"Good God," she huffed, hefting her furry stowaway higher on her shoulders. "How many pecan trees have you eaten, Tubby?"
"For your information," Collie retorted, "Vandy doesn't have to volunteer for this mission. He could leave you to rot under your tiara, princess."
"That's contessa, smartass. And all I'm saying is, I don't think you should be giving him that biscuit—"
"You want him wiggling like a fish and popping out on your head?"
Sadie shot Brodie a withering look. The junior agent was snickering.
"I didn't think so," Collie said loftily.
Vandy reached eager forepaws for the treat. Sadie winced at the amplified sound of coon teeth, crunching in her ear.
"Now don't forget to let him pee before you ride back. And cinch that belt real tight so he doesn't tip out. And remember to—"
"Yes, Mother," she interrupted, tossing the boy an exasperated look.
She cracked open the door and peeked into the hall. She could see Pryce sitting on a stool by the stairwell. He was reading a newspaper. The masthead of the Rocky was illuminated by slanting shafts of afternoon.
She squared her shoulders.
Brodie nodded in encouragement. Collie folded his arms across his chest. When the door swung closed, he looked worried. She had no illusions about whom.
The good news is, sneaking past Pryce will be the most harrowing part of this journey, she consoled herself.
Even so, her heart wouldn't stop hammering her ribs. She thought for certain the agent would hear it.
She gulped a bolstering breath.
All right, Moocher, it's show time. Do me proud.
With Vandy's hot little breaths blowing in her ear, Sadie sauntered toward her Pinkerton bodyguard. She wasn't able to stop Collie's spurs from jingling—like he'd shown her—but she steeled her expression against a show of frustration. She kept Brodie's advice firmly in mind:
"Pryce has no reason to suspect the switch, so don't give him one. Just walk. Keep your head down. If you have to, grunt like you hate the world."
"Hey!" Collie had protested.
Somehow, she managed not to smirk at the memory.
Now she was five feet from the agent. She kept her chin tucked in Collie's bandanna and the boy's chocolate-brown Stetson pulled low over her tell-tale eyes.
Fortunately, the sun was dipping in the sky, and the stairwell was full of shadows. When Pryce glanced up, she angled her face away from the window and toyed with Vandy's paw. She could almost feel the agent's probing stare as it roamed from her muley boots, to her fringed deerskin jacket, to her furry sidekick, who was leaving a trail of crumbs in her wake—not to mention dropping them down her collar.
"Hold."
She nearly strangled on her breath.
"You got a smoke?" Pryce demanded.
Fighting down panic, she shook her head.
The agent looked annoyed. "This stairwell's colder than a witch's tit. What's the time?"
She shrugged and grunted, trying to look surly and sound insolent—just like Collie would.
Pryce scowled. Her scalp prickled. She thought he'd taken offense.
"Becker's late, I'll warrant. Probably losing his shirt at craps," he grumbled, shaking open his paper again. Pryce waved her forward and buried his nose in the boxing pages.
The ruse worked!
She fled. By the time she reached the hitching post and heaved her 50-pound knapsack onto Collie's horse, the clock on the Windsor's tower read 4:18. She needed to hurry if she wanted to reach the cathedral before sunset.
The snow had stopped, but the wind was brisk. Rhubarb's canter made it even brisker, causing air gusts to sting her cheeks. She was grateful for Vandy's warmth, pressed against her spine. He didn't mind the chill. In fact, he seemed to enjoy the way the wind riffled his fur and caused little puffs of steam to rise from his snout. He even swatted at his breaths, playful to the core. She smiled to hear him snuffling at scents she could only imagine.
Eventually, he hooked both paws around her neck and rested his chin on her shoulder, the way a toddler might. His childlike trust made her heart sigh. She hadn't anticipated this sneak-attack of female yearning. Her brain promptly turned to mush, envisioning a dimpled, tow-headed urchin with Cass's mischievous blue eyes on her back.
Somehow, she managed to drag her attention to the road once more. St. John's Cathedral loomed around the bend. Its spire rose like a silver flame against the western backdrop of sun-drenched mountains. The peaks were ablaze with orange fire. She wouldn't have minded taking a few moments to enjoy the view, but Rhubarb distracted her, tossing his head. He whinnied.
