My Heart's Desire

by Wendy Lindstrom

  But the worst blow of all was that Cora wasn’t legally Faith’s daughter. It made him sick and more afraid than he’d ever been in his life.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this the night I found out about the brothel?”

  “Because the truth was too unbearable for you to hear all at once. And I was trying to protect Cora.”

  “Keeping secrets didn’t protect her! That judge has every legal right to keep our daughter!”

  Her chin shot up and her eyes flashed with anger. “Well, he can’t have her! I’m going to Syracuse to get her. And I’ll bleed, beg, or kill to get her back.”

  “How, Faith? He’s legally entitled to his child.”

  “He doesn’t want her. He wants the brothel. He caused my mother’s death trying to get it.”

  Duke’s blood ran cold knowing Cora was in that man’s hands. Maybe Duke had no legal right to the girl, but when he’d married Faith, he’d bound his heart to the precious, precocious youth and vowed to protect her. That vow had brought him joy, a sweetness and light that he had never known. Like Faith, he would go anywhere, and do anything to find Cora and bring her back.

  “Where’s Adam?” he asked, his decision made completely and irrevocably.

  “Next door with Dahlia.”

  “I’ll take him to Boyd’s house where he’ll be safe. Pack a bag for us. When I get back, we’re going to Syracuse.”

  Duke left Adam with Boyd then sent a telegram to Steven Cuvier, hoping the man knew something about Stone or Faith’s mother that would help them. But when Duke reached his office, his brisk manner deserted him. Despair settled in his gut, slowly hardening into a solid, unbreakable resolve.

  He climbed the steps of the Academy building, aching to the bone from eight days of traveling. All he’d wanted was to get home, but now he wished he’d taken more time to thank each of his deputies for their service. They were good men, and he was honored to work with them.

  But his life as sheriff was over.

  He crossed the hall, unlocked his door, and entered his office. Everything was painfully familiar—the heavy oak desk, the rickety chair, the old metal safe—but no longer his. Another man would soon rest his elbows on the scarred desktop. Another man would carry the keys to the safe. Another man would wear the badge that Duke had worn with pride for eight years.

  He’d known the day would come when he stepped down of his own accord, or when the vote supported another man. At each election he was prepared to pass the position to a man who could do the job. But he’d never imagined giving up his badge because he wasn’t fit to wear it.

  It was only a piece of metal, but when he unpinned the silver star from his leather vest, it felt as if he’d torn out his heart. He closed his fingers around the medallion, missing the weight of it on his chest. He’d worn the badge so long, it had left an impression in the leather, a painful reminder of a position he could no longer live up to. Because he was going to cross the line. He was going to break the law.

  The outside door squeaked open and footsteps echoed in the hall. “Glad you’re back,” his deputy called.

  “You alone, Sam?”

  “I will be in a minute.”

  Duke sat at his beat up old desk to write a short note of resignation. He heard keys jangle in the hallway then the cell door opened and closed then more jangling as Sam locked it.

  “Sleep it off, Morton.” Sam’s boot heels clunked across the wood floor then he appeared at the door, his auburn beard looking like it needed a good trim. “Did you get your telegram, Sheriff?”

  “Yeah.” Duke knelt by the safe to open it. This was the last time anyone would call him Sheriff. When he walked out of his office, it would be as a private citizen.

  And a father.

  The law said Cora belonged to Stone, but she belonged to Duke. Maybe Faith was correct, that right and wrong didn’t exist. But without those boundaries, how did one maintain a true course? Without knowing right or wrong, how could a man judge himself?

  “I’m turning in my badge, Sam.”

  Sam’s eyebrows pinched above his craggy nose. “I got water in my ears yesterday and I still can’t hear right. What’d you say?”

  “I have a shoulder that won’t heal, so I’m withdrawing from the election.”

  “But you can’t... you’re sure to win.”

