Cadence (Langston Brothers Series)

by Blue, Melissa Lynne

  “Safe from what, Curtis?” she buried her face in his chest sensing these would be the last moments alone with him for an undeterminable amount of time.

  “Let’s just say the terrible things from my past have caught up with me.” He kissed her then, and it was a desperate kiss, a kiss of longing, a kiss of… goodbye.

  The coach rattled to a stop and she heard Jack leap to the ground and crunch across the gravel to retrieve her trunk.

  “Curtis,” her voice broke on his name as he pulled her from the coach and up the stairs of his brother’s Charleston townhouse, “you’re scaring me. Please don’t leave.”

  “This is the only way I can protect you. I’m sorry.” He caught her face between his hands and stared into her eyes with longing. “Cadence, I–I know I shouldn’t tell you this, that it isn’t the right time, but—”

  The door jerked open and a surprised Craig Langston jumped back.

  “Good, you’re home.” Curtis grabbed Cadence’s hand and shoved past his brother into the house.

  “Well, I was bringing Marissa and Christopher home before I go to examine Jim Holbrook’s body.” Shaking his head in bewilderment he gestured from Curtis and Cadence to Jack hauling a full size steamer trunk into his entryway. “What are you doing here?”

  “Cadence needs to stay with you for a while and my man Jack is here to keep an eye on her and Marissa. “You,” he nodded to Craig, “are coming with me.”

  “Just hold a moment. Why do our wives need a bodyguard?”

  Curtis cringed away from his brother’s angry tone. “I’ll explain after we pick up Davy and get to the sheriff’s office.”

  “What is going on?” Marissa Langston was the next to enter the hall taking the scene in with wide, serious eyes.

  “Marissa.” Craig took a step toward his wife, but Curtis grabbed his arm hauling him toward the door.

  “No time, Craig. We’ll explain everything later.”

  “What in the hell is going on?” Marissa repeated as Curtis strode through the door.

  “Oh, Marissa, I have no idea.” Cadence’s broken sobs followed Curtis from the house.

  Twenty-five

  Curtis let his eyes drift across the eyes of his two older brothers and the city sheriff. “Chandler Fielding was my commanding officer during the first year of the war. It would suffice to say that I pissed him off and he’s been after me for years.”

  “Wait a minute.” George raised a hand. “What exactly did you do that he’s been after you for years?”

  “I turned him in for unlawful execution of prisoners, and I, uh,” Curtis swallowed a bit sheepishly, “had an affair with his wife.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Craig muttered, slouching in his chair.

  David let out a burst of dry laughter. “Added insult to injury I see.”

  “But that is neither here nor there. What you have to understand is that Fielding is mad.” Curtis raked a hand through his hair, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Truly insane and he doesn’t let anything go without revenge. I think Jim Holbrook was lying about his involvement with Fielding and either got himself killed for running his mouth or because of bad business or bad debts the same as Mike Jamison.”

  “So Fielding came back to Charleston for Holbrook, not necessarily to silence Cadence or for you?”

  “Exactly,” Curtis nodded. “Jim Holbrook may have fed us a little information about the dealings between Mike and Fielding hoping we’d catch the bastard before he came back. But now we have the advantage in catching the bastard because we know who his next victim will be.” He paused, pulling the letter he’d received from Fielding that afternoon from his pocket. “Me.”

  A long moment of silence ensued as the men passed the missive between them.

  “As you can see, he has every intention of remaining in the city until he’s exacted revenge on me. I believe he came here for Holbrook and finding me in port was simply an added bonus.”

  “But he must know the law in Charleston will be looking for him.” Davy leaned forward in his chair. “I fail to understand why he’s making his intention to kill you so public, why doesn’t he just leave?”

  “Because it’s all a big game to him, like chess, he prides himself on an ability to outmaneuver everyone, proving he’s the best.” Curtis, too, leaned forward intently. “The man has gotten away with so much over the years he truly believes himself above the law. Murder, rape, arson, to Fielding it’s all the same as eating breakfast. Which is why we must stop him while we have the chance?”

