“The elderly couple who approached Grace, no one saw them on the train. No one in Laura Creek remembers them. And no one saw them in town. The Joneses claim they hadn’t spoken to anyone answering their description. They are lying. I’ve been watching and listening, staying out of sight. But I can tell, the old bat lifts her chin and turns her head to the side when she lies. The old man turns his back while he’s talking, hands waving as he walks away. Liars, both of them.
“They’ve never met me, by the way,” he said. “Telt, Twyla-Rose’s father, the sheriff, he’s the one who asked them the questions.”
She tugged at the cover and offered him a corner, which he gladly accepted.
“What about Gerald, their son?” she asked. Their hands touched, and she pulled it back to tuck it under the quilt. He could feel her hip warm against his, but he smiled at her attempt to avoid contact.
“He’s why I’m here. I don’t think he is their son. He goes off every weekend. Dodie thinks he gambles. And I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet.”
Jo huffed and straightened her shoulders. “He’s a spy and a tattletale, that’s what he is.”
“They’re giving you a hard time, I guess?”
She snorted this time and adjusted the quilt about her throat. “You could say that. I have notoriety. Notoriety is frowned upon here. I’m supposed to keep my head down, do as I’m told, and turn into a mouse. I’m not succeeding,” she said and sighed.
“No,” he said. Slowly and cautiously, he put his arm around her to draw her closer to his side. She put her head on his shoulder, and he felt her body relax and grow heavy against him. “I don’t think you could ever fool anyone into believing you’re a mouse. You do take orders well, though. At least I think so.”
She laughed. “When my life depends on it. Mrs. Jones does not appreciate innovation, deviation, or stimulation of the mind.”
His hand went to her thigh, roving over her rounded hip. “Stimulation? I’m all for stimulation. And innovation, I’m really good at innovation,” he said, his lips finding hers.
∙•∙
Momentarily losing her head, Jo yielded to the warm, tingling sensations his kisses inspired. The squeak and bang of the privy door opening and closing brought her back to reality. She sprang off the cot, the quilt pooling around her ankles. “You have to get out of here. Go. You shouldn’t be here.”
“I know,” he said, and she heard him laugh the low, seductive laugh that did funny things to her insides. Instead of standing, he leaned back against the half-wall.
“Dodie said there’s a vacant cottage. You should be in it, Jo. It’s pure meanness on the part of the Joneses you’re not. I’d like to stay here for an hour or so, wait for everyone to settle down for the night. I’m going to get into the office, have a look around.”
Holding up her hand, Jo stopped him. “Don’t. Stop right there,” she said and shut her eyes against the very idea of exploring the old bat’s office. On her hike, she’d thought of it herself, damn it. They were hiding something. The Joneses lived pretty high off the hog from what she could see. They didn’t pay the teachers—they were paid in room and board. Dodie kept the place spotless. They worked her hard, again for room and board. The meals weren’t great. They should be, Dodie and Gerald took care of the stock, but the students were rarely served beef or pork, while the Joneses feasted regularly on cuts of both. The students and teachers got game, or a boiled chicken and garden produce. Desserts were practically unheard of.
“I don’t want to know what you’re doing or how you’re going to do it. I can’t have anything to do with any of this.” She threw her hands up in the air and turned around. The blanket nearly took her down. She yanked it free of her legs, flipped it over her arm, and spun around to face him. “I’m on probation here. I’ve been threatened with the prospect of losing my position three times, and I’ve only been officially on the job for two days. I’ll do what I can to protect the girls, keep my eye on them, but I can’t get entangled in your, your adventures ever again.”
His deep-throated chuckle and the creak of the cot warned her of his imminent embrace.
“Oh, Jo,” he said, gathering her into his chest and stroking her back. She sagged against him, against the power he had over her. When he pulled her back down on the cot to sit beside him, with the cover tucked in around them, holding her close, she despaired at her lack of willpower. “My Jo, shhh. Close your eyes and rest awhile. We’ll sit tight here and wait for everyone to get sound asleep. You can come with me, be my lookout.”
