"Polly?"
"That girl, with the brown hair, I want to buy her a drink." He slipped a coin to the barmaid.
"I'll send her right over."
"Anything yet?" Jessica lay across the bed reading over the list of names Adam had brought from the railway station. She'd been studying them so long that her eyes were beginning to blur.
Adam sat on the floor, bare chested, sheets of paper spread out around him. "Nothing under Caine, nothing like Caine. Botwell, Buckworth, Cadwell, Casper."
She sighed. "This isn't going to work."
"Just keep looking."
She rolled onto her back. "Let's get something to eat. Maybe get some fresh air. I'm feeling fenced in."
"I thought you liked the running water."
"I can't see the stars. I can't breathe for all these pink ruffles!" She lifted the bedcovers and let them drift to the bed.
"I'll be damned," Adam breathed.
Jessica rolled over. "What?"
"I'll be goddamned!"
"What is it?" She crawled off the bed and went to kneel beside Adam. He tapped a name in a long list of names.
"Lawrence . . ."
"What? Move your finger. I can't see. Lawrence? Toby Lawrence?"
"Don't you get it, Jess?" His black eyes met hers. "Lawrence—Larry."
"So where does Toby come from?"
Adam smiled. "There's the trick of it. Toby Caine is Larry's long lost brother, residing in Seattle."
Jessica let out a squeal and threw her arms around Adam. "You did it!"
"It says right here. Toby Lawrence took a train two weeks ago. Destination—"
"Seattle!" she shouted.
"Smart girl."
Jessica pushed aside the papers and dropped into his lap. "You're the one who figured it out. Guess I picked the right partner, didn't I?"
Chapter Nineteen
The moment Jessica stepped out into the hallway the following morning, she heard the commotion downstairs in the hotel lobby. She could hear men and women in heated discussion, but she couldn't make out what they were saying. She had half a mind to look for a back way out of the hotel. After what had happened yesterday, she had no use for crowds.
Adam came out of the suite and locked the door behind him. "What the hell's going on down there?"
She dropped her hands to her hips, giving a shrug. "I don't know, but we haven't got time for it if we're going to make a train out of here today."
"I can hear that writer friend of yours from here. Sure you wouldn't like to give an interview before we head for Seattle?" He grinned.
"No interviews," she snapped.
"What's the matter? Fame not what you thought it would be?"
"I didn't ask for fame. I'd have let the murderer get away if I'd known people were going to be banging on our door in the middle of the night asking for autographs!"
Adam dropped a kiss on the top of her head, inhaling the fresh, clean scent of her hair. "Come on then, Miss Sharpshooter. Let's see what the fuss is and then we'll be off on our business."
Reluctantly, Jessica followed Adam down the grand staircase and into the lobby. "What's this all about?" he demanded. The room was filled with citizens dressed in their Sunday-best, arguing and snapping at each other. They spilled out of the lobby and into the plush parlor where midmorning tea was being served.
Barton came from behind his polished desk, puffing up with self-importance. "Haven't you heard, Deputy Marshal? Gads, you folks sleep hard! There's been a horrendous murder right here in our fair city of Pocatello!"
"Murder? Who?"
"One of the dance hall girls," Barton answered. "It happened not three blocks from here."
"Atrocious murder." Lansing stepped from the crowd, pad and pencil in hand. "Grizzly murder. I'd like to hear your comments, Deputy Marshal. Yours as well, Miss Landon." He poised his pencil.
Adam swore beneath his breath. There was so much noise, he could barely think. "My comments!" He gave a humorless chuckle. "I don't have any comments because I don't know anything about the crime."
"She was nothing but a whore," a gentleman in a brown plaid coat commented dryly. "It's gals like that that keep the church pews empty on Sunday mornings. Good riddance, I say."
A large bosomed woman pushed her way up to the gentleman in the plaid coat. "You just shut your mouth, Henry Watkins. It's a whore today, your precious buck-toothed daughter tomorrow! I say none of us is safe as long as that killer stalks the fine streets of Pocatello!"
