by Janet Dean
Tonight he wouldn’t let her down. And tomorrow, well, if they got that far, he’d help her get the children. He needed her back in his life, had missed her every moment of every day since they’d been apart. He hadn’t realized what a hollow man he’d been before he’d met her. How much she’d brought to his life, until he’d lost it.
He slipped across the street, moved toward the back of her building, his gaze darting from shadow to shadow, alert to any sound, searching for trouble. Searching for Drummond.
He saw no one, yet he couldn’t shake a sense of evil, heavy and thick. He positioned himself between her building and the next. From here, he could see both front and back of her shop.
He waited, his emotions galloping between hot fear and cold dread, yet certain that if he had to, tonight he could kill.
Chapter Twenty
Minutes stretched into hours. The sheriff had yet to appear. Charles ran a hand across his face, the rough stubble scratching against his palm, more tired than he’d ever been in his life. Each eyelid seemed to weigh a pound. With a fist, he rubbed his eyes, gritty from lack of sleep. He was running out of steam. If he didn’t get some coffee soon, he would be asleep on his feet. At the paper, a pot of coffee brewed so long ago it could wake the dead, sat on the stove.
He took another look around before heading across the street to The Ledger. He’d be gone for two minutes. Nothing could happen to Addie in that length of time.
Adelaide jerked awake. Her heartbeat pounded at her temples, echoed in her ears while she held her breath, listening. An odor smacked her in the stomach.
Pungent, sickly sweet. Kerosene.
Silently, she slipped out of bed, shoved her arms into the sleeves of her wrapper, and then edged toward the door. Easing it ajar, she peered into the dark hall. The smell seared her nostrils, slithered down her throat. Then from below came a noise. Mind-numbing panic seized her limbs and she couldn’t move.
Ed’s in the shop. God, help me. He’s going to burn it down around me.
A faint creak from downstairs caused the tiny hairs on her neck to stand up. Another creak.
He’s coming. He’s coming up the stairs.
For me.
Adrenaline shot through her body. Ed Drummond wouldn’t burn her alive, wouldn’t beat her senseless without a fight.
Holding her breath, Adelaide slid through the narrow opening on soundless feet. Then she pressed her back to the wall and glided down the ebony shadowed hall, avoiding the small table ahead, the rug farther down that liked to catch her toes. In the shadows, she could make out the doorway to the parlor. If she could reach the kitchen, she’d escape down the back stairs to the yard. From there she could run to safety. To Charles.
She thanked God for the darkness of the hall, and her navy wrapper that concealed a white nightdress, a sure beacon for Ed.
Down the hall, a door squeaked. Emma’s room. Thank God, Emma slept at Laura’s.
Heart pounding so loudly in her ears that Ed must surely hear it, Adelaide clamped a hand to her mouth, stifling an urge to scream. She heard heavy breathing now. He was closer. He would be in her room next, and when he saw her empty bed, he’d realize he had no need to move quietly.
And he’d come running.
Yet, Adelaide slipped along the wall, not daring to make any sudden moves that might draw his eye.
At last, she reached the kitchen and felt for the butcher knife she kept near the sink. She grabbed the fat handle. Then the sound of furniture crashing, loud cursing, stilled her hand. Feet pounded through the hall. And then, a second later, she heard “You’re dead, missy!”
Move, Adelaide. Move!
Holding the knife, she raced for the back door. Her free hand shot out and grasped the knob. She yanked, but the door didn’t budge. With shaking fingers, she fumbled with the bolt and, finally getting it to turn, flung open the door and sprinted onto the back landing.
Fresh air burst into her lungs. Before she could finish the breath, he jerked it out of her. Her collar was held firmly in Ed’s grasp, yanking her back. To him.
“Got ya now!”
Screaming, Adelaide spun, wiggled out of her wrapper and plunged down the stairs. The knife slipped from her hands, clattering down the steps. Heavy work boots clomped down after her. She jumped from the last few steps to the ground and ran. Expletives exploded behind her.
She tore blindly across the yard. Her lungs burned, her muscles shrieked, her heart thundered, each step a prayer.
