Heart of Lies (12 page)

Then, out of nowhere, he recalled her words:
“A mother’s heart can’t bear losing a child like that —”

He forced himself to concentrate on the facts at hand. He’d found the comb. Maddie had had the child at some point in time. Now Penelope had somehow given Maddie and the Russo woman the slip and they were both searching for her.

He had to find Penelope before they did, and would make certain Maddie was held accountable for her part in the kidnapping. Russo too.

“Can you tell me how to find Anita’s place? I’ve a message for Maddie Grande.”

The other man eyed him suspiciously. “How do you know Maddie Grande?”

“I’ve got a message for her from Terrance.”

The storekeep frowned at the mention of Terrance’s name. He though it over a minute and then said, “Maddie took the road north yesterday and hasn’t been back.”

“You sure?”

“Did you see those codgers settin’ on the front porch? Nothing gets past them. If she’d have come through, I’d know about it.”

I
t was nightfall once more. Maddie hadn’t relished sleeping in an abandoned shack on the swamp last night, nor did she feel any easier about camping out tonight, but she had survived the streets of New Orleans thanks to Dexter and now, thanks to Anita, she knew how to survive in the bayou.

She found a small clearing surrounded by oaks and cypress with enough dry wood and sticks to use for kindling. She gathered a few stones for a fire ring and started a fire, kept it low enough to hold critters at bay and yet not be seen from afar.

Unrolling a saddle blanket, she spread it in front of Anita’s saddle and sat down with her shotgun across her lap. She dined on cold, dry biscuits and some slices of ham she’d wrapped in a dish towel and then stared at the glowing embers, fighting sleep.

A slight breeze moved through the treetops. In her mind she heard them whisper her name. Shadows thrown by the flames danced on the forest floor. She tightened her hands on the shotgun and cursed Terrance for putting her in this situation.

Tomorrow she would not push herself as long. She’d leave the road, find a secluded spot, and sleep while the sun was still high. That way if she was forced to camp another night, she would be able to stay awake, to scan the darkness for danger.

E
xhaustion claimed her and the dream came with the stealth of most nightmares. She saw the faces of her children, heard their
laughter, then suddenly she was a child being tugged through the streets of New Orleans. The faceless girl had a death grip on her hand. The tall scarecrow in black was leading them both.

The long crimson hallway appeared. The faceless girl started screaming …

Maddie let out a cry and awakened. Heart pounding, she straightened against the saddle and stared into the dying embers of the fire … and suddenly remembered where she was. Too late, she started to close her hands around her shotgun, but it no longer rested across her thighs.

Her gaze darted around the clearing. She let out a gasp when she saw the man seated on the ground to her left, watching her from beneath the wide brim of his low-crowned hat. She couldn’t see his dark eyes, but she felt their intensity and his simmering anger.

“That must have been some nightmare,” Tom Abbott said.

She made no comment.

“You cried out before you woke up.”

“What are you doing here?” She was shaking but kept her tone calm and even.

“Same thing you are,” he said.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’m fairly sure that there’s only one thing that would inspire a lovely lady such as yourself to sleep out here alone in the middle of the night.”

His words dripped with cool sarcasm. She didn’t bother to tell him she hadn’t intended to fall asleep. “And what’s that?”

“Money.”

Her mind raced around in circles until she hit upon a lie.

“You’re right. I came out here to hunt. Thought to get a few extra hides, add the earnings from their sale to my savings. Someone mentioned seeing a panther out here recently. I figured a pelt that fine would earn me a heap of money.”

“A panther.”

“Yes.” It sounded ridiculous and she knew it.

“Seems knowing a panther was around would keep you awake. I figure you’re out here hunting something else.”

Her heart tripped. “And what would that be?”

He brushed aside his coat, reached into the pocket of his vest. When he held out his hand, something caught the red glow of the embers and sparkled in his palm.

She stared at the piece of silver and diamond fragments twisted into a bow and tried to hide her shock.

“That comb was worth a lot of money … One of those big brutes probably took it.”

