by B. J Daniels
But Pepper still didn’t trust the woman and knew that one day she would have to get rid of Enid.
Enid thought she held all of the cards in this game of life or death. But what if Pepper now knew Enid’s secrets and had changed the game?
Pepper smiled at the wiry old woman. “I wonder what I’ll do without you, Enid.” She left the kitchen, but not before glancing back just once.
Enid had the most priceless look on her face that Pepper had ever seen. It felt good to give the mean old woman some of her own medicine.
“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?”
Janie startled her. Lizzy hadn’t seen her as she’d entered the house but now realized that Janie had been lying in wait for her. Heart pounding, Lizzy asked, “I beg your pardon?”
“It was a simple question. Where have you been?”
“I went for a ride.”
“You’ve been doing that a lot since you got here. Where did you ride to?”
“Why do you care?”
A hard gleam came into Janie’s eyes. “You followed me.”
“Why would I do that?” Lizzy demanded and tried to step past her.
Janie grabbed her arm. “Don’t ever follow me again.”
Something curled in her stomach like a cold-blooded snake. It would have been so easy to free herself from Janie’s biting grip. So easy to resort to her hand-to-hand combat training. So easy to take Janie down and wipe that sneer off her face.
Lizzy bit down on her anger, reminding herself what was at stake here. “As I said, why would I follow you?”
“Be careful, Lizzy, I think you’ve forgotten how dangerous it can be on a ranch. Accidents happen all the time. I would hate to see anything happen to you.”
She was too stunned to speak at first. “You aren’t seriously threatening me, are you?” The words seemed to catch in her throat. This was Janie, Anne’s sister, a girl she’d known all her life.
“Threatening you?” Janie asked with a laugh and stepped closer. “If I was threatening you, you would have found a rattler in your bed this morning. Your saddle cinch would have snapped on your ride. Your breakfast would have had just enough poison in it that you would have nearly died.”
Lizzy stared at the woman in horror.
Janie laughed again. “So in answer to your question, no, I’m not threatening you, Lizzy. I hope I never have to threaten you.” With that she turned and left the room.
TELLING ENID HE NEEDED to run an errand before supper, TD went first to his cabin and showered and shaved, changing into jeans, boots and a Western shirt. He grabbed his Stetson as he headed for the door.
Enid had given him directions to Old Town Whitehorse, where the Whitehorse Sewing Circle had met for years to make quilts for each baby that was born—and run an illegal adoption ring.
“Who should I talk to?” he’d asked Enid.
“Pearl Cavanaugh. She’s still the head of it. She’s had a stroke and she’s old as the hills, but don’t let that fool you. She’s sharp as a tack and as powerful as any woman in this area, except for Pepper Winchester.”
“You sure she’ll talk to me?”
Enid had studied him for a moment. “This woman you’ve knocked up, you love her?”
He realized this was where he had to lie and let her keep believing he’d gotten some poor soul in trouble. “It was one night, I was drunk, she was drunk—”
“I get the picture. Pearl will help you as long as the woman is willing to give up the baby.”
“She’s already got four kids, all under the age of eight.”
Enid gave him a pitying look. “All with different fathers I’d wager. You aren’t real bright are you.”
He’d shrugged and she had shooed him out of her kitchen, saying he’d best take care of his errand.
Now as he came out of the cabin, he glanced in the direction of the lodge. He hadn’t seen Worth Winchester since early this morning when he’d been headed for one of the pickups parked out front. He’d been surprised when his brother Brand had joined him in the truck and the two had driven away.
Virginia Winchester had left earlier to go into town. He wondered where they were all off to—and which one of them was leaving him the clues to his past?
It seemed odd he hadn’t been pressured into forking over the fifty grand yet if his extortionist was Worth Winchester. Clearly the man was in a bind with his blackmailer demanding twenty-five thousand from him. Maybe he was wrong and the person who’d gotten him to Montana wasn’t Worth.
And maybe this wasn’t about the money at all. That thought scared him more than he wanted to admit. An extortionist he understood and could handle. The other…well, that made him wonder what that person really wanted from him if not money. He feared the price might be much higher.
LIZZY FELT A COLD DRAFT of air as she stepped into the room and saw Anne hunched over the desk. She hesitated, considering how much she should tell her.
“Anne? Anne?”
Her friend turned, instantly appearing irritated. “Now really isn’t a good time, Lizzy. I was just going over the ranch bills.”
“I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to talk to you about Janie.”
Anne sighed. “I told you that you being here would upset her. This whole thing with Mother…” She sighed. “What did she do?”
“She threatened me.”
“Janie threatened you?” Anne sounded disbelieving. Even more than that. She made it sound as if Lizzy had made it up to cause trouble. “I’m sure she wasn’t serious.” She turned back to what she’d been doing at the desk.
“She was serious. Anne, I’m worried about her.” Lizzy knew she had to tell Anne everything and yet hated to admit that she’d followed her sister.
“Janie left the ranch early this morning on horseback. I followed her.”