A distant, but friendly neigh answered the roan.
Pancake!
An overwhelming surge of relief made her eyes burn. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Cass was here. All the hours of worry had been for naught. He was safe, and he was on time. She suspected if she turned into the wind, she'd catch a whiff of cinnamon and cloves, and the aroma of his tobacco would lead her to him.
Planning to do just that, she dismounted, gathering Rhubarb's reins. But the minute she stepped beneath a stand of pine trees, Vandy started squirming like that fish Collie had warned her about.
"What on earth—"
Now Vandy was growling. Coon fangs were daunting at any distance, but when they were bared two inches from your throat, that was cause for serious alarm.
"All right, all right, I'll let you down!"
She lowered the knapsack to the snow. Wriggling out of his leather prison, Vandy barreled through the drifts like a chubby torpedo.
She blew out her breath. Either Cass had loaded his pockets with coon treats, or a female was busily spraying a tree. In either case, Sadie didn't know how the devil she was going to get Vandy stuffed inside that knapsack again.
I'll deal with that catastrophe later.
She tethered Rhubarb and wandered through the trees. The sun was sinking fast, and midnight-blue shadows were lengthening across the snow. The grounds were larger than she'd anticipated; she wasn't sure where to look for Cass. He wasn't smoking; at least, not that she could smell. The church was dark, and the yard appeared vacant. To her left loomed the Episcopal rectory, to the right sprawled a graveyard. She couldn't spot fresh hoof prints. But then, Cass was dodging the law. He wouldn't have left an obvious trail.
The sudden clanging of church bells startled her. They pealed at a thunderous pitch—not once, as they should have done to mark half past the hour. They rang five times. Eight times. Twelve times.
A curse and a whimper were distinct between claps.
"Cass!" she called again.
Lord. Enough of the bells already. She couldn't believe they were still tolling. The timing mechanism must have been faulty in the clock tower.
She spied movement. A dark-haired man in a black duster was stumbling into the graveyard with his hands over his ears. He fell to his knees.
Cass?
Shouting was futile. She hurried after him, leaving her tree cover behind. He struggled to his feet. She lost sight of him as he ducked behind a monument.
Suddenly, the clamor stopped. The utter silence of the boneyard was eerie. Every bird—and even the wind—seemed to be reeling in the aftershock. Her own ears throbbed as she crossed beneath the vaulted, wrought-iron gateway that marked the cemetery's entrance.
"Cass!"
Her voice pinged off the headstones, the cathedral, the trees. He didn't answer. He didn't show himself.
Halting, she tugged Collie's coat collar higher. She was getting chills. She supposed that was normal. Dusk was leeching what feeble warmth the sun had pumped into the yard. Maybe Cass didn't recognize her. She shoved back her hat, letting her hair tumble past her shoulders.
"It's me! Sadie!"
Yew trees soughed; elms creaked and moaned. Above the mournful sounds, she could just barely discern the tinny strains of mechanical music. The tune was an old soldier's lament. Her memory supplied the lyrics:
"Bury me alone at sundown,
When the sky's last lingering rays,
Flee before the coming darkness,
Thus to end my wicked days."
A suspicion—a terrible, horrifying suspicion—sneaked inside her brain.
Twigs snapped.
She spun around.
It was too late to trigger her .32. All she could do was quail before her worst nightmare:
Cass had emerged from a hedgerow. His expression was blank. His eyes were cold. And his gun was pointed at her heart.
Chapter 22
"C-Cass?"
Sadie's shock was giving way to real fear. He stood like stone in the long, lingering rays of the sun. His .45 glinted like a lethal shard of lightning in his black-gloved fist.
"Don't you recognize me?"
A flesh-prickling chuckle answered from the shadows. It was followed by the flare of a match. She could see Goddard now, about 10 yards to her right, dressed in his own disguise, the patched overalls and drooping slouch hat of a common miner. His impoverished look, complete with a day's growth of beard, was belied by his fancy, Cleopatra Federal cigar. She could smell the tell-tale aroma of cognac as he puffed the tobacco to life. The music was coming from the open humidor he'd balanced on a tombstone.