She tossed her head back and cracked her forehead on his chin. “I will not,” she said. He kissed her on her bruised eyebrow.
“If we can get into the old man’s office,” he said, barely taking time to breathe, massaging her arm in meditative circles, “maybe we can find out who the Joneses really are and where they’re from. Tomorrow I’ll follow Gerald. Between you and me, we’ll have this case solved in no time.”
Chapter Twelve
Ryder shifted Jo’s head from his shoulder to her pillow. Carefully, he arranged her legs on the cot and tucked the quilt and covers around her body. They’d both fallen asleep, he didn’t know the time, but he felt fairly confident no one was stirring. Quietly, he slipped out of the tent via his usual route, stepping over the half wall and beneath the canvas. Going down with knuckles on the ground, he crouched and disappeared into the darkness beneath the trees.
Sticking close to the trunks of the trees, he made his way to the great hall. Hugging the side of the building, he stopped to listen for any sounds. An owl hooted, and another owl in back of him hooted in return. A whisper of wind rustled the brittle fall leaves at the ends of the branches.
In his crouched position, he hustled across the open yard. Reaching the side of the administration office, he plastered himself to the side of the building, moved as a shadow, and slid around to the back. Again, he stopped to listen and slow his breathing.
Mr. Jones’s office was the second window down. Mrs. Jones had the front office. Her window, when he tried it, wouldn’t budge. Mr. Jones, however, proved very accommodating. Not only had he not locked his window, but he’d left it open by two inches. Ryder easily slid it open and tumbled inside head over heels, landing softly on the cool wooden floor on his hands and knees.
Still as stone, he listened and waited. Hearing nothing but the sound of his own heart pounding, he withdrew a candle from the inside of his coat and lit it, carefully shielding it from any drafts from the window behind him. The desk sat in the middle of the room. He crawled on three pins, keeping the candle steady in his hand as he went. He set the candle down to try the drawers. The middle drawer opened easily. He closed it. Next, the small side drawer on the right opened easily too. The lower drawer, deep and heavy, opened but made clank and tinkle noises setting his nerves on edge. Feeling inside, Ryder discovered a tall bottle and two glasses. He smiled to himself to think of the Joneses enjoying a shot of rye at the end of the day. The small drawer on the left opened and rattled, and he presumed he’d discovered the bibs, pens, and pencil drawer. The lower left drawer wouldn’t budge, locked tight.
He’d broken into more than a hundred desks, and the odds of finding the key to the locked drawer stuck to the underside of the center drawer were pretty good. He ran his fingers along the inside ridge of wood above the kneehole, and sure enough, found a key stuck there with a piece of what smelled like pitch.
The drawer unlocked quietly, and with a little muscle, rolled open. Thick files occupied the front of the drawer. But the files didn’t interest him. His hand went back, way back beyond the files, and he found two ledgers. He chose the bottom one, withdrew it, and tucked it inside his coat. He snuffed out the candle, closed the drawer and locked it, and tucked the key into his trouser pocket. He spat on his fingers and pinched the wick of the candle before placing it inside his coat pocket. He’d set his shirt on fire more than once. On his hands and knees, he backed up to the window, climbed over the sil
l, and landed on his feet outside.
»»•««
Jo woke, and finding herself alone, sat for a few seconds thinking she’d dreamt Ryder had arrived, held her here in her tent, and kissed her. Then she stubbed her toe on her traveling trunk and came fully awake to the fact that, yes, he’d arrived and magically restored her trunk, but now, of course, he’d vanished. Disgusted by her weakness for Ryder McAdam, she retrieved her quilt off the floor, the patchwork quilt made from her mother’s old dresses and her father’s shirts, and flung it back on the bed.
