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Before that happened, she hoped to get the answers she so desperately needed about her father—and who had killed him.
She knew it would be no easy task, finding out the truth after all these years. Her mother was little help. As for the Winchesters, well, she’d never met any of them. Trace had been the youngest child of Call and Pepper Winchester.
His siblings and their children had all left the ranch after Trace disappeared and had never returned as far as McCall knew. Her grandmother had gone into seclusion.
The Winchester Ranch had always been off-limits for McCall—a place she wasn’t welcome and had no real connection with other than sharing the same last name.
The fact that her father had been buried within sight of the ranch gave her pause, though, as McCall slowed to turn under the carved wooden Winchester Ranch arch.
In the distance she could see where the land broke and began to fall as the Missouri River carved its way through the south end of the county. Nothing was more isolated or wild than the Breaks and the Winchester Ranch sat on the edge of this untamed country.
It gave her an eerie feeling just thinking of her grandmother out here on the ranch, alone except for the two elderly caretakers, Enid and Alfred Hoagland. Why had Pepper closed herself off from the rest of her family after Trace disappeared? Wouldn’t a mother be thankful she had other children?
McCall drove slowly down the ranch road, suddenly afraid. She was taking a huge chance coming out here. Even if she wasn’t shot for a trespasser, she knew she would probably be run off without ever seeing her grandmother.
Weeds had grown between the two tracks of the narrow, hardly used road. Enid and Alfred only came into Whitehorse for supplies once a month, but other than that were never seen around. Nor, McCall had heard, did Pepper have visitors.
As she drove toward the massive log structure, she was treated to a different view of the ranch from that on the ridge across the ravine.
The lodge had been built back in the 1940s, designed after the famous Old Faithful Lodge in Yellowstone Park. According to the stories McCall had heard, her grandfather Call Winchester had amassed a fortune, tripling the size of his parents’ place.
There had always been rumors around Whitehorse about Call Winchester—the man McCall has been named for. Some said he made his fortune in gold mining. Others in crime.
The truth had remained a mystery—just like the man himself. Call had gone out for a horseback ride one day long before McCall was born, and as the story goes, his horse returned without him. His body never to be found. Just like his youngest son, Trace. Until now.
An old gray-muzzled heeler with one brown and one blue eye hobbled out to growl beside McCall’s patrol pickup.
She turned off the engine, waiting as she watched the front door of the lodge. The place looked even larger up close. How many wings were there?
When no one appeared, she eased open her vehicle door, forcing the dog back as she stepped out. The heeler stumbled away from her still growling. She kept an eye on him as she walked to the front door.
She didn’t see any vehicles, but there was an old log building nearby that looked as if it was a garage, large enough to hold at least three rigs.
While she’d never seen her grandmother, McCall had run across Pepper’s housekeeper, Enid—an ancient, broomstick-thin, brittle woman with an unpleasant face and an even worse disposition.
McCall had heard a variety of stories about Enid Hoagland, none of them complimentary. The housekeeper and her husband apparently took care of Pepper. Enid did the cooking and cleaning. Her husband, Alfred, did upkeep on the isolated ranch.
Some said the Hoaglands acted as guards to protect and care for Pepper. Others were of the opinion that the old couple kept Pepper Winchester hostage on the ranch to make sure they got the Winchester fortune when she died instead of her heirs.
McCall knocked at the weathered door, glancing around as she waited. A quiet hung over the wind-scoured place as if everything here had withered up and died.
She knocked harder and thought she heard a sound on the other side of the door. “Sheriff’s Department. Open up.”
After a long moment, the door creaked slowly open. An old woman appeared on the other side, and for a moment McCall thought she was about to come face-to-face with her grandmother.
But as the light flowed into the dark entry, she saw that it was only Enid Hoagland.
Enid scowled at her. “What do you want?” she demanded by way of greeting.
“I need to speak with Pepper Winchester.”
“That isn’t possible. Mrs. Winchester doesn’t see anyone.” She started to close the door, but McCall stuck a booted foot in the doorway.
“I’m sorry, but she’ll have to see me unless you want me to come back with a warrant to search the house,” McCall bluffed. “Tell her it’s Deputy Sheriff McCall Winchester.”
A malicious light flickered on in Enid’s close-set gray eyes. “You’re making a mistake,” she said under her breath.
McCall feared the old woman was right.
A sound like the tinkling of a small bell came from deep in the lodge. Enid seemed to hesitate. “You will regret this.”
