by Griggs, Winnie; Pleiter, Allie; Hale, Deborah; Nelson, Jessica
Mary’s fingers tightened on her satchel.
“You see, her uncle shall be in charge of any plans for Josie. She is at the age where she would benefit from the structure of such a pla—” A harsh cough ripped the rest of the words from her. She hunched over, body racked with the cough of tuberculosis. She pressed a hankie against her pale lips.
Mary watched sadly, knowing she should return to the hotel now. This had been a shallow hope with little chance of success, but she’d needed to try.
“I apologize,” Mrs. Silver said when the fit passed. Baggs handed her a glass of water and she sipped it gratefully.
“There is no need for apologies.” Mary rose. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with me. I would love to see Josie but do not want to unduly upset her. Please, may I leave my address with you? I’ve included the hotel I’m staying at, though I won’t be there after today.” She handed Mrs. Silver the paper she’d scribbled on earlier. “If you or Josie are ever in need of anything, write to me and I shall come.”
“Thank you…what is your name?”
“Mary O’Roarke, and you’re quite welcome.” She gestured to the door, the bag heavier than ever. “I shall let myself out.”
Mrs. Silver inclined her head and Mary headed to the doorway, eager to escape before her burning cheeks gave away her angst. She reached the door frame.
A shadow passed in front of the opening. Mr. Langdon appeared before her, his disturbing eyes fixed on her face.
She skidded to a stop, bumping a fragile table near the wall. The vase on it shuddered and she reached over to steady it. She breathed shallowly and tried to slow her quick breaths before she panicked.
An evil-looking smile lifted the corners of his lips. He appraised her and she hauled her bag in front of her.
“We have a visitor?” he asked.
Mrs. Silver’s wheelchair appeared beside Mary. “Yes, this is Mary. She brought our Josie back last night. She was just leaving.” Another cough seized Mrs. Silver, but Mary did not dare look away from Mr. Langdon.
No, she could not for fear of what might happen. Mrs. Silver and Baggs were no match for him. He frowned at his sister, then turned that unblinking gaze on Mary.
“You’re leaving so soon? Might we have a word?”
Before she could react, he caught her arm in a painful grip and propelled her out the door and into the hallway.
“Brother,” Mrs. Silver gasped, but he yanked the door behind them. It pounded shut and then they were alone in the hallway.
His gaze bore into her, as deep and painful as his grip on her arm. The look on his face was menacing in its lack of emotion. “Forgive me, but I overheard your conversation. You must know my sister is very ill. Dying.”
He said this last word as though he relished the thought.
Mary’s skin prickled all over.
“Therefore, as custodian of her estate, and of my niece, I feel it’s in Josie’s best interest to be at home during the last days of her mother’s life. I will personally pay for you to stay on and teach Josie for one year. When my sister passes, I will relinquish the guardianship of Josie to you.”
It sounded too good to be true. That alone made her pause. Be employed by this man to take care of Josie and eventually become her legal guardian? Both elation and terror filled Mary, two opposite emotions that tangled her senses. She blinked. Swallowed. “And if I do not accept?”
Now he smiled, if the baring of his teeth could be called such a thing. “Her mother will think she’s been sent off to school. That won’t be the case. There are plenty of orphanages for girls like her…or other places.”
A sick feeling rushed through Mary so quickly her vision wavered. She knew what he was suggesting, knew his plans for Josie, should she decline his offer, were evil, but this? No, it could not happen.
Still, one thing she’d learned from Lou and Trevor was caution in bargaining with wicked men. Forcing a calm look to her face, refusing to let him see that his threat had already won him what he wanted, she met his gaze.
“I will consider your proposal.”
*
Lou woke in a surly mood. Everything got worse when he found the note on the floor outside his door.
Dear Lou,
As I am not sure how I’d like to be employed in the future, I have gone to see about another opportunity. I appreciate the agent you’re sending to escort me home but am unable to pass up the job I have in mind. Please give the agent my regards and I do apologize if I have complicated the situation. I shall be fine on my own. Thank you for all you have done.
