by Jacksons Way
“Why is Lindsay crying?”
Jack started and hugged her hard before he looked up at Tiny. “She's sad because we have to go home now.”
“Will you come back and play with me tomorrow?”
God, he wished he could say “yes.” He wished it with all his heart. The last two days had been wonderfully simple and pure and easy.
“No, Tiny,” Lindsay said, taking a shuddering breath and gently extracting herself from his embrace. Wiping away her tears with the palms of her hands, she explained, “I wish we could, but we can't. We can't come back again. Our home is a long way away.” She smiled up at the simple soul. “But we'll write you letters all the time.”
“And I'll send you a new top, too,” Jack added.
Again, Tiny gasped in awe and appreciation. “Thank you, Jack!”
“Thank you for letting us watch you do your job,” Lindsay managed to say, before she choked on a fresh wave of tears.
Dear, sweet, mothering Lindsay. Jack put his arm around her shoulders and gently drew her down the walk, determined for her sake to end the parting as quickly as he could. “ 'Bye, Tiny,” he called. “Be good!”
“ 'Bye, Jack! 'Bye, Lindsay!” Tiny merrily called after them. “Thank you for showing me how to make hopscotch numbers!”
SHE'D STOPPED CRYING about halfway back to the hotel, but Jackson couldn't help thinking that he'd rather face her tears than the deep silence into which she'd fallen. He stood just inside her room, studying her as she stared blankly out the window.
“He'll be all right, Lindsay,” he ventured softly, trying yet again to comfort her. “He has Mrs. O'Brien to make sure he has a roof and food and clothing. Zachary seems the sort to watch out for him, too.”
“I know. You're right.”
“And I'm sure there's some logical explanation for why Mrs. Beechum's the one sending him the rent money every week,” he offered, grasping at the only other straw he could think of. “All we'll have to do is ask and she'll tell us and it will make perfect sense. We'll discover that she doesn't know anything about the second packet with the return letter inside.”
“That would be nice.”
She clearly didn't believe in the possibility any more than he did. Damnation. He hated seeing her so despondent. God knew she had reason enough to wallow in misery for the next month, but he just couldn't bear to see her unhappy. He needed to distract her somehow, give her something to think about other than leaving Tiny behind and Mrs. Beechum's apparent betrayal.
He could nibble his way down her neck and lead her to bed. Maybe. Then again, maybe not. It rankled to think that she might go just to appease him. Better to thoroughly distract her first, and then take her to bed. Icing on the cake. And Lindsay was, without a doubt and bar none, the best cake he'd ever tasted.
Jackson smiled weakly, knowing that she'd have his gizzard if he ever had the sorry misjudgment to tell her that he considered her as something to be served up on a plate. He wanted to distract her, yes, but making her blazing mad didn't seem the way to go about it. There had to be a safer, more productive course.
He considered telling her about his idea of her going to live in Billy's house in Texas and finding herself a husband. Somehow, though, he suspected that she was so miserable that she wouldn't be willing to look at happier possibilities. Given that, she'd likely dismiss the idea out of hand and he'd get nowhere with it. It would be smarter to save it for another time so it'd have a better chance of being seriously considered.
He raked his fingers through his hair. What could they talk about or do that would draw her out of the dark shadows? Business was always a good bet with Lindsay. It was nice and safe and the puzzles of it always fascinated her. Was there anything they needed to talk about? The division of the remaining MacPhaull properties came to mind. Another possibility bolted into his awareness and he instantly saw both the need and potential in it.
“I'll be back in just a minute,” he said, turning on his heel. “I need to get something from my bag.”
Lindsay watched his reflection in the glass and when he'd gone, she blinked back another wave of tears. He was trying so hard to cheer her and she felt awful for being so inconsolable. And that was just one more brick on the load weighting her shoulders. Jack had accepted the possibility of thievery days ago, but while she'd been willing to entertain the idea on an intellectual level, she hadn't really believed it was possible. She'd held out hope. That hope had been mortally wounded the moment Tiny had produced the packet addressed to her. There was a plot to strip the company of assets and she couldn't deny it. Someone had betrayed her trust.
