They peered inside and seemed to be arguing. One of the men bent over the buggy. When he stood, his motions awkward, he held a bundle swathed in the thick afghan.
“No!” Rose’s shriek resounded in the air.
The man holding the blanketed bundle, his mouth moving, gestured with his chin to one of his companions and then toward Rose. His companion, a short man, nodded and strode toward her. From his pocket he yanked a gun.
Rose saw the ugly, snub-nosed weapon in his hand. She jerked her eyes to the man’s face. His visage glistened with adrenaline and a wild resolve. He raised the weapon and pointed it at Rose’s breast.
“Do you know how very much God loves you?” Rose’s words were softly spoken. Her eyes locked onto his as the determination burning in them gave way to uncertainty.
His arm wavered. Lowered.
A shout from the car reached them, but Rose did not look away. It was the man who, frowning, closed his eyes to block her out. Lifted his arm. Aimed.
Rose whispered, “Lord Jesu—”
Fired.
The man ran back to the others and they piled into the waiting car.
“Did you take care of her?”
“Yeah. She’s done fer.” The short man frowned as he tried to shake the effect of the dead woman’s words on him. He was still frowning as they sped away.
Morgan glided down the alley and through the back door of the house with the peeling green paint. Fang-Hua’s men were gone, but Morgan was not alone in the house. A timid young woman sat at the kitchen table.
“You are the wet nurse Madam Chen sent?” Morgan inquired.
“Yes, sir.” She licked her lips and looked down, clearly nervous. “But I am a little confused, sir. I was told that I would be nursing an infant but . . . I have been here five days and . . . I see preparations for a child, but no baby, and the men here will not answer any of my questions.”
Morgan smiled. “What is your name?”
“Agnes, sir.”
“Well, Agnes, please do not fret yourself. We are, er, recovering Madam Chen’s grandchild at this very moment, and you are playing an important part in the child’s recovery. I’m certain Madam Chen will be pleased with your service. In fact, I expect the baby to arrive shortly.”
“You do?” She was relieved, quite happy at the news.
“Yes. Will you be ready to care for the child?”
“Oh, yes, sir! I-I am quite looking forward to it.”
“Then do not be anxious,” Morgan replied. He looked around. “We will be leaving for Seattle shortly after the baby arrives. I suggest you pack your things and the child’s and be ready to go as soon as the men arrive.”
“Yes, sir.” The woman went into one of the house’s bedrooms and Morgan heard her shuffling about.
Was that a cry? Are my babies crying?
Rose blinked snow from her lashes and summoned her waning strength. Somehow she pushed to her knees. She struggled to standing and swayed. Blood streamed from her coat sleeve onto the snow at her feet.
The world spun and darkened as she tried to walk. Hicks and Rawley lay where she’d seen them fall. Staggering but resolute, Rose lurched toward the pram—it listed toward the curb, dangerously near to rolling into the gutter.
Clutching the buggy’s edge, Rose peered inside. Even as her knees gave way and the encroaching darkness took her, she knew what she had seen.
Shan-Rose slept on, unaware of the horror that had swirled about her.
But baby Edmund was gone.
Rose lay unmoving, her eyes staring at the molten sky above her. She could sense the cold seeping into her bones and the warmth of her life flowing out.
Her eyelids fluttered and closed. Tiny flakes of snow fell toward her and came to rest on her cheeks, her nose, her forehead, her mouth.
~~**~~
Chapter 20
“Banks! Stop! What is that?” At Mason Carpenter’s shouted order, his chauffeur stomped on the brake and turned his head in the direction his excited employer pointed. Before the vehicle came to a complete stop, Carpenter leapt from the door.
He raced to the form of a woman lying on the curb, a fancy baby buggy near her. Farther up the sidewalk lay two men, unmoving. “Banks. Check those men.”
Carpenter stifled an oath at the sight of so much blood and knelt beside the woman. He could plainly see the shredded hole in the coat from which the blood seeped. He ripped the bowtie from his neck and tied it about the woman’s arm, coat and all, twisting the stem of his pipe in the knot and cinching it as securely as he could.
