Heart on the Line

by Karen Witemeyer

  Please take them and go.

  But the detective appeared to be in no hurry. He started examining the covers, the spines. Flipped through the pages.

  Not here! Don’t look for them here. She needed to get him out of her office. Out of the town.

  “Those books have caused me no end of grief,” she blurted. “Just take them back to Agent Whitmore. The two of you can tear them apart for all I care. I never want to see them again.”

  Please leave. Please leave.

  He paused and stared at her, his icy gaze freezing her from the inside. Then he brought up his left leg and planted his boot on the seat of her office chair, making a table out of his knee. He set the books on his thigh, opened the top cover, and ran his fingers over the inside panel. He closed Oliver Twist, shuffled it to the bottom, then performed the same procedure on Guy Mannering.

  What was he doing? Grace’s pulse raced as her eyes followed his every movement. He looked like he was feeling for something. The seal? But how would he have known about it? It was the one weak spot in her plan she could do nothing about—the Haversham seal embossed inside each book. If the Pinkerton knew about it, then . . .

  Dunbar turned his face to her and smiled, a cat-with-bird-feathers-hanging-from-its-mouth kind of smile.

  “I knew you were a clever one,” he purred as he dropped his foot back to the ground and stalked toward her. “Had to be to elude me for so long.”

  Grace retreated a step. Dunbar advanced. She withdrew farther, until the backs of her knees bumped into the blue-striped chair.

  “I thought you’d trust a Pinkerton, but somehow you saw through me, didn’t you?”

  He knew!

  Grace didn’t wait to see how much. She ran. But the counter’s half door slowed her down. As she fumbled to pull it open, Dunbar’s arm snaked around her waist and his hand slammed over her mouth.

  She kicked and flailed, but he only chuckled. “A fighter. Good. I like a good tussle. Gets the blood flowing.”

  Grace tried to scream, but his large palm smothered all but a tiny, muffled squeak. If only she could reach her derringer! The thought had her clawing at her skirt, but his hold kept her from bending at the middle, leaving her sole source of protection out of reach.

  He toted her like a rag doll to the window and, holding her away from view, peered out, his smile growing wider at whatever he saw. “Everyone’s nice and occupied with those crazy contraptions Bledsoe was good enough to order. Getting out your bedroom window unseen will be easier than shooting a deer with a broken leg. No one will even know we’ve gone.”

  No! Grace squirmed and shimmied, desperate to get away, but his arms circled her like iron bands.

  “Yep, your little ruse almost worked,” he said, his voice conversational and not the least bit winded as he toed a fallen book out of his path and dragged her through the doorway into her private rooms. “Too bad Chauncey told me about the stamp his father used on the inside covers of his books. A seal embossed with his initials. Neither of those books had one.”

  Grace stilled. Chauncey? As in Chaucer Haversham?

  Dunbar wasn’t just working for him. They were friends. Longstanding friends, by the sound of it.

  She should have joined Amos and the rest of the town ladies when she’d had the chance.

  Dunbar braced a hip on her windowsill then wrapped a long leg around both of hers to free a hand for raising the window. While he shoved the window to its maximum height, she fought the only way she could, scratching at his face. One nail drew blood. He cursed then slammed his forehead hard against her skull. She went lax. Silver diamonds winked in her vision.

  “Do that again, Grace, and I’ll take my knife to you. See how much you like having your face slit open. Not even Bledsoe would have you then.”

  He bent his big frame around her much smaller one, and while she was too disoriented to slow him down, he ducked through the window and exited into the open field behind the telegraph office. A field completely hidden from the rest of Harper’s Station.

  25

  How do ya keep the wheels from running away with ya?” Henrietta Chandler demanded as she kicked out her skirt and stepped over the low section of the bicycle frame. Her strident voice brought Amos’s head around.

  He’d been searching the crowd for Dunbar. He’d last seen the Pinkerton conversing with Ben Porter, no doubt questioning the freighter about who or what he’d seen on his trip into town. The man seemed obsessed with the whereabouts of any newcomers. Only fitting, with what they knew about Haversham, yet something about the man’s insistent curiosity raised Amos’s hackles.