  Duke’s hands shook as he put his badge inside the safe. “Maybe. Maybe not.” Didn’t matter. He unbuckled his gun belt and laid it beside the gleaming badge then stood and handed the keys to Sam. “You and the undersheriff can manage for a week until our new sheriff is elected. I suspect Phelps will be the man. Maybe Taylor will surprise us with a win, but I’m confident that Archer is out of the running.”

  Sam gawked at the keys. “You’re serious!”

  Duke wished he wasn’t, that he could confide in his friend, but his decision was made. “I’ve got a train to catch. Will you get this to the Censor for me so they can print my resignation in tomorrow’s paper?”

  Sam stared at the note. “Sheriff, is your shoulder that bad?”

  His shoulder was improving each day and would probably heal completely, but his conscience was festering like a deadly wound.

  “I’m not the sheriff anymore,” he said.

  Just Duke Grayson.

  But who was that man?

  Chapter Thirty-four

  The rocking motion of the train would have soothed Faith, but she was too brokenhearted and scared to be comforted by anything. Cora must be terrified. Duke hadn’t spoken a word other than to ask questions about the judge that she couldn’t answer. So he sat in grim silence, studying her mother’s guestbook with scowling intensity.

  “Did you really quit?” she asked, afraid to disturb him, but needing to know the truth.

  “Yes.” He didn’t look up from the book.

  “Why? I don’t understand, Duke. You were sure to win the election.”

  “Phelps will likely win now, and he’s worthy of the job.”

  “But it was your job.”

  He sighed and lowered the book to his lap, his eyes cold. “I can’t wear a badge and commit a crime, Faith.”

  “What crime? We’re getting our daughter back.” She hoped. She prayed.

  “If Cora’s in Syracuse, how do you suppose we’ll get her away from Stone? I’ll have to kidnap her from her father who has a legal right to keep her, and that’s against the law.”

  “You’re a sheriff. The law. Make the judge understand that he’s tangling with a powerful man. My mother couldn’t fight him, but you can.”

  “I’m not wearing a badge anymore. I’m a private citizen now.”

  “But he’s a lying, blackmailing criminal!” she insisted quietly. “Can’t you take back your badge and arrest him?”

  “For what, Faith?”

  “For taking Cora and...” She sighed, and her eyes welled up. Stone was protected and there was no way to prove he’d committed any crime. “Maybe you could have used your badge to scare him off.”

  Duke scoffed. “A sheriff’s badge is little threat to a big city judge.”

  “I don’t understand why you couldn’t get Cora back and still keep your job. She should be with us. The judge is corrupt and in the wrong here. Not us. You know that.”

  “That doesn’t make it okay for an officer of the law to break the very rules he’s supposed to enforce.”

  She saw the loss in his eyes, as if some part of him had died. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to quit?” she asked softly.

  “There was nothing to discuss.”

  She knew it was because Duke was a black-and-white type of man. As soon as he’d realized he would have to break the law to get Cora back, he’d made his decision immediately and irrevocably. He hadn’t needed to mull it over or talk about it with her, he’d just borne the pain and done what he had to do. To know that her lies had brought him to this point and caused him to sacrifice so much, shredded her heart.

  As the train p
ulled into the Syracuse station, she fought back her tears, praying they would find Cora, and that Duke would someday forgive her.

  She was physically and emotionally exhausted by the time they reached the courthouse where, according to Duke, Steven Cuvier and several other lawyers kept their offices. She both worried and prayed they would run into Judge Stone, who supposedly sat the bench here, but they crossed the lobby without seeing anyone. Duke scanned a sign on the wall then guided her across the marble floor to Mr. Cuvier’s office.

  The lawyer was a tall, lanky dark-skinned man, who looked familiar enough to have Faith searching her memory for where she might have seen him. Not at the brothel. Surely Iris would have raved about a handsome man like the lawyer. Not at the market. Maybe nowhere. Maybe she had never crossed paths with the man.

  The lawyer was waiting with Duke’s telegram in his hand. “Sheriff Grayson, what’s the emergency?” he asked, but before Duke could answer, the lawyer’s gaze fell on Faith. He stared as if seeing a ghost. “You must be Celia’s sister Constance.”

