderer? “Are you sure you want to know the truth?” he asked quietly, fearing Kate Landon didn’t have any idea what she was getting into. Worse, how dangerous it might get.

  “Yes, with your help,” she said with a determined lift of her chin.

  Cyrus appreciated her faith in him and told her as much. “The problem is that it’s been thirty years. There’s more than a good chance that you might never learn the truth—especially if foul play was involved. The killer has had years to cover his or her tracks.”

  “But there has never been a hotshot cowboy investigator looking for the truth before,” she said, grinning at him.

  Cyrus was flattered, but they needed hard evidence. He knew there was little chance of solving this and he’d never been the kind of man who
chased rainbows—not until he’d had that damned dream.

  He was reminded of the weight of the dream when he’d awakened from his coma. He’d felt such a need to tell someone. If a woman had been killed in the hospital nursery, why had he felt he had to tell anyone about it? She would have been found. It wasn’t as if he’d seen the killer.

  That feeling that he was meant to come here, meant to meet this woman, overwhelmed him. The answer was in this town, but so was the danger.

  “If your aunt and mother were in Whitehorse thirty years ago, there would be some evidence of that.”

  “I couldn’t find any,” Kate said. “But from the first day I drove into town, I felt a connection to Whitehorse.”

  Just as he felt a connection to this woman standing before him. He could smell the sweet scent of her soap. He hoped she couldn’t hear the erratic beat of his heart just at having her this near.

  As she looked at him, something changed in all the emerald-green. He glimpsed a flicker of desire there, saw her slim throat work and wondered if she had been holding her breath as he had.

  “It’s late,” he heard himself say.

  She nodded. “I should go.”

  He nodded, knowing that if she continued to stand there looking at him like that he was going to kiss her. “We don’t want the whole town talking about you and that crazy cowboy who has coma murder dreams.”

  “Wouldn’t want that.”

  Cyrus walked her down to her vehicle even though she told him she would be fine. He was worried about her and not just because of his damned dream. She was putting her faith in him. He couldn’t let her down. And he feared that if he kissed her, it wouldn’t stop there. One day soon he had to get back to Denver and the investigations firm he ran with his brother.

  He couldn’t make Kate Landon any promises, and she was the kind of girl who deserved promises from a man.

  “I’m glad you came to Whitehorse,” she said when they reached her van.

  “I hope you always feel that way,” he said.

  “Admit it, you believe there’s a reason we both ended up here now.”

  He nodded, wishing the reason had only to do with the way he felt about her and not a murder—or two.