by B. J Daniels
Now, as she pulled up into her driveway and turned off the engine and lights, Roberta recalled that awful feeling in the pit of her stomach the day she’d learned that Mark was broke. They were broke.
Fortunately, she’d had her job at the hospital. But his medical bills in the years before he died had kept her from leaving Whitehorse.
“Water under the bridge,” she said to herself and was startled how much she sounded like her mother. But unlike her mother, she had a plan. Soon she would leave and see the world.
Opening her car door, she grabbed her purse and stepped out. As the dome light went out in her car, she realized just how dark it was.
Wind whirled the fallen leaves around the bottom of the trees in the front yard. She’d heard a storm was blowing in. Always did this time of year.
Roberta caught movement out of the corner of her eye and froze. Was that someone standing alongside the hedge by the garage?
She stared until her eyes ached but saw nothing. Just her imagination. But she still stood listening, though, her skin prickling with unease even as she told herself she was just being silly. There was no one there.
Relieved and feeling foolish, she hurried forward through the breezeway toward the side door. It was even darker back here. She wished she’d remembered to leave the outside lights on. But then she hadn’t known she was going to be this late when she’d left that morning.
She fumbled with her key, suddenly nervous again. Her imagination seemed to be going wild. She felt as if someone was standing right behind—
A hand dropped onto her shoulder. She jumped, letting out a cry and spun around, her heart in her throat. Relief washed over her. “Oh, it’s just you. What are you doing here?”
Chapter Twelve
Cyrus mentally kicked himself as he went downstairs. What the hell was wrong with him? He wanted Kate, that’s what was wrong with him. Then why was he holding back?
Because he was going to have to leave here soon. He had to get back to his business. He couldn’t leave Cordell handling all of it alone.
But just the thought of leaving Kate was killing him.
He knew that if he made love with her, he would never get over her. He wasn’t even sure he would now.
Cyrus thought he would never get to sleep, his body aching for the woman lying upstairs and his mind awhirl with Kate and this case.
He woke to the clamor of footfalls on the stairs. He shot up in bed as Kate came running into the room. One look at her face and his pulse took off.
“What is it?” he cried, leaping from the bed. He’d gone to sleep as he had in West Yellowstone, wearing only his jeans.
Her green eyes were huge with fear and she was shaking. “Didn’t you hear it?”
All he’d heard was her coming down the stairs. Was someone breaking in again? He looked past her, un-comprehending, and reached for the gun hanging in his shoulder holster next to the bed.
Then he heard it.
A chill rippled over his flesh and his heart began to pound, his mouth going dry.
Somewhere close by there was the sound of a baby crying.
“What the hell?” he said under his breath as another chill snaked up his spine. He stepped past her following the sound, Kate at his heels.
Outside the trees thrashed in the wind. A storm had blown in during the night. Shadows played on the old hardwood floors. He moved through them as the wail of the crying baby filled the old building.
The baby quit crying.
He stopped. He could hear his heart pounding and feel Kate gripping his free hand. There was nothing but the wind at the windowpanes.
The crying started up again. Cyrus realized where the sound was coming from. The display room Kate had decorated as a baby’s nursery.
At the doorway, he looked in. Faint light bled through the window from the streetlamp outside. He could see the crib. It was full of dolls of all sizes and colors. He snapped on the overhead light and stared into the mass of tiny faces, looking for the real baby.
Kate let go of his hand and stepped to the crib. She leaned over and picked up one. It stopped crying as she turned with it in her arms. “It’s just a doll,” she said, her relief audible.
Something fell from the doll to the floor. A scrap of paper. Cyrus reached for it, sure that whoever had left it hadn’t left fingerprints. Still, he was careful to pick it up by the edge. The handwriting was the same as the other note Kate had received. Written in childish scrawl were the words Don’t make me warn you again.
The baby doll began to cry again.
Cyrus dropped the note into the crib and took the doll from her arms. “It’s remote-controlled,” he said as he found the batteries at the doll’s back and dumped them into the crib as well.
The doll stopped crying. The room fell eerily silent.
He laid the doll back into the crib and looked at Kate. She wore a long white-cotton nightgown. Her hair was loose and hung around her shoulders in a rich wave of copper. Her eyes, so wide and beautiful, looked even greener than he remembered. The desire came like a punch to the chest.
“I should make some hot chocolate,” she said and started to step away.
This time when he touched her, he felt her quiver as if an electrical current had run through her body.
“No hot chocolate,” he said, his voice sounding hoarse even to him. He told himself all the reasons that this was a mistake as he pulled her to him, his mouth dropping to hers. She emitted a small cry of pleasure as he drew her closer, deepening the kiss.
He’d never wanted anyone as much as he wanted Kate. All thought left him as he felt her full breasts press against his bare chest, felt his heart take off like a wild stallion. He swept her up into his arms and carried her back to his room.
As he gently set her down on the bed, she looped her arms around his neck, her gaze locking with his. He looked into her beautiful emerald eyes and was lost.
KATE’S SKIN FELT ALIVE, her heart a thunder in her chest, her pulse thrumming in her ears as she looked into Cyrus’s dark eyes.
