by Gina Welborn
Madame went quite still.
“Multiple bruises,” Emilia said. “What do you have to say to that?”
“I never meant to drag Luci into this.”
“Why did you?”
“If I hadn’t, Dunfree would have—” Her gaze shifted to the shadows moving under the door.
In preparation to burst through the door to rescue Emilia from Madame’s vile clutches?
Madame rubbed her palms together. “My actions that day were impulsive, regretful, and ones I knew I needed to disguise almost as soon as I’d acted upon them. All the girls I’ve smuggled out have been under the age of fifteen. The similarities to your sister were too marked. I had no other option but to say Finn had sold her—and you—into service to me.”
“If all you have told me is true—” Emilia ignored Madame’s raised brows. “If it is, and heaven help me for believing you, then you’re asking me, before my God, to willfully lie for you. To perpetuate multiple lies for you.”
Madame laughed. “Oh, my dear child, what I ask is much less than what your God asks of you. The Good Book says you are to love your enemies, to do good to them, and lend to them without expectation of being repaid. And you can’t even do that.”
The words sounded familiar, sounded like something she’d heard in church. “Where—?”
Madame gave a little one-shoulder shrug. “Luke, chapter six, verse 35.”
“You demanded this meeting, asked me to lie for you, and now you mock me?”
“I am not the one professing to serve a God who forgives sins.”
Emilia swallowed, unsure of how to respond.
“No one will ever write psalms praising my motherly wisdom.” Madame leaned forward and gripped Emilia’s clenched hands. “But I do know that a true favor is altruistically given, out of the kindness of your heart, not so you can have a mark against the person you were helping. That was how Finn lived. While he was part of my ring, he helped free five young girls from prostitution and refused to take a penny in payment. He said a simple thank-you would do.”
Taking payment wouldn’t have been in his character.
Emilia leveled her gaze. “Was that why you asked Finn to join your cause . . .”
Madame’s brow twitched.
“. . . because you recognized him as someone you could use?”
She nodded. Her grip on Emilia’s hands tightened. “Finn wasn’t the first who sacrificed for my cause. In February, I lost someone else. A few minutes ago, Mac gave me a small note that confirmed my man was killed and the girl we were attempting to rescue that night was returned to Helena.” Her tears welled in her eyes. “People have died for this lie, Emilia. All I’m asking is that you let it stand. If you wish to consider forgiving Finn’s loan as a payment for keeping my secret, that’s up to you.”
“Why did you rescue Luci?” She had to know because it wasn’t just about Luci. It was about every girl Madame had rescued, and about every lie she’d told to cover it up. Madame started to draw back, so Emilia gripped her hands. “Please.”
Madame held Emilia’s gaze. “Because it’s what I wish someone had done for me.”
Stunned at the admission, Emilia released her hold on Madame, who then stood and walked to Marshal Valentine’s bookshelf.
“Have you told your son?”
Madame’s chortle was full of bitterness. “He’d never believe me.” Pain wrapped around each syllable.
Emilia looked toward the door again. So little and yet so much separated mother and son. “He needs to know.”
She smoothed the front of her beautiful, unwrinkled burgundy gown. “You hold my life in your hands. If you are not comfortable with perpetuating the lie about what Finn was doing for me—and I will understand if you aren’t—all I ask is that you give me two days to put my affairs in order and leave town. Then you can tell the truth to my son and that Hendry fellow.”
Emilia nodded. “Why are you trusting me with this?”
“Instinct,” Madame quickly replied. “In my business, you develop a keen sense of who is trustworthy and who isn’t. Sometimes I must rely on people without trusting them, but every once in a while I meet a soul I trust within moments of our meeting. You are one. Your husband was another.”
But not her son. Unless he was someone she trusted but couldn’t rely on.
Madame wiped a corner of her mouth. “The note I spoke of earlier said a man was trying to get girls out of the red-light district. Mac is convinced it refers to Finn. If someone doesn’t stop him, his dogged persistence to clear his friend will destroy everything.”
Emilia stared at the floor. She pressed a hand over her pounding heart. Honor Finn’s name or honor his sacrifice? Which was the right thing to do? Madame did what was necessary. Necessary and right weren’t the same thing.
“Emilia, look at me.”
She did.
“If you do decide to tell the truth about Finn rescuing those girls, the person who is financing my . . . endeavors will need to be warned.”
Emilia nodded again. Naturally there would be consequences to those connected, as there had been to Luci, Yancey Palmer, and herself following Mr. Hendry’s article. That article had not put any of their lives in danger, but Madame and the person financing her endeavors were. Emilia doubted grace and forgiveness abounded in the red-light district. If Finn were here, what would he advise she do?
Who am I that God is mindful of such a sinner as me?
Finn had written that to her. She’d wondered what he’d meant, but it made sense now. Finn had risked his life to help save those girls because he believed so strongly that Jesus had paid his debts, paid his sins, and made him free. He’d lived out of gratitude, not obligation. Not to even the score. The truth cut deep. Finn lived his faith far more than she ever had hers. If he were here, he would ask one thing of her.
To honor his sacrifice.
