Before Memories Fade Read online

  Praise for New York Times bestselling author

  B. J. Daniels

  “You won’t be able to put it down.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Jodi Thomas on Heartbreaker

  “Daniels is a perennial favorite on the romantic suspense front, and I might go as far as to label her the cowboy whisperer.”

  —BookPage on Luck of the Draw

  “Daniels keeps readers baffled with a taut plot and ample red herrings, expertly weaving in the threads of the next story in the series as she introduces a strong group of primary and secondary characters.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Stroke of Luck

  “Daniels again turns in a taut, well-plotted, and suspenseful tale with plenty of red herrings. Readers will be in from the start and engaged until the end.”

  —Library Journal on Stroke of Luck

  “Readers who like their romance spiced with mystery can’t go wrong with Stroke of Luck by B.J. Daniels.”

  —BookPage

  “Daniels is an expert at combining layered characters, quirky small towns, steamy chemistry and added suspense.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Hero’s Return

  “B.J. Daniels has made Cowboy’s Legacy quite a nail-biting, page-turner of a story. Guaranteed to keep you on your toes.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  Before Memories Fade

  B. J. Daniels

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  “WHAT DO WE even know about her?” Vi Mullen demanded of the women gathered at the Buckhorn Café that bright late summer morning.

  “Gertrude?” asked Clarice Barber in an appeasing tone, the one she used when she didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Gertrude Durham had recently taken over the only garage and gas station in town. “She could be nicer to people. She’s a little cranky.” That voice was like fingernails on a blackboard for Vi.

  Mabel Aldrich quickly agreed in a whisper even though the only people in the café this early in the morning were the women sitting in this large booth. Local women had been meeting there for decades to play cards, gossip over coffee and pie or knit or crochet while they visited.

  Vi usually didn’t join them, saying she was too busy, which she knew had been fine with everyone. She found their senseless chatter annoying and a waste of time. “The point is, we know nothing about her and she’s living here in the same town with us.”

  “I’ve never seen her in anything but those awful baggy green overalls and a worn-out flannel shirt,” Lynette Crest said, as if completely missing the point. “And she should do something with her hair. It’s so wiry and wild. That trucker’s cap she’s never without doesn’t help matters. But she is a mechanic who works on cars, so what would you have her wear?”

  Exasperated, Vi sighed. “I’m not talking about how she looks or dresses. Who is this woman? What do you know about her?”

  “What is there to know?” Mabel said, dismissing Vi’s concerns, but at least getting back to the point. “Gertrude inherited the gas station from her nephew, Fred, rest his soul. What more do we really need to know?”

  It was that kind of blind ignorance that drove Vi wild. “We only have her word that she’s even Fred’s aunt.”

  “She was at his funeral and his son Tyrell’s,” Clarice said as if that proved anything.

  Vi wondered why she’d bothered as Bessie Caulfield came out of the kitchen with a fresh pot of coffee and announced the blueberry muffins would need only a few more minutes in the oven.

  After Bessie left, Vi resumed her questioning before the women could start talking about baked goods. “Have any of you heard anything at all about Gertrude’s past?” There was a general shaking of heads around the table. “Well, don’t you think it’s odd that she’s so secretive about it?”

  “Some people just don’t like to talk about themselves,” Clarice said in that annoying placating voice.

  Vi knew for a fact that Gertrude wouldn’t even answer the simplest questions like where she’d been living, what she was doing before she took over the garage, if she’d ever been married or had children—and she said as much to the women gathered. “She evaded all of my questions when she came in to buy groceries at the store. Tell me that’s not odd.”

  Everyone grew quiet for a moment. “Some people are just private,” Lynette said cautiously.

  Vi scoffed at that. Some people just had something to hide. She could tell a lot about a person by the groceries they bought. She hated to think how much she knew about the women sitting at the table this morning. But she kept that to herself.

  Gertrude bought only the basics. Eggs, milk, bread, some fruit and only very little meat. But she bought a lot of canned cat food. Did she even have a cat?

  “She’s not on any social media that I can find either.” Vi saw that all these old hens were about to say that they wished they’d never gotten on Facebook and that they certainly didn’t tweet. She quickly cut them off with “I offered her a box at the post office and she declined, saying she’d use Fred’s old one for the garage. Who doesn’t get mail? Tell me that isn’t strange.” As she glanced around the table, all she saw were blank looks.

  “I wish I didn’t have a post office box,” Rose Hanson said. “All I get is junk mail.” The others quickly agreed. “No one writes letters anymore. Remember when we used to get long newsy letters?”

  “And postcards from friends and relatives when they were traveling,” Mabel said wistfully. “Back when a stamp cost a couple of pennies.”

  The conversation took off from there, covering everything from when conditioner used to be called cream rinse and you could buy a candy bar for a nickel. “A good-sized candy bar too,” Lynette added.

