She herself was the fly in the ointment, so to speak. The letter had specified the time her mother wanted to see her. She assumed everyone else had also been given a specific time to arrive.
Virginia wasn’t about to wait. She wasn’t having it where her mother invited her favorites first. Virginia planned to be here to make sure she wasn’t left out. So she’d come right away—to her mother’s obvious irritation.
Growing up on the ranch, she’d felt as if their mother had pitted them all against each other. The only time she’d felt any kind of bond with her siblings had been their mutual jealousy, distrust and dislike of their younger brother Trace—their mother’s unequivocal favorite.
Now Virginia worried that just because two of her brothers had produced offspring—at least that she knew of—the Winchester fortune would be divided to include them.
As the only daughter and oldest of Call and Pepper Winchester’s children, she deserved her fair share, and she said as much now to her mother.
Pepper sighed from her chair nearby. “You always were the generous one. Of course you would be the first to arrive and completely ignore my instructions.”
“I came at once because.” Her voice trailed off as she caught herself.
“Because you thought I was dying.”
The letter had clearly been a ruse to get them all back to the ranch. Virginia saw that now. Pepper Winchester didn’t even look ill. “The letter from the attorney …” She floundered. There had never been anything she could say that had pleased her mother.
She’d been torn when she’d received the letter from the attorney on her mother’s behalf. Her mother was dying?
The thought had come with mixed emotions. It was her mother. She should feel something other than contempt. Pepper had been a terrible mother: cold, unfeeling, unreachable. Virginia hadn’t heard a word from her in twenty-seven years. What was she supposed to feel for her mother?
“I’m just asking that you be fair,” Virginia said.
“I suppose you’d like me to cut out my grandchildren?”
Like her mother had ever been a loving grandmother. “Those of us without children shouldn’t be penalized for it. It’s not like you would even recognize your grandsons if you passed them on the street,” Virginia pointed out.
“I also have a granddaughter.” Virginia turned from the window to stare at her mother.
“McCall. Trace’s daughter. She’s with the sheriff’s department. She’s the one who solved your brother’s murder and was almost killed doing so.”
“McCall?” That bitch Ruby had named her kid after Virginia’s father? Why wasn’t Pepper having a conniption fit about this? She should have been livid. “Surely you aren’t going to take the word of that tramp that this young woman is a Winchester.”
Her mother’s smile had a knife edge to it. “Oh, believe me, she’s a Winchester. But I knew the rest of you would require more than my word on it. I have the DNA test results, if you’d like to see them.”
Virginia was furious. Another person after the Winchester fortune. No, not just another person. Trace’s daughter. Virginia felt sick.
“So I have four grandchildren I don’t know,” her mother corrected with sarcasm. “And there could be more, couldn’t there?”
Virginia swore silently. “Why did you even bother to get the rest of us home?”
Pepper raised a brow. “I knew you’d want to see me one last time. Also I was sure you’d want to know the whole story about your brother Trace. You haven’t asked.”
“What is there to ask?” Virginia shot back. “His killer is dead. It was in all the papers.” Trace was dead and buried. “I would think that you wouldn’t want to relive any of that awfulness.”
She didn’t mention that Pepper had kept her other children away from Trace when he was young, as if afraid they might hurt him. Her protectiveness, along with her favoritism and love for Trace, was why they had no great love for their little brother. He’d come into their lives after they’d heard their mother couldn’t have anymore children. Trace became the miracle child.
“You weren’t at his memorial service,” her mother said.
Virginia couldn’t hold back the laugh. “Are you kidding? I didn’t think I was invited.” She started for the door, unable to take any more of this. “You should have warned us in the letter from your lawyer that this visit was really about Trace.”
“Your brother was murdered! I would think something like that would give even you pause,” her mother said, making Virginia stop in midstep on the way to the door.
Even her? As if she had no feelings. Her mother didn’t know. Her mother knew nothing about what she’d been through. As if Pepper was the only one who’d lost a child.
“I was sorry to hear about it,” Virginia said, turning again to face her mother. “I already told you that, Mother. What about your children who are still alive? The ones you didn’t protect when they were young? Aren’t we deserving of your attention for once, given what you let happen to us?”
The accusation hung in the air between them, never before spoken. Pepper’s expression didn’t change as she got to her feet. If Virginia hadn’t seen the slight trembling in her mother’s hand as she reached for her cane, she would have thought her words had fallen on deaf ears.
“You are so transparent, Virginia,” her mother said, as she brushed past. “Don’t worry, dear. Your trip won’t be wasted.”
MCCALL STOOD IN THE DUST, staring at the makeshift camp, hating the feeling this place gave her. Her deputies had gone only a few miles along the riverbank before they’d come across it and the tree where the limb had broken off and fallen into the water.
This was where they had camped. From the footprints in the mud and dirt around the area, there’d been three of them. One man, two women.
A breeze blew down the river, ruffling the dark green water. She caught the putrid odor of burned grease rising from the makeshift fire pit ringed in stones. Someone had recently cooked over the fire. A pile of crumpled, charred beer cans had been discarded in the flames and now lay charred black in the ash. Little chance of getting any prints off the cans, but still a deputy was preparing to bag them for the lab.
“We followed the tire tracks up from the river through the trees,” one of the other deputies said, pointing to the way the campers had driven down the mountainside to the river. “They came in through a farmer’s posted gate on a road that hadn’t been used in some time.”
“You think they lucked onto it or knew where they were going?” she asked. The narrow dirt road had led to this secluded spot, as if the driver of the vehicle had wanted privacy for what he had planned. If he’d just wanted to camp, he would have gone to the campground down by the bridge.
“If he knew about the road, then that would mean he could be a local,” the deputy said. “I say he lucked onto the road, figuring it ended up at the river.”
Like him, she didn’t want to believe whoever had hung two people was from the Whitehorse area. Or worse, someone they knew. Who really knew their neighbors and what went on behind closed doors?
McCall had learned that there were people who lived hidden lives and would do anything to protect those secrets.
She watched as a deputy took photographs of the dead tree with the broken branch at the edge of the bank, watched as another made plaster casts of both the tire prints and the footprints in the camp.
“Sheriff?”
She was starting