“Banks!”
“Yessir!”
“Those men?”
“I-I am certain they are dead, sir.”
Carpenter shook his head and looked down at the woman again. Her breathing was ragged and slow. “Go to the nearest telephone and call for the police and an ambulance. Come straight back.”
Banks ran to the car, the urgency of the moment obvious when he did not even acknowledge the order he’d been given.
Carpenter bent over the woman. “Madam! Madam! Can you hear me?” The woman did not respond, but Carpenter was startled when a mewling rose from the pram.
“Hang it all!” He dared not loose his hold on the tourniquet he’d fashioned about the woman’s arm. The fussing cry climbed to a full-fledged howl, and Carpenter grew frantic. He turned back to the woman and realized her eyes had opened partway.
“She . . . cold . . .” the woman mouthed.
Carpenter leaned over her. “I cannot turn loose of this tourniquet,” he answered. “You will bleed to death.”
The woman’s grey eyes came into calm focus and, as he watched, her mouth firmed up. “Where?”
Carpenter was confused but then understood. He stroked her arm. “Here.”
The woman lifted her other hand and tried to place it on the knot. He guided her fingers to it. “Can you hold it? For just a minute? Then I will see to the baby.”
He saw her grit her teeth and grasp his pipe where it was twisted in the knot. “Go,” she ordered.
The baby was crying so abjectly now that the pram rocked and shook. Carpenter leaned over the child. She stopped wailing to stare at him, large tears sliding down both sides of her face.
Carpenter knew at once that the child was a girl—the pink cap and lacy swaddling blanket announced that, after all—but her features were a surprise. They were distinctly Asian.
“Blanket . . .” the woman on the ground groaned.
“There’s no blanket other than this thin lacy thing.” Carpenter wasn’t a father, but he was no fool. The baby had to be freezing. He sighed, unbuttoned his heavy coat, and—so awkwardly!—lifted the child and tucked her to his chest.
Carpenter turned and saw that the woman’s hand had slipped from the knot and she had passed out. Muttering under his breath, he knelt in the snow and re-tightened the tourniquet. He stayed kneeling there, with one hand holding the now-quiet baby inside his coat and the other hand on the knot, until the police arrived.
Even as the ambulance took the unconscious woman away and the police busied themselves with the two bodies nearby, he held the child against his chest. Banks approached, silently awaiting orders.
Carpenter sighed. “To the hospital, I suppose.” He pointed to the buggy. “What can you do about that contraption?”
“I may be able to strap it onto the back.”
“Do it, then, as quickly as you can.”
Mason Carpenter waited a long time—on a very uncomfortable chair, he grumbled—for word of the woman he had found. The baby awoke and poked her head out of his coat. Mason had no earthly idea what to do with her, so they stared at each other. The infant studied him with serious, sober eyes. He studied the child in return, unable to gauge her age because of her dainty size and his own ignorance of children.
Mason had been waiting more than an hour when he realized that a great many people were flooding into the ward’s waiting room. The size and composition of the group m
ight not lead a disinterested observer to believe that they were together, but he soon realized that, indeed, they were. Among them were a tiny black-haired woman wringing red, work-worn hands; an elderly gent whose white hair stood straight up; a young couple with a toddler; and a fiery, determined redhead.
Close behind them strode three burly gents with grim expressions. Carpenter decided on sight he would not like to meet such men in a dark alley. All the newcomers were clamoring at the nurses for news of a Rose Thoresen, but the red-haired woman was most outspoken. Carpenter listened in as a doctor appeared and informed them of the woman’s condition.
“Mrs. Thoresen has lost quite a lot of blood, but I believe she will survive her wound,” he announced in a low voice. “However, the bullet broke her arm before exiting.”
At the word “bullet” the doctor’s audience gasped. One of them turned to stifle a sob and her eyes locked on to Carpenter. It was the red-haired woman.
Her eyes widened. “That is not your baby!” she shouted. She ran across the room and tried to pull the infant from Carpenter’s coat.
“Well, I daresay she is not your baby,” he growled in return. He stood and refused to relinquish the child to a stranger.