  Vi told herself she should have walked on by the café this morning. But when she’d seen the neighborhood ladies of a certain age all gathered inside something had made her want to join them. She’d missed female friendship, although it was like missing a limb she’d never had.

  As she got to her feet, the conversation veered off to an air-fryer recipe someone had seen on Pinterest. Vi sighed, feeling like an alien on an uninhabitable planet. No one paid her any mind as she left.

  Once outside, she looked down the strip of two-lane blacktop that cut through the middle of Buckhorn, Montana. There were businesses on each side, some of them already getting ready to close. This time of year the tourist season was winding down. By Labor Day it would be over until Memorial Day. Soon businesses would be boarded up with See You in the Spring signs on them as winter swept in.

  A gust of wind kicked up dust, whirling it past before disappearing down the highway. Vi blinked as the sky darkened to the west. The weatherperson was calling for a late thunderstorm. Dust motes still danced in the air as she settled her gaze on Durham’s Garage and Gas, the only garage and gas station for miles.

  The light was on in the small house behind the business. The day after the funeral, Gertrude had moved in and risen early the next morning to begin painting the house a light yellow with white trim. From as far back as Vi could remember the house had been the same dark green as the gas station. The large, gray-haired woman of indiscriminate age had done the painting herself. It had taken her five full days.

  Vi thought of that old expression about watching paint dry. Locals had watched with fascination as the job progressed. Sometimes it was downright sad how little happened in Buckhorn.

  Pulling up her collar, she started down the street toward her general store. It was about time to open up, although business would be slow. She didn’t mind all that much.

  With a laugh, she realized that she possibly had too much time to think—and worry. Not that she was wrong about Gertrude Durham. Vi believed in following her instincts, and right now hers were telling her there was something about the woman that wasn’t right.

  No matter what anyone thought, she intended to find out what Gertrude was hiding.

  * * *

  AT THE YELLOW HOUSE, Gertrude Durham stood to the side of the window watching Vi Mullen come down the street. Earlier she’d seen a gaggle of local hens headed for the café and to her surprise Vi Mullen not far behind them. Vi usually didn’t join the women. It made her wonder what was different this morning.

  The woman had been a thorn in her side since she’d arrived in Buckhorn. Always asking about things that were none of her business. The truth was that Vi made her nervous. So much so that Gertrude had gone up to her bedroom earlier, shoved aside the bed and the rug, and opened the trapdoor just to make sure nothing had been disturbed.

  It was ridiculous and she cursed herself for letting the busybody make her doubt herself. But better to be safe than sorry. The metal container was just as she’d left it, locked and undisturbed. Her traveling bag with two guns, ammo and several passports in several different names was also where she’d left it. She could leave at a moment’s notice if it became necessary. That thought always came as a relief.

  She’d closed the trapdoor, replaced the rug and shoved the bed back.

  But now, watching Vi Mullen make her way dow
n to the general store, she still didn’t feel safe. Across the room, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the large old mirror on the wall. She avoided mirrors. All but that one had come down the day she’d moved in. She’d tried to remove it, but the screws had been painted over years ago. She was going to have to pry it off the wall and then repair the plaster so she’d put it off. But she had to tackle the job soon. It bothered her seeing a woman she didn’t recognize reflected in the glass.

  Work. That was what kept her sane. And right now she had to get to the garage. Mabel Aldrich needed a new water pump in her old Lincoln. Gertrude had promised she’d do it today. But first she had to put new spark plugs in Lars Olson’s pickup and tune it up for him. The new water pump was supposed to be delivered before nine. She liked Mabel—not that she trusted anyone. Her own fault after years of being on the run.

  Dressed in her usual steel-toed work boots, baggy green overalls and one of a half dozen flannel shirts that had belonged to her nephew, Fred, she pushed her trucker’s cap down over her head of riotous thick gray hair. She enjoyed the work and often thought how lucky she was that her nephew had left her this place. Just as she was grateful that her father had wanted a son. Because of that, he’d taught her everything she needed to know about fixing just about anything.

  Someone else had taught her about being a woman.

  The unwanted thought of Ike Shepherd was quickly shoved away as she walked the short distance to the garage and went to work.

  CHAPTER TWO

  GERTRUDE DURHAM WASN’T the only new face in town, Vi recalled before she reached her general store. Someone was taking over the old hair salon.

  Buckhorn had been the same for so long, it seemed strange to see new people in town opening businesses in formerly empty buildings—especially one opening this late in the tourist season. She stopped in front of a building that had been empty for a few years—until now.

  Lately Buckhorn had started to grow for no apparent reason that Vi could make out. Her family had settled here back in the 1800s, bought up a lot of the land and opened some of the first businesses. She still owned the general store, the antique barn and a sizable amount of land.

  As she peered in the front window, she saw a young woman with short spiky dark hair come out of the back carrying an armful of supplies.

  The woman, who looked to be in her late twenties to early thirties, saw her, smiled and nodded toward the front door in invitation. Vi figured it wouldn’t hurt to introduce herself and, opening the front door, stepped in.

