The Fire of Home (A Powell Springs Novel)

by Harrington, Alexis

  “Well, then, here’s to Winks, the poor bastard,” Cud Portman added. “I hope he goes to the land of milk and honey, where you can paddle a boat in a lake of whiskey and another one of stew, like they talk about in that song.”

  “What song?” someone else asked.

  “Some old song, ‘Big Rock Candy Mountain,’ I think it’s called. It’s a hobo paradise with cigarette trees, and you never have to work. But I wouldn’t want ‘To be buggered sore like a hobo’s whore.’ ”

  “I don’t think Winks will have to worry about that,” Jack said, then looked him up and down. “Neither do you, Cud.”

  “Hell, none of you have to,” threw in Tom Sommers, still wearing his cork boots from a day spent at the mill.

  “They don’t do that in a paradise!”

  By the time this subject had been exhausted, the pickle jar was filled and Tilly chipped in the rest to give town drunk Winks Lamont a decent send-off.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Tabitha Monroe woke to the suffocating feeling of a man’s hand clamped over her mouth. Her startled cry was muffled by more pressure.

  “Don’t scream!” A dark, shadowy figure hovered above her. “If I let go, will you be quiet?”

  A bit sleep addled but awake enough to agree, she nodded. “Harlan!” she exclaimed when he released her. “What are you doing? Where have you been?”

  In the dim glow of streetlights streaming through the windows, she saw him hold a finger to his lips. “Shhh!”

  She reached out to turn on the lamp.

  “No!”

  The low bedside light glowed around them. “Harlan, it doesn’t matter. No one is here except me.”

  “Where’s Elsa?”

  “She quit. I couldn’t pay her and she wouldn’t wait. I can barely pay the grocery bill. The yard is turning into a jungle because the gardeners stopped coming for some reason, and that was before I ran out of money. My roses are covered with black spot. Where have you been?” she demanded again. “And why are you dressed like a second-story man?” He wore a dark jacket and a black billed cap.

  “I’ve been away on top secret business for another client. Someone who wants to remain anonymous.”

  She pulled herself upright and fluffed the pillows behind her back with angry thumps. “Another client—you’ve never had any clients. You work for Robert Burton. Didn’t you think to tell me something? That I might be worried? I even thought you could be—might be, well, dead.” Her voice quivered on the word. “You’ve been gone for a month, and I haven’t heard a single word from you! Really, Harlan, this is simply indefensible! Mr. Burton’s lawyer has been here looking for you and they are on the verge of involving the police. They claim you’re responsible for some sort of financial ‘irregularities.’ ”

  She told him about the day that Donald Rinehart made a surprise appearance at her luncheon. “And he’s been here twice since.”

  Harlan sighed. “Nothing else?”

  “Nothing else! Isn’t that bad enough? I can barely hold up my head among our friends—they all smell blood and scandal. Right now I’m invited to functions just for my gossip appeal. They think I don’t know, but I hear people whispering. Soon, though, the invitations will dry up and they’ll just shun me. I try to pretend that everything is fine, and feign confidence when I’m asked awkward questions that I can’t answer.”

  “Truly, Tabitha, it’s best that way. The less you know, the better.”

  She punched an uncooperative pillow again. “How could you do this to me? I can’t pay the bills since I’m not a signatory on the bank accounts. I don’t even know what we have. Vendors just keep calling on the telephone and coming to the door. I have to pay Strohecker’s from the cash I keep in my jewelry chest just to eat, and that’s almost gone. What have you done?”

  “I told you, I’m doing confidential work for a client who must remain anonymous.”

  She scowled. “Is that what I’m supposed to tell people? That discretion prevents me from explaining that my husband is not really a criminal—that it only looks like he is? When are you coming home? That is if we still have a home to come back to. This is frightening and unacceptable, Harlan. How could you do this to me?” she repeated.

  He reached into the breast pocket of his coat and gave her an envelope. “Here, take this. It’s a thousand dollars, and should see you through for a while. Try to get Elsa to come back. If she won’t, find another maid.”

