by Susan Wiggs
“Get what?”
“You’re a hostage.”
SIX
“I guess you got some explaining to do, mon copain,” said Lightning Jack.
With desultory motions, Tom checked the pressure gauges on the boilers. His head throbbed where Sinclair had hit him. “I reckon.”
“So talk. Start with the devil’s bastard, Sinclair. I was afraid you might lose him in the confusion of the fire.”
Tom drew on a pair of hide gloves and fed wood to the fire, building up heat as they prepared to get under way. He glanced over his shoulder at Jack.
“I found him,” Tom said. “I found Sinclair.”
“And did you kill him?” Jack’s onyx eyes glittered. The look on his face indicated that he already knew the answer.
Tom finished stoking the boilers. He slammed the steel hatch shut and rotated the dial. Then he turned to face his friend, the man who had raised him.
“No,” Tom repeated, taking off the thick gloves. “I didn’t kill him.”
“Merde.” Jack believed in simple, direct justice. He had been a voyageur in his younger years. His mother was Chippewa, his father French Canadian. He had earned the nickname “Lightning” years ago when he’d been struck by lightning during a spring storm on the lake. The wound had left a permanent jagged patch along the side of his head where only white hair would grow.
Lightning Jack spoke French, English and Chippewa, and he swore now in all three, slipping easily from one tongue to the next.
“Parbleu,” he grumbled. “If you found him, why didn’t you shoot him?”
Tom was too bone-weary to go into detail. And maybe he didn’t know the answer himself. There had been that split second, that brief hesitation, when his resolve to murder Arthur Sinclair had wavered. What had seemed so simple in the planning turned out much different in the execution.
“The city’s on fire,” he said to Jack. “We picked the wrong night to hunt down Arthur Sinclair.”
“You found him. You had him dead to rights. Were you waiting for a formal invitation?”
Tom didn’t reply.
“I should have done the deed myself. I would have slit the devil’s throat from ear to ear, comme ça.” He traced the motion with a finger. “And what do you bring me in return? His yellow-haired runt of a daughter.”
Tom took a long swig from a stoneware jug of cider, balancing the vessel on his bent elbow. Even the motion of tipping back his head to drink made him dizzy from the goose egg. Deborah, he thought. Deborah the debutante.
“I would take no joy in slitting the throat of such a one as her,” Jack said.
“We’re not going to kill her.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
Tom thought about the huge house, filled with paintings and antiques and trophies of a rich man’s toils. “We’re going to get her father’s fortune in ransom.”
“I don’t want his fortune.”
“Because you don’t need it,” Tom pointed out. “But what about the others? They sure as hell could use the ransom money.”
“Hostage. Pah.” Lightning Jack took the jug from Tom and drained it. “What sort of revenge is that?”
“A better sort. I saw the way he lives, Lightning. I figured out what’s important to him.” Tom spoke the words with a new insight—some things were worse than dying. It was a hell of a thing, figuring that out, but seeing Sinclair like a king in his castle had opened his eyes. Tom wasn’t surrendering his need for revenge, just changing his methods.
“Sinclair’s failed mine left folks destitute. His money could bring them some relief.”
“That is not good enough.” Steam drove the pistons, and Lightning Jack raised his voice over the boiling hiss. “Arthur Sinclair must suffer for what he did.”
Tom didn’t answer. Now that the boilers were stoked, he led the way abovedecks to the pilot house. Miss Deborah Beaton Sinclair still stood astern, holding her shaggy dog and watching the fire, her wet clothes dripping. He couldn’t figure out if she had fallen into the lake deliberately or by accident. He had no idea what was going on in her head, and didn’t care to know, but for some reason he kept wondering. She looked small and slight, her dress and hair bedraggled, her delicate features limned by firelight, her face vulnerable and inexpressibly sad.