Still wearing her school clothes, she removed her blouse, skirt, petticoats, and chemise and hung them up. She donned her nightgown, muttering to herself for being a fool to care what happened to him. Lighting the lamp, she stoked the fire in the stove to heat some water to wash her face and scrub some sense into her head.
She congratulated herself for not batting an eye when the back of the tent ruffled and a long leg swung over the halfwall, then a darkly clad torso, and at last, the shoulders, arms, and head of Ryder McAdam appeared. “I’d thought you gone,” she said, taking a hand towel and drying her face.
The moment, improper and shameful, had her behaving with an unusual and most unseemly degree of sophistication. Heart racing and flustered to hide her blush, she turned her back on him and cinched the rope belt of her robe. Well known to her family as the level-headed one, this naughty adventure was long overdue. Only the thought of the consequences of getting caught kept Jo from surrendering to absolute ruin.
»»•««
With the lamplight outlining her shapely female body through the white cotton lawn of her nightgown, Ryder couldn’t blink or breathe, much less look away. Her glorious honey-colored mane fell to her waist, silky and smooth. The sight of her bare feet drove him crazy. He wanted to touch them. Kiss every cold toe. Slide his fingers up the inside of her ankles, her calf, her inner thigh…
Stop. He closed his eyes and held his breath. When he dared to open them, she had her back to him, slipping her arms into an ugly brown and gold plaid flannel robe, endearing her to him even further.
The tent space didn’t allow for a lot of room to maneuver, but Ryder did his best not to let any part of his person touch any part of her person. He had a very tight hold of himself at the moment, but any hint of touch, such as his shoulder brushing her shoulder, his arm brushing her arms, his leg brushing hers, he feared could ignite a spark of heat that would send them both up in flames of inescapable passion.
Taking the lamp, he set it on the lid of Jo’s trunk. Without looking at her, he sat down on the cot and bent over the black ledger and opened it to the first page. The squiggles, lines, and blotches made no sense at all.
His desire to sink deep into her core and die in her arms had him in a sweat. He rolled his shoulders and bit down on his lower lip, telling himself to forget that beneath her ridiculously hideous robe and thin cotton gown was her beautiful warm body, and that all of her could be his with very little coaxing.
Arrogance, arrogance. He put a tad more pressure on his lip, his teeth nearly drawing blood.
He’d lusted after a few women, but nothing as compelling or as dangerous as this had ever occurred. He could lose his head, make mistakes. And set Jo’s life into a bottomless sinkhole. Bad enough what he’d drawn her into so far, he’d hate himself for a cad and a bounder if he took Jo’s virginity because he lacked self control.
“What’s that?” she asked, leaning over his shoulder, her gaze fixed on the opened ledger. A lock of her hair fell over his arm. She smelled of soap and rose water. He inhaled and closed his eyes. On an exhale, he moved over, giving her room to sit next to him.
“It’s a ledger, I think. I found it in a locked desk drawer. I couldn’t read it over there in the office. The Joneses or Gerald might see the light from my candle moving around from their residence. I’ll return it after I’ve had a chance to study it a bit.”
“Hmm,” she said and flipped a couple of pages without his permission. “Not a ledger, more of a diary or a record book of transactions.”
“Yeah, but what kind of transactions? Look at this one, four thousand £. What’s it mean? And for what?”
“British pounds sterling,” she said, going back to the front of the book. “There’s a letter or something, here, stuck inside this binding. The corner of the envelope is frayed.”
Holding the envelope closer to the light did little to help. The address, written in a script of lines and symbols, provided no clue. The multiple postmarks, a Chinese pagoda, an Egyptian pyramid, and the ink drawing of a Spanish battlement proclaimed the letter a world traveler. The sheaf of paper inside the envelope, a personal letter written to one Ira D. Jaynes from his brother, Omar, gave credence to the duplicity Ryder suspected.