Before the red-haired woman could say anything further, the three rough-looking men converged on him. One of them placed a calming hand on the redhead’s arm and addressed Carpenter.
“My name is Samuel Gresham. You are . . . ?”
“Mason Carpenter.”
“Mr. Carpenter, can you tell me how you came to have that child?”
“Certainly. I saw a woman lying on the curb, a pram nearby. I had my driver pull over. The woman was bleeding. I then gave my driver orders to ring for the police and an ambulance. In the meantime, I tried to stop the bleeding and keep the baby warm.”
The little woman with bright black eyes sprang between the men and demanded, “And where ist th’ other babe bein’? Th’ little man babe?”
Carpenter was confused. “What do you mean? There was only one baby.”
A dread silence descended on the group.
Nearly two hours had passed. The nurses had allowed Breona and Tabitha assume some care of Rose. Breona leaned Rose forward and, with infinite care, draped a warmed blanket about her shoulders. “There now, Miss Rose. Now be takin’ a sip o’ th’ tea.”
Rose lay back, weak and unmoving in her hospital bed. She did not respond. She stared straight ahead. Her head and her arm ached with a fierce throbbing; her stomach pitched uneasily if Breona even jostled her.
Father God, how am I to ever tell Joy? she prayed. How will she ever forgive me?
Rose’s left arm was bandaged and strapped to a board so that she would not move it. Breona wrapped Rose’s other hand about a warm mug and lifted it to her mouth. “Sip. Sip, Miss Rose.” Tabitha had loaded the tea with sugar to combat the shock Rose was in.
Gresham had dispatched his men to fetch Joy from Michaels’ Fine Furnishings. He had called the man on duty at Martha Palmer’s house and ordered him to bring Mei-Xing to the hospital at once.
He did not call Palmer House where Grant waited by the telephone for news of Rose. Tabitha warned him off. “We don’t know what this news will do to his heart,” she advised him. “He is home alone right now.”
A phalanx of police officers now swarmed the hospital lobby, the ward, and Rose’s room. Gresham was dealing with them at the moment, but Chief Groves wanted to speak with the only witness to the crime.
“Time is of the essence, Mr. Gresham,” Groves insisted. “The sooner we interview Mrs. Thoresen, the sooner we may recover that baby.”
Gresham tipped his head toward the door; Breona nodded and led Groves into Rose’s room. Gresham, relieved of Chief Groves for a moment, went out into the lobby and found a nurse. “Show me to the telephone,” he demanded. Tabitha, sadness etched on her brow, followed him.
The nurse pointed. “It is here.”
Gresham dialed up the operator. “Put me through to the Chicago office of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. And hurry.”
He hung up to wait for the call back. Tabitha stared at him and did not move away. “Mr. O’Dell?”
Gresham nodded. A few minutes later the phone rang and he snatched up the receiver.
“This is Gresham in Denver. I need to get an urgent message to O’Dell.” He listened to a voice on the other end. “No, I don’t know where he is! He works for you, not me!”
The voice said something and Gresham replied. “Give me Parsons, then.” He was connected and explained the situation as best he could.
“Look Parsons, we both know O’Dell is the best man for the job. I don’t care what else he is working on—as soon as he knows that his best friend’s child—his namesake—has been kidnapped, he will be on his way here, regardless of what you say.”
Gresham listened for a few seconds. “Right, then. Wire me when to expect him. We’ll meet his train.”
The door to the ward slammed open. Joy, frantic and disheveled, burst into the waiting room. “Mama! Mama, where are you?” She caught sight of Breona. “Where is Edmund? Where is Mama?”
Breona ran to Joy and caught her arm. “Miss Rose is here, Miss Joy, boot wait. Wait, jist a minute, please.”
“No! No, don’t tell me anything bad, please, Breona!” Joy begged. “Please tell me Mama is all right?”
“Aye, she will be, she will be,” Breona soothed.
“Take me to her, then!” Joy demanded.
Breona took a deep breath. “Coom wi’ me,” she ordered. She dragged an unwilling Joy into a nearby storage room, the only private place she could think of, and closed the door.
