by Jill Gregory
“You have been responsible all along for every last one of them, haven’t you!” It was not a question at all, but a ferocious statement of fact that McCallum spat out with venom.
“Yes, of course. The fires, the accidents, the missing funds ... Under the guise of Lucas Johnson I have been trying to buy your precious Ruby Palace Hotel, the gem of your empire. And I succeeded, though you didn’t know it. You signed the deed over to me recently—though I believe it escaped your notice. You were ill at the time, not your usual self, and you didn’t happen to notice that one of the many papers Derrickson offered for your signature was the deed to your precious hotel.”
“Derrickson!”
Johnson raised his brows. “Oh, I have many allies. The gunslinger, Red Cobb, is another. In fact, I’ve been waiting to hear from him, waiting for official confirmation of your son’s death. Or rather, my son’s death,” he added slyly. “The boy simply would not cooperate—apparently he felt his loyalty to you was more important than his blood kinship with me. Well, Cobb should have finished the job by now ... or he will very shortly, but I cannot wait any longer.”
“Why not?” McCallum taunted, for his eagle eyes, though weary, had not missed the slight wavering of his enemy’s gaze. “You know Brett is alive, don’t you? The boy probably killed your man Cobb, and you know it, don’t you?”
Johnson glowered at him. He hadn’t heard a word from Cobb in quite a while now, and this concerned him more than he was letting on. Had something gone wrong? It seemed unlikely. How difficult could it be to corner an arrogant young greenhorn into a fight? “I know nothing of the sort,” he retorted, stroking at the ends of his mustache, “but I am tired of waiting. It doesn’t really matter, because I have prepared a report, which Mr. Stevenson will sign, stating that Brett McCallum has disappeared and is believed to be dead.”
“And you think any sane person will believe that I would kill the man for that? And then take my own life?”
Johnson edged closer, tapping his cane absently upon the floor. He smiled delightedly. “But there are so many other reasons as well why you should feel utterly despondent. This is just the last straw—you see, your failing business empire and the discovery that your former partner, Herbert Ervin, is going to bring charges against you will also have weighed with you.”
Ross McCallum leaned back heavily against the wall. “What’s this about Ervin?” he rasped in a more subdued tone.
Bartholomew and Johnson exchanged pleased smiles. “As I told you, you signed numerous documents while you were ill—an illness due to a certain drug Derrickson put into your coffee or brandy each day, I might add. Among the documents you signed while in this condition were papers which prove that you have been improperly withdrawing funds from the McCallum and Ervin Steel Company—embezzling, if you will, in order to shore up your other failing businesses. Derrickson met with Ervin today—his conscience having got the better of him when he discovered your treachery, you see—and Ervin was most properly outraged. He may already have gone to the authorities for all I know. Why, if you do not end your life tonight, you will be facing trial, and a certain prison term.”
“You’re an insane bastard.” McCallum drew a deep shaky breath. In the flickering torchlight, the dark shadows beneath his prune-colored eyes seemed to grow even darker, and more sickly. “I should have killed you twelve years ago when I had the chance.”
“Yes, you should have,” Johnson murmured. “Because now I am going to kill you. But first, we must rid ourselves of Mr. Stevenson. Bartholomew?”
The bespectacled man reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a pistol. “Do you want to do the honors, sir, or should I?” he inquired, as if asking who should be the one to pour a glass of sherry.
“Oh, I most certainly wish to do the honors.” Johnson’s fire blue eyes shone as he accepted the gun from his underling. He raised it and pointed it at the private investigator, still bound and gagged. “Let this be a lesson about what happens to those who interfere in the affairs of their betters. Good-bye, you nosy old fool.”
“No!” McCallum thundered, but his words were drowned out by the roar of the gun.
* * *
Darkness shrouded the grounds of the McCallum mansion on Maplegrove Street as the hired carriage pulled up at the gate. Only faint misty starlight revealed the ghostly shapes of the tall oaks and maples which shaded the winding walkways and gardens that surrounded the house. But there was one light gleaming from inside the mansion as the occupants of the carriage alighted. It shone from Ross McCallum’s study.