Mary
Where could she have gone? Groaning, he passed his palms over his face. Stubble grazed his skin. There wasn’t time to track down a stubborn woman today, let alone shave. He had a ten o’clock meeting and before that he was determined to find Langdon. He also wanted to meet the undercover agent assigned to protect Mrs. Silver and Josie. If he could see the guy for himself, his gut would let him know whether Josie would be safe or not in his care.
Lou snatched the note, folded it, and then slid it into a pocket. After tossing on blue jeans and a respectable shirt, he stalked out of the hotel room. He grabbed a slice of banana bread on the way out of the hotel.
The ride to the Silversʼ seemed to take forever. He scanned the case files he’d been handed yesterday, a few reports, but his brain insisted on taking him back to how Mary looked last night. What he’d told her… His chest pinched.
Worst of all, he’d exposed something he hadn’t meant to—the root of his anger at God and everything religion represented. He felt like a fool. He pressed his head against the wall of the streetcar, glad no one tried to make conversation with him.
He was lousy at that type of thing.
Mary would be better off without him. An attraction didn’t guarantee a good marriage. Let alone their differing religious beliefs. He cringed at what had sneaked into his thoughts.
Marriage.
Rolling his eyes, he straightened and began pressing the paperwork back into his satchel, listening as it crumpled into place.
Marriage.
He’d been so young with Sarah. Naive and in love. He thought he knew all the answers. He worked a job with the military that required long hours. Applied for a place in the new unit known as the Bureau of Investigation. He left Sarah at home and worked hard. She waited. He visited.
They had Abby. A tic tugged at his eyelid. He blinked. So many mistakes he could never take back, and now his thoughts had wandered to marriage. Absolutely unthinkable. He couldn’t even blame the detour on a single kiss, because he’d kissed others and never had he felt what he did when he embraced Mary. It was a cruel realization that over the course of twelve years, Mary and her quiet presence had worked itself into his soul beneath the guise of friendship.
His only recourse remained backing off. Leaving town and letting the figurative dust settle. If Mary opened a store, she’d surely meet a nice fellow to create a home with.
The tic pulled his eyelid again. He blinked and held on as the streetcar slowed to its next stop. The Silver place loomed across the street. Lou got off with a few others and separated from them.
Time to don his “agent” hat and get to work. Worrying about where Mary might be could wait for later. But as he made his way up the walk, opening the gate, and taking the stairs two at a time, his stomach clenched.
“Focus,” he muttered, then rapped quick and hard on the front door.
Almost immediately it swung open. A man with eyes bordering on purple faced him. His hair was slicked in the fashion of the day. He wore a neatly pressed suit and his face was clean-shaven.
Lou disliked him immediately.
“Langdon, I presume?”
Langdon’s brows rose, but he quickly recovered and stepped outside, closing the door behind him. “What can I do for you?”
He flipped his badge open. “Special Agent Lou Riley with the Bureau of Investigation.” He put the badge away. “Would y
ou mind going to my office to answer a few questions?” His tone brooked no argument.
Langdon bared his teeth. “I’ve business to attend to.”
“We can talk here.” Lou gave him a look designed to get his point across.
“I really must go, but here is my card. You may call me.” The man’s voice was slicker than a politician’s on election day.
Lou scowled and closed the gap between them. They stood head-to-head. His instincts roared that something was wrong. “What were you doing in Burns?”
“Business.” Langdon’s cheeks bunched in a mocking manner. “I stopped by your place.”
“I heard.” This guy didn’t get to own the conversation. “Also heard you murdered someone.”
Langdon’s eyes flickered. “Really? How odd.” He moved back and bumped the front door. “Isn’t that business for the police, though? I thought the bureau dealt with other, more important, things?”
“You saying you did it?”
“I’m saying the sheriff has himself the murderer. Go talk to him.” Langdon pulled out a pocket watch and made a point of looking at it before stuffing it back into his overpressed suit. “I really must say goodbye.”