Emilia stood. She walked to the door, taking care to ensure her boots sounded loudly against the wooden floor. The shadows under the door moved. Then she strolled softly to Madame. “If I let the lie stand,” she whispered, “would you and your financier continue your endeavors?”
“In time.”
Once Finn’s reputation had been solidly destroyed.
“Then stay here and keep doing it. However,” Emilia said firmly, “I must pay off the loan or else people will be suspicious.” Finn’s debts would be paid save for the remaining fifty dollars Emilia would owe Jakob, but that she could manage.
Madame’s chin rose.
Emilia waited for Madame to offer a counterargument.
“Thank you.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mac paced between Quinn’s office door and a scrupulously clean desk. It bothered him. The desk. How ordered and neat it appeared, while his brain was cluttered with a thousand questions. It felt like those first few hours after Finn’s death, when every added detail made the overall picture fuzzier instead of clearer.
This time, the picture was of his mother and, if he thought her behavior contradictory in the past, it was nothing compared to when she’d eaten the note.
She ate the note!
About Finn Collins getting girls out of prostitution.
Why? What possible motive did she have for doing something so bizarre? And why had she wanted to speak to Emilia? They’d never met. His mother had never cared two bits about her except as a way to needle him. Did she want to meet the woman he’d proposed to, the surrogate mother of the girl she’d rescued, or the wife of the man she’d lied about in the Daily Independent?
Because the one thing he was sure about was that she’d lied. He just didn’t know why.
Mac spun around and paced back toward the door. He needed answers. He didn’t want them; he needed them the way his lungs needed air. He was weary of the questions, weary of the ambiguity, weary of the lies.
Weary of wondering who his mother really was.
Quinn jumped away from his door, rushing to sit on the ed
ge of the annoying desk and appear disinterested.
“Like they don’t know you were listening the whole time,” Mac whispered.
Quinn glowered, then relaxed into his apathetic pose.
Madame Lestraude appeared first, her painted lips twitching the moment she laid eyes on Quinn. “Marshal, I believe you had a few more questions for me. I imagine they center around whether I had the means or motive to poison Edgar Dunfree.”
The astonishment on Quinn’s face was worthy of a larger audience—one that paid admission.
“Mr. Dunfree was poisoned?” Emilia followed Madame Lestraude out of Quinn’s office and came directly to Mac.
Did she have any idea what the gesture meant to him? To be singled out as the person she wanted to be near? His heart thumped against his rib cage in a painful rhythm. If he fouled up his proposal again, how was he ever going to let her go?
Madame Lestraude addressed Emilia first. “According to the coroner”—she turned to Quinn—“who is a regular client, yes, Mr. Dunfree was poisoned. I, for one, hope it was a slow and painful demise. Now, Marshal, because poison is the culprit and Emilia’s only access to medications was at Doc Abernathy’s office, I suggest you speak with him. If nothing is missing, I don’t see how you can hold her or her brother any longer.”
Quinn worked his jaw open and shut.
She faced Emilia. “It was lovely to meet you. I hope you will remain in Helena. If you ever need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Thank you.”
Madame Lestraude smiled as though Emilia had passed some kind of test.
What was that about? And did this mean Emilia was staying? More questions instead of answers.
Mac couldn’t stand any more. Before his mother disappeared into her hotel again, he needed to know one thing. “Did you kill Finn?”
Emilia’s gasp and Quinn’s wide eyes barely registered. Mac focused on his mother, intent on reading her every expression so he’d know if she was lying.
She shook her head. Not in denial but in weariness. “Do you know me so little?”
“That’s not an answer.” Mac took a step closer to his mother, but a small hand on his forearm detained him. He looked at it . . . and then at its owner.
“Don’t, Mac.” Emilia flicked her gaze at his mother. “Please. Trust me.”
The words struck like boxing gloves to his ribs. How many times had he asked her to trust him? He couldn’t count them all. And every time she hadn’t, he’d been affronted. Angry. Sometimes even disparaging.
He heaved air in and out of his lungs.
What if he said no? What if he denied Emilia the thing he’d always wanted from her? Would she leave instead of stay? Even if he proposed again?
What if he agreed to trust her now? Would it fill her with the same deep pride he’d experienced knowing she trusted him to do what he thought best?
But how could she know what was best in this moment? He’d spent seven years with his mother. She’d spent seven minutes. And yet something had happened between them. Something he couldn’t explain but knew in his gut.
Emilia stared up at him, waiting in that patient way of hers.
The questions swirled in his brain. Taunting him. Reviling him. Making him hate himself because he couldn’t find the answers no matter how hard he tried. His mother had answers. All the important ones.
Please. Trust me.
Emilia had no idea how much he hated the uncertainty. She couldn’t know. Maybe next time he could trust her, but this time he was right to make his mother tell him what she knew.
Finn wrote once about a friend of his who was always sure he was right because he almost always was.
Mac jerked his arm from Emilia’s grasp. She’d said those words to him the first day they’d met. And her eyes had held the same pain he saw in them now.
He swallowed.