“Why are we in here?” Joy’s eyes filled with dread. Breona gripped Joy’s arms so hard that Joy flinched. “What have you not told me?”
“Miss Joy, th’ man what was findin’ your mama . . . he . . .” Breona’s teeth were chattering. “He found Shan-Rose, Miss Joy. She wast in th’ pram.”
“And Edmund?” Joy demanded. “Where is my son?”
Breona’s chin and mouth quivered. “He wasn’t in th’ pram, Miss Joy. Someone took him.”
Joy’s shrieks pierced the closed door and echoed through the hospital floor. Carpenter, still possessed of the baby girl but finally understanding that someone had taken a second infant, gripped the child he now held on his knee more tightly.
He watched the red-haired girl weep silently in the corner. The others who had arrived with her turned their faces away and hid their tears.
In her room down the hall, Rose heard Joy’s shrieks. O Lord! O Lord! she moaned. Hold us now in your strong arms!
Fang-Hua’s four thugs tromped into the house. Barnes carried a something wrapped in a heavy, lace-edged blanket and offered it to Morgan. Sniffing in disdain, he gestured for the man to place the blanketed object on the table. He leaned forward to look, holding himself aloof, away from the distasteful smells of a baby.
The sleeping infant was smaller than he’d expected but, given his mother’s tiny stature, perhaps the baby’s size was unremarkable? A pale blue knit hat covered his whole head; the rest of his body was hidden in the thick white blanket.
Something bothered Morgan. He knew next to nothing about babies but . . .
Shouldn’t Mei-Xing’s baby, at six or seven months old, be larger? he asked himself. This one appears to be . . . too small, too young. Still a newborn?
Something else bothered him.
This baby does not have the look of an Asian.
With tentative fingers, Morgan pulled back the corners of the thick outer blanket. As he did, a small red-bound book dropped onto the table. He slid it aside. Inside the thick outer wrap the baby was swaddled in a thinner blanket the same pale blue as the hat.
The men stood by, awaiting his next order, and Morgan was about to demand details of them, when the baby stretched, arching his little body and struggling to free his arms of the swaddling blanket. Blinking, the baby awoke.
Two brilli
antly blue eyes stared up at Morgan.
He recoiled, stunned.
Not Mei-Xing’s child! his mind screamed.
He whipped the knit cap from the baby’s head. Soft whorls of honey-brown hair curled across the top of the babe’s head.
Morgan’s mouth fell open. He paced around the room in an effort to control his rising panic.
I am a dead man! We had one chance to ambush them and take the child by surprise! We will not have another! I am a dead man!
He stopped. “Whose child is this?” he roared.
The four men looked at each other. One of them stuttered, “We did just as you instructed. Killed the two bodyguards and the woman and took the baby.”
Morgan rounded on the man, his eyes cold, penetrating, infuriated. The thug who’d spoken, although much larger than Morgan, quailed before Morgan’s rage.
“This is not Fang-Hua’s grandchild,” Morgan screamed.
The men shifted, uneasy and worried. They well understood that it was not just Morgan’s life hanging in the balance. Each of them knew Fang-Hua tolerated no failures and suffered no excuses. Barnes and the man who had spoken exchanged wary glances.
Barnes mumbled, “Y’see, there were two babies in the buggy—one with a pink hat and one with a blue—a girl and a boy. You said the child was a boy. We took the boy.”
Morgan stepped back and placed a hand to his mouth. Two babies! What—?
He had said “grandson” so many times to secure Fang-Hua’s cooperation, that he had half begun believing it himself! The odds had been fifty-fifty after all . . . but two babies?
He again leaned over the infant squirming on the table. The infant’s eyes, such a striking color, stared up at the ceiling, looked around, and drooped closed again in sleep.
Did Mei-Xing give birth to a girl? If she did, then we took the wrong child! Morgan’s mind was racing. This baby is certainly not Mei-Xing and Su-Chong’s brat—but if we took the wrong child, whose baby is this?
At the same moment, a niggling voice in Morgan’s head interrupted. You have seen those eyes before.
Stolen (A Prairie Heritage, Book 5) Page 19