Annabel regarded it uneasily as Cade helped her down the carriage steps. They had come directly from the train station without delay, and still carried their traveling bags. As they hurried up the wide stone walk, no one spoke. But Annabel could sense the tension that permeated the thick summer night, and she knew that it would only be broken when his sons had found Ross McCallum safe and sound, and at last had the opportunity to talk with him.
Surely Everett Stevenson had interceded and warned Ross McCallum of the danger surrounding him after he’d received her latest wire, sent before boarding the train. It had been brief, but clear enough:
Brett is safe. Derrickson and others believed to be plotting against R. McCallum. Warn him at once. Am returning immediately by train.
Yet as she stared at the darkened house, with only that one window ablaze, some instinct deep inside told her that something was wrong.
“Maybe he’s just sitting up—waiting for us to return,” she suggested in a low tone to Cade and Brett, striding along on either side of her as they neared the steps.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Brett muttered back, and there was fear in his voice. But it was not fear for himself, Annabel knew. It was fear for his father, the man who had raised him, which rattled through him like the ghastly bones of a skeleton.
Cade rapped on the door, his face set grimly in the light of the moon. It seemed an eternity before the heavy door was thrown open.
Charles Derrickson gaped at them from the dim cave of the hall.
“You ...! Master Brett ... you’re ... back.”
“Clever of you to notice,” Brett growled.
Cade jerked his thumb toward the pale man with the thinning hairline and the bony white wrists and hands. “Don’t tell me this is Derrickson?” he asked his brother.
“In the flesh.”
“Well, well.” Cade shouldered his way into the hall, ignoring the other man’s whimper of protest. He grasped Derrickson by the arm and yanked him along. Brett and Annabel dashed after them.
“Where is my father?” Cade demanded. It was his Roy Steele voice, Annabel noted, and if she wasn’t so filled with loathing for Derrickson, she almost would have felt sorry for the man.
Derrickson’s already pale skin turned the exact color of chalk. “Your ... father? You ... can’t be ... Master Cade.”
“The man’s a genius,” Cade bit out to Brett. “He has all the intelligence of a prairie dog.”
“Yes, he is Cade McCallum,” Annabel said impatiently. “And I’m sure you remember me, Mr. Derrickson, don’t you? Annabel Brannigan—I used to live here. Now that all the introductions are completed, I think you’d best tell us where Mr. McCallum is right away.” She stepped forward and jabbed him with two fingers in the chest. “His sons are most anxious to find him and let me just warn you that they are not the kind of men you wish to keep waiting.”
From the expression on Derrickson’s face it was obvious that he had already reached that exact conclusion. One look at the brawny black-haired man in the blue silk shirt and Stetson, a gun holster fitted with two serious-looking Colt .45’s buckled onto his dark trousers, made him tremble from his pointed chin down to his knobby toes, and a glance at the much-changed Brett did nothing to reassure him. The former young scion of the McCallum family had changed from an affable young gentleman to a ... a desperado. He was wearing the same style of western garb as his brother, only his h
at and shirt were gray, and his expression even nastier.
Even the woman looked formidable. Annabel Brannigan still looked as charmingly feminine as ever, but the pert, lively expression he usually associated with her was nowhere to be seen; the woman who watched him so shrewdly looked as if she could shoot him dead as soon as sit down to dinner with him, and the very real possibility that this trio might well do just that if they found out what was afoot made him blanch as Cade McCallum shoved him unceremoniously into the study.
A fire burned cozily in the grate. The desk was neat, the lamp atop it glowed pleasantly, and there was a steaming cup of tea beside a sheaf of papers. But Charles Derrickson had obviously been working in here, not Ross McCallum.
“You have ten seconds, Derrickson, to tell me where my father is,” Cade said as he drew out his Colt and aimed it at Derrickson’s trembling chest.
“One ...”