Maddie ran her tongue over her bottom lip and looked away. “That’s a mighty pretty bobble. Where did you get it?” she asked.

“On the floor of your cabin. Under your bed.”

She had nothing to say, nothing she could say. She stared back in defiance.

“What now?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s no sense in pussyfooting around it anymore. I know you’re involved in the kidnapping of Penelope Perkins, Miss Grande. You have been all along. Those no-account brothers of yours kidnapped her and somehow you or that Russo woman managed to lose her. Now you’re desperate to find her. Why else would you be out here in the middle of the night?”

“You’re crazy.”

“How do you explain this?” He held out the comb again.

“It’s mine.”

“Funny, but it matches the description of some the kidnapped girl was wearing.”

“The story you read me didn’t mention any combs.”

“Maybe I didn’t read it all to you.”

“Maybe you’re a liar.”

“Something we have in common, then?”

She eyed him carefully, certain that there was no escape, not
with him so close. She might be able to bolt, but he’d be on her in an instant.

“You should be glad I found you.” He tucked the comb back into his pocket. “I can keep the panther away while you sleep.”

“I’m safer alone than with you.”

“Miss Grande, I’m offended. Have I ever been anything but polite?”

She was furious. She hated the sarcasm in his tone and, truth be told, she was more than a little disturbed at the way he was looking her. Gone was the admiration she’d seen in his eyes when he’d arrived at her cabin. He was staring at her as if she were no better than the thief and liar she was. Though it shouldn’t have, the notion hurt.

She stared at his coat where it hid his vest pocket. The comb proved her guilt. There was no use arguing.

He shoved his hat back a notch. “How about you go back to sleep? I’ll keep watch, seeing as how I’ve got your shotgun,” he offered.

She didn’t bother answering. For now she had no choice and they both knew it.

T
om had to give her credit for playing her cards close. When he showed her the hair comb, her only reaction had been a slight widening of her eyes, but she knew she’d been caught. He added a few pieces of dry wood to the fire and sat back, watching the way the flickering glow of firelight played across her skin.

In the semidarkness, the details of her mud-brown skirt and oft-mended blouse were muted. Yet even in her ragamuffin clothing, she was lovely. It was easy to picture her turned out in fine clothing, silk and lace and crinolines, her hair styled in a manner befitting a lady. Polished and fluffed and dressed in a gown of high fashion and expense, she would be stunning.

On his journey along the backwoods road searching for her, he’d kept reminding himself that he was bringing a kidnapper to
justice even as he pondered over what her hair would feel like in his hands or pictured her delicate features.

She’s a liar and an accomplice in a kidnapping.

All the more reason to keep his distance.

They sat staring into the fire, avoiding each others’ eyes. He realized she wasn’t going to go back to sleep, not sitting there ramrod straight against her saddle, her arms folded over a small red blanket on her lap.

“Tell me about that nightmare,” he prodded.

“No.”

“It’ll help pass the time.”

“Telling won’t make it stop.”

“You’ve had it before?”

She nodded. “For years.”

“So tell me.”

“I don’t want to.”

He sighed, raised one knee, propped his elbow on it. “Something’s been bothering me,” he said.

“Good.”

That made him smile. She didn’t.

“Back at your cabin you said, ‘A mother’s heart can’t bear losing a child.’ “ He still couldn’t shake the raw heartache and pain he’d heard in her voice. “How do you know?”

She was quiet for so long he was certain she was bent on ignoring him. He was about to change the subject until he heard her softly say, “I just do.”

“You’ve had a child, then?” It wasn’t something he had considered.

“Two.”

Two?
That one word made it perfectly clear that he’d barely scratched the surface of her past. Had she had a husband? Or merely a lover or two? All he knew for certain was that she was an accomplished liar and might very well be lying to him again. Trying to play on his sympathies.

“So where are they now?”

When she tightened her arms about her midriff as if he’d gut punched her, he wished he hadn’t asked.

“My children are dead,” she whispered. “Both of them.”

