Stormy Hawkins (Prairie Hearts Series Book 1)

by Ana Morgan

  Emily sniffled. “You can’t hold me against my will.”

  “I can, and I will. Describe everything that happened after you arrived at Fifi’s.”

  “There was a big man with a mean scar from his eye to his chin,” Candy said.

  “His little dog tried to bite me.” Emily scowled. “Stormy was so impatient. She practically pushed me out of the little dressing room. Candy needed to run to the jeweler across the street. We told her we’d be back and weren’t gone more than ten minutes.”

  The hair rose on the back of Blade’s neck. “What makes you think she left the shop?”

  “The clerk said she got dressed and walked out. She didn’t wait like she was told to.” Emily sniffed again. “It was really quite disconcerting, dashing into taverns and calling out a name for bad weather.” Her eyes widened. “We received the most unsavory replies.”

  Blade chewed on Emily’s story. Stormy could have gotten angry enough to leave. But, where would she go?

  “Stop!” Jackson’s sudden shout was followed by a thud.

  Blade dashed to the foyer. The aged butler sprawled on the polished marble floor clutching an envelope. Through the front door Blade saw a short, fleet-footed man run down the driveway, coattails billowing out behind him.

  Blade helped Jackson to a sitting position, looked him over carefully, and eased the letter from his hand. Crude pencil lettering covered the front. ‘MASTERS.’

  “I tried to hold him, Master Blade. He shoved me hard.”

  “Did he hand this to you?”

  “Before he pushed me down. Yessir.”

  Blade snapped the envelope’s cheap wax seal and extracted a jagged-edged slip of blue paper.

  You want the redhead?

  $100,000 in small bills.

  When and where soon.

  Staring at the crudely-printed letters, Blade tensed with guilt. Stormy had wanted to hunt for Peabody alongside him, but he’d pressured her into accompanying Candy and his mother. He’d been so sure he could accomplish more working alone. He’d never dreamed he was putting her in danger.

  His family crowded around.

  “What kind of monster puts a price on an innocent girl’s life?” Olivia wrung her hands.

  “One hundred thousand dollars is outrageous,” Candy shrilled. “We’re not going to pay it, are we?”

  “Not if the police can catch this criminal.” Blade’s father tugged the ransom demand from Blade’s grip and slid it back into the envelope. “I’m going to see Commissioner Murdock.”

  Blade chased his father outside. He refused to stand down and wait for the long-time police commissioner to follow protocol. Stormy could be hurt. She surely was scared out of her wits. Every minute that ticked by was sixty seconds wasted. “I’m going to look for Stormy.”

  “I’m going with you.” Candy scurried down the front steps.

  “Why?” Blade demanded. “You don’t know where she went or why she left.”

  “If we hurry, Fifi’s might still be open.” She secured the ties of her velvet cloak. “We’ll take Jared’s carriage. He’ll watch the children.”

  Blade looked back. Jared stood in the doorway, his face blazing with the damn-you-to-hell expression that Blade remembered vividly from their childhood tussles.

  He felt a fresh stab of pity for his brother. Candy was still bossy, manipulative, and emasculating. He didn’t relish the idea of rubbing elbows with her all the way downtown, and he didn’t trust her any further than he could spit, but riding together, he’d grill her about what had happened at Fifi’s without his brother’s interference.

  Stormy was his mate. His one and only. He’d dance with a tornado if it helped him to find her. He climbed in Jared’s carriage and picked up the reins. “Let’s go.”

  ~ ~ ~

  “How many times do I have to repeat myself, Blade?” Candy made sure she sounded indignant. After all, she was putting herself out to help him search for his country bumpkin fiancée, and he was thanking her badly by grilling her like a police detective.

  “I remembered I’d left a brooch at the jeweler. Jared gave it to me on our first anniversary. You’ve not seen it, but there’s a big, one-of-a-kind pearl in the center and the setting was loose.”