  She looked inside and leafed through ten one-hundred-dollar bills. “Where did this come from?”

  “I’m a man of many interests. You knew that when you married me. I still have other matters to see to. I really believe that when this is over, we’ll be set and all of the misunderstandings here will be easily sorted out. Trust me, Tabitha, the less you know, the safer you are. But everything will be set to rights. You believe me, don’t you?”

  She did believe him. Even though every alarm in her mind rang, she chose to disregard them. Early in their marriage she had learned to ignore her misgivings about many of the things he told her. Life was so much smoother that way. “Yes, of course, but what should I tell—”

  “It’s better this way, but it’s only temporary.” He put his hand on her thigh beneath the blanket and his gaze wandered to the décolletage of her silk nightgown. “I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you too! I’ve been so worried. Couldn’t you have called or even sent me a wire?”

  “No, I have to be extremely circumspect in all of my actions. I’ll explain it to you someday. But for now, you’re better off knowing nothing.”

  “Is it illegal, what you’re doing?” She clutched the soft linen sheet to her bosom.

  “No, no, not really. It would just look odd at this stage of the proceedings. I swear it will all be ironed out pretty soon.” His hand crept higher up her leg, and his eyes darkened. “How much have you missed me?”

  She didn’t resist when he leaned forward and kissed her passionately, perhaps more so than he ever had before. “A lot,” she whispered. He flipped aside her blankets and tore off her nightgown.

  He left an hour later and Tabbie watched from her window as he faded back into the night, with no idea of where he was going or when he would return.

  Amy sat at the desk in the living room, going over the monthly finances. Everyone had just paid their room and board, and she hadn’t yet taken the money to the bank. For the time being, she locked it in a drawer. She tried to make herself concentrate on her task but her mind kept straying to Bax, the conversation they’d had two nights earlier, and everything else about him. That kiss, that wonderful, frightening kiss. She’d felt herself respond to it like a drought-withered plant blessed with a sudden shower.

  Since then, every time he came and went she found a reason to be nearby, and she didn’t think she was imagining that he was nearby more than ever before.

  It was a dangerous, foolish daydream to entertain. She was beginning to catch herself listening for him coming in the back door, for the sound of his voice. While her imagination wandered over his height and his promise to defend her, she gazed out the side window, lost in thought. So when someone knocked on the front door she froze, her fountain pen stilled in her hand. She heard Deirdre’s soft footfalls as she walked to the entry hall. The two women were alone, although they had stopped leaving the doors unlocked. She heard the murmur of voices, one male, but it wasn’t familiar. Not like that terrible evening in the hotel lobby.

  Soon Deirdre approached her in the living room, her stubborn cough and chest congestion preceding her. She couldn’t seem to recover from that cold she’d had, and Amy thought her creamy redhead’s complexion looked almost translucent now. She could see fine, pale-blue veins in the woman’s temples and in the backs of her hands.

  “Who is it?” Amy whispered, wishing Tom or preferably Bax were home.

 
; “He says he wants to talk with you,” she whispered back.

  “Do you know him? Does he look familiar?”

  “No, but he asked for you by name. He says he knows Mr. Duncan.”

  It sounded strange to Amy. She didn’t want more boarders than she had, but if he knew Bax, she supposed she should at least talk to him. She pushed herself away from the desk. “All right. I’m coming.”

  She followed Deirdre back to the entry hall and found an unshaven, rough-looking man standing there in rather shabby clothes. Her guard went up immediately. “I’m Amy Jacobsen. I’m sorry but I have no rooms available.”

  He eyed her up and down in a way that gave her chills. It wasn’t lust she saw, it was a baffling contempt. “I’m not here for a room. I’d like to talk a little business with you, though.”

  “Business. Mrs. Gifford told me that you know Deputy Duncan. Perhaps he’s the one you want to see. He should be along soon.”