  “Alright,” Davy glanced about the room. “We’ll help you. What is it you’re planning?”

  Curtis let out a weighted breath. “I don’t know yet, but I thought you should all know exactly who we’re dealing with.

  * * *

  A particularly loud thud from the back of the house caused Cadence’s heart to jump into her throat. Every creak and groan of the house sent her near to a panic.

  What was happening?

  The question screamed over and again roaming with abandon through her mind, Cutis had been so secretive about the new murder suspect, but after tonight it was obvious the man who’d killed her father was part of his dark past.

  I killed a man.

  In this moment when Curtis’ life must be in danger for him to behave so desperately—she didn’t particularly care what he’d done. No, that wasn’t true, she cared, but she loved him. And moreover she knew Curtis. He was not the sort of man to murder anyone in cold blood.

  I killed a man.

  The words still had the power to chill her clear to the bone. She had to see him. Speak with him. Know that her convictions were not in vain.

  The front door slammed and she flew from the bed snatching a wrapper from the open trunk and darted to the stairs. “Curtis?” she called rounding the corner at the top of the steps.

  Craig looked apologetically up the stairs. “I’m sorry, Cadence, it’s only me.” He raised his hands helplessly. It was well after two in the morning and exhaustion etched his features.

  “But… I…” Her throat constricted and her breath came in short gasps. “Where is he?” she choked, sliding miserably to sit on the top step. “How does Curtis know the man who killed my father?”

  Slowly her brother-in-law mounted the stairs and took a seat beside her. His eyes, so remarkably blue and so much like Curtis’s, were soft and filled with pity. She couldn’t stand it, didn’t want his pity, because it only fed her greatest fears and loneliness. He sighed, slipping a comforting arm around her shoulders. “I promised Curtis that I wouldn’t tell you anything yet. I think he wants to sort a few things out so he can tell you the whole story himself.”

  “You’re lying. You know he’s not planning to tell me anything, and that is why you need to tell me what all of this is about. He has secrets, Craig, secrets that he has nightmares about. I think they have to do with the war, but he won’t tell me anything. I love him,” she confessed, “and all I want is to help him.”

  Craig sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “I’ll make you a deal.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I want to give him the chance to do the right thing, but if he doesn’t tell you himself by the end of the week, I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  “Very well.” She swallowed back tears. “Deal.”

  “Good.” Craig nodded. “Now, go to bed and try to get some rest.”

  Twenty-six

  “Any sign of Fielding yet?” Curtis stepped into the sheriff’s office ready to collapse in exhaustion. “I haven’t had any luck.”

  George shook his head grimly. “I’m sorry but even with all of my men on this we haven’t turned up any sign of Chandler Fielding. The man is like a ghost, and Charleston is a big city. I know this is hard Curtis, but you’re going to have to be patient and trust that we will catch him in good time.”

  “I know,” Curtis grumbled, sitting heavily into a chair. “B
ut patience has never been one of my stronger points.”

  George chuckled. “I am well aware, which reminds me—” The older man opened a side drawer and tossed a silver badge onto the desktop. “In light of the situation with Colonel Fielding I’m making you an official deputy, at least until we catch the bastard.”

  “A deputy?” Curtis plucked the badge from the desktop. “You must be joking, I raised more hell around here than anyone has a right to remember.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” George barely concealed a grin. “How old were you the first time I drug you home in irons, fifteen?”

  “Fourteen,” Curtis corrected wryly. “An occasion my father is yet to allow me to forget.”

  “What were you doing again?” George’s tone was reminiscent.

  “On that particular occasion Billy Cole and I stole the livery coach and two horses,” he shook his head at the memory. “We were always going to bring it back.”

  “Lucky Old Harper Fisk didn’t shoot you two on the spot!”

  “If I recall he wanted to string us up for horse thieves.” Curtis couldn’t help but grin.

  The pair lapsed into a reflective silence. “Billy was a good lad,” the sheriff said.

  “Yes, he was.”