  She stuck smoothly to the chronology Emily had recited at Sam and Olivia’s dinner table. Eager and gullible, Emily was a perfect alibi.

  The carriage rounded a dockside corner at a fast clip. Taking advantage, Candy swayed more than necessary against Blade and reached for his thigh. When they were lovers, a squeeze had always distracted his train of thought.

  None too gently, he pushed off her hand. “Is that the jeweler?”

  “Yes.” She pouted. “And, there’s Fifi’s.”

  An iron security gate barred the storefront. The clerk had closed up early, as she’d been paid to do. Now, she was on a train bound for Denver.

  Blade set the brake and leaped from the carriage. Sprinting diagonally across the shadowy street, he passed a skinny streetwalker slouched against a broken streetlamp and tugged ineffectively on the heavy padlock until his shoulders slumped. He’d get no answers there until morning.

  A hansom pulled up to the Crazy Lady, two doors down. A man staggered out and entered the saloon. Raucous laughter and tinny notes from an out-of-tune piano spilled out onto the street.

  Like a coon dog catching a scent, Blade’s head jerked up. He waved for Candy to join him.

  She shook her head. Peabody didn’t think anyone would recognize her, dressed in her fine clothes and jewels, but she’d deliberately sent Emily inside earlier, just in case.

  “Listen, sugar,” she called. “We’re not going to learn anything until tomorrow morning. You keep the carriage, and I’ll hire that hansom to take me home. Meet you here at eleven, when the store opens. All right?”

  Blade narrowed his eyes and finally nodded. He walked into the saloon.

  Candy gave the hansom driver the address of the rooming house, sat back on the torn leather seat, and savored her success. Blade didn’t suspect her at all. In fact, he’d provided her with a perfect excuse to leave his parents’ home before the police arrived to question her, a primary witness.

  The plan she’d devised was unfolding perfectly except for one thing. Peabody had increased the demand ten-fold. After making sure Stormy was chained in the attic, she’d order him to send the original ransom note. If he objected, she’d threaten to tip off the police.

  She’d be a hero. His word against hers. Front page news.

  Peabody would do her bidding, or he’d rot in prison.

  Chapter 30

  Blade’s old haunt smelled just like he remembered. Stale and edgy, a hangout where wayfaring men waited for riverboats to whistle, and where sins were forgiven on an hourly basis. A slender barmaid, sporting black fishnet stockings and a red ribbon choker that matched her flouncy petticoats, delivered drinks to a table of half-drunk rats.

  He approached the bar slowly, straining to overhear words like ‘cries for help’ or ‘redhead’ in the swirl of conversations around him. Unlike Candy, he couldn’t just go home and wait for Fifi’s to open. He had to keep searching or he’d go mad with worry.

  When the barmaid’s tray was empty, she deftly avoided one man’s groping hands and strutted back behind the chest-high counter. Close up, she had dark circles under her gaily-painted eyes. Age lines marred the smoothness of her pale skin. “What’s your pleasure?”

  “Whiskey,” Blade said.

  She filled a short glass. “One bit.”

  He fished out a coin and tossed back his drink like a hardcore rat.

  “Bad day?” she asked.

  “Worst of my life. Have you heard talk about anything stolen?”

  “No. The only excitement ha
ppened around six, when a loony lady barged in asking if we’d seen a storm. Gave everyone a good laugh.”

  He reached deeper into his pocket, palmed a twenty-dollar gold coin, and showed it just to her. “This afternoon, did a man linger like he was waiting for something to happen?”

  She glanced at the head barkeep, who’d emerged from behind a curtain and now polished glasses at the other end of the room-long bar. “I’m supposed to sell drinks, not gossip.”

  “What if I told you it meant life or death?”

  “Buy me a drink.” With a flirty look and laugh, she reached under the counter, brought up a corked bottle, and waved it in the air. “Let’s go get cozy.”

