Innocent Bystander

by C. A. Asbrey

  “I want to run away. I want to leave everything and be myself. I want no expectations or rules. I want—” She sighed and closed her eyes. “No, I want too much.”

  “Too much? Since when is living a normal life too much? I want that, too. Just imagine we went away. Where would we go?”

  “Far, far away,” she said. “Somewhere nobody knows us. Somewhere nobody will care who we are.”

  “Another country?” His brows arched. “Scotland maybe? Nah, Scotland doesn’t fit for a safe cracker and a gunman.”

  “Nonsense. We have as many guns in Scotland as you have here.” She turned to face him. “Edinburgh even uses a cannon to tell the time. It goes off every day at one o’clock from the castle ramparts.” She paused, a frown playing over her face. “You’d bring your uncle?”

  “He kept me from being farmed out as cheap labor and separated from the only kin I have. He’s looked after me since our folks were killed. If we’re going to live a straight life, I need to take him, too, because gunmen only ever end up a target for the next troubleshooter trying to make a name for themselves. I ain’t leavin’ him to be shot in the back.”

  “But would he come?”

  “Leave that to me.” Nat shrugged. “But if we’re talking about getting…together…some time in the near future, we can’t tell him. He’ll do something like disappear to let us get on with it. The noble saphead can be a total dope when it comes to his own welfare.”

  “Fine,” Abigail chuckled. “We’ll take him to Edinburgh and tell him when we get there. He’ll never notice.”

  “Is that home for you?”

  “No. I’ve visited. I’ve stood on the Heart of Midlothian and heard the one o’clock gun ring over the city. People use the heart as a meeting place.”

  “Heart?” Nat asked.

  “There’s a mosaic set in the ground. Walter Scott even used it as the title of a book.” She stared at the ceiling. “A busy city far away where people are too occupied to pay attention to you. That’s what we need. Country folk notice you more.”

  He stretched out a hand and laced his fingers through hers. “Is that what you want?”

  “Sometimes. Don’t you?”

  He leaned forward and murmured in her ear, nibbling at the shell until she writhed at the electricity pulsing through her emotional body. “More than you know. Maybe someday, huh?”

  “Someday.” She whispered with earnest melancholy. “It’s always a shadow. My future is just a ghost of a hope.”

  He stared into her eyes, looking into her soul with a penetrating vulnerability. She met his intensity, holding his gaze until he felt the world narrow to her plush chocolate irises, to the rich fathomless sea of inviting velvet darkness. It felt like he was falling into her soul when her hand reached up and ran through his hair.

  “Is it, Abi?”

  “Sometimes,” she said. “Maybe, it’s time for me to stop thinking about the past and the future. Maybe, it’s time to think of right now.” Abigail traced a finger from his cheek to his neck, stopping to toy with his hair once more. They fell together in the fading light, sharing a rare moment of tender truth in a world full of artifice and duplicity.

  “Maybe I do need to take a chance and just be a woman,” she said. “It’s been far too long.”

  Her hand traced lazily down to his shoulder, pausing to stroke the sweet spot on his neck before slipping beneath his shirt and sliding over to his chest. He grabbed her hand as she toyed with his hardening nipple.

  “Careful, Abi. This could go too far.”

  “Too far?” Laughter tugged at her generous lips. “Do you ever go anywhere else?”

  “Me? Never.” His brows met. “You, on the other hand? You stick to the straight and narrow.”

  “Then, maybe it’s time I didn’t. I’m heart-sick of life right now. I just want to feel something else for a change. Och! I want to feel something other than regret and worry.”

  He held her hand fast, feeling the warmth tingle through his skin until it hit his belly. “You’re upset, you’re over-tired—”

  “I’m ready, Nat.” She raised her head from the pillow. “Aren’t you?”

  “You’re in a criminal’s hideout and you can’t get out of here unless I allow it, Abi. I don’t want you casting it up that I took advantage of you at your lowest ebb, or extracted a price. This is too important to me. I’m a thief and a liar. I’ll steal everything else but that.”

