And she regretted that, in Jack Riesel’s words, his “little problem” had been no trouble at all.
It was time to make some trouble. This wasn’t how her story was going to end. The cavalry wasn’t coming. If she was going to be rescued, she’d have to do it herself. A calm, cold determination took root as she pressed her ear to the side of the closet again to listen.
To her surprise, she heard the distinct sound of a man’s snore. The scent of cedar tobacco was back, which meant Jack was awake and had lit another cigar. It was probably dark by now, but she’d gleaned enough from their earlier conversation to know that Jack expected to arrive in the port of New York at seven o’clock in the morning.
There was no getting through the heavy lock on the door, so another way had to be found. She’d already explored every square inch of the closet, running her palms over the walls, ropes, wires, and tie-downs hanging from the pegs. A toolbox rested on the floor. She carefully handled the equipment, but most of it was useless. Loose bolts, screws, a roll of string, but no sign of a hammer that might serve as a weapon. She found a nail rolling at the bottom of the box, a big one, at least three inches long. Maybe she could use it to defend herself? If she wrapped it in cloth, she’d have a better grasp and could jab one of the men.
She sighed and rolled her eyes, imagining how pathetic she’d seem trying to take on two gun-toting men with a single nail.
What would a hero from her adventure novels do? It was the dead of night, and one of her captors was asleep. Any hero worth his salt would say now was the time to act. He wouldn’t stand in a closet and fret over looking foolish while brandishing a nail for defense. If he couldn’t pick the lock on the door, he would use a broadsword to hack his way out through the middle. She didn’t have a broadsword and couldn’t afford the noise even if she did.
But the door had hinges.
And she had tools.
She smiled so widely that it split the cut on her lip. With the nail and the heel of her boot, she could tap the pin from each of the hinges.
It didn’t take long to wiggle out of her boots and position the nail beneath the base of the first hinge. She tapped the nail with her boot heel, the dull thud barely making any noise. Two minutes later the pin popped free. She repeated the procedure until only a single hinge held the door in place.
She would need to move fast once the door was off. Then she’d have to swim for freedom. Would she remember how? It had been twelve years since she’d last swum, but it was her only hope of escaping this barge. The water would be freezing, and her velvet gown would get waterlogged and slow her down. She slipped out of her jacket and skirt, all the way down to her skivvies. Gooseflesh puckered her skin, and she wasn’t even in the water yet.
She leaned her forehead against the door. Please, God, I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I’ve tried to live a good and worthy life. Thank you for the gift of the convent. Thank you for giving me a father here on earth, even if he isn’t perfect. I’m not either. And thank you for Alex. He taught me to swim so that maybe I’ll survive this night. And if you could help me lift this door off its hinges without making a huge racket, I’d truly appreciate it. Amen.
It was now or never.
She held her breath as she tapped the pin from the final hinge, then knelt and worked her fingers beneath the crack at the bottom of the door. A little wiggle, and the door tipped inward. The lock held fast, but she rotated the door enough to squeeze through the opening.
It was almost pitch-black outside as well, with only a sliver of moonlight glinting on the water. Forest covered most of the shoreline, and cold air surrounded her as she crept toward the rim of the barge. There was no sign of civilization except for a few lights twinkling over a mile away. Could she wait until the barge was closer to the lights?
“Hey!” Jack roared. “How did you get out here?”
He stood only yards away, and the time for thinking was over. She jumped.
It was freezing! She dog-paddled furiously to keep her head above water. Jack threw his cigar at her, and the glowing tip fizzled out only inches from her face.
“Kasper, wake up!” he screamed. “She’s getting away and I can’t swim!”
She wasn’t moving fast enough with the dog paddle. Fabric wafted around her, and the water was so icy that her muscles started seizing up.
Alex’s voice sounded in her mind. Swim! Don’t dog-paddle—swim. You know how. I taught you.