“Don’t think so.” Lou cocked him a smile that froze most men. He propped a hand against the door and leaned forward. “You see, Langdon, I’m here unofficially. Your trail… Let’s just say it’s putting off an odor.” He narrowed his eyes. “I’m going to fix that. You might think you’re slick, but I’m onto you. With the murder and with your niece. You won’t get away with anything.”
Langdon inclined his head, a smirk plastered to his lips. He casually brushed off his right shoulder, as if Lou’s words had landed there and stuck. “Since you’re here unofficially, I believe I might have something that belongs to you.”
“That a fact?” Unease skittered up his spine.
Langdon turned and opened the front door. “Someone’s here for you. Come, come, don’t be frightened.” He cast Lou a smile that chilled him to the core. “I’m afraid I might have been a little too…harsh with her.”
Confused, Lou’s gaze darted to the entryway. Movement, and then Mary emerged, eyes wide and lips pale.
Lou snarled and yanked Langdon up by the sleeve. The man’s cologne reeked. “What did you do to her?”
Chapter Nineteen
Langdon tried to shrug out of Lou’s grasp, but he tightened his grip and jerked him against the wall of the house. Mary gasped, but Lou ignored her. His pulse hammered through him, and his fingers moved to the scoundrel’s collar.
Langdon made a choking sound but didn’t try again to get out of Lou’s hold. Rather, his lips tilted. “You should take better care of your property.”
Lou released him abruptly and turned to Mary, who edged through the doorway in a pained way. A sound like a train filled his ears and his vision blurred. Whirling, he pushed Langdon up against the door.
“You better talk, and fast,” he said.
“Release me or I’ll have the police arrest you for assault.”
Lou’s jaw hurt. He ground his teeth and forced his fingers to unlock from Langdon’s arms. “You’re done for. Don’t forget it.”
Langdon sniffed and readjusted his shirt. “Have a pleasant life, Special Agent Riley.” He turned and pushed into the house. Silence ensued.
Mary gazed off the porch, her face unreadable. A bird twittered. Streetcars rumbled past, casting long shadows against the street. He stalked to Mary.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She nodded but didn’t look at him. He couldn’t help himself. He touched her shoulders, gently moving his hands down her arms, looking for any bruising or indication that Langdon had physically mistreated her.
She didn’t flinch.
“Are you sure you’re okay? Absolutely sure?” He grasped her shoulders, searching her eyes for something, anything, to take away the worry that was cleaving into him.
“I’m sure.” Her smile was calm as she backed out of his grip.
Clearing his throat, shoving his hands into his pockets, he asked, “Do you want to walk back to the hotel?”
“That’s quite the walk,” she murmured.
“I have an appointment at ten.” He glanced at his watch. “That’s in forty-five minutes. We can be to the office by then and you can wait. The agent in charge of escorting you has been reassigned, so it looks like—”
“I don’t need an escort, Lou.” She looked at him, her eyes earnest. “I’m a grown woman, quite capable of traveling home.”
“I wish that was true, but times are troubled.” He thought of the papers in his briefcase.
“They seem fine to me. Prohibition has things a bit topsy-turvy, but the war is over, our economy is recovering… What do you find to be the problem?”
“Let’s walk,” he suggested as he debated how much to tell her. She held her head high beside him, and if she noticed the stares of those they passed, she didn’t let on. He rubbed the back of his neck for a moment and then gave in to his gut. “Our office has received some disturbing information. The Ku Klux Klan is reorganizing. Strategizing. We’re expecting to see some integration of their policies and beliefs in the coming year, we’re just not sure where or how much they’ll be able to infiltrate the public psyche.”
Mary’s stride didn’t slow. “I haven’t heard such a thing.”
“But you feel the stares, don’t you? People look at you and see someone different than them. There’s distrust here in Oregon of foreigners. Our office found disturbing evidence that the Klan will prey on people’s fears. Especially with the influx of Chinese migrant workers.”
