by Jo Robertson
Gage hesitated before divulging the next bit of information, a topic he was quite certain he had no business discussing with a young unmarried woman. Well, in for a penny, he thought. "The coroner's report shows that Nell was not, uh, not – virtuous."
Bailey's eyes grew wide and her bottom lip quavered a bit. "Are you saying she was molested?"
Gage hurried to correct the error. "No, no, not that." He coughed discreetly, unclear how to broach so indelicate a subject. After all, Bailey was naïve and untutored in many ways. Even if he thought of her as an equal with her fine mind and quick wit, he must remember that he was much older than she and more experienced in the ways of the world.
He stumbled around the words like a bloody idiot. "Nell – she – was, uh, not ... " He paused and took a sip of water.
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Gage," Bailey said impatiently. "Are you trying to say that Nell was not a virgin? That she was experienced in sexual intimacies?"
Gage choked on the swallow of water. So much for Bailey's delicate sensibilities. "All right, yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Nell was not forced. There are indications of sexual activity, but no signs of physical trauma. As you say, she was not a virgin."
"Well," Bailey murmured taking the news in. "Well, then. I'm not surprised," she added with determination in her voice.
"With Mr. Carver hovering over her, lapping around every man who presented himself to her like an old hound with a bone, you can hardly blame Nell for wanting to experience more from life."
Her voice was thick with unshed tears, and Gage believed defending her friend's propriety caused her further grief. She took a deep breath, composed herself, and continued with firm conviction. "Mr. Carver treated her like a fragile crystal, like one of those Faberge eggs her mother collects."
She waggled a finger at him, gathering steam. "I tell you, Gage, Nell was far sturdier than people made her out to be."
"Tell me more about Nell's relationship with her father."
"Why?" she asked quickly, homing in on the subtle nuances of his voice. "Nell and her father were very close. Do you think there was something amiss between them?"
"What do you think?"
She appeared to ponder the idea seriously, not at all shocked at the implication, although perhaps she did not understand the multiple meanings of the question.
"Do you understand precisely what I mean, Bailey?"
"You are suggesting that Mr. Carver had an inappropriate relationship with his oldest daughter, are you not?" Her expression was both worldly and very innocent.
"Yes."
"Let me contemplate the matter for a while," she said at last. "I shall give you my answer tomorrow."
She placed her hands on her hips and looked at him sternly. "Now, you ought to be asking me about the clue I've found in Nell's bedroom."
In the bustle of the moment, Gage had forgotten all about that. "You must tell me everything," he said, grabbing his hat and jacket, "but I am famished. Mrs. Miller serves stew today and you must join me. Come on."
He took her arm and led her out of the office, calling to the sergeant on the way down the stairs. "Mind the House, Henderson. I'll return in about an hour."
Chapter 13
He hadn't wanted to break it off with Nell. No matter what he'd told her – what she'd teased him with – he knew they were good together. He'd given her the ring to prove it.
And then, damn her treacherous hide, she'd tried to give it back to him. He'd only shown her sister attention to make Nell jealous. Susan was pretty, but kind of cold like she had an icicle for a spine.
But Nell, God, she was like one of those hot springs out West. She knew how to heat a man up.
Eventually he'd made her keep the ring.
It was meant to bind them together, to seal their confidences. Nell enjoyed confidences, secrets, little games.
She liked to taunt him with word play, to say one thing and gaze at him over a cup and saucer, her eyes sparkling, to see if he got her little joke. His mind always scurried to find the double meaning in her words.
But where was the damn ring now?
Nell knew all kinds of things about him. And she enjoyed the power that knowledge gave her. At first, he hadn't minded. She was so pliable and soft-spoken, she'd hardly seemed a problem.
But that'd changed right after Halloween.
She'd become sly, almost sneaky, making subtle threats. She ought to tell someone, she said, ought to come clean about the pictures. Tell her family, his family, maybe even the police. Is it against the law, she'd asked in that sweet young voice barbed with false innocence.