And then to recognize Abigail Beechum's handwriting on the packet containing Tiny's rent money, and to know that the woman who had been like a mother to her for as long as she could remember … Lindsay blinked back tears and squared her shoulders. She'd cried enough. Tears didn't accomplish anything. She needed to think, needed to understand the workings of the whole mess. Unless she could, there was no hope of finding a way out of it.
Ben and Otis Vanderhagen had been involved in the correspondence. Jack already suspected the attorney's involvement in the scheme. But Ben … Lindsay's stomach grew leaden. He was loyal to a fault. Or so she had always thought. She'd believed the same thing about Abigail and been proven wrong. It was entirely possible she'd misjudged Ben as well. Was she truly that blind and trusting? Was she truly that alone and friendless in the world? Was everyone laughing behind her back?
Everyone except Jackson Stennett, she told herself. But the hope in that thought was tempered by the memory of how he'd flinched and walked away from her when Tiny had asked his questions about babies and marriage. What she had with Jack went no deeper than a mutual respect and the physical pleasure they found in each other. And it would come to an end the day Jackson went back to Texas. She'd known that from the very beginning. Despite that, Jack's distancing had hurt. It had reminded her that she wasn't worth the risk of his heart. She wasn't worth the risk to anyone's heart. Her only value rested in the properties that could be stolen from her.
Tears welled in her eyes again, but she wasn't capable of banishing them this time. They spilled over her lashes and rolled down her cheeks as she saw the years ahead unfolding—friendless and loveless, cold and dark. Her days would be filled only with dreary obligations and joyless responsibilities, her nights lying alone in her bed remembering Jack and the exquisite pleasure she'd known with him.
Enough! she silently railed at herself, scrubbing away her tears. Enough of the self-pity, Linds. Life is what you make it. You can always run away. She sucked in a deep breath and forced herself to see the ageless images that had always been her refuge in times of crisis. But this time she deliberately changed them; the oxen didn't die on parched prairie. They survived and so did she. A saloon, she decided impetuously. She'd own a saloon and wear outrageously colorful clothes. She'd drink whiskey and smoke cigars. In public. She'd play cards and win. And she'd never be alone. Her world would be filled with people who laughed and appreciated the haven she provided them. Yes, they'd all be strangers to her, but at least she'd know them for what they were. Never again would she be caught trusting and believing in loyalty and friendship and love.
“Lindsay?”
Her tears dried, she turned from the window. Jack stood just inside the door to her room, his hands in his pockets and an uncertain look in his eyes.
“There's something I've been needing to tell you.”
“And you haven't wanted to,” she guessed.
“Nope.”
She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile as she crossed the room. “How bad could it be, Jack?” she asked, stopping in front of him. “It certainly couldn't be any worse than any of the other discoveries I've had today.”
“I suppose it can't,” he agreed with slight shrug. Pulling his hand from his pocket, he handed her a folded piece of paper while he asked, “Do you recognize the handwriting?”
She opened it and
the words leapt up at her. LEAVE
OR DIE.
“Oh God, Jack,” she whispered, staring at the note, her heart racing, her thoughts scattered. She couldn't bear it if something horrible happened to him.
“Not that I want to add to your obvious distress,” he said, stepping around her to sit down on the edge of her bed, “but I reckon I probably ought to mention that it came to the office in a box containing a dismembered rat. It was left in the seat of the desk chair. Ben didn't know anything about it, which means either he's lying or someone besides you, Richard, and Ben have a key to the office.”
“When did you find it?” she asked, handing the note back to him. “And, by the way, I don't recognize the handwriting.”
“I figured you wouldn't. The package was waiting for me the morning we sailed out.”
She nodded and pursed her lips in the way she always did when considering how to approach a problem. “Which was the morning after the terrible scene with Henry and Agatha,” she observed after a moment.