A
fraid she would cry, Maddie bit her lips together and turned away from the man beside her. If he’d pulled hot coals from the fire and laid them on her skin, he couldn’t have caused her greater pain.

Her children’s faces danced before her eyes. Selena, had she lived, would be sixteen now. Maddie wasn’t certain, but she herself might have been around that same age when Dexter married her to Louie Seuzeneau.

She had fallen in love with Louie the moment she first laid eyes on him.

Before he came into the tribe, she’d imagined living another life, an honest life. It was a dream that sparkled like a newly minted coin. But then came Louie. Despite his youth, Louie Seuzeneau was already worldly wise, young and handsome in a dashing, roguish way. With his dark, flashing eyes and broad teasing smile, he stole her heart as deftly as he could steal a man’s pocket watch or a purse of coins. From the moment she saw him standing beside Dexter in the center of the upheaval in the warehouse, she was in love.

“I found him for you,” Dexter had said. “This one we’ll keep.”

Dexter knew her well. As he predicted, she lost her heart to the handsome young rogue. Dexter found their young love amusing
and started to plan their wedding. It would be the first marriage within the tribe and he would officiate.

“How fitting,” Dexter had said, “that my dearest treasure will be the first of our tribe to wed, and I will perform the ceremony.”

Anita was not at all happy, but after a whispered argument with Dexter in the dark of the night, the woman had held her silence and deferred to him as always.

Louie became Maddie’s sun, moon, and stars. Selena was born nine months later. She lived but a few hours. The year the war began, she gave birth to a son. They named him Rene. Her son thrived, but two years later, Louie was stabbed and left to die in an alley.

“God gives and He takes away,” Anita told Maddie as she mourned Louie.

Dexter overheard and laughed. “There is no god. Only me.”

There was no leaving the tribe, no fulfillment of the dream of a real home with her little family. Louie was gone and her life began to revolve around Rene. Beautiful Rene, the image of his father. For ten years he was the light of Maddie’s life, until yellow fever took him and left her alone with a heart full of broken dreams and fading memories. Alone with the twins and Dexter and the few who were left of their slowly dwindling tribe.

She had loved her children with all her heart and soul, but they were gone. Dead and buried in paupers’ graves in St. Patrick’s Cemetery.

“I’m sorry,” Abbott said, reminding her he was there. He didn’t sound sorry at all. He sounded as if he doubted her story.

Why should he believe her now? He’d caught her in a lie. A very big lie. She didn’t want his sympathy anyway—real or false. She turned her anger, her bitterness, on him.

“I don’t expect you to care. You didn’t know them. You don’t know me. Keep your sympathy to yourself. You may need it.”

She could tell that gave him pause.

“Should I worry about your husband showing up tonight?”

“If he found us together like this he would kill you, but …”

“But?”

“Like my children, Louie is dead too.”

Speaking his name aloud should have brought his image to mind, but when she tried to picture them, his dark eyes looked too much like Tom Abbott’s. She silently cursed herself and the man beside her for tainting her memory.

She stared at Abbott now, daring him to say something more, but there was a new, deeper pity in his eyes.

“Do not pity me, Abbott. Save it for someone who needs it.”

“Why did you agree to keep the girl?” he asked. “If you are aware of the suffering this has caused, how could you?”

She ignored his question and asked her own. “Can you arrest me? Can Pinkertons do that?”

“I can hold you until I turn you over to the police, yes. Which is just what I intend to do after we find Penelope.”

She had no doubt he’d see her behind bars. Would it make a difference if she forgot about the reward and told him that she only agreed to hide Penelope because she knew as long as the child was in her keeping, she would be safe?

“Do you know where she’s headed?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then why
this
road? Why go north and not south?”

“It’s as good a guess as any.”

“I don’t believe you, Madeline.”

She was exhausted after the fright of the nightmare and finding him here. He was smart enough to know she wouldn’t wander around aimlessly. She had to throw him a bone.

“There is an old plantation not far north of here. Stonewood. I wanted to be there before nightfall but I didn’t make it. It’s as good as anywhere to look. Enough talking. I’m tired.”