That was when he realized she'd never meant to keep their secrets. Had meant only to torment him with the understanding that she could tell at any time she wished.
This way she kept him dangling on a string, tied to her finger, because she surely didn't have a heart.
But what had she done with the goddamn ring?
#
In the end Gage and Bailey decided to enjoy a meal without the gruesome discussion of the investigation. With a full belly and a relaxed mind, he prepared to listen to Bailey's latest theory.
"Now tell me about this mysterious dance card," he said as he walked Meghan to the front porch of her house. "I'm afraid the significance of such an item is completely lost on the puny mind of a man."
She wrinkled her nose at the bad joke. "Come in, Gage." She opened the door and stepped into the foyer. "Father would love to visit a while."
Gage hesitated. He'd always thought of Bailey as a young friend, the sister he never had. They'd already stretched the limits of propriety by dining together, even though no one had been at dinner except Mrs. Miller. The other guests had long eaten and gone about their sundry business.
He must remember that Bailey was no longer the young girl who'd crawled into his lap, terrified at the howl of the hurricane storm, the clap of thunder, and the flash of lightning. She was all grown up now and a teacher to boot, a woman with a reputation to maintain in the community.
"Goodness, Gage," she snapped, "you'd think I was Salome enticing you with my dance of the seven veils. Papa would enjoy hearing about the dance card as well. I haven't spoken to him since I discovered it. Don't deny him this small pleasure."
Her argument made perfect sense and Gage always enjoyed speaking with the older man. Dr. Bailey was a fine gentleman, an excellent doctor, and a man Gage had much admired when he was a boy in Tuscarora City.
Sometime later, Bailey had prepared tea and biscuits and served them on a pretty tray. Gage had not engaged in such niceties for some time and felt strange amid the delicate bone china and sterling silver.
"Thank you, Meggie," Dr. Bailey said as he took a cup and saucer from her. "Now, tell us about this dance program you mentioned. I must admit I know little of such things, but I can't imagine what significance it has for Tucker's investigation."
"My thoughts exactly," Gage said.
"Ah, as I said, it's not the card itself," Meghan answered, "but the place where I discovered it." She smiled triumphantly and waited for the obvious question.
Gage indulged her. "And where did you find this mysterious dance card?"
"Hidden," she said. "Hidden in a very clever place, I must say. I didn't think Nell had such nefariously ingenious ideas in her head."
"Must've learnt them from you," Dr. Bailey said with a pretense at gruffness.
Meg's father had hardly come to terms with his daughter's tomboyish ways, Gage thought. As he recalled, Bailey had always been in one scrap or another as a child.
"Indeed," she said proudly.
"Don't try to draw out the suspense, Bailey," Gage said dryly as he watched her over his teacup. "Where was the item hidden?"
"It was sewn into the cushion of an occasional chair in her bedroom." She leaned toward Gage with a grin on her face. "Stuffed deep into the batting so it was nearly undetectable. Do you have any idea what wit it took to devise such a hiding place?"
&n
bsp; Her father lifted his bushy brows. "Something hidden in such a place certainly speaks of a clear intent that it not be found by accident."
Gage nodded and reached for another biscuit. "I agree. Nell meant the dance card to remain hidden. But why? It seems harmless enough?"
"We must figure the meaning of it, Gage, but we can be assured it is of great significance." Meghan paused dramatically. "And I believe it got her killed!"
"Oh, I say, Meggie. You can hardly jump to such a rash conclusion." Dr. Bailey looked to the Marshal. "Don't you think, Tucker?"
"What's on the card, Bailey?" Gage asked, ignoring the doctor's question for the moment. "Let's have a look at it."
Ignoring her own cooling drink, Bailey reached into her skirt pocket and relinquished the card.
Gage turned it over in his hands, reading first the front and then the back. "A list of men's names."
He raised one brow at her. "I must agree with your father, Bailey. What do you think the names mean? Except for the fact that Nell danced with these fellows, of course," he added mockingly.
