“The M-M-McBride M-Menaces. This must be my l-l-lucky day.”
The way Big Jack slurred out his words cued Emma to the fact he was drunk. That and the eye-watering stink of whiskey. When he reached for the gun at his side and placed its barrel against her temple, she almost wet her pants.
The sounds coming from the house escalated, and Emma knew the people inside didn’t hear the drama taking place on the other side of the wall. Her gaze darted up the street, then down, as she prayed to see another pedestrian.
Big Jack growled. “The two of you over there behind the water barrel. I see you hiding. Don’t you know it’s bad luck to use a rain barrel for anything but catching water? Dries up rain for six weeks, it does. Now, you two get over here so I don’t have to hurt your sister. It’s an omen you fell into my hands tonight of all nights. An omen. I owe your new mama, you know. She brought grief to my family. Y’all bein’ here now is a sign I can finally pay her back.”
He gave Emma’s hair a vicious yank, and she yelped.
“Don’t hurt our sister!” Maribeth cried from behind the water barrel.
“Then get your butts over here.”
Slowly Maribeth and Katrina did as he asked. Emma heard Kat crying softly, and she wanted to yell at them to run. But to her shame, she couldn’t force her lips to form the words.
Big Jack Bailey’s gun hand remained steady, pointed to kill, as he said, “Come along. My wagon is back in the alley. Menaces, we’re going for a ride.”
***
EARLY-MORNING sunlight painted the eastern sky a candy-colored pink-and-gold when the welcome bell at The Confectionary rang with a jarring clang. “Claire!”
Her hands sticky with bread dough, she jerked her head toward the front of the shop. Tye? He sounded panicked.
She heard Brian say, “Hey, you can’t go back there.”
As she reached for a towel to wipe her hands, he rushed through the door. Fear knifed through her as she stared up into his anxious face. “What is it, Tye?”
“The girls,” he panted, his expression tight. “Please tell me they’re here, that you’ve seen them.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, no.”
His hands curled into fists. “Not at all this morning? Or last night?”
Claire’s father broke the silence he’d maintained since she had showed up at The Confectionary three hours earlier and refused to leave. “What is the reason for this disturbance? We have business here to run.”
She ignored her father and her brothers and asked, “Last night? Goodness, Tye, what’s happened? I haven’t seen the girls since they told me good night and went up to bed.”
He mouthed a curse, then heaved a heavy sigh, dragging a hand down his face. She could barely make out the words he muttered. “I don’t know what made me think I could take care of those children.”
She grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him out the back door, away from the Donovan males. “What happened? Tell me.”
A mockingbird sang from its rooftop perch as Tye clenched his fists, then flexed his fingers, then clenched his fists again. “I checked on them both times I came home last night. I saw three lumps under the covers and thought everything was fine. I should have known better. I had that feeling, but I thought it was you. And Ralph slept on the back porch last night instead of in Maribeth’s bed like usual. It slipped right on by me at the time. When I went to get them up for school this morning, I found pillows instead of people beneath the blankets. I searched the house. I searched the yard. I went to their school and the apartment and your shop. Where else should I look?”
Oh, no. Poor man. “Have they ever gone missing before?”
“Not from me, but I hear they did it to Trace a number of times.” He caught Claire’s arm and squeezed it. “The train station. Oh God, Claire, they’ve run away. That’s what they needed the money for.”
As he dropped her arm and pivoted toward the end of the alley, Claire said, “Wait. You’re jumping to conclusions. This is probably just one of their pranks and they’ll turn up safe and sound back at Willow Hill any time. As for the money, did you check the safe? Was it missing?”
“I didn’t think of it.” He grimaced and added, “I should have checked their room for clues, too. Trace said whenever they run off, they almost always leave something lying around that tells him where to look.” His manner distracted, he leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Thanks, Claire.”