  “Good morning,” the young woman said brightly as she began to place the supplies on a shelf behind the salon chair. She wore a sleeveless top, a large elaborate tattoo on one upper arm. Vi doubted it was her only tattoo. A half dozen piercings in her ears suggested that the woman had other piercings in places Vi cringed to even think about.

  “Let me guess. Vivian Mullen, right?” the young woman said.

  “Apparently my reputation precedes me,” she said, getting a laugh.

  “I asked around and was told if I had any questions or needed something to ask you.”

  “I’m the person to talk to,” Vi admitted. As post mistress, she provided post office boxes to new residents, distributed advice and knew pretty much everyone in the county.

  Finished putting away the supplies, the young woman wiped her hands on her jeans and stepped forward to offer a hand. “Luna Declan.”

  “Luna?”

  “My grandmother’s idea. She was an old hippie.”

  The woman’s smile could have melted an iceberg, Vi thought. “Well, it’s nice to meet you. What brings you to Buckhorn?”

  Luna’s cell rang. “Sorry, I have to take this,” she said as she dug the phone out of her jeans pocket. “It’s my father. If I don’t answer, he’ll worry. I’ll come down to the store to see you later.”

  Vi nodded and headed for the door. Luna Declan seemed nice enough and she was someone who took her father’s calls. Relieved, Vi told herself that maybe she wouldn’t have to worry about this one.

  Unlike Gertrude Durham.

  * * *

  LUNA WATCHED VI leave as her phone rang again. She’d been expecting the call. She was pretty sure that he’d seen the newspaper article in yesterday’s Billings Gazette. The jewelry heist had made national news years ago but was now relegated to a back page. She’d torn it out and now had it stuffed in her jeans pocket.

  A museum jewelry exhibit heist years ago is about to come to a close as the statute of limitations runs out this week on the getaway driver.

  Two armed men entered the museum at closing, tied up the security guard and got away with over ten million dollars in rare jewelry. Both men were arrested but no longer had the jewelry on them. It is believed that they passed the jewelry to their getaway driver as they fled on foot from police. Both later died in prison but never gave up their accomplice.

  The driver, a woman according to surveillance cameras, has never been found. The getaway car was discovered torched, any DNA evidence lost. The FBI is still looking for the woman.

  In an odd twist, most of the jewels have turned up over the past few years in small churches across the country. One piece though is still missing. Since the heist getaway driver is the only one still alive, it’s believed that she has been leaving the jewelry at these out-of-the-way churches.

  Once the statute of limitations expires this week on the crime it is unlikely that she would be prosecuted if caught. The museum administrator said he still hopes she will turn in the diamond brooch—if she still has it. The brooch is valued at a half million dollars.

  * * *

  “WELL?” ASKED A GRUFF male voice as she answered the call on the fourth ring.

  “I just met the town busybody,” Luna said with a laugh as she glanced down the street after Vi.

  “Is she going to be a problem?”

  “Naw, I can handle her. Don’t worry, everything is going as planned.”

  “I still don’t like it,” he said.

  She sighed. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

  “Fine. You play it the way you want to. Just be careful. I hope I don’t have to remind you how dangerous this is.”

  “Nope,” Luna said as she stepped to the back of the shop where she’d hung up her leather jacket. Her weapon was inside, but in a pinch, she was also deadly with a can of hair spray.

  “When do you open?”

  “Tomorrow,” she said. “I put an ad in the local online weekly newspaper offering specials. I also had some flyers printed. I’ll make sure she gets one. With luck, I’ll be able to lure her in.”

  “With the deadline on the statute of limitations, she’ll be suspicious and even more dangerous.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m hell with a pair of scissors.”

  “Don’t joke around.”

  “Dad, I’ve got this.”

  He sighed. “I know. But I’m allowed to worry about my daughter if I want to.”

  She chuckled. “You should be glad that I’m finally using the skills I learned on my gap year before college. I told you beauty college was worth every cent—not to mention all the years I spent at Mom’s salon from the time I could crawl. Like she always said, doesn’t hurt to learn everything I can so I have options. I rented this place for a song after the last beautician went broke here. It’s fate.”

  “Your mom wouldn’t like this,” he said, his voice even more gruff with emotion. “She never knew how dangerous retrieval work was. If she had known, let alone that now I’ve let you...”

  “I can do this. And when it’s over, who knows, maybe I’ll end up staying here and cutting hair the rest of my life.”

  “Your mother would have liked that. I just worry that you’re too much like me.” Behind her, she heard the door to the shop open and turned to see a cop filling the doorway. Her heart bumped in her chest at the glint of a star on his shirt. “I’d be happy to make you an appointment... Sure, just let me know what time works for you,” she said into the phone, and disconnected.

  She smiled at the lawman filling her doorway. He’d removed his Stetson and now held it by the brim in front of him. She recognized the uniform. Deputy marshal. He looked about her age, early thirties.