"Stabbed her," Lansing went on, turning his attention back to Adam. He scribbled on his pad of paper and flipped a page. "Multiple stab wounds. Crime of passion, I'd say. Wouldn't you, Miss Landon?"
Jessica glanced up at Adam, then back at Lansing. She'd lost patience with this man. "I wouldn't know, Mr. Lansing. I'm not involved in the investigation and I don't intend to get involved."
Lansing wrote as fast as Jessica spoke.
"These people are here because they want something done." Barton injected. "They don't want a deranged murderer stalking their streets. Pocatello's a decent city."
"Damned right, we want something done," a cattleman near the doorway hollered.
Adam shifted his weight from one boot to the other. "I'm sure your sheriff is quite competent."
"Competent, hell," the cattleman went on. "Pardon me, ladies." He looked back to Adam. "He's too busy doing paperwork to even hear us out."
"They want to hire a decent lawman," Barton explained. "They'll pay—in gold, of course."
Adam put up his hands in defense. "You've got the wrong man. I work for the Union Pacific. I'm not for hire."
Barton glanced at Adam sheepishly. "No offense meant, Deputy Marshal, but these folks were thinking more on the lines of hiring Miss Landon."
Jessica gasped.
Adam couldn't resist a chuckle. "I don't know about that. You'd have to ask her. Of course I don't know that I could spare her. This is an awful tough man I'm tracking. Up to this point, she's been invaluable in my investigation."
Jessica flashed Adam an angry glance. "Good God, no. I'm not for hire. I'm not a lawman."
"You captured that murderer single-handed just yesterday, didn't you?" Lansing asked, pencil waving.
"Yes, well no, well . . ." She exhaled in frustration, looking to Adam for help.
Lansing licked his pencil point and wrote rapidly.
Jessica reached out and snatched the pencil from the dime-novelist's hand. "Will you stop writing!"
"Just trying to get the facts, ma'am. It's my job," Lansing argued defensively.
Jessica slammed the pencil down on his pad of paper. "Then get these facts, Mr. Lansing. I am not a lawman, I'm not a sharpshooter, and I do not intend to hire myself out to investigate some poor girl's murder."
"She was young, looked just like you." Lansing paused, pencil in midair. "Remarkable likeness, come to think of it. My God! Don't you care?"
A shiver of unexplained fear rose up Jessica's spine. Looked just like me . . . remarkable likeness . . . An image of Jacob flashed through her mind and she pushed it aside. What was wrong with her? She was being overly suspicious. Jacob had gotten a little rough with her on occasion, but he certainly wasn't capable of murder! And he wasn't in town! "Of course I care! But this case should be left to those with experience. The sheriff will get to the bottom of it."
"Right!" a slim man standing in the doorway to the parlor commented sarcastically. "Just like they got to the bottom of it in Blades."
"Blades?" Adam's eyes met the gentleman's across the room. He'd been in Blades only a few short weeks ago speaking with Sue Ellen. "What are you talking about?"
"Somebody stabbed and killed some poor chippy in Blades a few weeks back. We're all beginnin' to wonder if it weren't the same man. In both cases nobody saw nobody come or go. They just found her dead in the morning."
"Let's go," Jessica said to Adam. "We've got to get to the station and check the schedule. I don't want to miss our train."<
br />
Adam looped his arm through hers protectively. "All right," he said so that only she could hear. "But I want to go down to the sheriff's office and talk to him."
"You're leaving?" Barton hurried after Adam and Jessica as the crowd parted to let them through the lobby. "You're going to abandon us in our time of need, Miss Landon?"
Lansing followed in their footsteps. "Choosing to abandon justice for personal vendettas, Miss Landon?"
Jessica whipped around. "Personal vendetta, Mr. Lansing!" She laid her hand on his chest and gave him a hard shove. Barton caught him before he fell. His paper and pencil went flying.
"My fourteen-year-old brother had a hole the size of my fist blown through his chest." Her eyes narrowed dangerously as Lansing stared back at her looking as if he might cry. "Personal vendetta, Mr. Lansing? You're damned straight!"
"Whew!" Adam shook his head as he hurried Jessica out the door. "Remind me not to ever make you angry."
"Adam, this isn't funny."