The choice boiled down to pursuing his need for answers from a woman who would never turn into the mother he wanted or honoring the woman he loved by trusting her when he suspected she was wrong.
But perhaps that was the highest level of trust, when you gave it because of who was asking, not because of what was asked.
Mac held his hand toward Emilia, waiting for her to place her hand in his before turning to face his mother. “If Marshal Valentine has no more questions for you, you’re free to go.”
* * *
Emilia stared out the window of Mac’s office. Buildings obstructed most of her view of the mountains. But if she was right about where City Hall sat, if she were a bird, she could fly straight out of this window, across Helena, and to the Circle C. To the promises Finn had made of a home where she could find rest. Where she didn’t have to be the one to solve Roch and Luci’s problems. Where she could be their sister, not their mother. Where Da could breathe clean air and relish life in Montana Territory.
But she wasn’t a bird.
Neither was she in a cage. She’d been set free of the jail, of the debts. She could go anywhere.
“Not without Mac,” she murmured.
“What was that?”
Emilia looked over her shoulder at Mac, standing on the threshold and smiling. She turned to face him. “Where’s Roch?”
“By now, at the Palmers’.” He strolled to his desk, carrying her bonnet, haversack, and the three train tickets Marshal Valentine had confiscated as evidence. “Roch said he wanted to check on Luci, but his stomach growled otherwise.” Mac laid her belongings on his desk, then sat on the edge, his arm resting on the hilt of his gun. “You two ever going to make things right?”
Emilia shrugged. “Four days in jail failed to loosen his tongue. I can’t force him to talk. I don’t know what I did to make him hate me.”
“Finn.”
The lone word stretched into silence.
Emilia stood there waiting for him to say more. There had to be more. There had to be a reason why Mac had said, Finn. Roch had never met Finn. To be sure, she’d shared parts of his letters. Multiple times. She’d talked about Finn constantly because she wanted Da, Roch, and Luci to fall in love with him and the Circle C. They needed to know how wonderful, good, and better their life would be in Montana. With Finn.
And then it hit her. Roch could have interpreted her words as though she thought their life together—the four of them—wasn’t wonderful or good. That they needed Finn to make life better. That they needed Finn because they weren’t enough for one another. That Roch wasn’t enough. That she didn’t need him anymore.
“I blundered,” she said to Mac.
“We all do, at times.”
One of his deputies laughed. Chairs scraped against the floor, and then a mug shattered. More laughter.
Mac stayed on his desk, never looking away from her, clearly uncaring about the ruckus outside. “What did my mother say to you?”
She gave him a steady look. “That’s her secret to tell. It’s your job to convince her to trust you with it.”
He seemed to consider that. “Where are you headed now?”
Emilia dipped her head toward his desk. “I have a ticket back to Chicago.”
“Anything for you there?”
“A good-paying job.” She paused. “A man I love—my father.”
Mac nodded. “You have a good-paying job here. I heard about the offer,” he added. “From Isaak. At Luanne and Roy’s wedding. He raved about you . . . your, uh, work ethic. And I’d like to think there’s also a man you love here.”
“In Helena?”
“I, uh, mean . . . more like in this office.”
“You sound nervous.”
“My mind’s a whirl thinking about how to convince you to stay.”
“Oh.” Emilia walked to the door he’d left open. She closed it, shutting out the noise his deputies were making. “Does this help you focus?”
His brows rose, and suddenly she could see so much more of the resemblance to his mother. He withdrew a sheet of paper from the inside of his vest. “I
searched through my favorite Walt Whitman poems in hopes of capturing what I wanted to say. I wrote a few things down,” he said, unfolding it.
Emilia strolled over to him. “Well?”
He cleared his throat. “‘We were together. I forget the rest.’ Will you marry me?”
“Interesting.”
He looked up from the paper. “That didn’t convince you?”
She shook her head.
He read again. “‘I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake.’ Will you marry me?”
A burst of air slipped through Emilia’s lips. “Is that all?” She snatched the paper from his hand and read what else he’d written. The rest of the paper contained the same three words over and over—I love you.
He smiled down at her, a silly half grin that made her thank herself for closing the door.
Emilia tossed the paper onto his desk, noting how perfectly it landed on top of the train tickets. She stepped closer and touched his cheek. “Sheriff McCall, I like your words best.”
“Is that a yes?”
She nodded. “But feel free to convince me more.”
Epilogue
Spring, 1888
“. . . because I fair shudder to think what would have happened to Mrs. McCall and her sweet sister had they fallen into Finn Collins’s clutches.”
The tidbit of conversation caught his ear from somewhere behind him. He excused himself from the group of people he was with and weaved through the church hall to hear what others were saying. He nodded to acquaintances and kept his ears open. Everyone was full of Finn Collins, his treachery, and how today’s wedding between Sheriff McCall and the little widow had put all to rights.
He stopped to greet friends and exchange pleasantries. Duty done, he looked across the room to watch the bride and groom cut a three-tiered wedding cake, and his gaze locked with Madame Lestraude’s. She inclined her head, half in polite acknowledgment of his presence and half in recognition of their ongoing stalemate. She knew too much about his secret business, as he did of hers.