by B. J Daniels
“Why is that?” McCall asked, even though she knew her grandmother would have had her reasons.
“Are you serious? Don’t you know who that baby’s daddy was?” He let out a bark of a laugh. “And you’re the sheriff?”
“Who was the father?” she asked, disliking Audie all the more.
“Jordan McCormick.”
She studied him, trying to decide if he was telling the truth or not, her heart pounding. Her grandmother would have been livid at even the thought of Virginia with Jordan McCormick. There’d been a feud between the two ranching families as far back as she could remember. Rumor had it the feud started when Pepper Winchester had an affair with Joanna McCormick’s husband, Hunt.
“Did you know someone paid Candace to switch the babies?” McCall asked.
“She wouldn’t have done it,” Audie said. “Candace didn’t have it in her.”
McCall tried to tell if Audie found that a good quality about the woman or a tragic flaw. “Did you ever meet her sister?”
Audie seemed surprised. “I didn’t even know she had a sister.”
Again, McCall wasn’t sure she believed him. “Did you have anything to do with Candace’s murder?”
“Her name was Katherine Landon, not Candace Porter.” He smiled at her surprise. “I was in love with her. I would have married her. In fact…” His voice broke. He turned and picked up the axe.
“You must have been devastated when she was killed, then.”
“I looked for her killer,” he said as he picked up a log from the pile and set it down on the chopping block. His gaze locked on hers. “I even went to the sheriff and told him that I thought Pepper Winchester had done it. He laughed me out of his office.”
He raised the axe and brought it down on the log. The fall air cracked as the log split in a burst of wood chips. McCall breathed in the sweet scent of the pine, studying him. “You were the one who paid to have her buried in the cemetery,” she said with sudden insight. It hadn’t been the local mortuary after all.
Audie didn’t deny it as he continued to chop wood.
As she drove away, McCall wasn’t sure what she believed. Because sure as hell her grandmother was involved.
CYRUS WASN’T SURE what kind of reception he and Kate would get at the Winchester Ranch. Clearly his grandmother knew about all the questions he and Kate had been asking in Whitehorse.
They were just leaving for the ranch when his cell phone rang. It was McCall. She filled him in on what she’d found out from talking to Audie Dennison.
“I’m trying to locate Jace Dennison,” she said.
“What do you mean, trying to locate?” Cyrus asked.
“Apparently he has a job where he is out of the country a lot,” she said.
“I thought I heard he was a rodeo cowboy?”
“Was. Since college he kind of fell off the radar,” McCall said.
Cyrus raised a brow. “Are you talking some kind of intelligence job like with the government?”
“Quite possibly, since I can’t seem to get a line on him. But Marie is apparently getting worse. The hospice people said Jace usually contacts Marie every few weeks. They’ve promised to let me know when he calls.”
“Hospice?”
“She’s dying, that’s why I’m sure once he hears, he’ll return to Whitehorse at once.”
“So there is little chance of getting his DNA,” Cyrus said. “That means—”
“Aunt Virginia,” McCall said. “She needs to be told there is a chance the baby she buried isn’t hers. I don’t have to tell you the kind of fireworks this is about to set off.”
No, Cyrus thought, thinking of his grandmother. “If Pepper is involved she’ll do her damnedest to stop you from exhuming that baby’s remains.”
“I’m more concerned how Virginia is going to take it,” McCall said. “Losing that baby…” She shook her head. “Who knows how different Virginia’s life might have been. She could have actually been happy.”
Cyrus was still holding out hope that his grandmother had had nothing to do with this. He didn’t want to believe that Pepper Winchester could be that heartless, that cold and calculating, and yet he suspected when it came to manipulating her family, the woman was capable of anything.
“We’re headed for the ranch now,” Cyrus said and heard a phone ring in the background.
“I’ll meet you there,” McCall said but she sounded distracted. “Cyrus? It doesn’t look like I’m going to make it to dinner. We just got a call. Roberta Warren was found dead at her home.”
Chapter Thirteen
As she and Cyrus drove out to the Winchester Ranch through the rolling prairie, Kate felt a sense of calm she hadn’t expected. She and Cyrus had been so upset to hear about Roberta Warren. Cyrus had quizzed McCall, but she hadn’t had any more information.
