Hale cried out as Adam’s furious blow stopped—and possibly cracked—his pistoning kneecap, and used his free arm to wallop Adam in the side of the face with a fist. He took the blow, his head jolting to the side as pain crashed over his temple and cheek.
Then, wound tight with fury and hatred for the man beneath him, Adam shoved his arm farther up into Hale’s throat, using the point of his elbow to dig in on the side. The pro-slaver coughed and choked beneath him while struggling to hold onto the revolver.
“Drop it,” Adam said, dodging another punch, which was aimed a little wildly and only glanced off his shoulder. He couldn’t quite reach the revolver, and he didn’t want to shift his position and give Hale any leeway. “Drop the gun.” He put more weight into his arm and knee, pressing into his adversary’s throat and elbow, and at last the man’s fingers relaxed.
Adam snatched up the gun, rolled off, and pulled to his feet. His ears still rang, and his head hurt. He was a little out of breath, but he was in much better shape than the coughing, wheezing Leward Hale.
As he looked down at the man, that rush of bitter hatred and violent fury returned. He pointed the revolver at Hale and used his thumb to cock the hammer. The sound—an ominous click—caused Hale’s harsh breathing to catch.
Adam needed to pull the trigger.
He needed to put the ghosts away, he needed revenge and peace.
He wanted to squeeze the trigger slowly, to watch the man’s eyes fill with realization and fear . . . and to see that Leward Hale knew he could take from him even more than he’d taken from Adam . . . and so much less than what he’d taken from Tom and Mary and little Carl. Tears stung his eyes as he thought about those innocent lives lost—all the innocent lives already destroyed due to this conflict.
By God, he wanted to put a ball into the man who’d fought a bloody war to keep other men enslaved. Who’d hanged innocent men simply because they’d disagreed with him. Who’d tarred and feathered farmers and other settlers in Kansas in an effort to scare them away from the land so he and his fellow pro-slavers could have their way.
His hand trembled with emotion. His breathing roared in his ears.
Instead, he spoke. “Who is it? Who killed your sister?”
“Robert Buckthorne,” Hale rasped, never taking his eyes from the barrel of the gun. “Her husband.”
Husband? Hadn’t Lane said she’d been a wife? Damn. Another lie, or a prevarication? “I thought her husband was dead.”
A spark of spirit came through in Hale’s rough voice. “He will be soon’s I get my hands on him. Pamela, she left him—wanted to divorce him—back in Kansas. She left him and took up with that bastard Lane.” He spat. “Don’t know what got into her head. Then Buckthorne took it into his head to have a ‘talk’ with her when she was here in Washington with that bastard Lane. Thought he might talk her back into his bed—but you’re tellin’ me he did more than talk to her?”
Adam shook his head. “Where is he now—her husband?”
To his surprise, Hale’s mouth split into an ugly smile. “He’s finishing his job. Up at that nigger-loving rail-splitter’s fancy house.” His laugh was a little mad.
Adam’s heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean? What job?” When Hale remained silent, he began to squeeze the trigger, nice and slow, so the man could see it.
Hale stopped giggling, his eyes snapping to the trigger. “I told you that house was gonna burn. It’s going up tonight. And soon’s Beauregard and his men see the flames across the river, they’re coming. They know.” He grinned, viciously this time. “They’ve been waiting.”
Christ.
Adam spun away, then thought better of it and turned back with a sharp pivot. Hale had just crawled to his feet, and the blow from the revolver—which carried all of Adam’s grief and fury and disgust—caught him right at the side of the head.
Hale dropped like a stone, but Adam didn’t see him hit the ground. He was already running to the White House.
CHAPTER 18
SOPHIE STIFLED A SCREAM AND FROZE, HER BREATH CUTTING OFF sharply. The organs inside her turned to ice, and her stomach was doing horrible things.
From the corner of her right eye, she could see the hand holding the knife—the forefinger was partially missing; Mr. Quinn had been right about that. But that was small consolation at the here and the now.