"Don't be obtuse," she said. "I don't expect you to know these gentlemen, having been away for so long, but here – " She snatched the card from his hand and gave it to her father. "What do you think, Papa?"
Dr. Bailey peered through his bifocal lenses. "Hmmm, yes, yes, local fellows all of them except – except Michael Hayes." He harrumphed loudly. "Well, we know who Mr. Hayes is now, don't we? But who the devil is Ned Osborne? I thought I knew everyone in town. Is he from the next county, Meg?" `0
Bailey shook her head slowly from side to side, grinning like an idiot. "I have no idea who this Ned Osborne is, I've never met him, and I'm sure Nell has never mentioned his name. In fact, I'm quite certain no such person was at the dance at all. I was in attendance at the soiree – you were too, Papa, if you remember – and no mysterious Ned was there."
She pursed her lips, crossed her arms, and challenged Gage. "So what do you think about that, Tucker Gage?"
"I think we'd better find out who knows this Ned Osborne. Perhaps Mr. or Mrs. Carver, Susan Carver, or one of the other young men who danced with Nell."
"But you agree it means something, right?" Bailey pressed.
Gage shrugged. "It's too early to say." He watched her spirits drop at his words. "Was there anything else? Perhaps a coded message or something hidden within the folds of the thick paper?"
"Now you're making fun of me," she complained.
"Not at all, Meggie," her father said. "Tucker is simply suggesting that we look for something else on the dance card."
He pressed down the card at its edges, running his thumbs over the corners and turning it over and over. "Ah," he said at last. "Look here. There's some thickness at the corners and the pages are beginning to separate."
Bailey's face leapt with excitement. "That's brilliant, Gage. Perhaps there is something between the pages."
Gage stood up and leaned over Dr. Bailey. "Careful now. If this turns out to be some kind of evidence, I don't want it damaged."
"Scissors, Meg, get your sewing scissors," Dr. Bailey said.
Bailey returned, not with scissors, but a thin-bladed razor. "Ah, perfect," said her father. "Here, Tucker, you do it. My old hands are not steady enough."
Gage knelt on the floor in front of Dr. Bailey, Meghan leaning over his back, one hand on his shoulder. "Be careful, Gage," she warned. "Don't ruin it."
Carefully he inserted the edge of the razor between the two thick folds of paper until he'd separated the bottom edge of the dance card. He placed a little pressure on the sides, created a gap and blew gently.
A tiny scrap of folded notepaper fell onto his trouser leg.
#
The cleansing bite of the fine Scotch whiskey rolled over Aaron Sharpe's tongue and slid smoothly down his throat. He held the glass up to the light on his desk and studied it. He hadn't been Aaron Sharpe, he mused, for a long time, but alone in his study on days such as this one, he mourned the boy he'd once been.
The boy Aaron had been forced to flee Missouri far sooner than he wanted to. His pa had been killed in a raid, things had gotten too hot for Aaron, and he'd left for Virginia shortly afterward.
He'd been young and foolish then, and more than a little scared, but he'd adapted quickly. That'd always been his strength – reinventing himself into what people wanted, taking full advantage of the tools that presented themselves to him.
Refashioning himself in Virginia, he'd learned how to dress correctly, speak properly, and mingle with the upper crust of southern society. His charm and good looks were his greatest – and only – assets.
He'd scraped and fought, bartered and lied to get what he needed. For a long time his clothing consisted of rags and his belly was never filled. He had no money, but eventually found he didn't need it.
Women were eager to keep him, pet him, care for him, and eventually he grew unwilling to risk his money, prestige and comfort for his other ... pursuits. In order to survive, he'd savagely tamped down those strong urges, those oh-so-exquisite pleasures.
He'd been like a thirsty man in the Sahara for every one of those long, chaste Virginia years.
Until Mildred and her siren of a daughter.
Nothing unnatural there, he told himself, because the girl wasn't really his daughter. A step-daughter was like any other woman, not a blood relation at all. And the girl was nearly of an age for consent. Wasn't seventeen the same as a fully-grown woman?