She slammed into something solid and familiar. Charles.
“Addie!” Charles shoved her behind him seconds before Ed threw himself at him. The men tumbled to the ground. Thudding fists and shouted curses pierced the night air.
They rolled, a tangle of arms and legs, pounding flesh against bone. Ed was heavier and filled with the lethal power of hate. Charles would surely die. Their grunts and groans scrambled her mind.
“Lord God in Heaven, save Charles!”
Struggling to think, her heart pumped wildly in her chest. And then she knew. The knife, find the knife.
She sprinted to the stairs and scampered up, searching in the faint moonlight. Where? Where had she dropped it? She retraced her steps. “Please, God, please, help me!”
And then, at the bottom of the steps, she spotted a glint of steel. She scuttled down and snatched the knife, then ran across the lawn, slipping on the wet grass, to where the men raged and warred.
On their feet now, they jabbed and ducked, swerved and confronted in some macabre dance while Charles struggled to reach the gun on his hip. Charles had a gun?
Ed’s hand whipped out, grabbed Charles’s throat, then squeezed, laughing while Charles’s fingers clawed at Ed’s hands, eyes popping, body jerking, struggling against the monster.
Ed twisted position, tightening his grip. Charles was flailing, Ed rejoicing.
She wouldn’t let Charles die.
Adelaide circled them, looking for an opening, a position at Ed’s back, praying for accuracy. She took a great gulp of air, trying to ease her breathing. Steady. If either of them moved, she’d miss, or worse—hit Charles.
The moon slid from behind a cloud, washing light over the men. Adelaide raised the knife high above her, poised, aiming for Ed’s back. Ed swore and threw up an arm. Before she could strike, Charles pivoted, lifted his knee and caught Ed in the groin. Ed crumpled to the ground, rolling, moaning, cursing.
Charles raced to Adelaide’s side.
Charles’s throat throbbed, his eyes stung. Shoulders heaving, he pulled Addie to him. Each gasping breath burned his lungs, tore at his ribs. He shoved words from his mouth. “Are…you…all right?”
“Yes! Are you?”
Dragging in air, he nodded. Gently, he pried her fingers from the death grip she had on the knife and then dropped the weapon at their feet. Covering the blade with the heel of a boot, he gathered her into his arms and pulled her close. “Thank God…you’re…safe.”
A movement. Drummond crouched, ready to spring. Charles shoved Addie away and in an instant, grabbed Ed’s outstretched arm, pulling it up and back behind him with a jerk. Ed screamed in pain and crumpled face-first onto the ground.
Whipping his gun from the holster, Charles stood over him, cocked the gun and raised the barrel until he’d leveled the sights with Ed’s head.
Writhing on the ground, Ed twisted around and saw the barrel. He threw up his hands. “Don’t shoot! Have mercy!”
Charles curled his finger around the trigger. One shot. That’s all it would take to rid the town—the world—of this demon. His finger tensed. The slightest pressure and Ed would die.
A bead of sweat slipped down Charles’s palm. Blood hammered his temples. Rage distorted his eyesight. A voice pounded in his head. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
From deep inside, another voice echoed in his skull. Then you’re no different than he is, no different than your father.
Charles shook his head, clearing his vision. Drummond had shown
no mercy to Addie, or Sarah, or Frances.
But Charles wasn’t God—he wasn’t anyone’s personal judge and jury. He relaxed his finger. The gun dropped into place in his holster. He couldn’t shoot Drummond, an unarmed man, no matter how much he deserved killing. Unless he had no other choice, Charles didn’t have it in him to take a life. But Ed would pay for his crimes. Charles would see to that.
Sheriff Rogers, gun drawn, ran from the shadows. “What happened here?”
Charles grabbed Ed’s collar, pulling him to his feet. “Drummond tried to kill Adelaide, Sheriff.”
“He attacked me!” Ed screamed, twisting in Charles’s grip.
The click of the sheriff’s gun being cocked issued its own warning. “That’s enough out of you, Drummond. Raise ’em.” In the sights of the sheriff’s gun, Ed’s hands shot skyward. “Charles, check him for a weapon.”