  “Mr. Bledsoe,” Henrietta Chandler snapped.

  “Sorry, ma’am.” Amos smiled at the feisty, gray-haired lady, then immediately lurched forward and grabbed the back of her seat.

  Good grief. She’d been about to mount. Even now, her hands clutched the handlebars with purpose and one foot was lifting to fit itself against a pedal.

  “Hold on a minute, Miss Chandler. Let me explain a few things first.”

  The woman had too much gumption for her own good. She’d proven that when she held him at gunpoint that first day. He still shivered when he thought about her beady eyes staring him down over the barrel of her revolver. Those eyes hadn’t changed. They stared at him now with a similar demand for answers and equally little patience.

  “Well?”

  Amos cleared his throat. “Backpedaling usually aids in the slowing process,” he instructed, “and there is a spoon brake you can apply by pressing this lever here.” He pointed to the slender rod that extended beneath the right side of the handlebars. “However, engaging the brake tends to cause wear on the pneumatic tires, so I only use that apparatus in emergencies.”

  Miss Chandler raised a pointed brow. “So how do you stop?”

  Amos pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose and straightened his shoulders. “A well-timed dismount from the seat usually does the trick.” He didn’t like to brag, but he was practically an expert at the maneuver. “When my feet hit the ground, I keep hold of the handlebars, and the bicycle halts as I do.”

  Not that he would recommend such a stunt for an amateur. In fact, he hoped to harness Miss Chandler’s enthusiasm with that daring description. But he might have miscalculated.

  Her mouth tightened at the corners. “Jump off. Got it.”

  Good grief. At her age, she’d probably break a hip. “No, Miss Chandler. No leaping for you. I’ll teach you to backpedal and engage the spoon break. Besides, the ground is fairly level here in Harper’s Station.” Thank the Lord for small favors. “You shouldn’t have need for any high speeds. At a slow pace, you can simply put your foot down to bring the machine to a stop.”

  Emma Shaw came up beside her aunt, pushing another bicycle through the throng of ladies who had come out to witness the spectacle. The hum of their excitement filled Amos’s ears, leaving him oddly on edge.

  He darted a glance over to the freighter, but Mr. Porter was busy carting a load of supplies up the steps to the store. The shopkeeper walked by his side, and a young boy held the shop door wide for them.

  Where was Dunbar?

  His grip on Miss Chandler’s seat loosened as he stretched his neck to peer over the crowd. The bicycle wobbled, and a squeak of surprise cut through the crowd’s buzz.

  Amos immediately returned his attention to the bicycle, taking hold of the seat with both hands and steadying it as Mrs. Shaw reached for her aunt’s arm.

  “Easy, Aunt Henry.”

  The older lady must have thought she’d been holding the bicycle steady on her own and attempted to mount when Amos let go. Her left foot slid awkwardly off the pedal, and her ankle twisted a bit before she finally found purchase upon the ground.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Emma Shaw admonished, instantly becoming Amos’s second favorite female in town. “When Malachi taught us to shoot, you didn’t rush off and start pulling triggers before learning the proper techn
ique. Riding a bicycle is the same. We must first receive instruction—”

  “Bah, it’s not the same at all. I can’t hurt anyone by pedaling improperly.”

  Amos scowled at her, taking his turn at wielding a beady-eyed glare. “Actually you can. Not only can you injure yourself by taking a tumble, but if you ride before understanding how to steer or stop, you could run someone else down.”

  The shopkeeper’s son chose that particular instant to rush around the wagon and skid to a halt right in front of Miss Chandler’s front tire. “Are we all gonna get a turn? I bet I could go the fastest.” He made a whooshing noise and proceeded to demonstrate his natural speed by sprinting past the giant black horses hitched to the freight wagon and pounding up the store steps, his puppy barking excitedly at his heels the whole way.

  Miss Chandler’s eyes widened at the boy’s unexpected appearance in front of her, and her knuckles whitened as she tensed her grip on the handlebars. Amos could kiss the boy for his timely interruption.