She reminded him of a broken china doll. It occurred to him that the city was her home, and here she stood watching it burn. Before her eyes, her own father had taken off in a runaway carriage. She had lost all that was familiar to her. He did not want to think of this young woman’s sadness, but he couldn’t help it. She had the sort of fragile, melancholy countenance that evoked things he was not used to feeling. Like sympathy. Protectiveness.
It was stupid, he told himself. She was the spoiled daughter of a man who did not blink at wiping out a whole town. At Arthur Sinclair’s knee, Miss Deborah had probably learned that in the pursuit of profit, there were no rules or restraints.
When she looked up at him, he noticed a smudge of soot on her cheekbone. Her hair had come loose, and there were large black-ringed holes burned in her damp dress. She kept stroking the dog with one small hand, over and over again.
He bent to the windlass at the bow and cranked in the anchor. He raised the dinghy and made it fast astern. Then he gave a whistle. The engines ground, the twin screw propellers churned and the trawler lurched forward.
The motion made Deborah Sinclair stagger back against the rail. “Where are you taking me?”
He didn’t answer.
“What is your intent?” she demanded, sounding loud and testy now. “I demand to know.”
Her shrill tone evaporated his sympathy. Seizing her had been an act of pure impulse. He had not looked ahead to moments like this, had not considered what it would mean to have a female aboard. They did female things. They had female needs. And this was not just any female. This one probably had a maid just to button her shoes for her. A servant to sprinkle sugar in her tea. A footman to open and close the carriage door for her.
“Well?” she asked. “Have you gone deaf or are you simply being rude?”
“Quarters are below,” he said. “Follow me.”
“I’ll do nothing of the sort.”
He gave a snort. “Fine. Spend the night on deck. Makes no difference to me.”
She took two steps back and tilted up her head to look him in the eye. “I don’t plan on staying,” she said.
“Who was the tenderfoot with the horsewhip?” he asked, ignoring her statement.
“That was Philip Widener Ascot IV,” she said. Her voice was flat, her face expressionless. “He is my fiancé.”
Tom mimicked a limp-wristed parody of Ascot wielding the whip. “Charming fellow. You’re a lucky young lady.”
“You may be sure he will remember you from last night, and all the papers will be filled with a description of you.”
“Will he remember that you refused to go with him?”
“I did not refuse. There was no time—”
“You had time. You could have grabbed his hand and jumped into his coach.”
“You would have pursued me.”
“Maybe,” he admitted. “Maybe not. You’ll never know, will you? Because you chose me.”
She recoiled. “I did nothing of the sort. Why would I choose you?”
“That’s a question you should be asking yourself. I sure as hell don’t know what’s in that head of yours.”
“And you are in such trouble,” she shot back. “Do you know who my fiancé is?”
“Besides a horse’s ass?”
She made a sound of disdain. “He is from one of the first families of the city. He is heir to a publishing empire with ties to New York City. When he and my father find me, he will publish this account in every newspaper in the country.”
“If he finds you, there won’t be enough of him left to swab the decks with.” Tom shook his head. “Believe me, having my description published in the papers won’t cause me to lose any sl
eep.”
She stared at him inquisitively.
“What?” he asked, irritated.
“You have a strange manner of speaking,” she remarked. “It’s a combination of backwoods ignorance and educated formality. Why is that?”
“Quit prying and go below,” he ordered. He didn’t want her to know a damned thing about him. “And pray your father buys your freedom soon.”
She bristled imperiously. “Or else?”
“Or else you’re in for a long, cold winter.”
She twisted a diamond ring off her finger. “That’s worth a fortune. You may have it. Just take me ashore.”
He pocketed the ring without looking at it. “No.”
“You can’t hold me aboard this boat all winter,” she objected.
“You’re right about that,” he said, then grasped the ladder leading to the pilothouse. “We’d best get a move on.”
“You won’t get away with this,” she yelled.
He slowly turned to face her. “Don’t you get it, Princess? I already have.”