  “No, ma’am. I do know Duncan, but you’re sure enough the person I want to talk with.”

  She didn’t want to let him any farther into the house. “What is this about, Mr.—who? You haven’t told me your name.”

  He scraped off his grease-stained hat and gave her an ingratiating smile of mostly gums. She took an involuntary step back.

  “For now, just think of me as Milo. It’s kind of personal, Mrs. Jacobsen.” He didn’t break eye contact with her but tilted his head in Deirdre’s direction.

  “Oh—well, I have some mending to get back to,” Deirdre said. Even though Amy shot her a desperate, purposeful look, she added, “I’ll be upstairs.”

  When her footsteps faded, Amy put on a false front of bravery, but her heart began pounding so hard she had trouble breathing. “All right, Milo, what is this about?”

  He looked around at the walls and beyond to the living room and dining room. “This is a nice place. Yes, ma’am, real nice. Adam Jacobsen, your mister, he knows you’re here.”

  Her stomach felt as if it sank to her knees, but she said nothing. She wanted to know if this was a threat or a warning or something else.

  “What he doesn’t know is that you’ve got a little romance going with Baxter Duncan.”

  “I what!” The exclamation whooshed out of her. “I have no such thing going on with anyone! You can tell Bax what you’ve said to me. He’s due home for lunch any minute,” she lied.

  “Nope, he isn’t. The sheriff and him went on an errand over to Fairdale. He’ll be gone for a while.”

  “You don’t know that!” Panic began to eat at the edges of her bravado.

  “There you’re wrong. I do know. I keep my eyes and ears open. I saw Duncan and that sheriff drive off in the county’s car myself. Now, I don’t care what people do. That’s their business. But I’ve seen those little kisses between the two of you. In the backyard, at the door before he left the other night—who knows what else. I’m guessing you wouldn’t want your husband to hear about that.”

  She realized that his man, this—this barbarian, was the one Bax had seen watching her. The one he’d warned her about. “How dare you suggest such a thing!”

  “Like I said, people’s doings are their business, but you’re in a hard spot here. When I suggested to your mister that you might have a fancy man, he hinted that he’d kill you both. And you aren’t just fooling around on your husband, someone with a pretty bad temper as far as I can tell. You’ve got an ex-convict under your roof.”

  Amy locked her knees to keep them from folding beneath her. “Ex-convict—”

  “I guess Bax hasn’t told you about that.” He chuckled. “Well, I can see why. But he spent some time in prison, and even the sheriff doesn’t know about it. Bax told me that himself.”

  “In prison for what?”

  “I’ll let you ask him about that. But by God, I guess news like that would put a real charley horse in the man’s life. He’d get booted out of his job for certain. Who knows what else might happen if it got around?”

  Amy felt as if she’d been punched in the midsection, and she did know what that was like. Trying to maintain her outward composure while everything in her mind was running in circles and screaming, she said, “Just what is your purpose in telling me all of this?”

  “Well, I’m a fair man and I’d hate to see everyone’s lives torn up. So I’m willing to make you a good offer. You pay me a hundred dollars to keep your secrets and it’ll be smooth going.”

  “If I refuse and demand that you take your disgusting proposal, filthy insinuations, and get out right now?”

  His expression and tone turned menacing. “Okay, I tried being polite and nice about this but I guess you aren’t going to be reasonable. I’ll go, but one hell of a lot of trouble will come to you instead. Don’t think it won’t.”

  “I’m sure Baxter Duncan would like to hear about you as well,” she bluffed, keeping an iron grip on her fear.

  He chuckled. “Ho, I doubt that, lady, and you seem to have missed the point. He doesn’t want anyone to know about his past, including you. So if word gets around, I’ll make sure you’re the one who gets blamed.”

  From a shallow, evaporating reserve of pent-up fury and steel she didn’t know she possessed, she clenched her jaw and stared at him, eye to eye. “Fifty dollars.”

  He gave the appearance of thinking it over. “Sixty—cash only, by the way—and we’ll call it good.”