As Tye took off down the alley in a loping run, she rushed back inside to wash her hands and strip off her apron. Those Menaces, God bless them, had offered her the perfect distraction from her own problems. She could use a break from the wall of silence the Donovans deployed as their weapon of choice this morning. She seriously doubted the girls were in danger. In fact, they probably had guessed their Uncle Tye was onto their little spelling bee caper and had chosen to go into hiding.
Claire knew Tye would worry until they were home safe and sound. He had helped her last night. As friend, neighbor, and woman he’d kissed senseless on his front porch, she could do nothing less than return the favor today.
She made quick time to Willow Hill. Under the circumstances, she didn’t bother to knock, but went straight inside and trailed the sounds of a search to Trace McBride’s office. Tye stood inside in front of an opened wall safe. The money bag Claire recognized from the night before lay open, its contents spilled across the desk-top. Tye’s head was bent as he counted the money. When he finished, he sighed and lifted his head.
Claire asked, “Is it all there?”
“I think some of it’s missing, but I can’t remember the exact amount.”
She did. She always remembered money. “Three hundred twenty-seven dollars and sixty-four cents.”
Tye dragged his fingers through his hair. “Then thirty dollars is missing. What would they want with thirty dollars?”
Claire shook her head, baffled.
For a long moment Tye’s harsh breathing and the tick of the mantel clock were the only sounds heard in the study. Then he swiped a hand across the desktop, sending bills flying and coins pinging to the floor. “Why did I think I was good enough to care for those precious little girls?”
Ralph bounded into the room and headed directly for Tye. He scooped the whining pup off the floor and absently scratched him behind the ears.
A thought occurred to Claire and she asked, “Did you check the mercantile? A music box in the window had Emma fascinated and that’s all she talked about one day last week in The Confectionary.”
“No,” Tye replied. “I didn’t go that far downtown. That’s a good idea. I’ll check the mercantile and every store on Main Street after I search their rooms. Maybe we could write out handbills to put up, too. Surely someone in this town has seen them.”
“I’m sure they’re fine. They’re just up to some mischief and you’ll discover what that is any time now.” Claire’s lips twisted in a sad smile as she watched Ralph crawl up Tye’s chest and lick him on the cheek. She wondered just who was comforting whom.
“You’re probably right,” Tye said, his gaze turning hopeful. “Tell you what, though. Would you come upstairs with me first? Perhaps a pair of feminine eyes would spy something important I might overlook.”
She followed him out of the office and up the stairs. Tye paused outside a bedroom door, explaining, “This is Emma’s room. They spend most of their time here. This month, anyway. Last month it was Maribeth’s. Trace says they all wanted their own rooms until they got them. It’s musical beds around here most nights, and I thought it peculiar when I came to wake them. It was my first clue something was wrong; they never stay in the same bed all night long.”
Emma’s room was a feminine fantasy. Pink organdy decorated the windows and draped the bed. Pink rosebuds adorned the wallpaper. Beautifully dressed china dolls stood on shelves that lined one wall. Claire wondered if Jenny McBride had sewn them for her stepdaughter.
Tye disturbed her musings by sayin
g, “Emma is the planner of the three. If any clue as to what they’re up to does exist I expect we’ll find it here.”
Claire took a seat at the vanity, pulled open a drawer, and considered the items inside. A hairbrush, a comb. Three pennies, a doll’s dress, and a bead necklace. Nothing out of the ordinary there.
Tye crossed to a rosewood wardrobe and pulled open the door. As he poked and prodded among the clothes, Claire heard him mutter, “I should have paid closer attention to the clothes they wear. I can’t tell if anything is missing. I should know what they’re wearing. The girls are my responsibility.”
Claire prayed they’d find a clue as to the Menaces’ whereabouts soon. She expected they’d turn up somewhere with a thirty-dollar prize of one sort or another hidden among their petticoats. In the meantime, however, Tye needed some reassurance. He looked as if he’d aged ten years overnight.