  The sheriff flashed him a fatherly smile. “In any case you have grown into a respectable young man and your instincts have been dead on during this investigation. For the moment I’m proud to call you one of my lawman.”

  For a long moment Curtis knew the strangest sense of being a little boy, he felt a surge of something almost like longing at the praise. “I appreciate this, George.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll do my best for you.” He shook his head once more. “A deputy. Who’d have guessed?”

  “Good man.” The sheriff extended a hand and bade Curtis farewell. “Besides that, you’re one of the few who knows what our man looks like.”

  Curtis grinned. “Ah-ha, and the truth of it comes out.”

  He left the sheriff and strode through the streets, contemplating the volatile predicament and his growing sense of unease.

  Cadence.

  He ached to see her, but distancing himself from her until Colonel Fielding was caught was the only way to keep her safe. Of course now that she’d had time to ponder last night’s confession it was quite plausible she’d not want to see him again. Making a sweep past the port side of town, Curtis took a moment to inspect his warehouse—a shipment was due next week.

  He stepped into the dim building. The toe of his right boot caught on an object both dense and soft with a sickeningly familiar thud. Only one thing made that particular noise when kicked. Squeezing his eyes shut for half a second he stilled his nerves and looked down.

  “Miss Watson,” he groaned. Dead. No doubt she’d been skulking about yet again. At the very least she looked dead. Curtis had known she’d eventually get someone killed; he’d just never figured it would be herself!

  Christ. His stomach rolled.

  He dropped to his knees over the body, reaching to check the pulse along her throat. A shadowed figure materialized ghostlike from the shadows driving him bodily into a pile of crates. “Ugh,” he moaned as the wood splintered and cracked beneath his weight.

  “Sergeant Langston,” Fielding’s sinister voice struck an all too familiar chord. The darkly cloaked man clicked his tongue. “If you aren’t the perpetual bane of my existence.”

  And there was that term again… the bane of my existence. “I believe you are the bane of your own existence, Colonel.” Curtis propped himself on an elbow, wondering firstly how his pistol had managed to fly from his holster to where it now lay a few feet away, and secondly how best to maneuver himself from beneath the pile of splintered crates. He cleared a piece of broken wood from his chest, moving to stand, but Fielding shoved a heavily booted foot into his chest.

  “I should kill you now,” Fielding growled his black eyes hardening.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  Fielding laughed at the challenge evident in Curtis’s voice. “Oh, Sergeant, you haven’t changed a bit.” The man’s voice dripped such evil that Curtis felt his heart wash cold. “You were always the defiant one. One hell of a soldier but you didn’t have the killer instinct necessary to get the job done.”

  “I see you haven’t changed either, Colonel.” Curtis knew better than to goad the man but couldn’t help himself. “Burned any houses lately or have you restricted your activities to more simple acts of murder?” His eyes stole toward Kathleen broken and motionless in the doorway.

  Colonel Fielding narrowed beady eyes. “You asked why I don’t kill you now? You see, Sergeant, you slept with my wife, in my house, in my bed and I think it only fair that I repay the service while you’re still alive to know it.”

  Curtis’s blood ran cold. He wasn’t the next victim… Cadence was.

  “You’re familiar with the term ‘a woman in every port?’” Fielding’s eyes hardened. “It would seem, Sergeant, that you picked the wrong woman at your Fort Fischer station. Did you know right away that Christina Wirkinton was really Christina Fielding?”

  Curtis refused to answer immediately. Christina was a wily woman who’d appeared at a time in his life when he’d been bitter, and angry with hate for the world. He’d used her, she’d used him, it had been a damned dastardly affair—what was the word he’d used to describe it, acrimonious? Yes, acrimonious, that was it, damned if he could spell it but it was the perfect descriptor—it had been one hell of an acrimonious affair. When he’d learned she was Fielding’s wife a part of him was more than pleased to have trumped the bastard while an equal part knew the time had come to quite literally kiss her goodbye.