  “Advantage?” She tugged her hand away from him and propped herself up on her pillow. “Men are so damned arrogant. I finally let my emotions loose and you think I’m not in control of my mind? All you saw was the pain I’ve lived with for years.” Her playful forefinger stabbed him on his pectoral muscle. “I cried. Women do that, you know. Some do it all the time. I only do in extremes. It means I’ve been strong for too long.” She prodded him once more. “It most certainly does not mean I’m feeble-headed. In fact, I feel a lot better for it. Things are clearer now. I know what I want, and I want it all.”

  She sat up and pushed him back on the bed, straddling him in one quick move. “Show me your best, Mr. Quinn. Show me you’re worth it.”

  He reached up and pulled her into an embrace. He kissed her gently, but she soon told him it wasn’t gentleness she wanted. Not now. Not after all this time. She kissed him hard and took him like a lioness, rolling over and over until they were entangled in a hungry mass of passion.

  His deep baritone drifted through the half-light, as he pulled back and gazed into her. “Any man can tell you they love you. I’m gonna make you feel it until it’s part of who you are.”

  He felt her finger rest on his lips. “Big talk. Show me.”

  Her kiss took his breath away, replacing it with an infusion of electric ecstasy which shot through every nerve in his body. They gave and took in equal measure in a hungry fervor until every rush of rapture nailed that unspoken need forever. Nat thrust them both into that soaring moment of consciousness which lay between agony and transcendence, until they fell together, entangled in a rummage of flesh, which changed both of them for all time.

  Chapter 3

  Her emotional outburst had been illuminating and totally unlike the controlled woman he knew. She had opened like a flower. It had been a revelation, but one which made her more human and attainable. Nat loved her even more for it.

  Abigail had done all she could to keep him out of her protective shell, keeping that vulnerable core private and safe. That way madness lay. Nat had seen Jake do the same thing, but all it did was bottle the monster until the pressure built to the boiling point. Nat understood how hard it was for a woman like Abigail to open up and be vulnerable to anyone, let alone a man like him. She must be pretty desperate about her sister’s welfare to have broken like that. Maybe broken wasn’t the right word… Everyone was broken. It was more a case of pretending to be something else for too long. Everyone endured life’s ups and downs whether they acknowledged them or not, but at some point, everyone had to be real.

  He stood and walked over to the window at the sound of horses outside. It sounded like Jake and the boys were back with supplies. Nat glanced over at the closed bedroom door before striding out onto the porch to observe.

  Sacks and barrels were being unloaded by the men while others led off the weary horses to be bedded down for the night. Jake nodded to Chuck, leaving him in charge of unpacking and strolled over to his nephew, the questions already glittering in the gunman’s blue eyes as he approached. “The boys said you had a visitor. A friend of the family?”

  Nat gestured silently with his head. “Walk with me.”

  “Who the hell is it, Nat?”

  “It’s Abi.”

  Jake Conroy stopped dead, aware how risky her presence here could be in a place like this. “What in the—”

  “She’s got up as a boy again. I told the gang she was the son of an old family friend who wants to join us.”

  They walked into the night air toward the well,
being careful to keep their voices low.

  “What does she want?”

  “Her sister’s missing. We’re the last people known to have spoken to her.”

  “You told her about the diary?”

  “Not yet.”

  Jake propped his hands on his hips. “Then what the hell have you been doin’?”

  “Talking and stuff.”

  “Stuff?” He glowered at Nat’s enigmatic grin. “I thought she had more sense.”

  “I guess not.” Nat failed to suppress the smile which only seemed to provoke the gunman. “She told me about her family. It was real sad.”

  Midnight blue eyes caught the darkness with a glimmer. “She ain’t a puppy who followed you home, Nat. You can’t keep her.”

  “She’ll be gone tomorrow, Jake. I’m taking her out of here. The lad’s goin’ home with a flea in his ear as far as the gang’s concerned.”

  Jake shook his head in annoyance and turned back to the cabin he shared with Nat. “I’m turnin’ in. I’ll see you in the mornin’ and we can talk over breakfast. Don’t be late.” He gave Nat a glare laden with meaning. “And don’t be noisy. I share that cabin and I’ve had a long day.”