  Blade followed her to a table in a dark corner. He knew before he tapped the rim of his glass to hers that she’d poured strong, dark tea. He’d learned a few things from Candy.

  He drank every drop she poured and held out his glass for more.

  The barkeep kept his distance and smiled.

  “Three more like the one in your hand,” she bargained softly.

  “What did you see?”

  “A man came in about noon, sat here at this table, and nursed a bottle of rum.”

  “Notice anything special about him?”

  “The knob of his walking stick. It looked like a lion’s head and he tapped it on his palm like a grim reaper, ticking time.” She shivered as if the memory chilled her blood. “He kept going out and coming back. Finally, he went out for good. Never left a tip.”

  Peabody! Blade’s mind raced through the possible scenarios.

  Only one made sense. Peabody waited for Candy to bring Stormy. Then, Candy lured Emily away so Peabody could kidnap Stormy.

  But, how could Peabody abduct her without being noticed?

  Fifi’s sales clerk must have been in on the scheme.

  Swaying on his feet to appear drunk, he paid the barmaid and staggered out of the bar. When his boots hit the street, he straightened. He drove into the alley behind the old three-story brick building and lit the front lanterns on Jared’s carriage.

  Red-eyed vermin scurried into hidey-holes as he snatched a lantern off its hook and stalked forward. Broken glass crunched under his boot heels. He swung the lamp slowly around his knees, searching for signs that Stormy had been forced this way.

  The lamplight caught a sanguine stain on a jagged remnant of a whiskey bottle. Beyond it, bloody blots. With Stormy-sized steps, he tracked them in a hellish game of connect-the-dots.

  The trail stopped.

  Like a bloodhound, he weaved feverishly down the refuse-strewn alley until he found a new trail of dry red drops that vanished altogether at the far end.

  Horrific images flashed through his mind.

  Cut and bleeding, Stormy resisted at first. She ran for her life but Peabody caught her, carried her to some sort of conveyance, and carted her away.

  Blade punched the air with his fists.

  Candy was neck deep in this terrible plot. What he couldn’t fathom was why. Married to Jared, she had money, status and privilege—everything she’d wanted when she dumped him. What more did she need? And, why harm Stormy to get it?

  Blade ran back to Jared’s carriage and urged the placid horse into a fast trot.

  Candy’s reasons could come later, in front of a magistrate.

  Tonight, he intended to drag her from her silk-sheeted bed and make her show him where Peabody was hiding Stormy. But, first, he needed weapons.

  ~ ~ ~

  The midnight moon shone through the east window of the stable, casting just enough light to find what he sought. The horses worried in their stalls, and Blade hummed to calm them as he knelt under the mounted tack and pried free a wedged-in trim board.

  His metal box was still tucked between the studs, right where he’d hidden it five years ago. He opened the rusty lid, found the familiar six-inch shaft, and pressed the switch. The blade snapped out.

  He tested it with the pad of his thumb. Still razor sharp.

  Reaching in again, he pulled out brass knuckles, a slender death-choke rope, and the marshal’s star he’d bought at a trading post in Virginia City during his last run up the Missouri. He’d thought to give it to Patrick someday, a surprise gift from father to son.

  A shaft of silvery light glinted off a small coin in the bottom of the box. His first pay as a rat, strung on a thin leather cord. When Jared announced his engagement to Candy, he’d quit wearing it. It had brought him no luck.

  This time was different. Stormy was much more than a physical partner. She was his equal. His soul’s mate. He slipped the charm over his head.

  Someone walked in front of the east window, for a second blocking the moonlight.

  Alert, Blade shoved the brass knuckles into his jacket pocket and skipped the box back into its hiding place. He moved stealthily toward the stable door, his hands easily finding the proper hold on the choke rope.

  The prowler rounded the corner.

  Blade sprang out and coiled the rope around a man’s neck.

  Clawing at the rope, the prowler looked up. His eyes widened.

  “Jared?” Blade immediately loosened his hold. “Why are you sneaking around?”

