Classified Christmas

She got the impression he had been standing in the doorway for some time studying her.

His dark hair was wet, and water beaded on the dark curls of his chest hair that formed a V, disappearing into the towel wrapped around his slim hips.

“I’m sorry, the door was open,” she said quickly.

He was as big a man as she’d first thought, a few inches over six feet and broad at the shoulders. Solid looking, she thought. Not like a man who worked out. More like a man who worked.

He settled those dark eyes on her. Everything about him was dark.

“You’re new here,” Cade Jackson said, as if roping in his irritation. “You don’t know me, so I’m going to cut you some slack. Get out. I don’t know what your game is, Tex, but I’m not playing.”

Christmas Crime in Colorado by Cassie Miles & Nick of Time by Elle James

Christmas Awakening by Ann Voss Peterson & Beast of Darkness by Lisa Renee Jones

Safety in Numbers by Carla Cassidy & Christmas Confessions by Kathleen Long

Classified Christmas by BJ Daniels

Guardian’s Keep by Lori Devoti

Mission: Christmas by Lindsay McKenna & Susan Grant

BJ Daniels’s life dream was to write books. After a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist, she sold thirty-seven short stories before she finally wrote her first book. Since then she has won numerous awards, including a career achievement award for romantic suspense.

BJ lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, two springer spaniels, Spot and Jem, and an ageing, temperamental tomcat named Jeff. When she isn’t writing, she snowboards, camps, boats and plays tennis.

To contact BJ, write to her at PO Box 1173, Malta, MT 59538, USA, e-mail her at bjdanielsmystery@hotmail. com or check out her website at www.bjdaniels.com.

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This one is for Jody Robinson, for her encouragement and support and friendship.

Chapter One

This year was different. Cade Jackson couldn’t swear why exactly, just that he wasn’t anticipating the anniversary of his wife’s death with as much dread.

Maybe time did heal. Not that he didn’t miss his wife. Or think of her. Especially with the anniversary of Grace’s death only days away. He just didn’t hurt as much when he thought of her. Nor after six years did he think of her as often.

There was something sad about that, he thought, as he watched the other ropers from the top rung of the corral. The thunder of hooves raised a cloud of dust that moved slowly across the enclosed arena.

Outside, snow continued to fall, promising a white Christmas. He breathed in the comforting scent of leather and horses, both as natural to him as the lay of the land beyond the arena walls.

Snow-covered open prairie ran to the deep cut of the Missouri River as it wound its way through Montana, the dark outline of the Little Rockies that broke the horizon.

He felt as if he’d come of out of a coma. Everything looked and smelled and felt new and different. He’d missed a lot of holidays with his family, lost in that dark place that his grief had taken him. But this year he felt as if he might make it through the holidays without having to hide out at his cabin or in his ice-fishing shack until Christmas was over.

Cade felt an odd prickling just under his skin and looked toward the window. Snow fell in huge flakes that floated down blanketing the earth with both cold and silence. He frowned at the sudden sense of apprehension he’d felt just moments before. What had that been about?

He shook it off. He wasn’t going to let the old ghosts get to him. He was finally feeling as if he might make it.

ANDI BLAKE discovered a manila envelope on her desk when she got back to the newspaper from lunch. She’d spent her first morning at the Milk River Examiner cleaning off her predecessor’s desk, only a little unnerved by the fact that he’d been murdered, thus the opening.

Glen Whitaker hadn’t been neat. After boxing up all of his notes, she’d cleaned the desk, scrubbing away months if not years of grime.

She gave the envelope only a sideways glance as she slipped off her jacket and hung it over the back of her chair.

The envelope was addressed to her and had a Whitehorse postmark. Nothing unusual about that except for the fact that it was addressed to Andi West, the name she’d gone by as a television newscaster in Fort Worth, Texas.

She felt a shiver of trepidation. No one here knew her as Andi let alone Andi West. Her full name was Miranda West Blake. She had been named after her father, Weston Blake. He was the one who’d nicknamed her Andi.

To put Fort Worth and the past far behind her when she’d applied for this job though, she’d used Miranda Blake and now wrote as M. W. Blake.

She’d thought by moving to Whitehorse, Montana, and using her real name that she would be able to escape from the terror that had run her out of Texas. Had it followed her?

Her heart pounded. All her old fears came back in a wave of nausea. Was it possible there was nowhere she could get away from it?

Fingers trembling, she picked up the envelope, turning it in her fingers. The contents felt light. And the package didn’t sound like it was ticking. Something slid inside making her jump.

Her fear, though, gave way to anger. She was sick of being scared. She’d given up everything she loved because of some psycho. If he’d found her…

Taking out her letter opener, she sliced through one end of the envelope and carefully dumped the contents onto her desk.