McCall didn’t doubt it. The older woman stepped aside and the deputy sheriff entered her father’s family home for the first time in her life.
Chapter Three
Enid led McCall into what could only be called a parlor. The decor was old-time Western, the rustic furnishings dated as if the house had been sealed for more than thirty years.
McCall was too nervous to sit. She’d forced her way in here, and now she wasn’t sure what she would say to her grandmother when she finally saw her for the first time.
At the sound of faint footfalls in the hallway, she turned, bracing herself, and yet she was still shocked. Nothing could have prepared her for the elderly woman who stepped into the room.
Pepper Winchester was surprisingly spry for seventy-two. She stood, her back ramrod straight, her head angled as if she was irritated. Her face was lined but there was something youthful about her. She was tall and slim, elegant in her black silk caftan.
Her hair, which had apparently once been dark like McCall’s, was now peppered with gray. It trailed down her slim back in a single loose braid. Her eyes were ebony, her cheekbones high, just like McCall’s.
The resemblance was both striking and shocking. McCall had had no idea just how much she looked like her grandmother.
If Pepper Winchester noticed the resemblance, her demeanor gave no notice of it. Nor was there any indication that she knew who McCall was.
“Yes?” she demanded.
McCall found her voice. “I’m Deputy Sheriff McCall Winchester.”
Had the dark eyes widened just a little?
“I need to ask you a few questions.”
“I’m sure my housekeeper told you I don’t see visitors.”
But you saw me. Why was that? Not because of the threat of a warrant. “I wouldn’t have bothered you if it wasn’t important. It’s about your son Trace’s disappearance.”
“Have you found him?” The hope in her grandmother’s voice and posture was excruciating. So was the fear she heard there. And yet, Pepper Winchester had to know that if there was any news of Trace, the sheriff would have been here—not some lowly deputy.
“I’m investigating his disappearance,” McCall said quickly, taking out her notebook and pen.
“After twenty-seven years?” Pepper asked in disbelief. She seemed to shrink, all the starch coming out of her, all the spirit. “What’s the point?”
“When was the last time you saw your son?”
Pepper shook her head, her dark eyes dimming in the dull light. “I should think you would know that, since I gave that information to the sheriff at the time.”
McCall saw that this had been a mistake. What had she hoped to accomplish? She had wanted to see her grandmother. And now she had. The best thing she could do was to leave before Pepper Winchester got on the phone to the sheriff.
But she’d come too far. She couldn’t leave things like this. Nor had she gotten what she’d come for. “Is there anyone who might have wanted to harm him?”
Pepper raised her head slightly, her dark eyes locking with McCall’s. “Other than your mother?”
“Did your son have any enemies?”
“No.” Instantly, she corrected herself. “Buzz Crawford. He hated my family, Trace in particular.” Her voice broke as she said her son’s name.
Again the former game warden’s name had come up in relation to Trace.
“Was your son blackmailing Buzz Crawford?”
“What? Who would even say something like that? Your mother?” She raised her nose into the air. “My son didn’t have to resort to blackmail. He was a Winchester. He wasn’t going to serve any jail time. I would have seen to that.”
Her grandmother’s gaze flicked over her, anger and impatience firing those dark eyes, then she sighed deeply and started to walk away, signaling this conversation was over.
“Then why did you think he left town? Because you cut him off financially?” McCall asked, unable to hold back. “Or because you were demanding he divorce my mother and renounce the child she was carrying?”
Pepper Winchester spun back around, eyes narrowing dangerously. “You know nothing about my relationship with my youngest son. Nothing.” She held up her hand before McCall could say another word. “You should leave. Now.” With that her grandmother turned and disappeared through the door.
McCall closed her notebook and looked up to find Enid Hoagland framed in the doorway, a smug little smile on the horrid woman’s face.
“You are not to ever disturb Mrs. Winchester again,” Enid said as she walked McCall to the door and closed it firmly behind her.
Standing on the front step, McCall took a deep breath of the crisp spring air. Her heart seemed to struggle with each beat. What had she been thinking coming out here to see the grandmother who had denied her all these years? Still denied her.
Letting out the breath, McCall walked to her pickup, her eyes burning. She could feel someone watching her, the gaze boring into her back. Her grandmother? Or that awful Enid?
She slid behind the wheel, anxious to get away before she shed the tears now blurring her eyes. She wouldn’t give either old woman the satisfaction of seeing how much that had hurt.