“I have no idea ...”
“Two ...”
“He went on a business trip ...”
“Three ...”
“... out of town ...”
“Four ...”
“And I haven’t heard from him in days now ...”
“Five ...”
“Really, Master Brett this is most irregular. Have you and your brother both lost your minds?”
“Six ... and seven.”
Annabel grabbed Derrickson’s arm. “We know you’re working with Boxer and we know you’ve betrayed Mr. McCallum—I suggest you tell us the truth immediately or he will shoot you.”
“Eight.” Cade said calmly.
“Good heavens!”
Cade’s eyes were like marble, his hands terrifyingly steady as he clicked the safety on the gun. “Nine.”
“He’s in the stables!”
Cade lowered the gun. Annabel pushed Derrickson down into a chair. “Alone?” she demanded.
“No ... no ... Bartholomew is with him, guarding him you might say, and ... Mr. Stevenson.”
“Everett Stevenson?”
“We caught him snooping around, looking for Mr. McCallum, after I told him that Mr. McCallum had been called out of town on business. Mr. Johnson said we had to take care of him, too, but ... I don’t like it,” he burst out miserably. His lower lip shook and he clutched the arms of the chair. “I never wanted things to go this far ... I said from the beginning that the use of violence was against my principles, but they wouldn’t listen to me and ...”
“Who else is out there?” Brett leaned down and glared into his face. “Boxer?”
“You mean Mr. Johnson.” Derrickson nodded, and then swallowed hard. “He’s expected any moment. He is planning to finish the matter tonight as a matter of fact ...”
“Finish the matter?” Brett asked sharply.
It was Cade who answered, as Derrickson just stared back in hopeless fear. “By that you mean that he is planning to kill our father, don’t you, Derrickson?”
“Well ... in a ... word ... yes.”
Annabel was already racing for the door.
“You stinking little bastard,” Brett said in a low tone. His fist shot out and slammed into Derrickson’s jaw. The man crumpled onto the floor without even a whimper.
“Annabel—wait!” Cade sprinted after her, but she was already tearing out the front door, racing through the darkness toward the stable even as the gunshot rang through the darkness.
Chapter 27
Ross McCallum jackknifed himself toward Boxer and the gun with every ounce of strength left in his body. He hit the man dead on, just as Boxer fired.
Then everything happened in a blinding, confusing flash—Boxer’s aim went wide, the bullet slammed into the stable wall, and Everett Stevenson threw himself sideways on the bench.
Boxer fell backward, the gun clattering from his grasp as McCallum went down on top of him. “You idiot!” Boxer shouted. “This is one fight you can’t hope to win, and I’m going to make damned sure you suffer for it!”
He had no difficulty in pushing off the larger man, whose wrists and ankles were still bound together—in an instant, he was up, kicking McCallum repeatedly as the older man tried to roll and twist away.
Stevenson dove off the bench and into the fray, trying to knock Johnson off balance, while at the same time, Bartholomew pulled a second smaller pistol from his pocket and brandished it at the skirmishers. “Stop!” he shouted. “Lie still or I’ll shoot you both!”
Suddenly the stable door opened and Annabel burst in. She had no memory of running across the long velvet lawn or of darting through the gardens, no exact realization of how she reached the stables. She only knew that her ears rang with the words: too late .... We’re too late.
Then rage choked her as she saw the tall, brown-haired man kicking Ross McCallum as he lay bound and writhing on the floor.
Without thinking, she jumped forward and shoved the man away with all her might. “Don’t you dare touch him again! Or I’ll let them kill you right here where you stand!”
“What the hell ... who the devil ...”
And then as if by magic, or perhaps some dark conjuring of the devil himself, another figure appeared behind her, and then another, only these were no magical illusions or spirits, they were tall hardy men, armed and competent, with dark hair and lean bronzed faces filled with unspeakable rage. A terrible grimness flashed in those dark faces as they surveyed the brutal scene before them—their gazes sweeping swiftly from the two men lying bound on the floor to the well-dressed man standing over them.