She’d gotten enough of these at the television station that she knew what to expect.

A white cassette tape thudded to the desktop an instant before a piece of newspaper fluttered down beside it, surprising her.

She frowned and picked up the tape. It was file-card size. There was nothing written on it. She glanced at the CD player on her desk and wondered where she might find a cassette player that played this size tape.

Not that she would play it. She’d learned it was better not to listen to the calls although she’d read most of the letters before handing them over to the police. Except the police hadn’t been able to find her stalker let alone stop him or the threatening letters and calls.

Putting down the tape, she turned her attention to the other item from the envelope. As she unfolded the newsprint, she saw that it was a clipping of a local newspaper brief about a woman named Grace Jackson who’d died in a one-car rollover south of town.

She felt a wave of relief. Apparently someone thought the story warranted a follow-up. That’s all this was.

True it was odd because the accident had happened six years ago Christmas Eve.

But at least it wasn’t connected to Texas. Or her. She tried to relax.

Still the fact that it had been sent to Andi West bothered her. Who besides the newspaper publisher, Mark Sanders, knew her television name?

Just then Mark Sanders came in the door.

She held up the clipping and he took it from her as he walked by her desk, glanced at the story and handed the clipping back saying, “Yeah, that was real sad. They hadn’t been married long.” He started to walk off.

“Do you want me to do a follow-up?” she asked his retreating back.

He stopped to glance over his shoulder and frowned. “Can’t see any reason. It’s been what—”

“Six years,” she said.

“Right. No reason to bring it back up,” Sanders said.

“Someone sent it to me.”

“Just file it. You’re covering the Parade of Lights tonight, right? It’s a pretty big deal in Whitehorse. You sure you don’t mind shooting it, too?”

“No problem.” She didn’t bring up the name thing. It was possible, she realized, that Mark Sanders had told someone who she was thinking no one in Whitehorse, Montana, would care let alone cause her any trouble.

“I’ve got it covered,” she assured him, imagining what her best friend back at the television station in Fort Worth would say if he knew she was covering parades for a small-town weekly newspaper, taking the photographs as well as writing the stories.

She hadn’t talked to Bradley since she’d left Texas. Maybe she’d call him. She was sure he was probably worried about her since he’d tried to talk her out of coming up here. She missed him and hadn’t wanted to call until things were going better. She didn’t want to hear him say I-told-you-so. Even though he was right. She feared this move had been a huge mistake.

But she had some time to kill before the Parade of Lights and she really needed her friend.

“Hello?”

Just the sound of Bradley’s voice brought tears to her eyes.

“Hello?” The apprehension she heard in his voice surprised and worried her.

“It’s me,” she said quickly. “Are you all right?”

“Hey.” Instantly he sounded like his old self again. “I’m fine. I just thought it was someone else calling. I’ve been getting some obscene telephone calls. I might enjoy them if I was straight,” he said with a laugh. “I am so glad you called. I have been worried to death about you. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me.”

“No chance of that,” she said, tucking her feet up under her. It was almost like old times talking with him over a delivery pizza and old movies.

“So how bad is it?” he asked.

“It’s…interesting.”

“I told you not to take that job. You must be bored to tears. You haven’t been banished, you know. You can get on the next plane and be back in Texas in a matter of hours. I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

She laughed. It was tempting.

“So how horrible is it in the wild, wild West?” he asked. “You can tell me.”

“It’s freezing cold for starters.”

“I know. I confess I’ve been watching the weather. I knew you were going to freeze your cute little behind off.” He laughed. “Seriously, how are you?”

“Homesick for you, for warm weather, for Mexican food.” She smiled. “There isn’t any in Whitehorse.”

“Imagine that,” he said with a smile in his voice.

“So how are things at the station?”

“It’s been bloody hell. There was practically a revolt over your job even though everyone knew the position was only temporary.”

Her boss had promised to hold her job for six months.

“So who got it? Anyone I know?”

Bradley let out a dramatic sigh and she knew.

“Rachel,” she said. Rachel was as close a female friend as she’d had at the station. “I’m happy for her.”

“Oh, please,” Bradley said. “You can be honest. It’s me, remember?”

Andi laughed. It felt good. “You’re just jealous because she won’t let you try on her shoes.”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.” She hated to ask, but she had to. “Has the station received any more threats addressed to me?”

That telltale beat of silence, then, “I made sure they were turned over to the police.”

Hearing this surprised her. She’d thought the threats would stop once she wasn’t on the air anymore.

“I’ll bug the cops until they find this freak and lock him up so you can come home.”

She smiled through her tears. “You’re a good friend.” She hung up, glad she’d called him. She felt better about her decision to come to Montana. If the television station was still getting threatening letters for her, she was much better off being as far away from Fort Worth as she could get.