Was the killer going to slice her throat too? Her vision wavered and her stomach pitched. Well, drat it, if she was going to die, she wanted to know who was going to kill her. But she dared not turn to look with that blade right there.
She’d seen what it could do. Sophie swallowed hard as her vision wavered into a swirl of terrified white light and sudden black shadows.
“Stand up slowly, now, miss,” said a voice that was vaguely familiar.
Sophie could hardly breathe, for her stays felt frighteningly tight—as if her cousin had pulled the laces too far. “I’ll . . . I’ll try,” she whispered. “It’s difficult with a . . . with a cors . . . et . . . you know,” she said, both terrified and shocked that somehow through that terror, she was babbling.
She still held the candle on its metal stand, and its flame shivered not so much from her rising to her feet, but from the trembling of the hand that carried it. Her palm, which she levered against the armchair to help with balance, was slick, and her fingers felt like ice.
As she rose, she maneuvered carefully—and slowly, due to necessity—so that she could face the man who’d killed Pamela Thorne and the poor hackney driver.
And who, it appeared, intended to set the White House on fire.
By the time she’d risen to her feet—it felt as if it had taken hours—she could see his face. And she recognized him.
“You . . .” Words failed her for once, but she didn’t have to speak it aloud. She was right. She had seen him—several times over the last week of living here, for he was one of the men waiting every day for Mr. Lincoln to grant him an audience. A job-seeker.
Some days he’d been on the second floor. Other days, he’d only been on the stairs. He was there the day she caught her crinoline and nearly tumbled down. She gasped. He’d been here the morning Pamela Thorne’s body had been found.
Right there—in the corridor just outside the very room in which he’d killed her.
Talk about “The Purloined Letter”! The man had been hiding in plain sight—and because of the lax security in the White House, he’d been able to go wherever he wanted whenever he wanted.
“You . . .” She swallowed and tried again. “You were one of the ones talking about the—the plot to burn Willard’s. You said you were Mrs. Lincoln’s r-relative.” She remembered seeing him stroke a hand over his beard—and how she’d absently noticed the missing finger.
“Well, now I lied about that part,” he said with a cold smile. “About bein’ Mrs. Lincoln’s relative. But the rest—that’s right.”
Her maneuvering had positioned her slightly farther away from him and that wicked knife, and she was facing him, with the armchair and table behind her. Now that the blade wasn’t nearly touching her throat, and she could see him, her terror eased a bit. Her scattered thoughts began to settle. And she still held the candle.
In its metal holder.
That could be useful.
Was it her imagination, or had the knife lowered slightly? It was still there, pointed at her—and he could slice her in an instant—but at least she would see it coming.
“The failed plot to burn Willard’s,” she said, her voice a trifle steadier. “Were you part of it, or did you just get the idea from them for—for tonight?” She glanced at the bundle of kerosene-soaked rags. Over the last week, he must have had plenty of opportunity to wander around the house and plot where to put the rags so they wouldn’t be noticed.
His mouth twisted behind his beard; it appeared she’d hit a sore point. “Was my idea first—burn down the fancy hotel. Had some friends to help me—Hale and some others. But I had to come he
re—take care of Pam so she wouldn’t squeal. She heard us talking when she come to see her brother at the boardinghouse.”
“You were part of the plan to blow up the Willard?” Sophie thought if she could keep him talking, maybe she could figure out a way to escape this mess.
“I knew the minute word got out what happened, Pam would flap her big mouth to Lane. Lane don’t know me from Adam, but I knew she’d tell him everything. Even her brother too. And anyhow, the hotel didn’t blow—Hale and the others were too damned sloppy. That’s why I’m doing this one myself. Can’t rely on no one else to do it. Want to see that bastard Lane and the rest go up in flames. And you’re going to help me. Stroke of luck you came in here like this.” He smiled coldly.
“There are others joining me at any minute,” she said rashly, refusing to let her insides squiggle into wild snakes of fear. “They’ll be here any time now.”