She'd liked her mother's handsome, young husband. He'd known that even while the flesh on his neck had turned a cold clamminess that chilled to the bone.
But if Mildred had found out. God, she would've howled like a mad woman and raised all sorts of hell. While he'd gotten away with minor indiscretions during his wife's illness, she wouldn't turn a blind eye when it came to her precious daughter.
He had no choice but to do something about the girl before she confessed to someone, the pastor, the authorities. They wouldn't believe her at first. His reputation was too impeccable to be called into judgment.
But the sly looks and covert comments would finally reach his wife's attention. "There he is, he's the one who had sexual congress with his own daughter."
Not his real daughter, he wanted to shout. Damned fools, so bound by the rules and the law. Using words like "sexual congress" because they wouldn't just say he fucked her senseless.
God, but it was good, he thought as he felt the thrill of remembered pleasure.
Mildred's death had been a blessing, one he hadn't even had to act upon. His wife had always been frail. It was God's will, he decided. He'd been free, then, more completely than the slaves at the end of the War, more sublimely than an iniquitous man who'd found God.
With the considerable money willed to him at his wife's death, Sharpe had gone to Virginia City, Nevada, – though of course, he hadn't been Sharpe by then. He'd invested in land for silver speculation. The Sutro Drainage Tunnel in the Comstock Lode facilitated the extraction of the ore and the former Aaron Sharpe became even more wealthy.
He was twenty-five the year he'd first killed a man in Virginia City.
Although it was a peak year in mining and, yes, he'd made an obscene amount of money in the Comstock Lode, what he remembered most was the sound of the pick sinking into the skull of the old miner. The jarring of the blow from his fists clear up to his elbows. He buried the man deep in the Sutro Tunnel and doubted that anyone had ever found the body.
Thus he'd been reborn yet again.
Chapter 14
"My God," Meghan said, snatching the scrap of paper from Gage's knee.
His muscles tensed beneath the brush of her hand. "What?"
The odd symbols and drawings written on the paper were in a painstaking hand. Nell's? Yet the markings had a shocking familiarity that jiggled Gage's memory.
He stood up, his leg twitching at a sharp pain above the knee. Easing himself into the wingchair, he stretched the limb out in front of h
im, twisting the ankle round in a circle. "Don't tell me you recognize that mumbo-jumbo."
Her mouth drooped, not quite a pout, but enchantingly feminine. "It's not mumbo-jumbo. It's a code that Nell and I used when we were children, playing pirates or some such."
Gage caught Dr. Bailey's eye over Meghan's dark, messy curls and exchanged a knowing smile. She'd always loved acting out the pretend adventures usually reserved for boys. Probably why she'd always gotten into one scrape or another.
"Can you interpret it?" Gage asked.
Bailey furrowed her brow and bit her lower lip. "Hmmm, maybe. It looks like Nell has modified the code."
Her father smiled indulgently as Gage laughed aloud.
"What?" she exclaimed, looking from one of them to the other. "What's so funny?"
"Apparently Nell didn't trust you, Bailey," Gage said. "She manipulated the code so that even you – who created it – wouldn't recognize what it means."
Bailey sputtered, an indignant look on her face, as she flounced toward the sofa, clutching the note in her fingers. "Well, we'll just see about that. I taught Nellie the damned code and I can damn well figure out how she's altered it."
A mildly shocked look flashed over Dr. Bailey's face at the profanity.
Gage simply gave thanks that she was on his side.
#
The eighteen-year-old Tucker Gage stood rigidly on the rear car of the train, watching the small crowd that gathered on the platform to wave him off on his way to New York.
His mother dabbed at her eyes with a lace handkerchief, but his father stood erect and sturdy, both hands clasped on the pearl handle of his walking stick. He stared at his only son with pitiless gray marbles, eyes that Tucker saw every morning when he looked into the glass at himself.
Finally, Tucker thought, lifting his hand in farewell to his mother, he'd done something to make his father proud. Not affectionate, of course. That was too much to hope for.