He took her arm, patting her hand. "I know it isn't, sweetheart. I understand how you feel about your brother, about your privacy, but it's either laugh or cry sometimes, isn't it?"
"I just want to get out of this town. We can go today, can't we?" She hurried along the plank sidewalk, wanting to put as much distance between herself and the dime novelist as possible.
"If there's a train heading north leaving Pocatello today, we'll be on it. There are some advantages to working for the railroad."
She offered him a half smile. "I can go back to the newspaper and see if that man found anything on Caine, if you'll go to the train depot."
"You don't just want to tag along with me?"
She frowned. ''Adam Sern, I can take care of myself."
"All right. You go to the newspaper office two blocks down on Thorton Avenue while I'll get two train tickets. How about if I meet you up the street at that fancy clothing store on the right." He pointed.
"Fancy clothes? What in heaven's name do you need with a suit?"
"I just thought we might travel in style."
"What are you talking about? You already bought me a dress, and I'm going to pay you back for it."
He stopped on the sidewalk and kissed her. He wished he could kiss away the frown lines on her face, the fear lurking behind her eyelids. There was something Jessica wasn't telling him, about this town, about the murder of the girl . . . about something. "Just go on. I'll meet you in half an hour."
With a nod, Jessica set off in the opposite direction. The morning sun was hot on her face. The slight breeze was like the air rushing out of an oven, but it smelled pure and clean. It felt good to her to be outside, away from the thick carpets, bed ruffles, and toilet water odors of the hotel. The first night the bed had felt good beneath her, and the running water had been fun, but she was anxious to move on.
She turned the corner and crossed the street in front of a mule team pulling a wagonload of manure. She wrinkled her nose. From the smell in the air, the man was a pig farmer. She stepped aside a rain barrel and continued up the street. The reflection of a Winchester rifle in a window caught her attention and she stopped.
She touched the glass of the store window wistfully, thinking of Mark. Then she saw him. God, I'm imagining things now, she thought wildly. Not Jacob . . . not here! It was impossible! For a moment she was so paralyzed with fear that she couldn't move. She wanted to turn around, to prove to herself that it wasn't Jacob, that it was just a man who looked like him, but she couldn't. She knew it was him. Somehow, deep in the recesses of her subconscious, she had known all along that he was here in Pocatello.
As Jessica's initial shock and fear eased, they were replaced by anger. She watched Jacob in the reflection of the glass as he spoke to a man across the street. He was asking for directions.
How dare you! Jessica raged inside. How dare you follow me across the country! How dare you try to interfere with the one good thing that has come from Mark's death! She thought of Adam and the love they had shared in the last few days. This was what love was supposed to be—trust, independence, freedom to come and go as she pleased. Adam's love wasn't stifling like Jacob's had been. It wasn't cruel or manipulative.
Jessica was tempted to march across the street and confront Jacob Dorchester. Never in her life had she despised him as much as she despised him right now. She wanted to shout at him, to tell him to go away and never let her set eyes on him again. She wanted to tell him that she had never wanted to marry him, it had all been her father and his warped sense of responsibility. She wanted to tell Jacob that she wasn't a naughty girl who had run away as she had run away from him as a child. She wanted to tell him that she loved Adam Sern and that she wanted to marry him.
Jessica caught her lower lip between her teeth and bit down so hard that she tasted blood. What was she thinking! Marry Adam! Adam had never said anything about marriage! Of course she couldn't marry Adam. He had his job with the railroad. She had her saplings to retrieve and that orchard to get started.
She watched the startlingly handsome gray-haired Jacob tip his bowler hat to the man he had spoken to and then continue on his way. She watched him until he disappeared around the corner past a saloon and then she hurried in the direction of the newspaper office.
She wouldn't confront Jacob! She wouldn't give him the pleasure of trying to belittle her. She'd just take that train to Seattle. He'd never find her. He'd give up and go home to Tennessee and his fancy house and servants and she'd never hear from him again.
In less than an hour's time Jessica and Adam were inside Mrs. Colin's Clothier, laughing as Jessica modeled a stylish green and white flowered shirtwaist and forest green skirt. For the moment Jacob Dorchester was forgotten.
