He was sure he could handle one petite PI with an attitudeâbut heâll need her help to solve the secret of his missing sister and outwit a ruthless killer
His family never fully recovered from the kidnapping of his siblings decades ago. Now Boone McGraw finally has a lead on his missing sisterâs location, but it means working with feisty private investigator C.J. West. Desperate to solve her partnerâs murder, C.J. doesnât believe her case could possibly be connected to the sexy horse breederâs investigationâ¦until they find themselves running for their lives.
Whitehorse, Montana: The McGraw Kidnapping
âBut if it was here, donât you think that whoever did this took the file with him?â the cowboy asked.
âActually, I donât. Look at this place. Iâd say the person got frustrated when he didnât find it. Otherwise, why trash the place?â
âYou have a point. But letâs say the file youâre looking for is about the McGraw kidnapping. It wouldnât be an old file since Hank called only a few weeks ago. When did he turn off his phone and electricity here at the office?â
C.J. hated to admit that she didnât know. âWeâve both been busy on separate cases. But he would have told me if he knew anything about the case.â He wouldnât have kept something like that from her. And yet he hadnât mentioned talking to the McGraw lawyer and her instincts told her that Boone McGraw wasnât lying about that.
That Hank now wouldnât have the opportunity to tell her hit her hard. Hank had been like family, her only family, and now he was gone. And she was only starting to realize how much he had been keeping from her.
She had to look away, not wanting Boone to see the shine of tears that burned her eyes. She wouldnât break down. Especially not in front of this cowboy.
B. J. DANIELS is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author. She wrote her first book after a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist and author of thirty-seven published short stories. She lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, and three springer spaniels. When not writing, she quilts, boats and plays tennis. Contact her at www.bjdaniels.com, on Facebook or on Twitter, @bjdanielsauthor.
This book is for Anita Green, who opened a quilt shop in our little town. There is nothing like sitting in her shop after a long day writing and dreaming of new projectsâboth writing and quilting.
Chapter One
Boone McGraw parked the pickup at the edge of the dark, deserted city street and checked the address again. One look around at the boarded-up old buildings in Butteâs uptown and he feared his suspicions had been warranted.
Christmas lights glowed in the valley below. But uptown on what had once been known as the richest hill on earth, there was no sign of the approaching holiday. Shoving back his Stetson, he let out a long sigh. He feared the information the family attorney had allegedly received was either wrong or an attempted con job. It wouldnât be the first time someone had tried to cash in on the familyâs tragedy.
But heâd promised his father, Travers McGraw, that he would follow up on the lead. Not that he believed for a moment that it was going to help him find Jesse Rose, his sister, whoâd been kidnapped from her crib twenty-five years ago.
Boone glanced toward the dilapidated building that reportedly housed Knight Investigations. According to the familyâs former lawyer, Jim Waters, heâd spoken to a private investigator by the name of Hank Knight a few times on the phone. Knight had asked questions that supposedly had Waters suspecting that the PI knew something more than he was saying. But Waters had never met with the man. All heâd had for Boone to go on was a phone number and an address.
The phone had recently been disconnected and the century-old brick building looked completely abandoned with dusty for-lease signs in most of the windows and just dust in others. No lights burned in the buildingânot that heâd expected anyone to be working this late.
Boone told himself that he might as well get a motel for the night and come back tomorrow. Not that he expected to find anything here. He was convinced this long trip from Whitehorse to Butte had been a wild-goose chase.
His father had been easy prey for twenty-five years. Desperate to find the missing twins whoâd been kidnapped, Travers had appealed to every news outlet. Anyone whoâd watched the news or picked up a newspaper over the past twenty-five years knew how desperate he was since each year, the amount of the reward for information had grown.