A half-dozen receipts fluttered free and landed on the lid of the trunk. Ryder examined one of them, taking note they were deposit transactions through Wells Fargo Bank of New York made to an account number but no name.
He needed to write the number down on something. His fingers searched inside his coat for a pencil.
Jo reached behind her to the little shelf above the stove and handed him a pencil and paper. No words were spoken.
“Thank you,” he said and gave her a peck on the cheek.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked as he copied the account number. “These deposits add up to around ten thousand dollars,” she said, waving the slips of paper under his nose. “Here’s a receipt for a two hundred thousand something… ¥, I don’t know for sure, but it could be Yen. Who pays two hundred thousand yen for anything? And for what? And who is Ira D. Jaynes, for heaven’s sake?”
He shook his head, muttering to himself. “Jaynes, Jones? I’ll send some wires in the morning. Just guessing tonight. Ira D. Jaynes and Ira D. Jones are one in the same.”
Jo grunted in agreement and passed him the receipts. She returned her attention to the record book, flipping through the pages.
He’d started writing down the amounts on the receipts when her gasp averted his attention from the deposit slips back to the book. Fingers shaking, she removed a loose sheaf of paper. Eyes round and body trembling, she handed it to him.
The letter was addressed to Omar Dakar Hussein Jaynes, Captain of the Oracle, dated September 2. “Dear brother Omar, We have a spirited young woman who recently came under our employ. She is not too old and not too young, fit, a fine figure, strong, good teeth, sound of mind, fair, caramel colored hair, unusual gray eyes, and as I said, unusually high-spirited, too spirited for our little school. I believe she would find favor with the Sultan. He mentioned in his last letter he had tired of the blonde, and the child weeps profusely. They have brought upon him a melancholy which causes headaches and bad temper. We could deliver before the New Year if we could get her shipped before the end of the month. I await your response.”
Ryder read over the letter three times to absorb its meaning. The first time through he couldn’t believe it, the second time through he was so disgusted he thought he might puke, and the third time through he got really, really frightened and angry. Stiff with outrage, he squared his shoulders, folded the letter, and placed it between the last few pages of the book where it had been originally and closed the book.
He blew out the light in the lantern and enfolded Jo within his arms, pulling her close to his chest. He pressed his lips to her forehead and prayed he could stop whatever they had planned. His mind racing, he spoke his thoughts aloud, “The next town outing is a week from this coming Saturday. We have time to set a trap. I wish you weren’t in this tent. They’ve isolated you here on purpose.”
Her fingers clenching and unclenching on his arm, she said, “You think he’s talking about me…about abducting me?”
“I do. They can’t have you. You’re mine now, Jo.”
Her fingers tightened on his arm, her head burrowing closer to his shoulder. She hadn’t disputed his claim, but she hadn’t leaped for joy either.
“No, I know, but I don’t want to leave you alone. You’re not safe in this tent. Anyone could sneak in here and cart you away, and no one would be the wiser. I’m not going to let that happen. You’re mine. I am yours. Neither of us can do nothing about this, Jo. You’re not ready to accept it, but I can wait.”
She pulled back and shook her head. “This is not the time. All I really know is no one could haul me away. I’d put up a fight. You know I would. You don’t have to stay with me. You shouldn’t be here. And we both know why,” she said, touching his jaw with the tip of her finger.
In the dark his lips found hers, and they were lost. His hand started to rove over her hip and then up, going inside her robe and finding her breast. He groaned and stopped, aching with need and breathing hard. He put his forehead to hers. “These people are ruthless. They have ways, drugs to make you unable to fight. Opium, morphine, you couldn’t fight.”
He pulled himself away from her, removed his hand from her flesh, and groaned. “I’ll take this back,” he said, closing the record book, “and I’ll get my bedroll. I left it stashed in the orchard. I’m sleeping in here, right beside your cot, on the ground. I’ll protect what is mine.”
Jo and the Pinkerton Man Page 9