Lord, he loved to watch her mind work. It was a wonderful thing to behold. Jack reined in his smile before Lindsay could catch a glimpse of it. The matter of someone threatening to kill him was serious, but not so much so that he couldn't appreciate how effectively it was diverting her thoughts from the day's other calamities. He leaned back on his elbows, settling in for the show, and willing to play his usual part in it. “Think either one of them could have done something like that? And could either one of them have a key to the office?”
“I just don't know, Jack,” she answered, beginning to pace the length of the bed. “But if we look at all that's happened since you've arrived, we know that you had several brushes with near disaster before either of them ever knew about the second Will and the changes in their circumstances. There was the fire, the explosion of the apartment, the beam falling on your head, and then the carriage accident.”
“The fire had to have been set,” he offered. “The explosion was probably a natural consequence of the heat building up inside a closed room. And it wasn't a beam that took me down on those stairs. A man ran past me and when I called him back to help me drag O'Malley out, he hit me with something. As for the carriage wheel… It might have been an accident. Or it might have been deliberate sabotage. And it happened the afternoon of the day the story came out in the Herald. They knew by then.”
She stopped her pacing to meet his gaze squarely. “You didn't tell me someone had deliberately hit you.”
Jack shrugged. “It didn't seem important at the time. I figured it was someone who wanted to get some belongings out before it was too late and didn't have the patience to be waylaid.”
“But what if your assumption is wrong, Jack? What if he went up those stairs for the express purpose of finding you?”
“I would have died a hero's death,” he drawled. “There'd have been a great newspaper story about me. Pretty good way to go, all in all.” He gave her a chagrined smile and added, “Not that I was thinking so at the time.”
“Please don't make light of it,” she admonished, gath- ering her skirts in hand and climbing up on the bed beside him. “This is very serious business.”
“All right,” he agreed, thinking that he was going to get around to the serious business of making love to her in a few minutes and it was nice to have her within such easy reach. “If you hadn't come in after me, it would have looked like I'd died in a tragic accident. No suspicions would have been aroused and no questions would have been asked.”
Kneeling, she settled back on her heels and pursed her lips again as she studied him for a long moment. “Who knew we were going to Jeb and Lucy's?”
“Ben. Remember? As we were leaving the office, you told him he could find us there if he needed us.”
“I don't think he was behind it, Jack. In the first place, he wouldn't have had time to arrange for someone to try to kill you in the fire. In the second place, and most importantly I think, is the fact that he has absolutely no reason to want you dead.” She slowly shook her head. “Frankly, I can't see any reason why anyone would want to kill you. It wouldn't accomplish anything.”
“It would complicate the hell out of the transfer of Billy's estate,” he pointed out. “And in the end, when all the lawyers and all the judges were through with it, everything I own would go to you, Henry, and Agatha.”
She shook her head. “You mean my father's estate would come back to us.”
“No. Everything I own, Lindsay. Elmer—you remember, the lawyer in Texas—believes that every man who owns so much as a saddle ought to have a Will and he's damn persistent about doing things right. I finally gave in and let him make me one. Since Billy was the closest I had to family, I figured that he was the one who ought to get my worldly possessions if I happened to go to the great pasture in the sky. I didn't remake it after he died. Didn't even cross my mind.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide, and he went on, adding, “Of course, I didn't know Billy had three children. Didn't know he'd ever even been married, for that matter. But you know how lawyers are, Lindsay. They gotta stick in all the right words to cover every possibility no matter how unlikely. Elmer stuck them in because they're supposed to be in a Will, and so, if for some reason Billy couldn't inherit from me, what I own would go to any legitimate heirs he might have.”
“Women can't own property in their own names,” she said quietly, slowly. “All of it would go to Henry. Unless the Will specifies that he's to set up trusts for Agatha and me, he wouldn't legally have to share the windfall.”
He hadn't thought about that. The idea of Henry getting everything and Lindsay nothing was galling. He'd get a codicil written to protect her as soon as he could. “The MacPhaull Company assets combined with what I own would make him a very rich man. As motives to kill someone go, it'd be a good one.”