Now, Kate realized the reason for her sense of calm was this land. The wide-openness, the grass pale yellow against the darker brush that lined the coulees and the Little Rockies an even darker smudge of color against the horizon. The land was washed with a rich patina that shone in the sunlight.
A chinook had blown in this morning, quickly melting last night’s snowfall. The way temperatures changed up in this part of the world still amazed her.
“Wait until winter,” she’d been told. “One minute it will be thirty below zero, the next it will be thirty above.”
Her life felt like the wild Montana weather, she thought, glancing over at Cyrus. She hadn’t known what to expect this morning when she’d woken up in his arms after their lovemaking and middle-of-the-night hot chocolate.
She’d half expected him to pull away, but he hadn’t. He seemed to have quit fighting this chemistry between them, this act of fate that had brought them together. But she didn’t kid herself that being lovers was anything other than temporary. She knew he had to go back to his life in Denver and she to hers here in Whitehorse.
After breakfast they’d gone over to the cemetery and found her aunt’s grave. She would have the head-stone changed, but she had no intention of moving her aunt. As they were leaving, Kate noticed there was an empty plot next to her aunt’s. Her heart had stopped for a moment as she realized that was where her mother should have been.
“Are you all right?” Cyrus asked as he slowed the pickup.
She nodded as she saw the wooden arch that read Winchester Ranch. She was finally going to meet Pepper Winchester. She didn’t know what to expect and she had a feeling Cyrus was just as uneasy about this dinner.
It was impossible for her to imagine a mother who could let her daughter believe that her baby had died because the father of the baby was from a family she hated.
But then again, Pepper might be worse than a domineering, controlling mother. She could be a murderer.
Cyrus turned the pickup under the arch. A quarter mile down the narrow road, she spotted the lodge. It was a sprawling log structure that she realized resembled the Old Faithful Lodge in Yellowstone Park.
She’d heard about the place with its several wings and numerous levels, but she hadn’t been quite prepared for this. Cyrus had said his brother told him that the inside had all the original furnishings when he’d left here twenty-seven years ago.
Kate just hoped they were all still there. She itched to see what was inside. If it really hadn’t been touched for years.
For just a moment in her enthusiasm as a collector of furnishings from the past, she forgot why they were here. Instantly she sobered at the thought. She was about to meet Cyrus’s grandmother and aunt Virginia.
“Pepper and Virginia are the most bitter, unhappy women I know,” he said as he drove toward the lodge. “The only meaner woman I know is my grandmother’s housekeeper, Enid. Now all three of them are living here.” He shook his head as if unable to imagine that.
“Maybe they have good reason to be the way they are, at least in Virginia’s case,” she said. “Maybe.”
He parked out front. As they got out of
the pickup, an old dog growled but didn’t get up from the shade of what appeared to be a large log garage.
The front door opened. A tall woman appeared.
“Grandmother,” Cyrus said under his breath.
Pepper Winchester was an intimidating figure in her black clothing. Her hair was plaited in a long braid of salt and pepper. Kate could see the Winchester resemblance in her dark eyes. She had once been a beauty. No wonder she’d produced such beautiful grandchildren.
“Cyrus,” his grandmother said. “I am so glad you’re better.” She sounded sincere.
“You might change your mind about that,” he said. “We need to talk.”
“After dinner,” she said. “Whatever it is we have to say to each other shouldn’t spoil our appetites. Then again, with Enid’s cooking…” She turned her attention to Kate. “This must be your…friend. Kate Landon.”
“You are well-informed,” Cyrus said.
Pepper took Kate’s hand in both of hers. “Please come in,” she said, not looking the least bit worried about what Cyrus wanted to talk to her about.
“I understand you have a charming shop in town,” Pepper said as they entered the house.
“Thank you.” Kate was surprised by the woman’s warmth and her relaxed demeanor. Kate had expected her to be cold and uncaring. Even Cyrus seemed a little off-balance by his grandmother’s warm welcome.
Pepper, using her cane, led them inside. “Let’s go on down to the dining room. Virginia, as usual, is champing at the bit to eat and Enid gets so perturbed if dinner is a minute late. We can visit before she serves. Do you drink wine, Kate?”
“On occasion.”