PEPPER WINCHESTER STOOD at the window trembling with rage as she watched McCall drive away.
“You should have told me how much she resembles me,” she said, knowing Enid was behind her even though she hadn’t heard the woman approach. Trace used to say that Enid moved as silently as a ghost—or a cat burglar.
“What would have been the point?” Enid asked. “You didn’t have to see her. Now you’re upset and—”
Pepper spun around to face her ancient housekeeper the patrol pickup disappeared down the road. “Of course I’m upset. Why would she come here and ask about Trace?”
“Because she believes he was her father.”
Pepper scoffed at that, just as she had when Trace told her that he’d gotten that tramp Ruby Bates pregnant. But the proof had been standing in her house just moments before.
There was no denying that McCall was a Winchester—and her father’s daughter.
“You’re the one who let her in,” Enid complained. “I could have gotten rid of her.”
When Pepper had seen the sheriff’s department vehicle pull in, she’d thought it might be news about Trace and had been unable to smother that tiny ember of hope that caught fire inside her.
“She’ll be back, you know,” Enid warned in obvious disapproval. “She wants more than what she got this time.”
Yes, Pepper suspected McCall would be back. She’d seen herself and Trace in the young brazen woman.
“So,” Enid said with a sigh. “Can I get you anything?”
My son Trace. That was the only thing she wanted.
“I just want to be alone.” Pepper turned back to the window, looking down at the long curve of the road into the ranch.
All this time, she’d expected a call or a visit from the sheriff. Word from someone about her son. And after twenty-seven years to have his daughter show up at her door …
Why would McCall be investigating her father’s disappearance now? Or had that just been an excuse to come out to the ranch?
For weeks after Trace left, Pepper would stare at that road waiting for him to come down it. How many times had she imagined him driving up that road in his new black pickup, getting out, his jacket thrown over one shoulder, cowboy hat cocked back to expose his handsome face, his long jean-clad legs closing the distance as if he couldn’t wait to get home.
She’d been so sure he would contact her. Eventually he would call for money. He’d known she could make his hunting violation charge go away—just as she had the others.
For that reason, she’d never understood why he would run away. She’d blamed that tramp he’d foolishly married. Trace wasn’t ready for marriage, let alone a child. Especially one Pepper had been convinced would turn out to be someone else’s bastard. She’d despised Ruby for trapping her son and giving Trace no way out but to leave town.
But after weeks, then months had gone by with no word, Pepper feared she was the reason her son had left and never came back. The thought had turned her heart to stone.
She’d walled herself up here in the lodge unable to face life outside the ranch. Worse, she’d replayed her last argument with Trace over and over in her head.
McCall was right. She had threatened to cut him off without a cent if he didn’t divorce Ruby and denounce that bastard child she was carrying. Trace had pleaded with her to give Ruby a chance, swearing the baby was his.
Pepper sighed. Apparently, he’d been right about that at least, she thought now. She was still trembling from finally coming face-to-face with Trace’s daughter. McCall.
That bitch Ruby had named the girl after her grandfather, Call Winchester, just to throw it in Pepper’s face.
But there was no doubt. The girl definitely was of Winchester blood.
She frowned as she remembered something McCall had said. “Then why did you think he’d left town?”
McCall hadn’t come to the ranch out of simple curiosity. If that were true, she would have shown up sooner.
Pepper stepped to the phone. For years, she hadn’t spoken to another soul other than Enid and her housekeeper’s husband, Alfred—and fortunately neither of them had much to say.
Then McCall had shown up, she thought with a curse as she dialed the sheriff’s department.
LUKE SPENT A COUPLE OF HOURS looking around Whitehorse for the poachers’ pickup before he headed south. His jurisdiction included everything from the Canadian border to the Missouri River—an area about the size of the state of Massachusetts.
For that reason, he put close to twenty-five thousand miles on his three-quarter-ton pickup every year. His truck was his office as well as his main source of transportation unless he was in one of the two boats he used to patrol the area’s waterways.
This time of year, because of paddlefish season, he spent most of his time on the Missouri River south of Whitehorse. Today he was checking tags and watching for fishing violations. Fishing was picking up all over his area from the Milk River to reservoirs Nelson and Fort Peck.
For the next few months, he’d be spending fourteen-to -hour days watching fishermen, checking licenses and boats for safety equipment.