SEVEN
Deborah felt sick with the motion of the boat, but she willed back the waves of nausea. Shivering, chilled to the bone in her damp dress, she waited until Tom Silver disappeared into the pilothouse. The little French Indian called Lightning Jack spoke to him briefly. They seemed to be arguing about something. Then both men bent over a slanted table strewn with charts.
Good. They were paying her no heed at all. They probably assumed she would slink below to fling herself on a bunk and weep hysterically until exhaustion claimed her.
Which was exactly what she wanted to do.
But she refused to allow it, even though every instinct urged her to crumble in defeat. She tried to think what to do. Kathleen would take action. She was never one to sit still. Lucy would confront these men with righteous indignation and rail at them about the injustice of their crime. Phoebe would attempt to endear herself to them, and sweet-talk her way out of trouble.
Deborah came to a decision, the only possible course of action she could think of. Before she could change her mind, she set down the shaggy little dog and moved to the stern. She had watched covertly while Silver had hoisted the dinghy, and she thought she could figure out how to lower it again.
The eerie light from the city was bright enough to burn through the smoke and fog. But the farther they steamed away from Chicago, the fainter the light. She would have to work fast.
She found the mechanism that would release the winch and unhooked it. The chains made a terrible noise, reeling out with a metallic grating sound. The small rowboat smacked the water with a splash, then swirled in the wake of the steamer. The big boat was traveling a lot faster than she had imagined it would.
Glancing over her shoulder, she ascertained that the men in the pilothouse had not heard. She spared a thought for the dog, shivering in a corner of the deck, but it was all she could do to save herself. Then she stepped up on the transom, holding on to the ladder.
Deborah searched her soul for guidance and wisdom. She wished she could find just one measly drop of courage. She felt nothing but icy, breath-stealing terror. Before she could change her mind, she flung herself over the back and scrambled down the ladder as far as she could go. Cold mist, churned up by the propellers, showered her, nearly blinding her as she climbed into the dinghy. Wrestling with the knots, she managed to untether the small craft.
Within seconds, she was adrift on the gale-swept lake as the trawler steamed northward. She could scarcely believe it. She had escaped.
Cold waves slapped up and over the sides of the small wooden craft. Water sloshed in the hull. Letting loose with a laugh of elation, she fitted the oars into the oarlocks and began to row. The wild man had made it look easy, but the water felt as heavy as mud.
Still, her escape might have worked had she not made one critical error. She should have brought the dog.
The little beast put its forepaws on the side of the trawler and yapped piercingly into the night. She hoped the noise of the steamer would drown out the barking. She held her breath, praying the kidnapers would ignore the racket. But she saw the trawler circle back, chugging like the Loch Ness monster toward her.
On deck, a large figure rose with a grappling hook in hand.
* * *
Damp and fog shrouded the boat and the lake surrounding it. The cramped quarters where Deborah awakened had a very small portal, and a narrow louvered vent for fresh air. It wasn’t a proper stateroom and could not even be called quarters, but a storage room with a pile of blankets. She groped in the half light, finding coils of rope, a box of tools whose use she couldn’t fathom, a moldering shirt and two things that puzzled her—a child’s shoe and a copy of Les Misérables in the original French. She encountered an empty bottle, an illustrated Farmers’ Almanac, a jar of shiny, opaque green stones and a chamberpot.
Moving slowly and painfully, she availed herself of the primitive facilities, then put on her dress. At some point, which she could not remember, she had peeled it off to collapse in exhaustion. Her fingers worked clumsily over the buttons, but she managed to do herself up. She found her way on deck with difficulty. Where was she? She looked out at the lake. Nothing but fog. Chicago—indeed the shore—was nowhere in sight.
She ached in every joint and limb. She felt seasick, but there was nothing in her stomach to surrender. The little dog she had dubbed Smokey cavorted in friendly fashion around her feet, but she could not even summon the strength to pat his head. Traitor, she thought.