He laughed. “I don’t think so. They’re all downstairs, hiding and waiting for the Southerners to come. Won’t be waiting much longer. It’s going to be tonight. They been waiting for this place to go up in flames—they’ll see it from across the river. That’s their signal.”
Sophie had been edging slightly toward the table, and she dropped her free hand to her side. If she could reach back without him noticing . . . “So you killed Pamela Thorne. In this very room. Why? Because you thought she’d know it was you who blew up Willard’s?” she asked desperately, trying to think of a way to distract him. And how exactly did he think she was going to help him, anyway?
His eyes bored dark and furiously into hers. “Her name is Buckthorne, not Thorne, goddammit. Woman needs to respect her husband. Take his name, she keeps it—till death do us part.”
“You’re Pamela Tho—Buckthorne’s husband?” she said, seeing no reason to hide her shock. That wicked knife blade had flashed with his agitation, and she didn’t put it past him to lash out at her. She swallowed hard at the thought of the blade slicing through her throat . . . or torso . . . or over her face—
“I sure as hell am, goddamned whore she is.” Spittle gathered at the corners of his mouth, and his light blue eyes were filled with a wild, unholy light. “She deserved it—taking up with that bastard Lane. The whore left me for him, and I followed them here all the way from Kansas. She’s my wife, dammit. Made a vow before God, and now look what she done. Cuckolding me with a nigger-loving madman! How dare she!”
Sophie could feel the edge of the table directly behind her, and she began to inch her fingers backward. Please, she thought. Let me just . . .
“You—you were mad at her that night. Did you just hide here all d-day?” she asked, emphasizing the tremor in her voice. If he thought she was terrified—which she was, but she was also thinking—he wouldn’t suspect she had plans for her candle, which by now was sitting in a deep gutter of hot wax.
Just another inch . . .
“Sure was mad at her,” he said, lowering his voice menacingly. “She deserved to die. Saw her marching in the street—dressed indecently—in trousers like a man! Stay at home with her rightful husband, she’d be in her skirts like a lady should be. But joining up here at the rail splitter’s house so she could stay with her lover? I wasn’t going to allow that. Letting her take up with that Lane bastard . . . telling him all our secrets.”
“Your secrets?” Sophie exhaled softly as her fingers touched the edge of the pen stand. “What secrets?”
“I told you, dammit! Ain’t you listening, you damned bitch? The minute the Willard burned down, my wife—she’d go rushin’ off tellin’ everyone. I had to stop her before she did. I had to take care of her that night, because the next morning, it’d be too late. The Willard. I told Hale she couldn’t be trusted, but he didn’t believe me. She was his sister, he said. Let her come see us, and maybe I could talk her into coming back home.”
“But how did you know she’d be here—in this room?” Sophie asked, trying to picture the impossible.
“I heard her—talking to Lane. I saw her marching with the soldiers when they come up here on Thursday night—walking along like she had a right to be with all them men, leaving her husband behind. I knew why she was doing it—to be with her lover.” His sneer was ugly, and madness danced in his eyes. “I got a ride up here that night, figured I might be able to talk to her—talk some sense into her, get her to leave with me, get away from the place—but when I heard her talking to Lane about their meeting later that night, I—”
“When did you hear her talking to Lane?” Sophie asked, momentarily distracted from plotting her escape by the story. “How could you, when there were guards everywhere?”
He seemed pleased with himself, and the knife blade dropped a trifle more. “I slipped off the hackney into the shadows—no one noticed me. Wanted to walk around the house and see how I could get in, and I saw them. There was my wife, standing guard and there was that cuckold Lane—right there, planning their tryst for later that night! I heard them talking, and I knew right then I was going to kill someone. I was going to kill someone that night.” His eyes blazed now, and Sophie’s pulse skittered.
“And so you w-waited?” Her mouth was dry, but with the table behind her now, it felt like an anchor in a storm. “H-here?”