  “She ain’t that kinda woman, Jake. She broke down.” Nat skirted over their encounter. “Only a heel takes advantage of a woman when she’s as low as that.”

  “Since when? Did you suddenly get a shiny new set of scruples along with your visitor?” Jake’s cynical glower assessed the innocent smile he wasn’t buying. “Or did you remember that she’d shoot you in the balls as soon she came to her senses?”

  “A bit of both. I guess she’s good for me, huh? Finding out her secret focused my mind.” Nat’s jaw hardened. “It’s like not knowing what you really want until you toss a coin. While the coin’s spinning in the air, it suddenly hits you that you know what way you want it to land.” He paused, his tone suddenly pensive. “When I heard she was married, it felt like I’d been gutted. I thought I’d lost her for good. I’m not letting her slip through my fingers again, Jake. Not this time.”

  “So? You’re leavin’?”

  “No, but I need to think about the future. I’ll bunk with you. I ain’t messin’ this up by pushin’ things while she needs rest.”

  ♦◊♦

  Abigail removed her hat after her surreptitious return from the latrines and allowed her thick hair to drop around her shoulders as she pulled out notes and a series of photographs. She pushed away the breakfast dishes to make room. “Here.” She handed the butter to Jake. “I don’t want grease on these. This is a picture of David Bartholemew. I took it from his home in Boston and checked with my Aunt Mairi. It’s him.”

  “Aunt Maar-ee?” Jake rolled the unfamiliar sound around his mouth, mimicking her pronunciation.

  “It’s Scottish. It’s a version of Mary.”

  Nat sat back with wry humor playing around his eyes. “Stupid language if you ask me, why not just call her Mary?”

  “Because that’s not her name.” She flicked dismissive eyes up at Nat before she continued, unable to argue further with his black and white logic as she drew him back to the point in hand. “I ‘entered’ Bartholemew’s home.” She continued, ignoring Nat’s theatrically disapproving grin. “I found that there were documents relating to a Robert Mitchell and an Alan Duffy in the safe.”

  “You can do safes, Abi?” asked Nat. “You avoided them before.”

  “Not all safes. Just some old, easy ones. This was very basic.”

  “I never doubted it.” He leaned back and grinned at her. “You have clever fingers.” She flushed as he pushed on. “In fact, your skills are a constant revelation to me. Want me to teach you more, Abi?”

  “No, thank you.” She dropped another photograph on the table. “This is Robert Mitchell.” She paused to give them time to see that there was no doubt that it was the same man with the prominent nose, fair hair, and pale eyes which looked the color of cold tea in the sepia print before them. “I was unable to find any pictures of Duffy, but the records show all these men have one thing in common. They all married young women who had just come into their trust funds and their brides died very quickly of some kind of heart failure. No poisons were traced in any of the bodies, and their new husbands disappeared quickly with the money they inherited. Only one of the cases caused a problem as the family accused the new husband of murder. The doctors looked hard but they could find nothing, and they had to let him go. They even called in an expert in pathology and he found nothing other than her heart had stopped suddenly and there were petechiae in the lungs and epicardium. He thought she had suddenly experienced heart failure but could find no cause. You can get those findings in death by natural causes, too, so no charges could be brought. It made the local press and gave me this mug shot from his arrest, though.”

  “Petechiae?” asked Nat, ever curious. “In the epi-what?”

  “Hemorrhages. Little pin pricks of bleeding where a blood vessel bursts; in this case, around the heart. There can be numerous causes like congestive heart failure and convulsions, but asphyxiation is the main cause in sudden death. Unless all these women simply allowed themselves to be smothered without putting up any kind of fight whatsoever with no reason to be unconscious, it makes no sense. They had no history of health problems, either. I already checked.”

  Jake’s eyes squinted at the picture. “You’re sure that these are all the same man, Abi? They might just look a bit alike.”