“Right,” she muttered, and quit dog-paddling. She put her face in the water, lifted her hips and feet, and propelled herself forward, swimming in smooth, confident strokes. She didn’t look back, couldn’t worry about what was going on behind her. Voices yelled and shouted, but she kept her face in the water and swam for her life.
Her lungs felt ready to burst, but she didn’t stop, just kept moving. After a long while, she slowed to catch her breath, and her feet sank. Mercifully, her toes touched smooth, slimy rocks. She was almost to shore! A renewed jolt of energy prompted her to flatten out and start swimming again.
“Halt!” The commanding voice echoed across the water, and she panicked, ducking beneath the surface to hide.
Then she realized the voice had come from the land, not behind her. She lifted her head and swiped water from her eyes. The silhouette of a man standing on shore had a rifle aimed straight at her.
“Don’t shoot!” she implored. “I need help.”
“Get out of the water, ma’am,” the voice ordered.
She planted her feet on the rocks, and this time the water only came to her shoulders. She raised both hands in the universal sign of surrender and started slogging forward. More men rushed to join the first. There were four of them, all with rifles trained straight at her.
They were all in uniform. Their faces were young but fierce and determined, and as she blinked the water from her eyes, she recognized their uniform. They were cadets from the United States Military Academy at West Point.
She was safe.
Chapter
Thirty-Four
Alex stood on the shore of the campus at West Point, his soul frozen as he watched the grim operation in the middle of the river before him. After Alex alerted West Point about the escaping barge, the campus went on alert and sent their cadets to patrol the shoreline for several miles in both directions. Alex and Garrett had taken the train to West Point, where the navy’s revenue cutter service had been deployed to intercept all passing boats at Constitution Island. The cutter service was designed to waylay smugglers, and they had plenty of experience stopping and boarding boats.
There had only been one boat all night long, a barge belonging to the Riesels. The slow-moving barge had been stopped more than an hour ago, but there was no sign of Eloise on board.
“Let me have the binoculars,” Alex said to Garrett, whose face was grim as he handed them over. Torches on the barge illuminated the deck, where Kasper Nagy and Jack Riesel sat on opposite ends of the barge, handcuffed and helpless while being independently questioned by military personnel.
Jack Riesel. Learning that a friend was behind the death of the Russians and the sabotage was a stab in the back. Someday soon it would hurt, but it hadn’t yet sunk in. All he could do right now was think of Eloise, and it looked bad for her. The first sailors to search the barge reported no sign of a hostage, and both Kasper and Jack swore that Eloise had jumped. A convenient excuse. A man who could so easily murder the old soldier would have no qualms about shooting a hostage once she was no longer useful. Eloise was probably dead and on the bottom of the river by now.
“I want on that ship,” Garrett said when the officer in charge approached them.
“We can’t have civilians on board while the investigation continues,” the officer said. “I assure you, no stone will be left unturned.”
“I’ll be more effective at getting the truth out of those men if I have to rip them open to do it!” Garrett snapped.
Alex lowered the binoculars as the arguing cont
inued, but it faded into the background. Oh, Eloise. Had she been frightened? Angry? It didn’t seem possible that a woman like her could be snuffed out so quickly. She had been a diamond. A heroine worthy of Shakespeare or Sophocles or one of the Old Testament female warriors.
A flare launched from the far side of the campus. It was from land, not the river, and the officers on the shore looked over in concern. There was yelling and shouting in the distance, and a crowd of people were heading this way. Alex strained to hear what they were saying. There was so much shouting and confusion, but finally one voice rose above the others.
“We found her!” someone hollered.
Alex dropped the binoculars and ran. A throng of people clustered beneath a streetlamp, and they were cheering. Did he just see a flash of red? So many men and soldiers congregated beneath the light, but in the middle was someone with sopping wet red hair.
“Back away,” he ordered, and like magic, the cadets stepped back.