"It's beautiful," Adam told her. He sat on a rosewood settee, smoking a cigar.
Jessica waved at the smoke in the air. "I look silly and you stink! Where on earth did you get that cigar?" She stood in front of an oval floor-length mirror while Mrs. Colin fussed with the skirt's bustle. They were the only customers in the store.
"I got it from the sheriff and I think you're a picture of loveliness, don't you agree, Mrs. Colin?"
The dyed redhead flapped her hands wildly. "Saints alive, I don't believe I've ever seen a woman take to clothing so well."
Jessica turned sideways to study her reflection. "I look malformed. What did the sheriff have to say about the girl who was murdered?"
"I'll talk to you about it later. As for the womanly fluff, I believe the word is fashionable."
"Fashionable or not, some of these undergarments have got to go. I'll roast on the train!"
Mrs. Colin's mouth dropped open and she looked to Adam for support.
He took a puff of the smelly green cigar. "Don't look at me. If the lady says there's too much underclothing, there's too much."
"W—what do you propose we remove?" the shopkeeper stammered in shock.
Adam just laughed. "Ask the lady. And while you two settle this, I'll try on that mess you've got hanging in the changing room."
A few minutes later Adam returned.
Jessica brought her hand to her mouth. Adam looked so silly, yet so handsome at the same time. He had shed his dungarees, his cattleman's shirt, even his snakeskin boots. He was now wearing a finely cut, black serge, single-breasted suit. The coat was so well tailored that it made his broad chest look even broader. Under his arm he had tucked a black wool hat with a black ribbon band. He was as fashionable as Jacob Dorchester would ever be.
"And what may I ask are you laughing about, madam?" He popped his hat onto his head, tilting it at a cocky angle.
Jessica couldn't help herself. She bubbled with laughter. Was this truly the man who only a week before had worn nothing but a loincloth and face paint? God, she loved him.
Loved him. She smiled and opened her arms. Seeing Jacob Dorchester there on the street had made her realize that she did love Adam; she loved him more than life itself. But what she was going to do ab
out it, she didn't know.
Adam came to her and swung her into his arms.
"We look silly," Jessica protested. It felt so good to be in his strong embrace.
"We make a damned fine couple, don't we Mrs. Colin?" Adam asked dropping a kiss on Jessica's slender neck.
Mrs. Colin clasped her hands together. "A fine couple, indeed." She began to gather several dresses, skirts, and blouses Jessica had tried on. "So what will it be, Miss Landon?"
"All of it," Adam said with a sweep of his hand.
Jessica laughed. "We can't take it all. Remember, I don't have any m—"
Before she could finish what she was saying, he clamped his mouth down on hers. "You heard me, Mrs. Colin. We want all of it. And throw in some ribbons and whatever else it is women like. But we need it delivered to the train station within the hour. Miss Landon and I have a train to catch."
The shopkeeper gave a squeal of delight. She would make more in this sale than she'd made all summer. "It won't be easy, but it can be done, Mr. Sern."
"See that it is. We'll wear what we've got on." He steered Jessica toward the door. "But we want our old clothes. If you don't get my boots to me, we don't take any of it. I'll leave you half of the payment now, half at the station." He laid bills on a counter near the door.
"Thank you, Deputy Marshal, thank you," was all the redhead could say.
Adam tipped his hat and escorted Jessica in all of her finery out the door. "Shall we go, Miss Landon, I believe we have a train to catch."
All Jessica could do was laugh as the striking half-breed led her out of the shop and down the sidewalk.
Jacob caught sight of Lansing across the smoke-filled Double Aces dance hall and signaled him to approach.
Lansing hesitated, an uneasy feeling coming over him. He waved back, offering a stiff smile. A journalist like him couldn't turn anyone away. If the man said he had a story, he was worth listening to.
"Mr. Lansing." Jacob gave a nod. "So glad you could join me. A drink?"
Lansing shook his head, pulling up a stool to the table. He spoke quickly, as he always did. "Terrible thing, that young girl's murder," he said making polite conversation as he pulled out his pad of paper.
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