As she started to file away the news article about the woman who’d died in the single-car accident, she stopped to read it through again, still curious why anyone would have sent it to her.

The deceased woman, Grace Jackson, had apparently been driving at a high rate of speed when she’d lost control of her car south of town. The car had rolled numerous times before landing in a ravine where it had caught fire.

As she had the first time she’d read it, Andi shuddered at the thought of the poor woman being trapped in the vehicle and burning to death. There were so few vehicles on the roads up here and miles between ranches let alone towns. Even if the car hadn’t burned, the woman probably would have died before someone had come along.

According to the article, Grace Jackson had been married to a Cade Jackson. Wasn’t the sheriff’s name Jackson? Carter Jackson, as she recalled from reading back papers to familiarize herself with the town.

She wondered if Cade and Carter were related. Pretty good chance given their names. The sheriff’s name had come up quite a lot in the news—including the murder of the reporter who’d had this desk, Glen Whitaker.

She looked again at the manila envelope the newspaper clipping and tape had come in, checking to make sure there wasn’t a note that she’d missed. Nothing. The envelope had been mailed in Whitehorse so at least it was from someone local.

She filed the story, still a little anxious, though, that at least one person in town knew her other name.

As she pocketed the cassette tape, she wondered where she could find a tape player.

THE PARADE of Lights definitely was an event in Whitehorse, Montana. Andi stood on a curb with the rest of the county that had turned out, everyone bundled up for the cold, snowy December night, as one homemade float after another cruised by.

The air was filled with excitement, the stores along the main street open and lit brightly for the event. The smell of Christmas trees, hot cider and Native American fry bread wafted in the chilly air.

The streets were packed with not only townspeople, but also apparently ranchers and their families had come in from miles around for the event.

Andi shot a dozen photographs of the floats, surprised at how many there were given the temperature and how much work had gone into some of them.

She liked the small-town feel, which surprised her. It felt like an extended family as she heard people visiting and calling greetings from the floats.

Just as she was finishing up, she heard someone call out, “Cade!”

She looked up to see an attractive woman waving from one of the floats. Andi followed the woman’s gaze to a man leaning against the building yards to her right. She could see only his profile, his face in shadow under the brim of his Western hat, but he was tall and all cowboy. He wore boots, jeans, a sheepskin coat and a Stetson, the brim pulled low, dark hair curling out from under the hat at his nape.

From the way he stood, back in the shadows, she got the impression he had hoped to go unnoticed.

Cade Jackson? The husband of the deceased woman from the newspaper clipping?

Andi lifted the camera and impulsively snapped his photograph. As she pulled the camera down, he disappeared into the crowd.

Cold and tired, she returned to the newspaper office just down the block, anxious to get her photographs into the computer. Warmer, she decided to go ahead and write up her story even though it was late.

She knew she was just avoiding the small apartment she’d rented on the other side of town. It wasn’t far from the newspaper given that Whitehorse was only ten blocks square. She usually drove to work out of habit more than necessity, although she didn’t relish walking through all the snow.

The apartment was small and impersonal to the point of being depressing. In time she would make it hers, but right now she preferred the newspaper office to home.

After she put in the photographs and wrote cutlines for each, she sat down at the computer to write an accompanying article.

Her mind wandered, though, and she found herself calling up the photograph of the cowboy she’d seen on the main street tonight, the one the woman had called Cade. How many Cades could there be in Whitehorse?

The publisher had said Cade Jackson and his wife, Grace, had only been married a short period of time before her death. That meant there should be a wedding announcement in the file, she thought, unable to shake her curiosity as to why someone had sent the cassette and clipping to her.

Five minutes later, she found the wedding announcement and photo. The two had married November 14—just weeks before her death.

Andi studied the photograph of the groom, comparing it to the one she’d taken of the cowboy she’d seen on the street tonight. Cade Jackson. The two were one and the same.

The cassette was still in her pocket. Now more than ever she was anxious to find a player and see what was on the tape.

Intent on the cowboy, Andi finally looked at the wedding photo of the bride, Grace Browning Jackson. Her mouth went dry, her heart a hammer in her ears.

She knew this woman.

Except her name hadn’t been Grace Browning. Not even close.

Chapter Two

Andi Blake stared at the photograph, telling herself she had to be mistaken. But she knew she wasn’t.

It was Starr, she’d stake her life on it. Starr Calhoun wasn’t someone she could have forgotten even if the first time Andi laid eyes on her wasn’t indelibly branded on her memory. They’d both been only young girls. Andi remembered only too well the look they’d shared before all hell broke loose.

And it wasn’t as if Andi hadn’t seen Starr Calhoun since, she thought with a chill.