  Hearing her mother’s first name startled Faith as much as learning her mother had a sister. Her mother went by Rose at the brothel, but it made sense this man would know her full name if he was in fact her lawyer. “I’m her daughter Faith,” she said, sensing kindness in him. “Did you handle my mother’s legal work?”

  “I did.” Sadness filled his eyes as he clasped Faith’s cold hands. “I didn’t realize you were her daughter. I’ve been looking for you since I heard the sad news about your mother. I can’t express how deeply her passing grieves me.”

  She felt her own razor-sharp grief that was always near the surface, and it made her eyes tear.

  “Come. Sit.” He pushed the door closed and turned the lock then directed her to a chair. The leather furniture and mahogany walls of the plush office suited his dark, good looks. He leaned his narrow hips against his desk, and looked at Duke, who continued to stand. “I have business with your wife, but first, tell me how I can help you.”

  As though Duke were presenting his case to a judge and jury, Faith listened to him state the crime of Cora’s abduction and his suspicion about the judge then listed the facts and events of the case. “I need any information you may have on Faith’s mother and Judge Stone, and where I might be able to find Cora,” he said.

  But the lawyer’s dark-skinned face had turned a sickly gray. “Rose was telling the truth,” he said, gazing trance like into the middle distance. “He duped me. Rose and I were nothing but pawns to him.”

  Faith exchanged a look with Duke, who was scowling at the lawyer’s odd behavior.

  “He was after the property” The lawyer’s half-insane laugh unnerved Faith. “The dirty wretch orchestrated this whole thing!”

  “What does this have to do with us?” Faith asked.

  The man propelled himself off the desk and paced the room, his dark eyes flashing with fury. “Stone cautioned me to think of my career, and warned that I would be ruined if anyone saw me in the badlands. It’s a shoddy, nefarious side of the city that’s referred to as the badlands,” he said, clarifying the term for Duke. “But like a jealous dog, Stone was guarding his bone.”

  Duke’s scowl deepened. “Cuvier, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but my daughter is missing, and I need any information I can use to get her back.”

  The lawyer stopped pacing. “Are you or Mrs. Grayson aware of a project by the city of Syracuse to change the badlands section into a theater district?”

  “No.” Duke looked at Faith, but she shook her head. Her mother hadn’t bothered with the newspaper because she, and women like her, weren’t welcome to participate in social events.

  “I suspected as much.” The lawyer began pacing again. “Judge Stone started a renewal project over twenty years ago. It evolved slowly, and was nearly lost on several occasions. But the judge pressed on for years, insisting our city needed to clean up the badlands and build an area that would attract investors and new business. I admired him for being so civic-minded, and even did the legal work for several properties he purchased in that area.”

  “Why would he want my mother’s house if he owned so many properties?” Faith asked, suspecting the lawyer was unaware it was a brothel.

  “Because your mother’s property sits in the middle of the proposed theater district, and it’s one of the last properties still owned by the resident.”

  “Which makes the property more valuable and of interest to Stone,” Duke said.

  “Exactly” The lawyer gave him a curt nod. “A bank or investor looking to build a business in the area would offer a good bit of money for the property.”

  “Are you saying my mother could have sold the broth—property for a lot of money?”

  The lawyer nodded. “She could have made a small fortune. I assumed she was waiting to sell in order to gain an advantage.”

  “Are you in possession of the deed then?” Duke asked.

  “Rose kept a safe deposit box at the bank and gave me a key,” he said. “To my knowledge she kept the deed there.”

  Finally, Faith knew the location of the elusive deed and what the key in her mother’s guestbook was for, but all she could think about was how close her mother had been to owning that little house with the porch and rose garden. Had she known about the city’s renewal plan? Or had she died never realizing she was so close to gaining her freedom?

  It sickened Faith, and it broke her heart that one powerful and corrupt man could hurt so many people.

  “Give it to him,” she said to the lawyer, wanting nothing more than to get Cora back. “I’ll sign the deed over to him.”