“Kate, oh, Kate,” he whispered, his voice hoarse with the desire she saw in the dark depths of his gaze.
She smiled as she felt him surrender to it. They’d been racing toward this moment from that first day they’d met. Cyrus slowly began to unbutton the front of her gown, his expression daring her to stop him.
His fingertips brushed the tender flesh of her breast, making her shiver with expectation. He kissed her, cupping one full breast in the palm of his hand, then trailed kisses from her neck down to the slope of her breast to the rock-hard nipple.
She arched into him, her palms against his hard chest. Her fingers followed the dark line of hair from his chest to the V at the top of his jeans. She worked at the buttons, freeing him of the rest of his clothing.
He stood over her for a moment, just looking down at her. His gaze made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.
As he pulled the nightgown up over her head, she drew him to her, desperately needing to feel his naked flesh against hers.
Their lovemaking became a blur of caresses and kisses, his hot mouth on hers before moving down her body, leaving a trail of fire over aching nipples to her center. With the wind howling outside, they were enveloped in a storm of their own.
When Cyrus entered her, she cried out and gripped the iron headboard, her body glazed with sweat, her heart swelling as he took her with him to the peak of pleasure.
Later, lying in each other’s arms, they heard the wind die down and looked out to see that it was snowing. Huge, lacy flakes drifted down to make the world outside into a fairyland of white.
They made love again, slowly, tenderly, and then slept, wrapped in each other’s arms. It was there that Kate woke hours later.
CYRUS CAME AWAKE SLOWLY, as if from a dream. At first he thought it was daylight out, the snow was so bright. But when he looked at the clock he saw that it was only a little after three in the morning.
He realized at
once what had woken him.
Kate was gone.
He sat up, listening for her, then quickly threw his legs over the side of the bed to pull on his jeans. Padding barefoot across the wood floor, he heard a sound coming from upstairs and smelled hot chocolate.
As he topped the stairs, he saw her sitting in the middle of the floor wearing a pink chenille robe. She had a cup of hot chocolate next to her and the box from her aunt’s apartment in front of her. He watched her cut the tape on the box with a paring knife, then hesitate.
She saw him then and smiled. “I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. There’s extra hot chocolate.” She motioned toward the stove.
He smiled, kissing her on the top of her head as he went to the stove to pour himself a cup. He dropped three large marshmallows into the cup on his way back to her.
Kate hadn’t moved.
“You don’t have to open the box,” he said, seeing her hesitation.
“Yes, I do,” Kate said. She grabbed the cardboard flaps and pulled them apart. He watched her, thinking how strong and determined she was. Thinking also that he had fallen for this remarkable woman.
He got a glimpse of the contents of the box. Clothes, just as he’d thought. She pulled out one item of clothing after another, tossing them aside. At the bottom of the box were a few toiletries. She held up the hairbrush.
With a jolt, he saw that there was still hair in the brush. “Kate—”
“DNA,” she said with a knowing nod as she handed him the brush.
Suddenly she seemed to freeze before reaching into the box again. She brought out what he recognized at once as a small address book.
Her gaze swung up to meet his, then she opened the book and quickly leafed through the pages.
Even from where he was sitting he could see that the address book was nearly empty.
He saw her disappointment as she handed it to him. Starting at the As he went through each page. Under D was Dimple’s name and phone number and a post office box in West Yellowstone.
He found a Sarah with a Whitehorse number. Sarah Welch, he figured. There was also a number for the hospital. Under Harkin was a number, the same one as the apartment house where Katherine had lived.
Cyrus stopped on the Js, sensing a change in Kate. He looked up to see her flipping through a handful of photographs. She stilled on the last one, tears filling her green eyes. “Kate?”
Soundlessly she handed him a photograph of her mother and aunt. They were standing outside next to a huge old pine. He recognized the tree as the one in front of the Whitehorse apartment house where Katherine had been living as Candace Porter. There was snow on the ground, and both women wore coats and gloves, but their heads were uncovered. Katherine’s hair was pulled up in a ponytail. Elizabeth’s was down around her shoulders.
They were both smiling at the camera, but the smiles didn’t seem to reach their eyes.
He glanced at the date stamped on the back of the photograph: December 18, 1980. The day before Katherine was murdered.
“It proves my mother was here just the day before,” Kate said.
“The sheriff will want to see this. Did you find anything interesting in the other photographs?”
Kate picked them up from her lap and handed them to him.
There were several of Katherine in her nurse’s aide uniform at the hospital. One with another nurse, a much younger Sarah Welch.
As Kate began to put everything back into the box, he went through the rest of the address book. But there were no more names under the alphabetized sections.
Cyrus was about to close the book when he saw a phone number written small and in pencil at the very back of the book. The number had a local prefix, but no name.
He frowned, realizing it looked familiar. Curious, he took out his cell phone and dialed it.
After four rings, an elderly voice picked up. The moment he recognized the voice he realized why the number had been so familiar.
Still, he had to ask. “Who is this?”
“You’ve reached Winchester Ranch. Who were you calling?”