“I had to listen to them here in this room—I had to hear them together!” His eyes were wild again. “I wanted to kill him. But I had to wait—couldn’t take both of them without someone hearing. And his coat fell on the ground, right off the sofa, right in front of me—like it was a sign. Bastard didn’t notice, and she walked him over to the door—giggling and buttoning up her clothes the whole damned way—and I grabbed that coat. I knew what I was going to do then, I knew—what are you doing?” His face was thunderous as he brandished the knife.
Sophie gasped, and it was more nerves than bravery that had her whipping the candle up at him. Hot wax flew everywhere, and the metal edge of its stand hit him in the face.
She screamed as the blade swung toward her, and grabbed the table to swing it at him even as she closed her fingers around the ink pen.
The table didn’t do much to stop him, but it slowed him enough that his blade was on the downswing when she jabbed the pen into his face.
Sophie choked back shock and horror as the sharp metal point penetrated his eye, puncturing it like a small tomato. He shrieked with pain and fury, clapping a hand to his eye as blood poured down his face. She stumbled back, tripping on her dratted skirts, and nearly fell into the armchair, all the while staring at the sight of the pen sticking out of his eye . . . the blood and innards of the orb draining down his face—
By now, she could hear shouts and pounding feet. I’m safe. I’m safe.
And she was, for two different doors burst open at the same time. But it was Adam Quinn she saw as he exploded into the room, and she drew her first easy breath when she saw he had a revolver pointed at the agonized Mr. Buckthorne.
“Find the rest of the rags,” Mr. Quinn ordered, heaving for breath as if he’d run a far distance, as he spoke to the cluster of men and women crowding in behind him. “I reckon they’re in all the unoccupied rooms.” He looked at Sophie. “You all right, there, Miss Gates?”
All she could do was nod, because she was pretty certain if she tried to speak, she’d burst into tears.
And that was something she absolutely, positively would not do.
Ever.
EPILOGUE
Thursday April 25
IT WAS NOON WHEN THE CHEERS CAME UP FROM THE CAPITOL.
The Sixth Massachusetts men, who’d been at watch on Capitol Hill, had at long last seen the train coming from Annapolis. The Seventh New York had finally arrived, and shortly behind them was the Eighth Massachusetts.
The Confederates had lost their advantage.
Washington was saved.
* * *
Amid the joyful ringing of church bells and firehall toll bells throughout Washington, Abraham Lincoln had a relatively quiet moment in the room he c
alled “the shop”—his office, which looked out toward the river that would not, at least in the near future, be breached by the rebellious pro-slaver Confederates.
Cheers had been ringing all over the city for the last thirty minutes. The sound reached his ears even up in the recesses of this sanctuary, and the relief over the entire town was so palpable it seemed to waft up from the Mall below and embrace the mansion itself. Transportation, medical needs, and telegraph lines were open, and more reinforcements were on their way from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maine, and more.
When Hay admitted Adam and his two companions, Adam could see immediately how relief had eased the dark tension in the president’s expression, and that at least some of the light and humor that had long lived in his mentor’s face had returned. If not as robustly as before, at least enough that there was returned the warm sparkle in his eyes and a more relaxed slump to his shoulders.
“I think we might go down to Charleston and pay her the little debt we are owing her for the skirmish at Fort Sumter,” Lincoln said with a wry smile. “Now that the North has, in fact, arrived.”
Adam smiled, and though he nodded and replied, “I think that’s a fine idea, Mr. President,” he knew far too well that it wouldn’t end there. That more blood would be shed and far more lives would be lost before all was settled.
The president seemed to know this reality as well, but he had no choice but to act accordingly as the Commander of Chief of a country at conflict with itself. The decision to maintain the Union at all costs was, Adam and Lincoln both believed, the right decision—but it would be a long, difficult, and heartbreaking one.
“The Seventh will be marching up Pennsylvania momentarily for me to greet them,” said Lincoln, twirling his spectacles in the relaxed manner he’d adopted in the past. “So I’ve only a right short moment to thank you, Adam. And Miss Gates,” he said giving her a grave nod. “And Dr. Hilton.” He nodded at the third member of the group.
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