"You're in a trance, Cass! Wake up! You have to fight it!"
"Oh, he's quite beyond your influence, my dear—Sadie, I believe you called yourself."
Tears stung her eyes. Never had she hated anyone more in that moment than Goddard. For whatever he'd done to Cass, she wanted to draw her stiletto and stab it a thousand times into Goddard's black heart. No, better. She wanted to draw her .32 and blast the bastard's balls to smithereens.
But she didn't dare to move. She barely dared to breathe. Whoever was staring out of Cass's glacier-cold, unblinking eyes was a stranger. And that stranger wouldn't hesitate to kill.
"What did you do to him?" she whispered hoarsely, the horror of Wyntir's last journal entry creeping into her mind.
"Trade secret." Goddard strolled closer, smug. Arrogant. Utterly confident in his control over his puppet. "But I must say, Mr. Cassidy was a refreshing challenge. An outlaw with a murder record, who'd convinced some fool to hand him a marshal's badge? Now that must have taken real charm. Or cunning." Goddard chuckled, halting about 10 feet from her side. "I know something about cunning, you see."
'How dare you compare yourself to Cass!' she wanted to shout. 'You're not fit to lick a horse turd off his boots!'
But Sadie steeled herself against the fury churning in her breast. She knew something about cunning too.
"However did those fools at Harvard fail to recognize your genius?" she deadpanned.
He looked amused. "Brava. As hoydens go, you're rather clever. And far more resourceful than that other piece of fluff the Pinkertons sent to investigate my thefts.
"But sending a girl to do a man's job? Tsk," Goddard continued in that same grating tone of conceit. "The Pinkertons should be ashamed. I'm sure you'll agree, in light of your own dismal failure, that your superiors should be punished for luring foolish young women away from the scullery. Or in your case, the brothel.
"But do not fret, my dear. As accomplished at gunplay as Mr. Cassidy—or should I say, Daredevil—is, I'm sure he'll have no difficulty carrying out his task to execute your pretend cousin. In fact, I think Mr. Cassidy is rather looking forward to ventilating Agent Sledgehammer. Isn't that right, Mr. Cassidy?"
Cass's nod was mechanical. Devoid of all emotion.
Sadie drew a shuddering breath. "You know about Sledgehammer?"
"Your silly little colleague told me all about him. Or rather, her reports did. Miss Merripen even predicted another agent from the Sisterhood would come to her rescue. She was most helpful in that regard—a real peach. She handed over all her files before jumping into the Platte."
A muscle ticked in Sadie's jaw. "And here I thought you'd pushed her."
Goddard hiked a mocking eyebrow. "Murder? How untidy. No, Miss Merripen killed herself. As did Renfield. And Baines. And the clerk at the Windsor Hotel. I daresay Judge Maddox will do the same. Once I decide he's no longer useful."
Sadie's heart trembled at this revelation.
"But your methods aren't infallible," she countered. "Sheridan got caught. And she's still alive."
"Of course she did. I wanted her to suffer the ultimate agony: her fall from grace." Goddard was gloating. "Now she'll be refused at every soiree, every afternoon tea. Whispers of contempt will haunt her footsteps for the rest of her days." He smiled pleasantly. "Socialites are far more brutal than juries when doling out punishment. Rather like piranhas at feeding time."
"So you wanted revenge? Because Sheridan hired Baines?"
A glimmer of spite flickered in those dark, burning eyes. "An act of sheer madness. Sheridan should be locked in an asylum with her crackpot of a mother-in-law."
"You've been played, doctor." Sadie pounced on the first sign of weakness that he'd shown. "Lilybelle's no crackpot. Her eccentricities are nothing more than affectations to annoy her relatives."
He blew a long, spiraling stream of smoke. "So now you're the expert?"
"She hid her jewelry from you."
His amusement returned. "In point of fact, she hid her jewelry from Sheridan."
"Not according to my sources. Lilybelle was warned about you. So was Edmund Greyfell. That's why Wyntir overheard you quarreling with her father. What happened, Dante? Did your hold on Edmund slip? Did a cleverer, more charismatic charlatan persuade him to sign over his fortune?"
Goddard's brow darkened. Her barb had struck home.