He hung up and looked over at Kate who was watching him now with interest. His mind spun like a top. Why would Katherine Landon have his grandmother’s number?
KATE COULDN’T HELP but feel anxious about meeting Cyrus’s grandmother, especially after he’d found her number in Aunt Katherine’s address book.
“Why would your grandmother be involved in this?” she asked when they stopped by the sheriff’s department to tell McCall what they’d learned from Sarah Welch—and Katherine’s address book.
Both McCall and Cyrus had laughed.
“Pepper Winchester manipulate one of her children’s lives?” Cyrus said with a groan. “You have no idea.”
“Our grandmother always has an agenda,” McCall said.
“But aren’t you having your wedding out there at Christmas?” Kate asked.
“She caught me at a weak moment,” the sheriff said. “Don’t think I’m not worried. But my fiancé, Luke, assures me it will be fine no matter what.”
“I just can’t believe a mother would have any part of switching her own daughter’s baby with another one and letting her daughter believe all these years that her son died,” Kate said.
“I’m sure Pepper had her reasons,” Cyrus said and looked to McCall, who shrugged.
“I never knew Virginia had a baby,” McCall said. “They must have kept it pretty hush-hush. Any idea who the father of the baby might have been?”
“I was only four at the time,” Cyrus said. “It was news to me. But we’re having dinner at Grandmother’s tonight. I intend to ask her.”
McCall raised a brow. “Grandmother invited me, as well. I was planning to go, but now…” she joked. “Truthfully, the crying doll, the notes, that isn’t the way our grandmother operates. She’s much more direct.”
“Well, between the two of us tonight, maybe we can get the truth out of her,” Cyrus said as they rose to leave.
“Thanks for the information about the babies,” McCall said. “I put in a call to Roberta Warren, but apparently she called in sick.” The sheriff smiled and nodded. “I’m sure she’s avoiding me. I’ll try to get hold of Jace Dennison. We’ll need a DNA test to clear this up. I’m hoping he’ll cooperate. His mother is real sick, I heard. He is probably headed home. I’m sure his uncle, Audie, let him know. That’s interesting that Candace Porter, aka Katherine Landon, dated him.”
“You think he talked her into switching the babies when she told him that his sister’s baby wasn’t well?” Kate asked.
“Or maybe the deal was already planned,” Cyrus said. “Katherine could have confided in him, not about the money part. They could have both believed that Marie deserved the healthy baby. Virginia wasn’t married and wasn’t likeable.”
“She was also young,” McCall said. “She could have had more babies, while it sounds as if this was Marie’s last chance. If Katherine changed her mind… Well, Audie idolized his older sister. Everyone’s always said he would do anything for her.”
“Even kill?” Cyrus asked.
McCall shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out.”
JUST AFTER LUNCH, McCall drove out to the Dennison place, a small, old homestead and ranch north of town. Audie lived in the old homestead house up the road from his sister and pretty much ran the small ranch they had shared since Jace left.
On this chilly fall day, McCall found him out behind the house chopping wood. He swung the axe, bringing it down on a log, wood chips flying into the air, as she walked over to him.
He stopped, breathing hard and looked at her. McCall feared that the rumors in the town had reached him. Any talk of the woman he’d dated would have him wary if he had any part in her murder.
“Sheriff,” he said and set another log on the chopping block.
She stepped back as he brought the axe down. Half the log flew off in her direction. She side-stepped it, the chunk barely missing her leg.
/> “Need a moment of your time,” she said.
“Yeah?”
He started to pick up another log to split.
“We can talk here or down at my office,” she said. In truth, he didn’t have to talk to her at all and she suspected he knew it.
She’d never liked Audie. He was a short, stocky man with an attitude problem, one of those men who seemed to think he’d gotten short shrift in life and wasn’t happy about it.
In his late fifties, he was still physically fit. He’d never married and the only person he seemed to give a damn about was his sister. Only when he was around Marie and Jace did he soften enough to be almost likeable.
“What’s it going to be, Audie?” McCall asked. “You have a permit for that wood you cut up in the Little Rockies?”
“You can’t prove that’s where I got it.”
“But it would give me the right to take you in for questioning.”
He slowly put down the axe and crossed his arms over his barrel chest.
“I’m sure you’ve heard I’m looking into Candace Porter’s murder.” When he said nothing, she added, “She was the nurse who was—”
“I remember Candace.”
“You dated her, I understand.”
“We went out a few times.”
“What was she like?”
He shrugged. “Quiet.”
“I’m going to cut to the chase, Audie. I have reason to believe she might have been paid to switch your sister’s baby with the Winchester baby.”
He let out a colorful curse. “Who the hell came up with that? That guy from Colorado dream that?”
McCall felt something give inside her at his response. It felt rehearsed and without the kind of fury she would have expected. “So you’re saying there’s no chance that happened?”
His gaze narrowed as he took a step toward her. “Jace is Marie’s son and I won’t have you—”
“Easy,” she said, her hand slipping to her sidearm.
He stopped moving toward her. “You want to know who killed Candace? Why don’t you ask your grandmother? That’s right. She didn’t want her daughter having that baby.”