“It doesn’t matter,” Cade said with furious calm as he stared into Frank Boxer’s astonished face. “I’m going to kill you regardless.” And he lunged past Annabel and seized Boxer by his fancy silk lapels, holding him for a split second before his right fist slammed with punishing force into the other man’s face.
Brett dove at Bartholomew, who was trying to aim the pistol.
“I don’t think, so, you toad-eating son of a bitch.” Brett had no difficulty in wrenching the gun from his hapless opponent, and then he landed a solid left hook to Bartholomew’s jaw.
Annabel was already kneeling beside the two men on the floor, her fingers working frantically but uselessly at their bonds.
“Damn these ropes ... I can’t ... Mr. McCallum, Mr. Stevenson, are you all right? I’m trying to unknot them, but ...”
At that, moment, Cade’s next punch sent Boxer sprawling facedown. He landed only a few feet from Ross McCallum and lay there stunned for a moment. But suddenly, before Annabel could do more than blink, he somehow lunged forward to where she knelt beside the two men.
There was a knife in his hand.
He grabbed Annabel by the hair and yanked her toward him, up and over McCallum’s prone form. The keen blade of the knife grazed her throat.
“Don’t move—anyone! If you so much as quiver, I’ll slit this little lady’s throat like a gobbler.”
Red light flared before Annabel’s eyes as she crouched there, unable to move, unable to breathe. There was a ringing in her ears—terror, she realized. From the corner of her eye she saw Cade go very still and white, and Brett froze with Bartholomew in a headlock.
“That’s right.” Boxer laughed, a cruel, flat sound that seemed to fill every dark corner of the hushed stable. “Now stay where you are. The lady and I are leaving. If you don’t follow me, I’ll let her go.”
This can’t be happening, Annabel thought as she felt herself dragged up and toward the door. Boxer had let go of her hair; now he had an arm locked around her throat and the knife was pressed to her cheek. “It would be a shame to carve up such a pretty face,” Boxer snarled as they backed toward the door. “You McCallums always did have a taste for fine-looking women. Maybe I’ll seduce this one too,” he taunted with a vicious little laugh. “When we get where we’re going.”
Then they were outside in the warm, starlit night, and he was dragging her toward the carriage that waited in the shadows.
“Let me go,” she gasped, as his arm dug
into her throat. “You’ll ... make faster time ... without me ...”
“Shut up!” He opened the carriage door with his free hand, while the driver looked on in obvious panic, having no doubt heard the gunfire and the fracas within. But apparently, Annabel realized dimly, he was too frightened of his employer to bolt without him.
“Go, you idiot!” Boxer shouted at the driver, and at the same moment, he hurled Annabel away from him and leaped inside the carriage.
In the frantic confusion of the next few moments, Annabel scarcely knew what happened. But somehow, as the carriage plunged forward toward the gated driveway and the street, Cade was at her side, lifting her from the ground, crushing her to him.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I was scared but ... Cade, where are you going?”
“Stay there!” was all he replied, a shout over his shoulder, but she knew the answer already as he began to run toward the street.
Then she was surrounded by Brett, Ross McCallum, and Everett Stevenson, and the night was full of loud voices and questions. Brett had Bartholomew in tow, too, and once he saw that Annabel was unhurt, he began to drag his prisoner back to the house.
“Come on. Let’s get inside. We’ll get some rope for this hombre while we wait for Cade to get back. Don’t worry, Annabel,” he added, throwing her an encouraging smile, “you know that if anyone can catch him, Cade can.”
She nodded, but the fear was still there, a living, breathing thing in her heart as the battered weary group made its way to the looming house beyond.
Annabel was too stunned by all that had happened to be able to think beyond one thing: Cade was out there in the night chasing after a madman, a vicious, revenge-crazed madman. He should let him go ... he should be here, with his father, his brother, and me.
But she also knew that Cade McCallum would not be able to rest until he had caught up with the man who had brought so much misery to everyone he loved.