"So you found Wyntir's diary. Commendable. Where did the scatterbrain leave it?"
"Trade secret."
"My, aren't you brassy."
"Brass and balls. The top two requisites for a Pinkerton." She carved out a pleasant smile.
She was stalling for time. She knew that humidor couldn't play Bury me at Sundown forever. She was hoping the mechanism would wind down, that Cass would come back to his senses.
"So let me guess," she said boldly. "It's what we Pinkertons do best. Edmund was in pain. He was trying to avoid a morphine addiction. He hired you to play the violin, because it soothed him. You drugged him, hypnotized him—whatever—and began your reign of terror. You implanted suggestions in his brain, so he would invite you to live in his home; so he would construct your secret basement; so he would blame his servants for your thefts; and eventually, so he would appoint you Wyntir's guardian. But somehow, Edmund broke your spell. How do you think he did that, Dante?"
Goddard's smile was snide. "Now let me guess. You hope Mr. Cassidy is listening to our conversation. That my answer will give him the clue he needs to recover his senses. You think your ruse will restore your lover to you. After all, I only had 12 hours to break him in my lab."
Goddard's casual use of "break" and "lab" made Sadie sick to her stomach. In the fading light, she could see the ugly sores and welts on Cass's neck, the dark circles beneath the midnight-blue of his eyes. He'd been through hell.
"A valiant effort, my dear. But 12 hours of—shall we say, duress—are sufficient to divide any human mind into its most basic personalities. In effect, Mr. Cassidy has become two men: one with a conscience, and one without. As a matter of fact," Goddard taunted, "I was astounded to see just how readily he took to my conditioning.
"But then, Mr. Cassidy's lawless side has always lurked just beneath the surface. All it needed was a little push to rise up against the tyranny of its oppression. Now his primal self can happily do what it has yearned to do for years: Kill without remorse."
Sadie trembled, struggling to remain calm, to draw faith from her love. She refused to believe Cass's killing instinct was stronger than the good man who lived inside him. A killer would have ventilated those three, unarmed bushwhackers in Mattie's alley. He would have plugged the zombie-like Baines, when the professor was shooting up Porfi's bakery. And he dou
btless would have blown off Collie's head for unrepentant sassing. Hell. In that context alone, Cass was a saint!
"You're wrong about Cass," she said fiercely. "I knew him before puberty. And in all these years, he has never wavered from his determination to protect the weak and defend the innocent. To make the world a safer place for little kiddies to play!"
"Your little kiddies, my dear?" Goddard's chuckle raised every hair on her scalp. Flicking ash, he turned to Cass. "Tell me, Mr. Cassidy. Why did you come to the churchyard this evening?"
"To kill the Pinkerton whore."
She quailed. Cass hadn't blinked. He hadn't hesitated. He'd spoken with a chilling finality that made the blood drain to her toes.
"And after you kill the Pinkerton whore, what is your next mission?"
"Kill Ryker."
"And Ryker would be?"
"Sledgehammer."
"Very good, Mr. Cassidy. But what if a marshal comes to investigate? What if he tries to question you?"
"I kill the marshal."
"Yes, but marshals have posses. What if you cannot escape?"
"I kill myself."
Sadie trembled.
"Excellent, Mr. Cassidy." A cruel little smile teased Goddard's lips. "Shall we begin?"
She struggled to keep a grip on her reason, to dam the mortifying tears of fear.
Maisy, if you really are my Guardian Angel, now's the time to pull out all the stops!
"My God, Dante, what happened to you? You wanted to be a doctor, once. Doctors heal people not... not torture them!"
"I am a man of science," he retorted loftily. "When my test subjects are clever—and they execute their missions successfully—they wake, remembering nothing of their adventures. My research has no permanent ill effects."
"I'd say death is a permanent ill effect!"
"A matter of perspective, my dear. If I exposed you to one of the Nightshades, you'd be begging for death."
"T-the Nightshades?"
"A family of plants. One yellow-and-white flower in my possession is particularly nasty. If I were to blow its pollen in your face, you would do whatever I desired. Screw yourself with a whisky bottle, if I commanded it." He smiled pleasantly.
Dance to the Devil's Tune (Lady Law & The Gunslinger Series, Book 2) Page 29