  “Ah,” the colonel chuckled. “So you did know she was my wife. I had thought to kill you for it years ago; all of her lovers pay sooner or later, but you always eluded me. I despaired over and again that the ocean would swallow you before I could exact my revenge.” The colonel’s heavy boot caught Curtis in the chest as he tried to rise a second time. “Sergeant, you could never realize the extent of my excitement when I realized the woman bound to hang for the murder of that bumbling fool Jamison was none other than your lovely wife, but now that such a fate is unlikely I’ll take advantage of the opportunity to taste your wife as you tasted mine. And this,” he motioned to Kathleen’s body, “is just a taste of what you’ll have left of your wife.”

  “You can go to the devil before I let you so much as look cross-eyed at my wife.”

  Fielding’s mouth twisted in a long, slow semblance of a smile. “When I take her from you, you’ll know it. I’ll ensure you hear her scream.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Curtis growled from beneath the pile of boxes. “You’ll never get away with it. The law knows who you are!”

  Curtis struggled to rise as the man dissipated into the shadows chuckling. “You’ll all be dead and I’ll be gone before the law has any idea what has happened.”

  Heaving the splintered crates from around him Curtis flew from the building in search of the man who would dare threaten his reason for breathing. As he stepped from the warehouse into the daylight there was no sign of a tall man clad entirely in black.

  Amazingly Kathleen Morris was not dead—at least not yet—and within thirty minutes she was safely in the hands of his brother’s partner, Dr. James Rowe. Leaving the physician’s office at a dead run Curtis marveled at the irony of it all. He’d just taken the time to save the life of a woman who’d set out, more or less, to destroy his. Never thought twice about it, but really who would think twice about leaving someone to die, certainly not he. Could it be he was not as black as he believed? Was it really possible?

  * * *

  “Cadence!” Curtis burst through the front door of his brother’s house. “Cadence,” he gasped, struggling for every breath after his mad dash through Charleston.

  “Curtis.” She rounded the staircase leading into the front hall? “Oh, my God. What’s happened?”

&nbs
p; “Cadence,” he breathed a third time crossing the hall in three long strides. He mounted the stairs and met her halfway pulling her roughly against his chest. “I’m so sorry, love, I was wrong.” Holding her, warm and vibrant, crushed in his arms, Curtis could not dispel the sense of devastating loss pooling in his gut. He committed every feel and smell of her to memory, unable to stem the fear of losing her. It was too much to bear, and moreover, any harm that came to her would be his fault.

  “Curtis, wrong about what?”

  “Everything,” he muttered, refusing to release her as she tried to pull back. “Is Craig home? I need to speak with him.”

  “No, Curtis. You need to speak with me first. I deserve some answers.” Her beautiful violet eyes sparked with anger but above all she looked frightened, pleading.

  How did one tell his wife a madman was out to get her because of something he’d done? “Soon, Cadence.” He dropped a quick kiss to her lips. “Where is my brother?”

  “Here.” Craig appeared at the bottom of the stairs, a grim expression on his face. “Let’s go to my study.”

  Miserably Cadence held to Curtis’ hand as he moved away from her down the steps. “Curtis,” she whispered tremulously. “I do love you.”

  “Do you really?” he asked softly breathed, broken, letting his fingertips slide away from hers. “Can you?”

  Curtis looked away from her and followed Craig into the study, closing the door behind them.

  “Would you care for a drink?”

  “Please.” Gratefully Curtis accepted the crystal tumbler his brother offered and quaffed the fiery liquid in a single gulp.

  “Another?” Craig raised a whiskey bottle.

  Without a word Curtis held the tumbler before him and more carefully nursed the second drink. Quickly he filled Craig in on the chilling encounter with Colonel Fielding and Kathleen Morris’s assault.

  “Does the sheriff know about this?”

  “I went to see the sheriff and David before coming here.”

  “Good.”

  Tapping a finger against his glass, the events of the morning whirled through his mind but one specific thought refused to dissipate. “I think I have an idea. We may be able to use Fielding’s threat to our advantage.”