B.J. Daniels - Twelve-Gauge Guardian

That meant finding Raine Chandler, and getting the truth out of her.

AS RAINE DROVE THROUGH a residential neighborhood in Whitehorse, she pulled out her cell phone and hit a speed dial number, realizing she was calling in late.

“I was just about to call out the cavalry,” Marias drawled.

“Sorry, I’ve been a little busy.”

“Uh-huh.” Her friend had been against her coming to Whitehorse from the get-go. “What happened?” Marias knew her too well.

“I ran into a little trouble last night, but I’m fine.”

“They know you’re there already? ” Marias let out an unladylike oath. But then there was nothing ladylike about the biker-turned-cop-turned-P.I.

“Not a huge surprise under the circumstances. I’m not sure where I’m going to be staying so I might not be able to get Internet or cell phone coverage. Seriously,” she said when Marias snorted in disbelief. “Whitehorse is in the middle of nowhere and once you get outside the city limits, all bets are off when it comes to high-tech devices.”

“You’re leaving?” Just like Marias to latch on to that.

“No, just maybe staying outside town if I can find a place.” Up the block, Raine spotted a tan sedan like the one she’d seen behind the hotel this morning. The car was parked in front of the new hospital. Of course he would go see how his brother was doing and his brother would tell him everything.

He would find out she’d been telling the truth. She hoped that would be the last she’d see of the cowboy.

Unless, of course, he and his P.I. brother were somehow involved. What if the plan last night hadn’t been to kill her but to save her? She would have been indebted to Cyrus Winchester. Maybe something had gone wrong and instead of saving her, he’d ended up in the hospital.

And now his identical twin was putting the strong arm on her.

A little paranoid, are you?

No, just covering all her bases, Raine thought. “I promise to try to stay in touch.” She hung up before Marias could argue that this trip was nothing more than a suicide mission. If she only knew how complicated this had become.

Raine pulled over under a large tree next to a house just down the block from the hospital. This might be the perfect opportunity to check out the car—and the man driving it.

She was about to get out of the pickup when she saw the twin come out and climb into the tan mid-size sedan. It had rental car written all over it. At least she’d been right about the car being the same one she’d seen parked behind the hotel this morning.

Sliding down in her seat, she peered through the steering wheel as he pulled out and headed toward downtown. Where was he going? She decided to follow at a safe distance and find out.

She was surprised though when the trail led to the sheriff’s department. If last night’s attack had been a ploy, then this cowboy wouldn’t be going to the sheriff about it. He would want to keep all this as quiet as possible—and handle it himself.

She pulled over again and dialed information for Winchester Investigations in Denver, Colorado. The phone rang three times before a woman picked up and from the brisk way she answered, Raine guessed it was an answering service.

“I’m calling for Cyrus Winchester.”

“I’m sorry, he’s not available. Both Cyrus and Cordell Winchester are out of the office. If you’d like to leave a message—”

Raine hung up. Both Winchesters were private detectives? No way would a P.I. go to the cops unless he was on the up-and-up.

So what were they doing in Whitehorse?

THE WHITEHORSE COUNTY Sheriff’s Department was located along the main drag in an old brick building. As Cordell climbed out of the rental car, he scanned the street.

In the diagonal parking spaces were a half-dozen trucks in front of the various businesses from a couple of bars and a café to a clothing store, beauty parlor, hardware and a knitting shop. None of the pickups were his brother’s, though.

Inside the sheriff’s department, Cordell spoke first to the dispatcher.

“I’ll see if the sheriff is busy,” she said.

He watched the street while he waited, feeling anxious. His fear was that the woman who’d called herself Raine Chandler would flee town. Her VW had California plates on it. What was she doing in Whitehorse? Apparently not just passing through. He’d had the good sense to take down the car’s license plate, assuming it wasn’t stolen. He wouldn’t put anything past the woman given that she was toting a gun and clearly involved in something more than a near hit-and-run.

“Yes?”

He turned at the sound of a female voice to find an attractive dark-haired woman in a sheriff’s uniform. Her head was cocked to one side as she perused him, her lips turning up into an amused smile.

“Which one are you?” she asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m sorry. I’m McCall Winchester, acting sheriff. I recognized you from some photographs my grandmother showed me of you as a boy.”

He caught her name and couldn’t help frowning.

“Trace Winchester’s daughter,” she said.

He felt his eyes widen.

She let out a laugh. “Yes, I did turn out to be his daughter no matter what my grandmother said at the time. I’m the true black sheep of the family.”

Cordell smiled at that. “It’s a family of black sheep.”

“Why don’t we step back to my office?”

He followed her down the hallway, surprised that his cousin was the acting sheriff. She took a chair behind her desk and he settled into one of the others facing her. “My brother and I are up here because of our grandmother’s letter.”

McCall nodded. She didn’t look happy about it.

“I’m guessing she isn’t dying and wants something from us.”

“That would be my guess,” McCall agreed.

Cordell hadn’t come here to talk about his grandmother and didn’t give a damn what she was up to. He was too worried about Cyrus.

“Do you know about my brother’s accident?” He saw that she didn’t, probably because Cyrus hadn’t had any identification on him. Which meant either the woman took Cyrus’s wallet—or the van driver had stopped long enough to take it.

“Cyrus was attacked last night behind the Whitehorse Hotel. He’s in a coma at the hospital.”

“I’m so sorry. I’d heard a man had been injured and taken to the hospital but I had no idea it was your brother. The deputy on duty last night talked to the clerk who’d apparently called for an ambulance, but he said the only vehicle in the lot belonged to a woman.”

Cordell nodded, thinking of the woman he’d tangled with earlier at the hotel. “The woman took my brother’s pickup. She told me a crazy story about almost being run down by a person driving a dark-colored van. Her tire was flat on her VW, she said she was scared and saw Cyrus’s keys on the ground and took off.”

“So you talked to her?”

He looked away embarrassed that he’d let her go. “I was about to check her identification when she got away.”

McCall raised an eyebrow at that. “I suppose that explains the blood on your shirt. It’s yours?”

He looked down, not realizing some had dripped onto his sleeve. “She said her name was Raine Chandler, but I really doubt—”

“The VW bug with the flat behind the hotel is registered to a Raine Chandler of Los Angeles, California.”

So she had been telling the truth—at least about that.

“Do you have some reason to doubt her story?” the sheriff asked.

Did he? Just a gut feeling that she was leaving out a whole lot of it. “I’m not sure. But with Cyrus in a coma, she is the only one who knows what really happened last night.”