Charles moved behind Drummond. The odor of kerosene filled his nostrils. Like a match under dry kindling, the stench of Drummond’s intentions sparked a fury inside him. “You coward! You were going to burn her out.”
“She had it coming! Turning a man’s wife against him, sticking her nose into my business—”
“Like Sarah?” Sheriff Rogers asked.
“I never killed Sarah.” Drummond twisted around to face the sheriff. “You ain’t got proof I did.”
Charles ran his hands over Drummond’s shirt and down to the man’s pockets. Inside the right rear pocket his fingers closed around something, something that pulsated in Charles’s gut with the force of a sledgehammer.
In the moonlight with a balmy breeze lending a benign feel to the night air, a ghoulish sight hung from Charles’s outstretched hand.
A garrote.
Adelaide gasped. Rogers handed his pistol to Charles and cuffed Drummond’s hands behind his back. Charles tossed the cord to the sheriff.
“You’re mighty fond of them things, Drummond. Planning on killing Miss Crum with this? Then incinerating the place to make it look like an accident?”
“That busybody wants to take all I have—the orphans, my reputation, my wife. Can’t you see? I couldn’t let her do that.”
“Tell it to a judge and jury.” The sheriff pocketed the garrote, muttering under his breath. Then he retrieved his gun and aimed it at Drummond. “Better get this scum to the jail before I’m tempted to wipe my boots with him.”
He turned to Charles and Adelaide. “I took a brawler with a broken hand over to the doc’s a moment ago.” He jerked his head toward Ed. “His missus is there. She’s taken quite a beating.”
Addie slumped against Charles. “How bad is she?”
“Doc isn’t sure she’ll make it.”
Addie moaned. “What about William?”
“William brought her in. Somehow he got Frances in the wagon. He’s fine.” Sheriff Rogers jerked up Drummond’s head by his hair and shoved his face close. “Real tough guy, aren’t you, Drummond, going after children and womenfolk?”
“If Frances had stayed home where she belonged, my boy wouldn’t be dead.”
Adelaide jerked out of Charles’s arms and moved toward Ed. “How dare you blame Frances for Eddie’s death. It was an accident.” She gasped. “Or was it? Could you have set fire to your own son?”
Ed’s staggered. “Kill…my boy? Don’t you see? My boy’s death killed me.” Ed’s body shook with sobs.
“How could you beat Frances, the woman who bore that child?”
Ed’s lip curled. “She was planning to leave. Take my boy and move in with Sarah. I kept my family together…the only way I knew how. Frances always fought everything I said, everything I did. And you…” He pointed to Addie. “You egged her on.”
“I’ve heard all I can stomach.” Pulling Drummond along by the arm, the sheriff strode out of the yard, calling over his shoulder. “I’ll need your statements. Tomorrow’s soon enough.”
Relief flooded Charles, then bone-numbing fatigue. He tugged Addie close. Drummond would be in jail where he belonged. He couldn’t harm Addie or Emma or William ever again.
“I could have lost you,” he murmured in her ear, his voice raspy. The magnitude of that possibility careened through him like a barbed arrow, hitting bone, marrow and muscle and lodging near his heart.
He breathed in the scent of her hair hanging loose about her shoulders, breathed in her goodness, the goodness he’d been in search of his entire life. Addie cared for him more than he deserved. She fought for what she believed in. And she believed in him.
Adelaide could hear Charles moving around the apartment, methodically opening the windows, releasing the stench of kerosene. Taking charge. On any other day, she would have helped, but her muscles had turned to jelly.
Charles returned to the kitchen, intent on making tea. He fumbled around in the cupboard, muttering under his breath.
“It’s in the left door of the cabinet, in front.”
“Thanks.”
A few minutes later he handed her a steaming cup of tea. “Drink up. It’ll help get rid of the shakes.”
Adelaide took the cup, grasping its warmth like a lifeline. Her hand trembled and drops of the liquid splashed across her fingers, but she drank deeply, easing the chill that facing death had seeped into her bones.
“Will you be all right for a minute?” he asked.
She nodded.