  “Maybe we should wait for the crowd to thin a bit,” the older lady conceded, though her bristly tone warned that she’d not be put off for long.

  Amos glanced over his shoulder toward the telegraph station. He didn’t see Dunbar, which would have been reassuring were it not for the fact that he hadn’t been able to spot the Pinkerton anywhere else, either.

  “Why don’t you ladies settle your accounts with Miss Adams?” he suggested.

  Henrietta Chandler’s brow furrowed mulishly at that suggestion, but he couldn’t bow to her whims. Not anymore. He needed to find Dunbar. Or at least confirm that Grace was all right.

  “We’ll have a lesson this afternoon in the field behind the station house.” Amos released his hold on Miss Chandler’s bicycle seat and backed away. “Learning to balance on two wheels takes a significant amount of practice at first, and having a soft bed of prairie grass to fall onto instead of the hard-packed street will reduce the likelihood of injury.”

  His gaze darted back to the telegraph office. Was that movement by the window? He prayed it was Grace, distracted by the commotion of the delivery. Yet his gut still clenched.

  Henrietta Chandler harrumphed somewhere behind him as he began weaving through the crowd. “Just like a man to make a woman conform to his timetable. It’s not like he’s got a job here to run off to, is it?”

  “Let him go, Aunt Henry.” Emma Shaw’s voice hinted at a concern that only added to the wave cresting within Amos. “He needs to check on Grace.”

  Yes, he did.

  He pushed past the last of the females fluttering around the delivery wagon and stretched his legs into a jog, then a run. When he reached the office, he slowed just enough to avoid crashing through the door.

  “Grace!” he called as he flung the door wide. His gaze immediately swept toward her desk, where she should be gasping and glaring at his boorish entrance. But she wasn’t there.

  His heart seized. “Grace!” His shout echoed in the empty room as he pushed through the half-door that led to the inner office. He took in the scene—books scattered over the desk, a few fallen to the floor, her chair overturned, and a discarded crate tossed onto its side in the corner by the stove.

  The crate.

  Amos located the lid where it had been tossed against the far wall and snatched it up. All hope that Grace might have simply gone for a walk shriveled in his chest. A crate from San Antonio. One that Mr. Porter must have brought in on the freight wagon. A crate only one other person would have been interested in opening.

  Dunbar.

  The slatted lid fell from Amos’s fingers.

  Dunbar had her.

  Amos rushed into Grace’s personal chambers, illogically hoping he’d find her asleep or huddled unharmed in a corner somewhere.

  The Pinkerton was dirty. Probably on Haversham’s payroll. The very man they’d been warned about.

  Amos scanned the floors, behind the bed, anywhere Grace could be hidden.

  The lying snake. No wonder they’d seen neither hide nor hair of a Haversham henchman. The villain had been right under their noses the entire time, his comely sheep’s clothing throwing them off the scent.

  And Amos had let an old lady and her bicycle distract him from keeping watch on the fiend.

  A gust of wind blew over his heated neck. Amos spun around to face the open window. The wide open window.

  He rushed toward it, planted his hands on the sill, and stuck his head through the gaping hole.

  Nothing. He saw nothing.

  He dropped his head in disgust and slammed his palm against the whitewashed sill. Footprints. Right beneath the window. Deep, man-sized boot prints.

  A trail.

  Amos had one leg through the window opening and was ducking his head under the frame when the marshal’s voice stopped him mid-straddle.

  “Bledsoe?” Heavy footfalls echoed in the outer office.

  “Here!” Amos called, not bothering to pull more than his head back inside. He bit back his impatience at the delay but retained enough sense to recognize that rushing around willy-nilly on his own when there was a capable lawman available to assist would be foolish. The more help he could recruit for Grace, the better.

  Malachi Shaw burst into the bedroom, gun drawn. His eyes scanned the chamber. Finding the same thing Amos had—nothing—he holstered his revolver and strode to the window. “Where’s Grace?”