Tom Silver stood in the wheelhouse, steering the trawler through the impenetrable fog, ignoring her. Lightning Jack emerged from the galley holding a thick china mug. “Tea,” he said, holding it out. “It’s medicinal. Helps with the mal de mer.”
She felt too defeated to argue, and so she took the mug, wrapping her chilly fingers around its warmth.
“How does he know where to go in this fog?” she asked. Her voice rang hollow in the thick, hazy air.
“He follows my instructions,” Lightning Jack explained. “This is my boat.” He jerked his silver-streaked head toward the surface of the water. “The way is posted by buoys and channel markers. Fear not. You are safe aboard the Suzette.”
Safe. She did not even know the meaning of the word anymore.
The water appeared considerably calmer and flatter than it had been…when?
“What time is it?” she asked.
“You mean what day? You’ve slept for two days.”
She nearly choked on her tea. Dizzy, she lowered herself onto the bench. She forced her eyes to focus on something, anything, to keep from fainting. She stared at her shoes, scuffed and worn from her ordeal. For two days she had slept in her shoes.
How strange it now seemed that Kathleen used to take her foot between her knees to do up Deborah’s shoes with the button hook. She shut her eyes in despair.
There must have been some powerful drug in the tea, for everything swirled behind her closed eyelids, and then she knew nothing. With a vague, dreamlike awareness, she felt the mug taken from her hand. Powerful arms lifted her. The sensation startled her awake with a cry. Panic hammered in her chest, and she screamed.
“Shut up,” said Tom Silver through gritted teeth. “I’m taking you back to your bunk.”
“Put me down,” she yelled, horrified at his nearness, the lake-and-leather scent of him, the way he held her in his tree trunk arms.
“Fine.” He practically dumped her down the hatch. “Just don’t fall asleep in the pilothouse again.”
She was shaking when she returned to the cramped quarters, pressing herself back against the door. Different, she told herself, trying to still the crazed beating of her heart. This was different. This man, this Tom Silver, hated her. His hatred was supposed to keep him from touching her. She didn’t want anyone to touch her, ever again.
* * *
Deborah awoke again hours—or days?—later to the rattle and churn of the trawler’s eng
ine and the murmur of masculine utterances. She lay perfectly still, trying to pretend this was not real. She refused to open her eyes. So long as she kept them closed she could pretend she was back at Miss Boylan’s, in her own bed of pressed Irish linens. In a few minutes, Kathleen would come with tea and milk on a tray, and they would discuss Deborah’s plans for the day.
But inevitably, the damp fishy smell of the boat and Smokey’s doggy odor chased away the fantasy. Once again, she struggled to the galley, finding Lightning Jack poring over a chart.
He offered her tea again.
“Just water, please. Your tea makes me suspicious.”
“You should be grateful for the sleep. This is a long and boring voyage.”
“And what is our destination?”
“That is up to your father. If he surrenders to our demands, we’ll put you on a train in Milwaukee.”
She felt a spark of eagerness. “Have you already sent a message?”
“We’ll wire from Milwaukee,” he said.
“Why are you and Tom Silver making demands from my father?” she asked. “What do you want from him?”
“Justice,” Lightning Jack said simply.
“I don’t understand. Justice for what?”
He stared out the window, pocked with spray. “For murder.”
An incredulous laugh escaped her. “You think my father murdered someone?”
“I know he did.” Lightning Jack rose from the bench.
“You know nothing of the sort,” she retorted. “My father has never harmed a soul. He’s a good man—”
“He is fortunate to have a daughter who believes in him. But that does not alter the truth.”
“Then tell me your version of the truth.”
“Last summer—”
“That’ll do, Jack.” A large and ominous shadow filled the doorway, obliterating the light. Tom Silver ducked his head and stepped into the galley. “Best check on the piston drivers. Weren’t you going to do that today?”
Lightning Jack nodded. He looked at Deborah briefly. “Find something to eat. You’ll need your strength.”