Anne turned around again, her brows shooting upward in both surprise and annoyance. “Why would you do that?”
“She’s been acting so…oddly. I was curious where she was going at that time of the morning. We both know she isn’t an early riser. She also hasn’t shown any interest in riding horses from what you said.”
Lizzy could see that Anne resented this. How dare she question Janie’s comings and goings?
“She rode over to the Winchester Ranch.”
Anne sighed. “You know we’ve always ridden on their land.”
“But this time she met with one of the Winchesters.”
Her friend froze. “You have to be mistaken.”
Lizzy realized how tired she was getting of Anne no longer trusting that she was telling the truth. “She met Worth Winchester. I’m sorry, but I overheard their conversation—”
“Stop.”
“Anne, it sounded as if she was—”
“No, I said stop!” Anne was on her feet. “I said that’s enough.”
“—blackmailing him.”
Anne’s face turned to stone. “I think it would be best if you left. I told you this was a bad time for a visit.”
Lizzy couldn’t believe her ears. “I just told you that I overheard your sister blackmailing Worth Winchester. She was demanding twenty-five thousand dollars. Anne, I got the feeling that he could be dangerous if pushed into a corner and apparently he is having trouble raising the money.”
“I don’t want to hear any more of this. It’s ridiculous. You obviously heard wrong. I’m appalled that you would follow her in the first place and then eavesdrop on her conversation.”
“And I’m appalled that you don’t believe me.”
They stood glaring at each other.
“You came here expecting things to be like they were when we were kids,” Anne said. “Well, I’m sorry, Lizzy, but they aren’t. I’m asking you to leave.”
Realization sent goose-bump ripples across her skin. “You knew she was blackmailing the Winchesters.” She thought about what Waters had told her and knew he was right. “This has something to do with what the sheriff was asking you about. Did Janie see
who murdered Trace Winchester? Did you both see the Winchester who was involved?”
She took a step toward the woman she’d thought would always be her best friend in the world, no matter what. “Anne, you can’t—” A hand clamped down on her shoulder. Fingers bit into her flesh and spun her around.
“We’re through asking you nicely,” Janie said. “I’ve packed your bags. They’re waiting for you downstairs.”
Lizzy looked to Anne, but she’d already turned her back.
SHERIFF MCCALL WINCHESTER hated investigating her own family, but when she spotted her aunt, Virginia, in one of the ranch trucks headed south, she decided to see what was up.
As far as she knew, Virginia hadn’t left the ranch but to go into town since she’d arrived months ago. Now her aunt was headed south and McCall had an eerie feeling she knew where she was going.
Miles south of Whitehorse, Virginia turned down a road all too familiar to McCall. Her heart lodged itself in her throat as she drove on past, then doubled back. Parking off the main road where her patrol car couldn’t be seen, she circled around on foot and climbed up the side of the ridge.
The hike up the steep, snowy hillside was a painful reminder of last spring, when she’d climbed up this ridge after a thunderstorm. The storm, known in these parts as a gully washer, had washed some bones down from a shallow grave on the ridge. A local rock collector had found the bones and called it in.
McCall had gotten the call and, after her climb up to the top of the high ridge, had discovered the shallow grave—and a piece of identification of her father’s. Ultimately, her investigation had led her to at least one of the people responsible for his murder. The only missing piece was what the killer had told her moments before dying.
Someone in the Winchester family had been involved.
Now as McCall neared the ridgeline, she slowed, hearing another vehicle. A pickup door slammed. As the second vehicle engine died, another door opened and slammed. Then another person got out of the second pickup.
She stayed where she was. Last spring on the day she’d found her father’s grave, the wind had howled across this ridge. Today, though, it was still and quiet, so still and quiet she was easily able to recognize the voices of the three people on the ridge. Just as she was able to hear what they had to say.
McCall laid back against the hillside, her heart in her throat, as she heard Virginia and her brothers, Brand and Worth, arguing over which one of them had been in cahoots with their younger brother’s killer.
Chapter Nine
As TD left the ranch, hit the county road and headed south, he spotted a car coming down the road toward him. It surprised him to see another vehicle this far from civilization, especially one coming up from the badlands of the Missouri Breaks.
His real surprise came when he recognized the person behind the wheel.
He hit the brakes and rolled down the pickup window as Lizzy pulled alongside. From the expression on her face something had happened and it wasn’t good.
“You all right?” he asked as she whirred down her window.
“I tried to talk to Anne about her sister.”
“I take it that didn’t go well.”
She attempted a smile.
“So where are you headed?” he asked, spotting her overnight bag in the back seat.
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
“Park your car up the road in that spot where the plow turned around and come with me.”
“Where are you going?”
“Old Town Whitehorse. I told you I was up here because of an extortionist? If you want to hear the whole story, you’ll have to ride along. Don’t look so suspicious. I’m just going to Old Town to talk to the Whitehorse Sewing Circle. How scary can that be?”
“The Whitehorse Sewing Circle?”