Could it be Eloise? She looked like a drowned puppy, with wet hair, bare feet, and a cadet’s wool coat draped around her shoulders. It was only battlefield training that kept him standing on his feet.
“Eloise?” She looked nothing like the prim, flawlessly tailored woman of the past few months, but it was her, and she beamed the most radiant smile as she ran into his arms. He clasped her to him but then didn’t move a muscle. If he moved, this dream might end, for it couldn’t be real. But she felt real. The smell and prickle of wet wool felt real. He buried his face in her neck and couldn’t let her go, for she was alive and safe. He’d never let her go again.
Thank you, God. He didn’t understand how Eloise had managed to get herself off that barge, but surely God had been with them this night.
“Stand aside. I need to see my daughter,” a gruff voice said.
Alex smiled against the side of Eloise’s face, reluctant to let her go, but if Garrett was willing to openly acknowledge Eloise, Alex needed to stop resenting the man so much. He pulled back to gaze down into her face.
“Your father is here too,” he said, and he stood back to let Garrett pull Eloise into a mighty bear hug.
The next few minutes were a blur as Eloise recounted how she had gotten the hinges off the door and swum to freedom. She had come ashore almost a mile upstream, where patrolling cadets spotted her. One of the sailors from the cutter service commended her, saying that by getting off the barge before they stormed the ship, she had been safer and prevented her captors from using her as a hostage.
Exhaustion clouded the edges of Alex’s mind, but he heard a growl from Eloise’s stomach. She looked a little embarrassed as she clamped an arm across her stomach, but it had been a long time since either of them had eaten. A lieutenant offered to bring her some food if she was too hungry to wait for breakfast.
“What time is breakfast served?” Eloise asked.
“Seven o’clock, ma’am.”
She glanced at the clock tower and nodded. “I can wait the four hours.”
The lieutenant quirked a brow. “Seven o’clock is only three hours away.”
She sagged. “Normally I’m really good at math. Truly. I’m an accountant.”
Alex circled her with an arm. “We’d be grateful for something to eat,” he said, and the officer led them across campus toward a dining hall.
Garrett tried to follow, but all it took was a few softly spoken words from Eloise to cause him to stand down. Alex couldn’t hear what was said, but Garrett gave a grudging nod and stepped back to give them privacy. It looked like Alex would have to make peace with his old rival, but for now he needed to be alone with Eloise.
Ten minutes later they were in the cadet mess hall, gorging on the best-tasting cheese sandwiches in the history of mankind. Was it just that they were famished, or was there something truly magical about tonight? The mess hall was cavernous, with slate floors and flags hanging along the stone walls. Every noise they made bounced and echoed in the castle-like hall, and it felt like they were the only two people in the world.
He did his best to tell Eloise what had gone on during the past several hours, how Garrett had put out word in the valley that his daughter was in trouble, and offered a ridiculous reward for anyone willing to help save her.
She frowned at him. “I hope he didn’t offer too much, because I kind of saved myself.”
“That you did,” Alex said with a smile. “But let me repeat—he promised a rich reward to anyone who helped save his daughter. He’s shouting it from the mountaintops. Didn’t you hear him outside?”
The words penetrated, and Eloise’s face warmed. “That feels pretty good.”
“I think he was terrified he’d made the biggest mistake of his life by denying you all these years. Frankly, none of us expected you’d be able to get yourself out of that fix without help. Miss Drake, despite your protestations of being a humble accountant, I find—”
“Stop right there,” she said. “The test I had to pass to get certified was eye-watering. There’s nothing humble about being a CPA.”
He bit back a smile. “My apologies. Despite your exhaustive, impressive, and sometimes tedious work as an accountant, you persist in behaving like a protagonist out of a boy’s adventure tale.”
Her shoulders sagged, and it looked as if she felt aches and pains in every muscle in her body. “I know, and I wish it would stop.”
“Truly?”