It made sense, Starr masquerading as this Grace Browning woman and marrying a local yokel. Starr Calhoun had been hiding out here, using marriage as a cover, waiting. Waiting for what, though?

Her brother Lubbock! He’d been arrested only an hour away from Whitehorse six years ago. She felt a chill as she realized she was meant to come here. As if it had always been her destiny. As if Starr Calhoun had called her from the grave.

She shivered and glanced toward the front window of the newspaper office along the main street, suddenly feeling more than a little paranoid.

A few shoppers straggled past. The Christmas lights still glowed in the park across the street by the train tracks. Next to the old depot, a half dozen passengers waited by their suitcases. Whitehorse’s depot had closed years ago, but a passenger train still came through. Passengers had to call for tickets and wait outside until the train arrived.

Andi got up and closed the front blinds, doublechecking the front door to make sure she’d locked it.

It didn’t take her long to find a more recent photograph of Starr Calhoun on the FBI’s most wanted list. She printed the photo, standing over the printer as it came out. The copy wasn’t great. But then the original had been taken from a bank surveillance camera.

That had been six years ago August. Wearing masks and carrying sawed-off shotguns, a man and woman had robbed a series of banks across Texas amassing an estimated three million dollars over a two-week period.

During what turned out to be their last robbery, there had been an altercation and the mask Starr Calhoun had been wearing was pulled off by a teller exposing her face to the surveillance camera.

A warrant had been issued for Starr Calhoun, but she and her accomplice had gotten away and had never been heard from again. Nor had the money been recovered.

The accomplice was believed to be her brother Houston Calhoun, a known criminal who’d done time for bank robbery.

The Calhoun family shared more than their distinctive pale blue eyes and curly auburn hair. Nor was the robbery six years ago the first time Starr Calhoun had been caught on a bank surveillance video camera.

She was first filmed at the age of three when her infamous parents Hodge and Eden Calhoun hit a bank in Orange, Texas, with all six children in tow ranging in age from fifteen to three.

Hodge and Eden had eventually been caught, their children put into foster care and scattered to the wind.

Andi made a note to find out the latest on the rest of the Calhouns. At least she had a good idea where Starr had disappeared to, she thought, studying the wedding photograph.

She couldn’t help the small thrill she felt. Her instincts had been right. As a reporter, she’d made a point of keeping track of the infamous Calhoun family. Whenever a news story from any part of the country mentioned one of the Calhouns, her computer flagged the story for her.

That’s how she’d seen the article about Starr Calhoun being ID’d in the bank surveillance tape six years ago. Also the lesser story about her older brother Lubbock Calhoun being arrested not long after that.

She’d forgotten about where Lubbock had been arrested, though. It wasn’t until she’d been looking for a job away from Fort Worth that her job search had popped up a newspaper reporter position in Whitehorse, Montana, on her computer and triggered the memory of Lubbock’s arrest.

Too excited to wait until she saw him the next day, she had called her friend Bradley. Bradley Harris worked in fact-checking at the news station. The two had become good friends almost at once. He loved Tex-Mex food and old movies and was safe because he was gay and Andi didn’t date men she worked with. Actually she didn’t date at all—too busy with her career, she told herself.

“Why Montana? It sounds like a one-horse town,” Bradley had joked when she’d told him about the job, leaving out the part about Lubbock being arrested near there. “Surely there is somewhere closer you could disappear to. Wait a minute.” He knew her too well. “How close is this town to where Lubbock Calhoun was arrested?”

Bradley was one of the few people who knew about her interest—or obsession as he called it—in the Calhoun crime family. She’d thought he wouldn’t make the connection.

Reluctantly she’d showed Bradley on a Montana map on her computer. Lubbock Calhoun had been arrested for an outstanding warrant in a convenience store in Glasgow, Montana, six years ago—an hour away from Whitehorse.

“I think it’s a sign I should check into this job,” she said and waited for Bradley to talk her out of it.

And Bradley had tried, pointing out that it had been six years, Lubbock was probably just passing through Montana, and “What could you possibly learn after all this time? Not to mention, you’ll be stuck in One Horse.”

“Whitehorse,” she’d corrected, the job having taken on more appeal with the possible Lubbock Calhoun connection.

“I’m worried about you and this thing with the Calhouns,” he’d said. She suspected he knew why they held such interest for her because he was the best researcher she’d ever known. But he never let on.

He’d finally given up trying to stop her, knowing how desperately she needed to get out of Fort Worth. And how she couldn’t turn down even a remote chance to learn more about the Calhouns.

Coincidence? Starr coming to Montana, marrying a cowboy from Whitehorse and Lubbock being arrested just miles away? No way. Andi felt her excitement building. There was a story here, the kind of story that had propelled Andi’s rise in broadcast news. That and her instincts when it came to investigative reporting.