George came back to tell her that a man matching RJ’s description or a woman matching Josephine Vanderliner’s hadn’t come into emergency rooms in Whitehorse or Lewistown.
“So either he wasn’t hurt that badly or he hasn’t gotten to a place where he can get medical attention,” McCall said, glancing behind her into the tall pines. Vanderliner, she could only assume, was in the river.
She heard one of the search-and-rescue volunteers call her name. “Got something down here,” the volunteer called.
McCall worked her way down the river to where the volunteer stood next to something caught in a limb beside the water. She shone her flashlight on the object. A leather shoulder bag.
Squatting down and pulling on her latex gloves, she dragged the bag to her and opened it. A wallet. She focused her flashlight beam on the driver’s license inside—and the photograph of a pretty, ginger-haired young woman. The name was Josephine Vanderliner.
PEPPER STEPPED BACK from the window, trembling inside with rage and embarrassment. How dare they condemn her? Couldn’t they understand how devastated she’d been to lose Trace?
She brushed angrily at her tears. She wasn’t looking for their sympathy. Nor their understanding. And it was a damned good thing, because clearly she would get neither.
She felt the note she’d stuffed into her pocket and eased it out. The paper was yellowed. The dark splatters made her recoil. Angus’s suicide note. She didn’t have to open it to know that he was blaming her even from the grave.
What about the failings of his father? Where was their anger toward the man who had gone to such extremes, spoiling them rotten one moment and then punishing them by locking them in that third-floor room?
She thought of the young wife she’d been. The foolish young woman who’d let Call Winchester rule all their lives for way too long.
Funny, she was still acutely disappointed in him even after all these years. Her anger had eased as did her fear of him, she thought with no small amount of irony, but not her disappointment.
Was it any wonder that she had never trusted another man? Even Hunt McCormick. How different her life would have been if she’d run off with him like he’d wanted her to.
She shook her head at the very thought. She hadn’t been able to leave because of her children, children she should have protected from Call. All her children, not just Trace. But the older ones had always been Call’s children from the time they were born, and she’d felt so helpless against him back then.
The truth was she’d loved Call, trusted him to do what was best for all of them, even when it came to how their children should be raised.
She’d been blinded by that love.
Until Trace was born.
Pepper would never know what had changed. Maybe she’d finally seen Call for what he was, a bully. Or maybe she’d finally fallen out of love with him.
Either way, she’d been determined to save Trace from him. That struggle had definitely killed any love she had for her husband and had cost her the rest of her children.
Pepper knew that some people thought she was cold and heartless. They pointed to her reaction when Call hadn’t come back from his horseback ride more than forty years ago. She hadn’t been able to hide her relief that he was gone.
But her secret shame was that a part of her still loved the Call she thought she’d married. Just as a part of her still loved Hunt McCormick.
She started to unfold the note, bracing herself, but changed her mind and dropped the paper into the wastebasket. For a long moment she stood there, staring down at Angus’s last cry for help. The one thing she’d never been was a coward. At seventy-two, she couldn’t start now. She bent down to retrieve the note and carefully eased the paper open.
The words were scrawled and almost illegible. The handwriting of a child. Or a terrified, sick man.
I’m so sorry, Mother. Forgive me. I forgive you. Angus.
She crumpled the note in her fist, suddenly unable to catch her breath or stem the flow of tears. Her body jerked with the shuddering sobs that rose up in her. It was all she could do not to scream out her anguish.
Pepper didn’t hear the door open behind her.
“I thought you might need something,” Enid said, making her spin around in surprise. Enid held a teacup and saucer.
Pepper could smell the strong tea, strong to cover up the drugs her housekeeper had been systematically and surreptitiously giving her for years. At first Pepper hadn’t noticed, she’d been so grateful for the oblivion. She assumed it made Enid’s job easier having Pepper either out like a light or so docile she wasn’t any trouble.
But after learning about Trace, things had to change. She needed her wits about her. She also needed to be more careful when it came to Enid.
She quickly turned her back to Enid, stepping to the window to hastily dry her tears and pull herself together. Enid was the last person she wanted seeing her like this.
She heard the elderly housekeeper set down the cup and saucer on the end table by the bed and move to join her at the window. Enid pulled back the curtain wider to see what Pepper had been looking at out the window.
She smiled smugly as she saw what Pepper did—Jack and Josey walking arm in arm toward the house.
“I brought you up some chamomile tea to help you sleep.” Enid motioned toward the cup she’d put down beside Pepper’s bed.
“You are so thoughtful,” Pepper said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm in her tone.
“Yes, aren’t I,” Enid said and turned to leave. “Good night.”
“Good night,” Pepper repeated, just wanting the woman to leave her room.
“Drink your tea while it’s hot.”
She bristled. “Please close the door