“Truly! I want to live by the rules. I want daily schedules and to know what I’m having for dinner tonight and what I will wear to work tomorrow. I want a list of every task expected of me, and I shall systematically slay each item.”
“Eloise . . . I want those things for you too.”
“Really? It seems like you want to tear your hair out every time I break out the rule books.”
He smiled and shook his head. “You’re my ballast. We couldn’t have moved that town without your tedious schedules and attention to detail. We need you. I need you. I’ve needed you to help keep me grounded since I was eighteen years old. Despite your fleeting lapses into heroism, I love your solid, finicky strength.”
Over the past twelve hours, he’d castigated himself for all the things he should have done to make Eloise know she was loved and cherished. He wouldn’t wait another day, not another minute to start making those things happen.
He got up from his chair and then down on one knee. The scrape of the chair echoed off the ceiling, and he swallowed hard. “I think I’m twelve years overdue on this.”
She stopped him. “It’s been a long day for us both. Don’t let irrational emotion make you say something you don’t mean. Be logical.”
He grabbed her hand and looked up into her eyes. “This is the most logical thing I’ve ever done. We were written in the stars long ago, and it’s time to do things right. Eloise, will you marry me?”
She fell to her knees so that they were face to face. They were complete opposites, but over the past eight months, they’d soared alongside each other and accomplished wonderful things.
She reached up to cup his face between her palms. “Bruce may have a heart attack and the world may stop spinning on its axis, but I would be honored to marry you.”
Chapter
Thirty-Five
For once in her life, Eloise felt sorry for Oscar Ott.
During the following week, she worked alongside the detectives to unsnarl the financial records at the cement factory and figure out how Kasper Nagy’s blackmailing scheme worked. They met in a stark room in the Kingston sheriff’s office. A table, four walls, four chairs, and stacks of accounting ledgers.
Oscar was walked out of his jail cell and asked to explain his accounting system. He was covered in a sheen of perspiration, and his eyes were frantic. “I don’t know anything!” he whined. “I just did what Jack and Kasper told me to do. I didn’t know they were siphoning money from the company.” He looked at Eloise. “You know how complicated things can be. How they can trick you. Tell them!”
> He was a pitiful sight. It was impossible to know what caused Oscar’s sense of inferiority that drove him to be so nasty, but she would no longer let this unhappy man hurt her. After careful study of the books, Eloise concluded Oscar probably didn’t understand the fraudulent system Jack designed to keep funneling blackmail money to Kasper. Oscar’s lack of formal training was probably why Jack had kept him on board all these years.
More work with the detectives unraveled the rest of the scheme. Kasper had been the town snitch for decades, collecting a healthy stipend from both Bruce and Theodore Riesel for passing along gossip he gleaned while eavesdropping at the hotel. When Jack needed help covering up the accidental death of the Russians, he turned to Kasper, a man with no scruples, a rudimentary knowledge of the Russian language, and who was willing to do anything for a dollar. In return, Kasper gave his service to “Pomo,” which meant boss in Kasper’s native Finnish—for a price. Kasper had also told Jack about the conversation between her and Alex the day they made maple candy. When it looked like Eloise stood to inherit half the fortune Jack had always assumed would be his alone, they tried for an accidental shooting to remove her from the scene.
Bruce had never finished breaking the complicated trust regarding the inheritance of the two companies, and since Jack was going to jail for the rest of his life, it looked like Eloise was going to someday inherit both the cement factory and a limestone quarry.
She’d been horrified, but Alex was over the moon. “You don’t have to actually run the place,” he said. “Hire Boomer or someone else who knows what they’re doing. I’m just happy the companies will be in good hands.”
God willing, she wouldn’t have to worry about it for years to come, for Bruce was still in excellent health, and ever since announcing his engagement to Marie Trudeau, he seemed ten years younger. Eloise wasn’t sure what the next few years held in store for them all, but she had faith they would be good ones. She was going to marry the man she loved and live in a new town with a bright future.
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