Into the Whirlwind
Read Into the Whirlwind Online
Authors: Elizabeth Camden
Tags: #Fiction, #Christian, #Historical, #Romance, #General, #FIC027050, #FIC042030, #Clock and watch industry—Fiction, #Women-owned business enterprises—Fiction, #FIC042040, #Great Fire of Chicago Ill (1871)—Fiction
© 2013 by Dorothy Mays
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Ebook edition created 2013
Ebook corrections 07.25.2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4412-6147-2
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Jennifer Parker
Cover photography by Mike Habermann Photography, LLC
Cover background photo © Chicago History Museum
Contents
1
C
HICAGO
O
CTOBER
8, 1871
A
wall of fire towered over Mollie. The city of Chicago had been burning for hours, the scorching wind stirring up firestorms that barreled down the narrow streets and illuminated the night sky. It was getting hard to breathe. Smoke and ash hung in the air, coating Mollie’s throat until her thirst grew more painful than the blistering heat. The crush of people jostling to flee northward made it hard to even keep standing.
The city Mollie loved so well was being destroyed as flames engulfed buildings, weakening them until they collapsed into piles of rubble, blocking escape routes and sending throngs of people into greater panic. By tomorrow, Chicago would be nothing more than a smoldering ruin.
“Mollie, watch out!” Zack shouted. She followed his line of sight. A riderless horse careened straight at her, cutting through the people packed on the street. A woman screamed and dove for cover, but Mollie was trapped by the wagon beside her. She flinched away from the stallion’s flailing hooves just as Zack’s
hands closed around her waist, hauling her out of harm’s way a second before the horse barreled past.
“Thank you,” she gasped before her throat seized in a fit of coughing.
“Come on,” he commanded, grabbing her hand and pulling her forward. “We’ve got to get across the river before the bridge burns. We can make it, Mollie.” He grinned down at her, his teeth flashing white against his soot-stained face.
Zack Kazmarek was a savior in the chaos, his powerful build shouldering through the crowd and helping them both get farther north. A layer of ash covered his coat, but it couldn’t disguise the jacket’s fine cut or his confident manner as he pushed onward. Zack had accompanied her into a literal inferno, but never once had he complained.
Why would a man who disliked her be so generous? For three years, Zack had been icily aloof toward her, so why should he risk his life to help her?
The crowd thickened near the Rush Street Bridge. Ahead of them, people yelled and started pushing the crowd back. It was impossible to hear what they were saying over the roar of wind and the clamoring bells, but as she got closer, Mollie saw the problem.
The bridge was on fire.
“We can still make a run for it,” Mollie said, and she pushed forward.
The bridge was a hundred yards long, and orange flames were licking at the wooden railings. The planking smoldered where cinders ignited the wood, but most of the bridge looked sound. A few people made a dash for it, and with the wall of fire behind them, Mollie intended to get across that bridge.
Zack’s hand was like iron as he hauled her back and whirled her to face him. His eyes glittered in a face streaked with soot
and sweat as he stepped closer, shouting over the roar of wind and fire.
“That bridge isn’t going to hold!” he shouted. “I won’t watch you kill yourself. We can make it to the bridge on Clark Street.”
In all the years she had known the impeccable Zack Kazmarek, there had never been a hint of a pulse beneath his tailored suits and starched collars, but now he looked at her with desperation in his eyes. He grasped her arms as though he couldn’t bear to let her go and it made her think . . . well, it looked as if he actually cared about her. Which was impossible . . . they barely knew each other.
Until six days ago, they had never even had a real conversation. Until six days ago, Zack was merely the lawyer who signed her paychecks and intimidated the stuffing out of her.
Six days ago was another lifetime. . . .
S
IX
DAYS
EARLIER
The paper was thick and creamy, embossed with a gold letterhead and engraved ink. Mollie read the note for a second time.
Miss Knox,
I would like to meet with you to discuss a potential business venture. I will call at the 57th Illinois Watch Company at 2 p.m. this afternoon.
Zachariasz Kazmarek,
Attorney for Hartman’s, Inc.
Despite the note’s formal tone, Mollie was smart enough to be scared stiff.
Zack Kazmarek was the legal mastermind behind the city’s most elite mercantile empire. Half of Chicago was in his back
pocket, and the other half was afraid of him. Mollie fell into both categories. He had always been coolly polite to her, but Mollie knew better than to let that lull her into a false sense of security. After all, the rumors about Mr. Kazmarek were legendary.
The workshop was filled with the sounds of whirring lathes as workers constructed the tiny watch components, but the distinctive tapping of Frank Spencer’s cane cut through the noise.