“But how would Henry know about your Will? He couldn't have assumed that you had one or what its provisions might be. And he didn't know about his being disinherited until after the fire.”
“It's a helluva complicated web, isn't it?”
“Who does know about your Will, Jack? Aside from Elmer. Who in New York?”
“Otis Vanderhagen,” he answered, remembering and mentally kicking himself for not seeing the connection before then. God, he needed to keep Lindsay around just to help him think straight. “He came into the office the morning of the fire. Said he had a responsibility as the family attorney to see that the company was legally covered if something should happen to me. I told him about my Will. He offered to write up a codicil for me so that the lawyer wrangling wouldn't go on as long as it would without one.” The rest of that morning played out in his mind and he winced with a realization. “But he left before you got there and so he couldn't have heard us tell Ben we were going to Jeb and Lucy's.”
“He didn't have to be there,” Lindsay instantly countered, her tone calm and certain. “He was at MacPhaull House that morning when the note came from Jeb about the baby being born. He was there when Abigail and I discussed me taking the gifts over once it became a suitable hour for calling.”
“Mrs. Beechum knew we were going to Jeb and Lucy's?” Even as the question was spoken, he regretted it. The last thing Lindsay needed was to be reminded of her housekeeper's involvement in the scheme.
“Not we, Jack,” she replied, clearly not the least bit disturbed by the possibility he'd suggested. “Abigail had no idea you would go with me. She's obviously involved insofar as she's the one sending the rent money, but she hasn't tried to have you killed.”
“All right. I'll buy that one,” he agreed, utterly relieved to see that she wasn't going to slide back into the gloomy shadows. “Henry was waiting for you out on the walk. He might have overheard you telling Ben that we were going to Jeb and Lucy's.”
“The requirements of intelligence and long-term dedication aside, I rather doubt that Henry has any idea of who Jeb and Lucy are, much less where they lived. And I also doubt that the
possibility of a Will and its provisions would have crossed his mind. Besides, Jack, at that point, he didn't know anything had happened to upset his expectations. He didn't know you'd inherited until he read the story about the fire in the paper the next morning.”
“That's assuming that Otis Vanderhagen didn't actually waddle to the boathouse, find your brother, and tell him everything the first day.”
“Oh God, Jack,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Henry? Hiring someone to kill you would be such a deliberate and concerted act. And it had be done quickly. Henry's just not capable of such a thing.”
He thought it would be just the sort of thing Henry would do. Hell, hiring a murderer might be the one and only thing Henry would be good at. But Lindsay wasn't ready to consider her brother in such a light and Jack was willing to take his time and work his way around to the possibility. “We'll focus on Vanderhagen,” he said. “Why would he want me dead? He isn't going to inherit anything except a monumental legal mess to sort out.”
“For equally monumental fees. And when he's done sorting, he'll have a very large estate to control, through Henry.”
“Yeah, there is that. And then, too, if he's been the one stripping the company assets all along, he'd be able to keep right on doing it when Henry owned it all.”
“And it would be easier than it ever has been. He could make an even bigger fortune than he has already. My God, Jack. It is Otis Vanderhagen, isn't it?”
“My money's on him for the correspondence part anyway. But how would he have known that I was going with you to Jeb and Lucy's? He left the office as you were arriving.”
“We didn't stay long. He knew where I was going. Maybe he saw us leaving together and made a logical assumption. How long would it take to find a stranger on the street and then arrange for a fire and an assault?”
Jack contemplated the possibility. Not long at all, and for the right price a hungry man would be willing to act quickly. But if Otis Vanderhagen had had the time to arrange the fire and the assault, then so had Ben. And so had Henry. Lindsay's reasons for eliminating both men from consideration were good ones, but he wasn't willing to exclude the secretary or her brother on her assumptions alone. She'd had enough betrayal for one day, though, and he wasn't willing to hammer away at more no matter how likely they looked. “Vanderhagen's hands sure look dirty to me,” he said, and then added diplomatically, “but I'm thinking his aren't the only ones.”