  She huffed out a breath and went to the living room. Fortunately, he stayed in the hall and couldn’t see all the way to the locked desk drawer where she kept money. Her hands shook as she tried to get the key in the lock and missed three times. At last she took out the sixty dollars, leaving her only five to get through the rest of the month, which still had twenty-five days left in it.

  She returned and put the cash in his dirty, outstretched hand. He stuffed it into an inside pocket in his jacket. “There’s your money. Now take it and get out.”

  He put his hat back on and tipped it. “Nice doing business with you, ma’am.” He’d opened the front door and stepped outside. She was about to slam it behind when he said something that sucked away her last reserves of courage. “I’ll see you again next month.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He sneered at her. “People don’t always understand the finer points of buying someone’s silence. But it usually involves an ongoing payment. And since the point of buying silence is to keep a secret, you won’t want to be telling anyone about this.”

  “Don’t you ever come back here!” she uttered in a menacing tone, and this time did slam the door, making sure to lock it.

  God, what had just happened? she wondered, trembling like an old fencepost in a strong wind. Both frightened and furious, she leaned her back against the door and sank to the mat under her feet. The feeling sizzling through her reminded her of the time she’d pulled an electric plug from its outlet and the prongs touched her fingers. The jolt had run through her hand and up her arm to her shoulder.

  This man Milo knew Adam? Knew Bax? And Bax—his mysterious past involved prison. Was it all true? None of it? Some of it had to be. Did it having something to do with Bax’s comment that he couldn’t use the front door? That grimy stranger knew things that only a spy or a Peeping Tom could know. Both were possible, both made her so uneasy she wanted to jump up and close all the curtains, but she was trembling so much she couldn’t quite take command of her arms and legs to hoist herself from the floor.

  With her elbows on her upraised knees, she rested her head in her hands, trying to decide how much more trouble she was in now. Her plan had been to get away from Adam and, with luck, reestablish her life in Powell Springs. But not much had gone well since she’d arrived with the exception of inheriting this house, and now even that was in peril. She felt as if she’d traded one set of bad problems for another. She had more freedom here, but she felt as m
uch a prisoner as she had in Portland.

  How would she feed everyone for the rest of the month with five dollars? There was no doubt that living with Adam had forced her to learn creative ways to stretch money, but even her ingenuity had its limits. If that blackmailer came back again in June, as he’d said he would, they wouldn’t survive unless she refused to pay him. She wished she could share this with someone, but it wasn’t possible. She didn’t think she could trust anyone now. The information involved was too sensitive. Once more, Amy felt alone in the world.

  From the staircase she heard Deirdre’s cough. She came into view, still pressing her handkerchief to her mouth. When she caught sight of Amy, she hurried across the braided hall runner.

  “Oh, dear heavens! Amy! Are you all right? I’m so sorry I left you alone—I didn’t think anything was wrong.” She crouched next to her and brushed frantically at straggling strands of Amy’s hair so she could see her face.

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t.”

  Deirdre wore a stricken, guilty expression as she examined her face and neck for signs of abuse. “Are you hurt? Did that man hurt you?”

  “No. Not physically.”

  “What then?”

  “Never mind, he’s gone. I got rid of him.” She took Deirdre’s outstretched hand to regain her feet. As she brushed off her skirt, she added, “But some strange things are happening in Powell Springs. People who never would have bothered with this town are coming here now. From now on, we can’t let in anyone we don’t recognize. No one. I don’t care who they claim to know.”

  Deirdre turned toward the kitchen. “Come sit down and I’ll make you some tea.”

  “No, thank you.” From that angle, Amy could see that Deirdre’s dress, which had fit before, was now beginning to hang on her, but it was only a fleeting thought. Right now, her mind was fixed on securing her privacy.

  Only the windows on the west side of the house had roller blinds because in the summer it got so hot. The rest of windows had curtains, some made of lace that didn’t provide much cover, but they were better than nothing. She closed them all.