He finished his search of the wardrobe and moved to the window seat where a stack of pillows and books made a cozy little reading area. Claire continued her exploration of the vanity, pausing over the train schedule cut from the newspaper. Her pulse sped up. Surely this couldn’t be the clue they were looking for. Surely the Menaces hadn’t truly run off. What reason would they have for doing so? They certainly hadn’t appeared upset or in distress the previous night when they said good night.
Tye whispered an ugly epithet, catching Claire’s attention. He’d been searching a bookcase and now half a dozen books sat stacked beside him on a round table. In his hands he held a small cedar box, and even as she watched, it slid from his hands and fell to the floor with a bang, followed by a rain of white paper. But not all the paper fell. Tye held on to one sheet. Held on to it and crushed it, his knuckles gone white from the force of his grip.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Trouble,” he replied, his voice hoarse.
Crinkling the sheet into a ball, he drew back his arm and flung the paper at the trash can sitting in one corner. Then he slumped down onto the window seat and buried his face in his hands. “Serious trouble this time, I’m afraid. Thirty dollars, these letters, and three girls with more guts than good sense. I wonder how long this has been going on?”
“What have they done?” When Tye finally met her gaze, Claire swallowed a gasp. She’d never seen such fear on a man’s face.
“I think I just found Pandora’s box, Claire.” He nodded toward the trash can. “By the looks of it, the girls have taken the lid off. That was a letter to Trace, one of a pile from a Pandora that goes by the name of West. Beatrice West. She’s wicked and evil.” In a hollow voice he added, “And I’m afraid she has my Blessings.
Bad luck always comes in threes.
CHAPTER 10
TYE’S HEART POUNDED LIKE a locomotive’s pistons. He propped his elbows on his knees and let his head hang low. The letter had been an explosive charge that blew his past right into his present.
“Who is Beatrice West?”
Old pain and new fear combined to loosen his tongue and allow one of the skeletons to tumble from the McBride family closet. “The Blessings’ grandmother. Their blood grandmother.”
“Your mother?”
“No. Constance’s mother. It looks like she wrote to my brother and an attorney forwarded the letters. Constance left them property. I guess Trace was forced to deal in some way.”
“And Constance is…?”
Tye shuddered as the scene flashed before his eyes. Trace and Constance struggling. The sound of the shot. The dazed look on Trace’s face as he stared at the blood soaking his hands. The hatred blazing in his eyes when he turned and looked at Tye.
“Was,” he croaked. “Constance was the girls’ mother. She’s dead.”
Claire nodded. “I knew your brother had been a widower before he remarried. But the only grandmother I’ve ever heard the girls refer to was Jenny’s mother. Isn’t she traveling in Europe at the moment?”
“Yeah. That’s Monique. The girls have never met Beatrice.”
“So the letters are from the girls’ grandmother? She lives far away?”
He shook his head. “New Orleans. The girls must have stumbled across them somehow. I’ll bet Trace had them locked in his safe and they found them there. We know they have the combination, and Trace would never have mentioned Beatrice to the Blessings himself.”
“Why not?”
He didn’t have the time or the inclination to explain the entire story. One couldn’t summarize extortion, adultery, kidnapping, and betrayal in a few sentences. “I guess bad blood between the families is the simplest way to explain.”
She gestured toward the letter. “So why is that trouble? Does she threaten the children somehow?”
Almost against his will, Tye smoothed out the paper and scanned the page. His anxiety rose another notch when he reread one particular sentence. “She wants to see them.” Looking up, he shot a worried look toward Claire and voiced the fear ricocheting around his head like a bullet. “God, Claire. You don’t think they’ve run off to New Orleans to visit her.”
Claire’s reaction wasn’t at all what he had hoped to see. She winced as she reached into one of the vanity’s drawers and removed a scrap of newspaper. “I found this. It’s a train schedule, Tye. But there are many reasons Emma might have a train schedule.”
“And I don’t like any of them.” His heart sank to somewhere around his knees as he stood and headed for the door. “I’ll check with the ticket agent and see if they bought fares. Of course, it’s more likely they hopped a boxcar. They’ve done that before.”