  “I’m as sure as I can be. They all marry and lose a wife for no apparent reason before they disappear very quickly. I’m deathly afraid. David Bartholemew and Mitchell are most definitely the same man, and why would he have papers relating to other people who all had suspicious deaths and inheritances in their pasts, too? I’m afraid if I don’t find him soon the same thing will happen to Madeleine, and then he’ll be gone. I won’t even know his new identity. I’ll never find him.”

  “Your sister’s got a trust fund? You’re rich, Abi?”

  She gave Jake a thin smile. “I come from people who lived off the land in Scotland. My father ran a distillery. He did well here and left us all some money, but I’m not rich, just comfortable. I’m still close to my roots, but Madeleine? Well—she hates to be reminded we were so ordinary and is looking to climb the social ladder. I’m proud of my heritage.”

  “How do they die? Surely, there has to be some sign.” Nat observed.

  “No idea. I wish I did. It’s murder I’m sure, but there’s not a mark on the body, no poison we can find, they’re all found in their beds as though they went in their sleep.”

  “Gas?” asked Quinn.

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. That’s been dismissed as one doctor tested the lungs on both bodies when the second wife died so quickly. He was suspicious. Gasses leave traces and dissolve in the blood. They leave traces in the lungs and can change the skin color, depending on what it is. There was nothing.”

  “Suffocation?”

  “There are usually signs, broken blood vessels in the eyes, bruising on the face or throat, broken hyoid if they’ve been held round the throat, and again there was nothing. No defensive wounds for a struggle. There were no drugs to incapacitate a woman to suffocate her without a struggle either. Not a thing. No gas. No poison. No drugs. No physical sign whatsoever. Nothing.” She dropped her head into her hands. “I’m truly desperate. I think this man will kill Madeleine for her money, and he’s murdering people in a way we’ve never seen before. I just don’t know how, and she won’t listen to reason.”

  Nat examined the pictures. “We haven’t seen this man, Abi. He wasn’t with her on the train.” He tossed them to his uncle. “Jake? You spent more time with the passengers than me.”

  “She was with a little fat fella. I’m guessin’ she met him on the train. They didn’t fit. There wasn’t no relationship, but he wanted one, that’s for sure. He called her Miss MacKay and was real formal.” Jake put the photograph back on the table. �
�I didn’t see this Bartholemew.”

  “You’re sure?” Abigail asked.

  “As sure as I can be. I watch the men closer than the women. I don’t remember him.”

  Nat glanced at Jake. “So you need to find him? This David Bartholemew?”

  “Yes, but I’ve no idea where to start. If he wasn’t with her she must have been meeting him somewhere.”

  Jake shook his head. “This is one hell of a big country.”

  “He’s an inventor, according to my aunt. His house was being packed up and there were boxes all kinds of equipment. I don’t know his field. I suppose I can look at scientific papers and the like until I narrow it down through the varying towns which coincide to his known activities.”

  Nat tilted his head. “That takes time, Abi. It’s a long shot, too. There’s got to be hundreds of inventors in New York and Boston. Thousands, even.”

  Her shoulders dropped. “I know, but it’s all I’ve got.”

  “I’m guessing he’s using his scientific knowledge to hide a new poison,” said Nat.

  “I spoke to Dr. MacIvor at the agency. He’s going to look into the cases for me. He says scientists share their work, so someone somewhere in the world must have published something connected to how these women died. It’s just a case of finding it.”

  “So, you’re going to drag her home when you find her?” Jake’s eyes narrowed. How old is she? Has she reached majority?”

  “She’s just turned twenty-two, and got her trust at twenty-one. As soon as she came of age, she went a bit wild. She’s been a problem for a while.” Abigail looked from one to the other. “You can’t browbeat, Madeleine. That’s not the way. I have to persuade her.”

  Nat sat back with his arms folded. “Want us to do it? We can be as persuasive as it takes.”

  Horror flashed over Abigail’s face. “No! I came here to find out what you know. I don’t want you to do anything. She’d be terrified. You’re criminals.”

  Nat’s eyes narrowed. “She’d be alive, Abi. You know she’d be safe.”

  She closed her eyes slowly. “I’ll sort it, Mr. Quinn. Somehow.”