“This is nothing new to me, Lou.”
“It could influence laws,” he said gravely.
“That may be so, but I believe they’ve already been influenced since the beginning of the country. You’re a white man, Lou. Blond hair, blue eyes.” She stopped walking and turned to pin him with those bottomless eyes of hers. “For you, life in America has been fair. It has not been so for others.” She held up her arm, darker than his, and Lou found his gaze traveling the length of her bone structure, up to her shoulder, then across her dress, which he just now realized fit her perfectly.
He couldn’t recall seeing her in this outfit before and abruptly noticed how the dress tapered off at her knees, exposing her legs and ankles. Heat rose to his neck. He yanked his eyes back up to meet hers.
Her mouth was parted, and suddenly he was filled with remembrance of the kiss they’d shared. He blinked, jerked the direction of his gaze to the road and began walking. “Every day we’re making strides, though. The Klan is a dangerous group of people and the worst thing is, people in positions of authority are involved. I don’t want you traveling alone. Not just because of your heritage, but because you’re a beautiful woman.”
There, he’d said it. A lump clogged his windpipe. He peeked at Mary. A sober expression rested on her features. The wind stirred up her dark hair, and again he thought of their kiss.
“Many have called me beautiful,” she said quietly and without pride.
“You don’t like it?”
“Beauty brings challenges….” She trailed off.
“Life brings challenges to everyone.” He took her arm and they crossed to the other side of the road. “We’re almost to my office. After I deliver these papers, we’ll figure out what to do with you.”
“Excuse me?” She popped out of his grasp. “I have my ticket. Your twelve years of baby watching has finished.”
He halted, gaping, while she strode ahead. “Wait…”
Her hand fluttered up, waving through the air as if dismissing him. He set his jaw and forged ahead.
“Now, stop just a moment,” he said, grabbing her shoulders and stopping her. She felt fragile beneath his fingers and he loosened his hold. “You’ve been caring for us, Mary, not the other way around.”
Her gaze flickered. “Either way, that time has passed. We’re moving in different d
irections now.”
True, and yet the knowledge pained him. He studied her, taking in the faint flush in her cheeks and her dewy eyes. A stray hair fluttered across her cheek. Using the tip of his finger, he drew it back over her ear. She released a soft breath that brought him full circle, right back to their kiss.
“Please don’t look at me like that,” she whispered.
“Like what?”
“Like you plan to kiss me again.”
He couldn’t help the smile tugging his lips. “And if I do?”
“This can’t work. You know that. Do you plan to quit your job? Stop traveling to foreign places and saving lives?”
He shook his head.
“I didn’t think so,” she said. “Quit worrying about me and live your life. I’m thankful for the shelter you provided, but that season is over.”
“We’re here.” He gestured to the building in front of them with his briefcase, glad to stop this conversation in its endless tracks. “Come in and let’s work this out. Then we’re going to have an early supper and you can tell me what Langdon said to you in that hallway.”
*
A few hours later, Mary chewed her bottom lip, watching as Lou spoke with the waiter at the hotel’s restaurant. They’d returned to check out. A cramp tried to work its way through her toes, which she’d stuck into heels to try to look nice for Mrs. Silver.
And maybe for Lou.
It was the last day she’d see him after all. She fiddled with a button on her dress, wondering how he’d remember her. What would supper bring? More arguing? Surely so, if she told him what Langdon had said to her. He was to call her at the hotel, she’d told him, and she’d give him an answer.
There was only one answer to give.
Shuddering, she turned away from Lou’s direction. While she’d waited at his work, she debated her possible courses of action. She could tell him the truth at supper and see if he’d help her or offer a different solution. Or she could go home, ignore Langdon’s plan and look into getting a loan and opening a business.
“We’re ready.” Lou appeared beside her, his arm on her elbow and his breath minty. He brought her to the table. After they were given glasses of water, Lou gestured to the menu. “Order anything you want. My treat.” His eyes sparkled.