  “No, you won’t.” Duke’s fierce scowl made her heart trip.

  “Duke, I want to get Cora back and go home.”

  “We’re not giving in to that crook. I’ll find Cora, and we’ll sell the property, but not to the judge.”

  “But he’ll come after us again.”

  “And he’ll deal with me this time.”

  “He’s heartless and conniving. My mother tried to stand up to him and it caused her death.”

  “What?” Shock and rage filled the lawyer’s dark eyes. “Did you witness this?”

  “My aunt Iris did. Mama was arguing with Stone over the brothel, and it enraged her when he threatened to take Cora. She attacked him. Maybe Stone didn’t mean for her to go over the railing, but she did, and Iris said he didn’t try to stop her fall.”

  The lawyer’s throat worked, and he turned his back. The room was dead silent for several long seconds.

  Without a word, Cuvier strode to a file cabinet and pulled out a large envelope. He spread the contents on his desk, and picked through several papers before finding what he was looking for. His eyes were misty when he handed the paper to Duke. “This is the address for Stone’s mistress. I handled all his personal business, so I’m aware that he supports this woman. It’s the only place I can think he’d be able to take your daughter without answering a lot of uncomfortable questions. His mistress could easily keep the girl for him. Stone has court this afternoon. I would suggest you pay a call now while I have a long overdue talk with your wife.” His voice broke and he cleared his throat. “Faith, I think... I’m fairly certain you’re my daughter.”

  His words sucked all the oxygen from the room, and Faith gripped the upholstered arms of her chair, fighting a dizzying rush of disbelief. She stared at Steven Cuvier, at his bronze skin and his almond shaped eyes and lanky body, and knew this man was her father. And the reason he looked familiar was because Adam resembled him.

  A sudden pounding then the rattle of the doorknob broke the silence in the room and startled a gasp from Faith.

  “Steven! Are you in there?”

  Faith recognized Stone’s grating voice, and was glad Cuvier had locked the door. “It’s the judge,” she whispered.

  Rage flared in Duke’s eyes and he started across the room.

  Cuvier caught his arm. “Wait,” he whisp
ered.

  Duke stopped and gave him curt nod.

  Another knock. Another rattle of the knob. “Cuvier?” A second later, they heard the judge’s heavy footfalls echoing through the lobby then up the stairs.

  “The judge’s chambers are at the front of the building, but he could be anywhere upstairs,” Cuvier said. “Let’s go out the back exit. I’ll take Faith to my house then come back here and detain the judge as long as I can while you go for Cora.”

  “We have lodgings near the station,” Duke said.

  “You’re registered under Grayson?” At Duke’s nod, the lawyer shook his head. “Now that I know what the judge is up to, neither of you are safe. Keep the room, but don’t stay there. I’ll take Faith by to get your bags then drop her at my home. She’ll be safest there.” He scratched his address on a piece of paper and handed it to Duke. “Meet us there as soon as you can.”

  The lawyer peeked out his door then rushed them out a back exit and across a brown lawn raked clean of dried leaves. They crossed a brick street, and cut between Horton’s Mercantile store and a bank. A block away from the courthouse, they parted company. Faith and her father headed toward the hotel near the train depot.

  Duke jogged several blocks in the opposite direction, following the lawyer’s hastily scribbled map, until he came to a row of brick houses near the canal. At house number forty-seven, he stopped to catch his breath. When all remained quiet outside, he casually peered in the windows, acting as if he were heading to the back entrance.

  He spied Cora sitting on the floor beside a huge dining room table, playing with a book. His heart banged with relief then pounded with uncontrollable anger. He would pummel the judge if he’d hurt her.

  At the back door, Duke wrestled his anger under control then gave a sharp rap with the brass knocker. “Delivery!” he yelled in a disguised voice he hoped Cora wouldn’t recognize. He didn’t want her alerting the mistress, because it would be much easier to walk through an open door than to break through a solid slab of oak. And it would draw less attention from the neighbors.