Winchester Christmas Wedding (10 page)

“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.

 

L
IZZY 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.

 

S
HERIFF
M
C
C
ALL
W
INCHESTER
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.

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 be
cause 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.

 

L
IZZY 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 them 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.”

“And here I thought you were so brave and courageous,” she said as she smiled over at him.

“Whatever gave you that idea?” he asked, sounding serious. “Women scare the hell out of me. Especially ones like you.”

“Yeah, sure,” she said and popped open her door, warmed by the look in his dark eyes.

“If things go badly in here, I'll be hiding behind you,” he joked as they walked to the door.

 

M
C
C
ALL COULDN'T BELIEVE
what she was hearing. Her aunt and two uncles had started out fighting and accusing each other of being murderers.

At first McCall had wondered if the three of them hadn't done it together, but she quickly chucked that idea when she realized that the way they got along, they would have sold each other out a long time ago.

“Wait a minute,” she heard Brand say. “Let me see if I have this right. You both swear you had nothing to do with Trace's murder.”

“That's what I've been telling you all along,” Virginia snapped. “And you haven't believed me. I might have said I wish Trace had never been born once in front of Sandy when I was angry but do you really think I would have had a part in killing my own brother?”

“She's right,” Worth said. “We might have resented him, but I don't think any of us would stoop to murder. What would have been the point? Trace was married to Ruby, who was expecting his kid. He'd moved off the ranch and, let's face it, he and Mother weren't getting along that great. So what was our motive for getting rid of him? The way it looked to me, he was already gone.”

“Worth has a good point,” Virginia agreed. “But Mother is positive that one of us was on that ridge and that there was a witness.”

“Janie McCormick says she was that witness,” Brand said.

McCall shifted her position, suddenly chilled and aware that her pants were getting soaked from lying against the snowy ground.

She heard a gasp, probably from Virginia, then a silence between the three that spoke volumes.

“Janie has demanded that I pay her twenty-five thousand dollars or she will go to Mother and say she saw me on the ridge that day,” Brand said.

“She came to me with the same thing,” Virginia cried.

“Me, too,” Worth said. “I've been trying to raise the money even though I wasn't on this ridge and had nothing to do with Trace's murder. But let's face it, if Janie told Mother it was me, what are the chances she would believe me?”

Virginia let out a bitter laugh. “I paid the bitch for the very same reason.”

“I told her I couldn't raise that kind of money if my life depended on it,” Brand said, “but I just found out
that she went to my boys and they were ready to pay her—not that they believed I had anything to do with their uncle's murder. Like us, they feared I wouldn't be believed.”

“That conniving bitch,” Worth said. “Why would she lie?”

“Because she saw a way to make some money,” Brand said. “Mother's been asking everyone about who was in the room that day and what they saw. It's not exactly a secret that she has suspected one of us. Janie decided to cash in on it knowing that with our relationships with each other and Mother, we would rather pay than try to defend ourselves.”

“But if one of us wasn't involved…why would someone think we were?” Virginia asked.

“Because Trace was killed within sight of the ranch,” McCall said as she climbed up over the ridge, startling the three of them. “It comes down to why Sandy Sheridan would lure Trace here to kill him. Clearly she wanted someone at the Winchester Ranch to see it.”

 

A
S
TD
OPENED THE DOOR
of the community center for Lizzy, he was glad he'd brought her along. He hadn't let himself think about what he might learn here today. Now, though, he realized he might have been better off not knowing and just leaving this alone.

Maybe that was what Roger Collins had been trying to tell him. Was it possible that was all Roger was trying to do—protect him? And that explained all the secrecy? But if that was true, then he really had to find out the
truth because someone on the Winchester Ranch knew who he really was.

He'd been scared plenty of times in his life, but nothing like this as the door opened on a gust of wind. A half-dozen heads turned as he and Lizzy stepped in. The women were all sitting around a quilting frame. They had stopped working, needles suspended in the air, as they looked expectantly at the pair of them.

An elderly woman with a cane rose unsteadily from her chair and motioned for the rest of them to resume sewing. They did, and TD thought of what Enid had said about the leader of the group having almost as much power as Pepper Winchester.

“May I help you?” she asked, her voice sounding odd, and he remembered too what Enid had said about the woman having suffered a stroke. One half of her face sagged a little and affected her speech.

“Are you Pearl Cavanaugh?”

“Why don't we step through here.” She motioned to the back of the building and didn't wait for a response.

TD and Lizzy followed her. As they did, TD cast a sideways glance at the quilters. They appeared not to show any interest, but he suspected they would be trying to hear every word that was said.

Pearl Cavanaugh closed the door firmly behind them, then led them through yet another door, closing it, as well.

“Even the walls have ears,” she said with a lopsided smile.

“Do you know why I'm here?” TD asked, feeling a little confused.

“Actually, I've been expecting you,” the woman said as she motioned for them to have a seat.

Enid had made him swear he wouldn't mention her name, so he doubted she had called Pearl to tell her he was coming. Then who had?

Pearl's gaze went to Lizzy.

“This is a friend of mine, Lizzy Calder.”

“Yes,” the woman said, nodding in a way that made him think she had been expecting Lizzy, as well.

“There must be some confusion.” What he was thinking was that the stroke had taken this woman's mind with it—no matter how sharp Enid said Pearl Cavanaugh used to be.

“You came here to find out if you were one of the children we placed,” Pearl said.

TD realized that others must come here for the same reason. “I assume you keep records of the babies you place?”

She gave him that lopsided smile again. “Not in the sense you mean. That would be foolish, given the way we do our adoptions, don't you think?”

“How can you keep track?”

She didn't answer, merely kept smiling.

“Are you telling me you can remember which baby went where?”