  “Dunbar has her. I think he carted her out this window.” Amos nodded toward the disturbed dirt outside. “I found footprints leading away.”

  “Did you catch sight of them?” Shaw asked as he shoved his head into the same space Amos occupied.

  Amos leaned out of the way, just in case the marshal could spot something he’d missed. His spectacles focused his distant vision a great deal, but it was possible some clue had eluded him.

  “No,” Amos answered, willing his spirit not to sink at the admission. “He must have had a horse tethered nearby.”

  Shaw craned his neck to the west. “Station house is the closest cover. Let’s check the direction of the footprints then head to the house. Henry was busy with the bicycles, but Bertie might’ve seen something.”

  Amos nodded and ducked through the window again, leaving the marshal to use the door. Thank heavens Shaw wasn’t one of those ponderers who had to know all the facts before taking any action. He’d accepted Amos’s assumption of Dunbar’s guilt without batting an eye. Probably because Dunbar was the only outsider to suspect. Other than Amos. But he was here and the Pinkerton was not, so no debate was required.

  What he did require was a horse. Or a bicycle. Something to carry him at greater speed than his legs. For the marshal was right—the footprints headed west.

  Amos pushed up from his crouch just as Shaw rounded the corner. “This way.” Amos waved for the marshal to follow him and jogged toward the station house. The greater the distance from the telegraph office, the higher the grass, which meant he couldn’t see the footprints, but that didn’t matter. The station house was the only logical place for Dunbar to secrete a horse.

  Shaw loped up beside him, his longer legs carrying him into the lead.

  “Mal! Wait!” An out-of-breath female voice rang out behind them.

  The marshal skidded to a halt.

  Amos kept going. Shaw could wait if he wanted. Amos was under no such compunction. The town could be under Indian attack, and he’d still find a way to go after Grace.

  He reached the house, ran past the front porch, and slowed as he rounded the far corner. Even without his glasses, he would have been able to see the evidence he’d been dreading. Ground chewed up by horse hooves. Boot prints and marks from a smaller shoe. Indistinct, as if the feet that had left them behind had been dragged.

  Amos’s chest squeezed. Oh, Grace. If only he had left the ladies to unload their bicycles on their own. If only he’d kept a better eye on Dunbar. If only—

  A hand gripped his shoulder. Amos lifted his head and met the marshal�
��s resolute gaze. “We both let her down, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it up to her. We’ll find her, Bledsoe.”

  “Mal knows every inch of the land around these parts.”

  Amos turned to find Emma Shaw striding toward them, her face taut with worry even as her eyes radiated faith in her husband and in a source greater than all of them. Another woman tagged behind. Dark hair, a bit wild and unruly, and a frown that turned her otherwise pretty face into a pinched mask that warned him to keep his distance.

  Fine with him.

  “We need horses.” Amos turned his attention back to Shaw. “They can’t be too far ahead.”

  “You can take mine,” Emma offered, and Amos found himself suddenly grateful for her intrusion.

  “Thanks.” He gave her a quick nod. “He’s after the documents, and judging by the mess I found in her office, he figured out she’s not going to hand them over willingly. I’m certain he’s working for Haversham, but I’m praying that as a Pinkerton, he’ll have enough moral fiber left to keep him from going so far as to torture an innocent woman to get the information he seeks.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that.”

  Amos scowled at the dark-haired woman. “Why not?”

  She stared right back. Angry, defiant. And clutching a book in her right hand that looked like a Bible. “Because he ain’t a Pinkerton. And he’s already proved himself a killer.”

  26

  The man in glasses paled at her words. Helen inwardly winced. Perhaps she’d been too blunt, but they didn’t have time to sugarcoat things. Not since that name-stealing skunk had Grace.

  “How do you know?” Bledsoe took a step toward her. The marshal put a restraining hand on the fellow’s chest and halted his progress.

  Helen took her own step closer. She wasn’t afraid of the man bristling in front of her. She knew how fragile hope could be and how hard a person would fight to hold onto the thinnest thread. But he needed to understand what they were up against. The truth might be brutal, but it would serve Grace better than wishful thinking.