  “Dammit, Blade.” His brother coughed and rubbed his neck. “I came to see if you needed help.”

  “Any word from the kidnappers?”

  “No. You learn anything?”

  “Yeah.” Blade rewound the choke rope into a compact ball as he walked to the carriage. His brother liked numbers and proven facts. He didn’t have time to justify his suspicions. “I think I know how to find Stormy.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  Blade shook his head. He worked best alone. “You stay with Patrick and Natalie. They might need you.”

  “Sam and Olivia can watch them. I want to help.”

  “I’m not sure you can. Your wife is . . . involved.”

  Jared opened his mouth as if to protest, and then looked away. His fingers fussed with the harness on his old gelding. “After you ran away from home, I told myself you’d become a bounty hunter who tracked down criminals and hauled them to justice.”

  Blade shook his head. “I’m more selfish than that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” He waited for Jared to say he was disappointed in him.

  “For being a pain in the ass when we were growing up. I know that’s why you ran away.” Jared stared straight ahead and blinked. “Everyone compared us. It was the only way I could measure up.”

  “I didn’t leave because of you,” Blade exclaimed. “It was Father pushing me to be exactly like him.”

  “I ended up like him.”

  The distress in Jared’s voice resonated deeply. By Society’s standards, his brother was a successful man. But, their father’s shadow loomed large, and Candy regularly belittled him. If Jared helped him rescue Stormy—and unmask Candy—he’d reclaim his self-respect. “Hold out your hand.”

  Jared complied.

  Blade slipped on the brass knuckles. “If we get into a fight, aim for the jaw.”

  “Bet I could do some damage.” Jared closed his fingers and jabbed the air like a one-handed boxer. His eyes glowed with excitement.

  “Hit hard and duck.”

  “You wouldn’t duck.”

  “I would if I was outnumbered. I’ve learned to pick my battles. Now get in and let’s go.”

  Chapter 31

  Hearing two soft and one loud knocks, Candy Masters flung open the rooming house door. “You double dealer.”

  Edward Peabody lowered the knob of his walking stick. His narrow jaw was freshly shaved and reeked of cheap cologne.

  “Keep your voice down.” He pushed her back into the room and close
d the door behind him. “We’re supposed to be clandestine lovers.”

  “We’re not having a paramour spat. You changed the ransom note.”

  “Yes, I did.” He settled into the soft chair by the window, set his compact leather shaving kit in his lap, and propped his walking stick against the sill. “Your family is rich, and so is Miss Hawkins. They’ll come up with the money.”

  “Not within a week. I doubled the abortive dose in the tea delivered by the apothecary. Stormy is young and strong, but she’ll need medical attention if the bleeding doesn’t stop on its own.”

  A vein in Peabody’s neck bulged above his stiff collar. “Miss Hawkins knows you paid me five hundred dollars.”

  “You’re bluffing.”

  “Remember the deranged beggar? He works for your brother-in-law. I haven’t seen him since, but know this. His testimony will put a noose around your neck.”

  Turning her back to hide her shock, Candy opened her wardrobe door and rearranged her risqué outfits. Blade had caught her by surprise that day at the bank, but since then she’d played her part perfectly, traipsing through houses and planning his Society wedding. He was usually quite clever, but for some reason he refused to see that his cowgirl fiancée wanted no part of city life. She only wanted to go home.

  Candy wanted Stormy to go home, too—and never come back.

  As for Peabody’s revelation? She’d simply paid him for finding this room. In any other accusation, it was his word against hers. With the Masters’ name backing her, the best lawyers in the state would take her side. “Has Stormy drunk any tea?”

  “A full quart. She was thirsty when she came to.”

  “Came to?”

  Peabody described how Stormy had tried to run.

  “Cripes.” She whirled around and seized his heavy walking stick. “You could have killed her by whacking her in the head with this. Is her chain fastened tight? Have you done anything else right?”