“But thirty dollars…” Claire said, following behind him.
“Could be spending money. It’s a nice round amount. Not much, but to those three, ten dollars apiece probably sounds like a fortune.”
They didn’t speak as they made their way into town, then caught the trolley for the ride down Main to the railroad depot. Once they took their seats, Claire reached over and clasped his hand in silent comfort. He accepted it gratefully.
Tye was no stranger to fear. Over the course of more than three decades of life he’d learned its different flavors, had thought he’d tasted them all. But the black metallic taste coating his mouth right then was nauseatingly new to him. Fear for the children. Fear of failing the children. Fear of hurting his brother again.
Please, God, let them be all right.
Claire said, “I traveled by myself on the train from Galveston here to Fort Worth, of course. I was pleasantly surprised how polite my fellow passengers were. I visited with a pair of the nicest elderly women between Houston and Dallas. When they saw I was alone they basically took me under their wings.”
He squeezed her hand to let her know he recognized her effort, but at the moment he couldn’t push any words past the lump blocking his throat.
At the depot he tracked down the ticket agent, who told them he had not seen the McBride Menaces around the station in ages, and especially not this morning before the departure of the day’s first train. Tye checked with the porters, the drivers of carriages for hire, and even the laundress who kept a heated kettle opposite the train yard for travelers’ convenience.
No one had seen his nieces.
“As much as I hate to, I guess I should telegraph the Wests,” Tye told Claire. “Just in case the Blessings stowed away.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “While you’re doing that, I’ll stop by The Confectionary and ask my menfolk to help search. If the McBride girls are still in Fort Worth, the Donovan boys will find them.”
“You sound so confident.”
“I am confident. After all, my family found me, didn’t they?”
***
A WARM prairie wind swept over and around the wagon as Katrina said to Emma, “Do you think he’s dead?”
Emma eyed the man slumped across the buckboard’s seat and shook her head. “I don’t think so. Every once in a while I think I see his chest move.”
“He sure stinks enough to be dead,” Maribeth ob
served, inching her way toward the back of the wagon— not an easy feat considering she was bound hands and ankles by a sturdy rope.
Katrina lifted her hands, tied at the wrists, to scratch her nose. “It’s the whiskey. Papa used to smell like that sometimes when he came home from the End of the Line.”
Maribeth replied, “Except when Papa smelled that way it was because someone had poured whiskey on his clothes, not down his throat.”
The three of them shared a knowing look. Emma and her sisters had all been happy that fall when their father had sold his lucrative saloon and returned to the more respectable profession of architecture. Not that they cared about respectability, they simply liked having him home at night.
Emma dropped her head back to rest it against the rough wagon slats and noted a movement in the sky. A big black buzzard circled lazily above them.
“I’m scared, Emmie,” Katrina said in a little voice.
“I know. But we’ll be all right, you’ll see. Uncle Tye will come save us.”
“Yeah,” Maribeth glumly interjected. “He’ll come save us, and then he’ll kill us for doing what we did. Of course, we might starve to death before he finds us. Em, your stomach is growling louder than mine.”
Katrina swelled up in a pout. “I’m hungry, too. And tired. We didn’t sleep very long, did we sisters? And you know what? Even if Uncle Tye is really mad when he finds us I hope he hurries. I need to pee bad.”
As Emma reached over and gave Katrina’s knee a comforting pat, she spied a second and then a third bird joining the first. She wished her sisters wouldn’t talk about hunger when buzzards circled above.
She wasn’t as confident in their situation as she had let on. Big Jack Bailey had made all kinds of ugly threats as he’d driven the buckboard out onto the night-black prairie before passing out in a drunken stupor. Emma prayed it had been the whiskey talking, that he wouldn’t try to carry out his wicked promises upon awakening. But the bad blood that existed between Big Jack and the McBride family made her worry it might be more than just talk.
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