“I want to open the back door of the shop.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze, and then took the stairs at a run.
Adelaide put the cup on the table and leaned against the chair. Icy fingers gripped her heart. If Charles hadn’t overpowered Ed, could she have stabbed him? From somewhere deep inside came the certainty that in self-defense or to save Charles, she could have killed—or died trying.
Closing her eyes, she thanked God she’d never have to know. She asked the Almighty to be with Doc Lawrence, to help him ease Frances’s pain and save her life, if it wasn’t too late.
What a hard life Frances had endured. First losing her only child, then the murder of her mother, now this severe beating.
Charles returned to the kitchen and paused in the doorway. Even battered and bruised, he looked solid, trustworthy, in control. Charles, the man she loved. His smile dazzled her. His voice soothed her. Tension slipped off her shoulders and her breathing slowed—all because Charles stood nearby.
“I found an empty can of kerosene near the back—” He glanced at her and stopped.
Without warning, a deluge of tears flowed down her face. Charles dropped to his knees at her feet and took her hand in his. “What is it?”
“I feel responsible for what happened to Frances.” She covered her mouth with a fist. “When she asked to talk to the committee, I should’ve insisted she stay in town with me.” Her voice broke. “Instead, I thought only of myself.”
“You weren’t thinking of yourself—you were thinking of William.” He rose, tugging her with him, drawing her into the comfort of his arms. “Ed would have gotten to Frances, no matter what you did, or what the sheriff tried to do. The man’s deranged.” He leaned back, cupped her chin with his hand. “Frances did what she did for William, not for you.”
With the pads of his thumbs, he gently brushed the tears away and then kissed her cheeks, the tip of her nose and each eyelid. His words and the touch of his lips brought healing, a blessed release from self-blame.
“My brave Addie.”
“Brave?” Her voice shook. “Me?”
“You’re the bravest woman I know. I saw you with that knife, ready to enter the fray. I’ve never been so scared.”
She shivered. “He was trying to…to kill you.”
Charles pulled her tight against him. A moan tore from his throat. “Oh, Addie, I could have lost you.”
She loved Charles for his courage, for the risks he’d taken to protect her. For being a loving man, though he didn’t believe that yet. She started to say she loved him, but then bit back the words. She wouldn’t say them just because they’d shared this
terrifying night.
Charles stepped back and met her gaze. “We’re alive, Addie. We’ve survived Ed, and we’ll survive the trouble in this town. Marry me. I’ll see that you get Emma and William. I’ll give you everything you ever wanted—a home, a family.”
She heard the sweet words and wanted to say yes. He had been in her heart since the first day she’d walked across the street after placing that ad. Her feelings for him had grown until she couldn’t imagine life without him. But she couldn’t marry him, not without the three little words he did not say.
If she forced his hand, perhaps he would. “What about love?”
A shuttered look came over his face. “I want to, but, I don’t know what love is. Something’s missing…inside. But—”
Her heart plunged. “No buts, Charles.” She couldn’t marry him and relegate herself to a life half-full. “I won’t settle for less than love.”
Tears collected in his eyes. “I can’t survive being separated from you. Please say that’s enough.”
“I wish it were.” She sighed. “No, Charles, I won’t marry you.” The finality of her words struck like a bolt of lightning, searing her heart.
“If we’re married, we might be able to have Emma and William. That’s the only way you’ll get the children. Don’t you see that?”
His words stung and she moved past him. “That’s probably true. But what kind of a marriage would that be for me? For you? For the children?” Her heart lurched into her throat. “You’re afraid to love. You can’t even speak the word. You can’t forgive God for your past, can’t worship. You’re stuck back there, Charles. Well, I’m looking to the future.”
He flinched. “Addie…I don’t know what to say.”
She met his gaze, tried to see what truths were hidden in the depths of those dark pools. “You make your living with words and now you can’t speak the words that will open your heart to me.”
“I’m not like you.”
“People can change. I have. Before I asked for one of the orphans, before I expressed my views in the paper, I didn’t speak up on issues that mattered to me. And you know what? I like the new me. You may not realize how much you’ve helped me change. Whether you meant to or not.”