“Well, I’d say this was an occasion, wouldn’t you?” Pepper said cheerfully. “It isn’t every day that my grandson comes out of a coma and returns to the ranch.”
Just as Pepper had said, Virginia was waiting in the dining room. She turned, a glass of wine in her hand, her expression softening a little at the sight of them. Kate saw at once the strong resemblance to Pepper.
But where Pepper could seem warm and charming, Kate sensed Virginia could not. Somewhere in her early fifties, she could have passed for a woman much older. Her face had deep frown lines. She looked like a woman who’d had a hard life. Kate’s heart went out to her, knowing what she’d been through—and might have to face again if they were right about the babies being switched.
“Please sit down,” Pepper said.
A skinny, elderly woman with wiry gray hair and a scowl appeared.
“Enid, why don’t you get us another bottle of wine,” Pepper said.
The woman shot her employer a sour look, but did as she was told.
Kate’s head was still spinning at all the wonderful Western antiques in every room they’d passed on the way to the dining room. The dining room was no exception.
“You like what you see?” Pepper asked, smiling.
“Your home is beautifully furnished, so true to the era,” Kate said, then realized that might not have sounded like a compliment. “I’m sorry.”
Pepper waved her apology away as she handed her a glass of wine, then one to her grandson. For a moment the older woman’s gaze seemed to study Cyrus. “I was never able to tell you and your brother apart.”
“You never tried,” Virginia said and downed her wine.
Her mother merely smiled. “My daughter doesn’t approve of me. But then again, few members of my family do. Please, let’s sit down. Virginia is much more forgiving after she’s eaten.”
Kate thought this evening might prove to be the exception to the rule.
The food was ghastly, the conversation stilted and the tension so thick it would have taken an axe to cut it. Pepper looked disappointed. Clearly she’d hoped it would be more enjoyable. Kate almost felt sorry for her.
Virginia was somewhat more agreeable after dinner, although obviously tipsy after all the wine she’d consumed.
“Kate and Cyrus want to have a word with me,” Pepper said to Virginia after dinner. “I believe we will go down to the parlor. It is the warmest room in the house. Perhaps you’d like to join us later, Virginia.”
She took the snub by snatching up the last of the second bottle of wine and stalked out of the dining room.
CYRUS CLOSED THE DOOR behind him once he, Kate and Pepper were all in the parlor. He remembered from when he was a boy what a horrible eavesdropper Enid had been. According to his brother, she’d only gotten worse.
A small fire burned in the grate. Pepper waved Kate into one of the leather chairs. Cyrus declined the other one, going to sit on the hearth as his grandmother lowered herself into the chair, her cane leaning against the chair’s arm.
Pepper looked to Cyrus expectantly. “Don’t be shy. You never have been, but may I ask you something first? I’m sure your brother, Cordell, already told you what I asked him.”
“About the third-floor room and what we might have seen that day,” Cyrus said, expecting this was the main reason they’d been invited to dinner. “I’m sure he told you I didn’t see anything. He would have known.”
His grandmother nodded. “But you weren’t alone up there.” Before he could answer, she said, “I know Jack was there, but I want to know about the other children there that day.”
Cordell had already warned him that their grandmother knew they hadn’t been alone, something about some party hats she’d found in the room. The third-floor room had been off-limits. It had been used as punishment when his father was a child.
“What did Jack and Cordell tell you?” he asked.
Pepper made a disgruntled sound. “I already have my suspicions, but I want to hear it from you, Cyrus. Of the bunch, I trust you to tell me the truth.”
It had been twenty-seven years. They’d all kept the secret because they’d known better than to be in that room. They also knew better than to allow anyone else in there, especially anyone from the McCormick Ranch.
But now he realized that all of the pieces of this puzzle seemed to fit together. He suddenly understood a lot more about the past.
“The McCormick girls were with us.”
“They used to sneak over from their ranch all the time,” Cyrus said. “I thought it was because they saw it as an adventure, knowing what would happen if they got caught. I used to wonder why they always left little things behind, hair ribbons and barrettes, paper dolls and grape bubble gum. But now I know that they came over here to taunt you and Virginia.”
Pepper sighed. He’d expected her to lie or at least argue that he was wrong. She did neither. “So you know about Virginia and Jordan and the baby.”
“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 Porte
r 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.”