“Good news?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Mollie said. She leaned closer so her voice would not be heard over the steady grind of the workshop and read the note to Frank in a low voice. Frank’s sightless eyes stared straight ahead as he absorbed the words, memorizing them with his impressive mind. Not many people would have hired a blind man for their attorney, but Mollie was eternally grateful to Frank for saving her father’s life at the Battle of Winston Cliff, and he would always have a home at the 57th Illinois Watch Company. Frank was like a second father to her, and she trusted him implicitly.
Frank rubbed his lean jaw as he considered the message. “In all the years we’ve been dealing with Hartman’s, they have never come in person to the workshop. This is odd.” Concern was plain in his tone. Frank was the only other person in the company who understood how precarious their financial situation was.
The 57th Illinois Watch Company made the most beautiful watches in America. With enameled dials and hand-engraved gold cases, each watch was a marvel of engineering combined with spectacular artistry. They were also outrageously expensive, which meant Hartman’s was the only store in Chicago that could afford to carry them. With its marble floors and crystal chandeliers, Hartman’s supplied the millionaires of Chicago with sapphires from India, perfume from France, and Italian
suede leather so soft it draped over the hand like silk. They also sold the jewel-encrusted timepieces from the workshop of the 57th Illinois Watch Company.
When she inherited the company three years ago, Mollie realized their glaring vulnerability. They sold
all
their watches to Louis Hartman’s grand store, and having only one client meant they could be wiped out the moment the mercantile king decided to use another company to supply watches for his store. Her company was at the mercy of Hartman’s, which was why a sudden visit from the store’s lawyer was so worrisome.
Mr. Kazmarek intimidated Mollie down to her fingertips, and she twisted the note between her hands. “I was about to settle down to lunch, but now I’m too nervous to eat anything,” she confessed.
Frank looked anxious too, rubbing his hands against his vest, his eyes darting around the workshop as though he could still see. “Is everything presentable? If the lawyer is coming, he may want to inspect the property.”
Mollie surveyed the workshop. She loved every square inch of this old building, with its exposed brick walls and high windows. The cavernous room was dominated by twenty worktables set at shoulder height so the technicians could work without stooping. Each technician had a jeweler’s loupe over one eye and used pins and tweezers to fit delicate components together. On the other side of the room, the artisans engraved the gold watch covers. Her most valuable assets were Ulysses and Alice Adair, a married couple whose artistic creations fashioned from gold, enamel, and gemstones were soaring hymns to beauty.
Mollie’s earliest memories were of playing among these tables, watching in awe as her father created the most beautiful watches in the world. When she was younger, Mollie was convinced her father was as clever as Leonardo da Vinci as he
assembled whirring, ticking pieces of metal into tiny machines that kept perfect time. Unlike the ordinary watchmakers on the East Coast, Silas Knox’s watches were masterpieces of artistry, and the elite of Chicago gladly paid staggering sums for them.
Mollie had the artistic skill of a small head of cabbage, but she excelled at business and knew every facet of watchmaking from the ground up. She learned to make mainsprings when she was only ten years old. By age twelve, she could attach winding screws to the internal mechanisms and eventually mastered every phase of the watchmaking process. Now that she was in charge of the company, she balanced the accounts and managed the business operations, but she still loved donning her jeweler’s loupe and assembling the delicate gaskets, springs, and rotating wheels as she indulged in the sheer joy of making a pocket watch. And the best part was that tomorrow morning she got to wake up and do it all again.
But only if she could keep the business afloat. “Alice, can you help me straighten up the office before Mr. Kazmarek gets here? I need this place to look spotless.”
Alice set down her engraving tool. “An important meeting, is it?” she asked, her voice still carrying a trace of an Irish lilt. Alice’s artistic skill had brought her a long way from the girl who fled the Irish potato famine two decades earlier.
There was no need to spread anxiety around the workshop before she even understood why Mr. Kazmarek was coming. “Just a meeting with one of Hartman’s men,” Mollie said casually.
Alice pushed herself to her feet. “Come on, let’s fix you up, then. With that hair and outfit, you look like the prison warden getting ready to lock up the inmates for the night.”
Mollie glanced down at her starchy white shirt and plain skirt. “What’s wrong with how I look?”
“Braids don’t belong on any woman over the age of twelve unless she intends to frighten the children.”
With her mass of spiraling dark curls, braids were the only way Mollie could beat her hair into submission. “This is a business meeting, not a social call.”
Alice grasped Mollie’s shoulders and guided her toward the washroom, where an old mirror hung on the outside of the door. “And if the business is with Hartman’s, you need to look the part. Stylish, elegant, and rich.” Alice shrugged out of her silk Japanese shawl and draped it around Mollie’s shoulders.
Mollie traced a finger along the hand-printed silk. “This looks like it belongs in the Louvre.”