He made a cross over his heart with his finger. “I don’t want to go alone.” He saw her weaken. “Park. I’ll back up and pick you up.”
“Tell me you don’t think a bunch of quilters are trying to extort money from you,” she said as she climbed into his pickup. “Oh, that’s right, it isn’t about you, necessarily.”
He chuckled. He liked her sense of humor. Hell, he liked her more all the time. And he’d been telling the truth. He hadn’t wanted to go to Old Town Whitehorse alone.
Of course, taking her with him to Old Town probably wasn’t his best move. As if he’d been thinking rationally since he’d gotten that phone call in the middle of the night. He’d been winging it. Just as he had when he’d invited her to come along with him. He couldn’t let her leave, and maybe showing up with her might actually work to his advantage.
Or put her in danger. He let out a silent curse. He’d just have to make sure she stayed safe, wouldn’t he? As he glanced over at her, he got the feeling though she might be able to take care of herself just fine.
LIZZY SNAPPED ON HER SEAT BELT. Waters was driving an older model pickup. She was guessing he’d paid cash for it, thinking it would make it harder for the agency to find him. Or at least take them longer to find out what he was driving.
As she glanced over at him, she wondered if he really did not realize that Roger Collins had known where he was heading almost immediately. Or that Roger knew this area? Still, that wouldn’t explain how he knew TD Waters was headed here.
“I’ll tell you all about the extortion, but first tell me about your run-in with the McCormick sisters. Bad fight?”
“Uh-huh.” She hesitated to tell him, but then realized he already knew most of it. “What hurts is that I realized my friend Anne already knew that her younger sister, Janie, was blackmailing Worth Winchester. Or at least suspected. The two of them could even be in on it together.”
“So they did see who from the family was involved in Trace Winchester’s murder?”
“Apparently it was Worth and they’re blackmailing him.”
TD didn’t say anything for a few minutes as he drove. It was a beautiful winter day in Montana. The massive sky overhead was robin’s-egg blue, the sun almost warm coming in the pickup’s side window. Only a few puffs of clouds dotted the horizon and the snowy landscape seemed to be covered with diamonds.
“I get the feeling that there is more going on,” she said, remembering the locked shed. “Maybe you should warn someone at the Winchester Ranch.”
He shot her a surprised look, then shook his head. “I’m just helping cook there.”
“I still can’t believe you cook.”
“Why do you sound so surprised?”
He didn’t seem like the type and she said as much.
TD laughed. “And what type do you think I am?”
She knew better than to touch that with a ten-foot pole, as her father used to say. “You’re more of a cowboy.”
“Like cowboys can’t cook?”
“Not the ones I’ve known.”
“Clearly, you have known the wrong cowboys,” he joked.
Lizzy was still trying to digest the fact that he apparently had hired on at the Winchester Ranch to help cook. “So you’re helping cook, kind of undercover, as you try to find this extortionist?”
He shot her a look, picking up on her sarcasm, and for a moment she thought she’d gone too far. “The truth? I’m trying to find out who I am.”
“Couldn’t you have just taken a drumming class?” she joked.
“I think I might have been adopted, possibly through an illegal adoption. More than actual extortion, someone is trying to get me to pay for information about my birth.”
“I’m sorry.” She stared at him, wishing she hadn’t made light of it moments ago. “So your parents…”
“Weren’t really my parents maybe.”
She thought of the framed photograph, the different name on the back. “And you think this Whitehorse Sewing Circle…”
“Is a front for an illegal adoption ring.” He nodded at her surprise as he drove down the narrow road deeper into wild country.
Neither of th
em spoke for a few minutes. Lizzy was trying to make sense of this. If TD Waters was telling the truth, he was anything but a rogue agent. Why had she been sent after him if all he was doing was trying to find out the truth about his birth?
Because the truth had larger consequences that would somehow affect the agency? Or affect their boss, Roger Collins?
She thought of the photograph, proof that Collins had been in this area. Proof that he’d known her father. Was there some reason he didn’t want Waters to find out who his birth parents had been?
“There it is,” TD said as he slowed the pickup. “Old Town Whitehorse.”
She looked out the windshield at what at first appeared to be a ghost town. She’d heard of Old Town, the first town of Whitehorse. It had been nearer to the Missouri River, but when the railroad came through, the town migrated north, taking the name with it.
The original settlement of Whitehorse was now little more than a handful of ranches and a few of the original remaining town buildings. At one time, there’d apparently been a gas station, but that building was sitting empty, the pumps gone.
There was a community center—every small community up here had one of those—and a one-room schoolhouse next to it.
Past that, there were a few houses, one large one boarded up, a sign that said Condemned nailed to the door, and another with smoke coming out of the chimney—someone was still living there, apparently.
TD pulled in next to the schoolhouse in front of what a sign proclaimed was the Whitehorse Community Center. There were a half-dozen vehicles parked outside, mostly pickups, all four-wheel drives.
“Do you want me to wait here?” she asked, hoping he would say no.
He did. “If you think I’m entering a building full of women armed with needles alone, you’re crazy.”
