Though Ethan had tried to tell her that sooner or later people would begin drawing the correct conclusions, Lettie was not prepared for how quickly it could happen.
“You’ve been with Ethan McGuire at the jail all this time, I suppose?” Natalie continued.
Lettie pushed her shoulders back, refusing to appear cowed or ashamed by the fact. “Yes. As a matter of fact, we were married yesterday afternoon.”
“My, my, and so quickly, too.” Her eyes dipped insultingly toward Lettie’s stomach. Then she made a sweeping gesture of her hand as if that fact were of no concern to her. “Perhaps it’s for the best. Although I don’t think you’ve shown the best choice in men, Lettie. Still, a woman in your position can’t be too choosy.”
Lettie’s hands balled into fists. “Ethan is a wonderful man.”
Natalie only shrugged. “Maybe so. But it’s a shame he turned out to be a murderer and a thief. My lands, the things he’s been doing the last few months!”
“He didn’t do it. Any of it.”
“Then who did, my dear? You really
do
live in a fantasy world, don’t you?” Natalie shrugged. “Still, don’t be too concerned about losing him. Men are as plentiful as penny candy. You’ll find another soon enough.”
That remark touched the fuse to Lettie’s simmering anger. Men like Ethan were not common. They were rare. And special. But she wouldn’t argue with Natalie and give her the satisfaction of appearing superior. Not now, not ever. Instead, she turned and marched toward the pile of baggage.
“Let me help you with your bags, Natalie. We don’t want to keep you here any longer than necessary, do we?”
“You’re such a dear, but one of the boys from the station is coming to take them.”
Lettie ignored the other woman and reached for one of the satchels, but her knee bumped against a pyramid of hatboxes and the pile wavered slightly, then toppled to the floor with a heavy thump. Lettie automatically reached out to replace the hat and a rectangular parcel that had been carefully wrapped in tissue.
“Don’t touch that!”
Not heeding Natalie’s warning, Lettie grasped the tissue-wrapped square. Her brow furrowed when she found it heavy and solid.
Lettie drew back as if bitten when the tissue slipped away, revealing a corner of dull, heavy gold.
Natalie!
The bar dropped from her hand and she stared at it in horror, wondering if her mind was playing tricks on her, grasping at any explanation, no matter how far-fetched. But when she turned, Natalie’s expression had become hard. Angry.
“I wish you hadn’t done that.”
A cold finger slid down Lettie’s spine.
Natalie took a step forward, her hand slipping into her reticule and withdrawing a revolver. “Even so, I’m sure I can somehow make your death look like a suicide.”
“You,” Lettie breathed.
Natalie smiled as if she’d just received a great compliment. “No one ever knew. No one even suspected.” She took a step forward. “Personally, I think the whole scheme reeks of poetic justice. Five years ago, the Gentleman Bandit robbed my husband’s bank and ruined his reputation in Chicago. For the next few years, I went without all of the things I so richly deserved—clothing, jewels, social prominence—and I vowed that somehow I would make Silas pay for his stupidity and the Gentleman pay for his crimes.
“Then one day I realized I had the perfect weapon right here.” She tapped her forehead. “Silas had become obsessed with capturing the Gentleman Bandit He’d researched every heist the man had ever made, and each night I listened to him drone on and on. Soon I knew the Gentleman better than I knew myself. Within weeks, I’d become the Gentleman.”
She took a step forward. “I was a very good thief, you know. And, being a woman, it was so easy to blend into the crowd afterward—like that night of the poetry reading. No one even knew I hadn’t really attended. Once the audience began to leave, I simply slipped into the crush of people and returned home.”
The revolver lifted a little higher, and Natalie’s lips twitched in a smile. “I suppose, if simply stated, my escapades could be boiled down to one simple equation. I wanted money, revenge, and freedom. And how best to gain them all than to pose as the Gentleman Bandit, rob several banks in the area, then leave Silas high and dry while the authorities looked for the original thief?”
A soft chuckle melted from her lips. “Unbeknownst to me, however, my first heist started a chain reaction.” She shrugged. “Who would ever have thought that so many people wanted the Gentleman dead? Not only Silas, but your brother as well. But their hate worked to my advantage. Once your brother surfaced with information that all of the circumstantial evidence pointed to Ethan McGuire, no one bothered to look elsewhere.” She stepped forward, her eyes glittering. “And finally, I had the name of the man responsible for my disgrace.”
She drew back the hammer with slow deliberation. “I began forming my plans with exquisite care. I was tired of waiting. It was time for Ethan McGuire to pay for his crimes. While on a shopping trip in Chicago a few months ago, I stole McGuire’s watch, then left it at one of the robbery sites so that the law would have the evidence to convict him. Then, after listening to Silas brag about having found a way to bring Ethan to his knees, I formed an ally—a powerful ally in the Star.”
She took a deep breath, and when she spoke, her voice was tinged with regret. “But, like the true Gentleman Bandit, I know when to cut a good thing short and discontinue my activities—although I’m not promising I won’t have … a lapse in Europe if I see something that catches my eye.”
She took another step forward, and Lettie began to back away from her but found her way barred by the stacks of trunks. “You won’t kill me, Natalie. You don’t have—”
“The nerve? Come now, Lettie. After beating my own husband with an iron bar and burning the bank down around his body, do you really think I’d hesitate to plant a bullet in your skull?”
“Like you did with Jeb Clark?”
“Actually, Clark’s death wasn’t my doing. I wasn’t even there the night the train was robbed—trains are much too messy, you know. All that soot makes it difficult to make a clean getaway.” She chuckled at her own joke, but when Lettie tried to shift away, her aim steadied and her smile vanished. “Silas killed him and took the gold, hoping to flush the Gentleman out of hiding so that he could be executed by the Star Council of Justice. But what Silas didn’t know was that I had my own sources of information from within the Star.”
“Judge Krupp,” Lettie breathed.
Natalie grinned. “Very good! Now, as delightful as our chat has been, I am terribly afraid that I’m going to have to kill you.”
Lettie shrank back against the trunks, her heart pounding, her breath snagging in her chest. “Don’t do it, Natalie. Don’t—”
“Please try to behave in a dignified manner for once in your life, Lettie.” Natalie’s eyes closed as she sighted down the barrel and her fingers tightened. “I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I simply
must
catch my train.”
When a shot exploded, Lettie’s eyes closed, and her hands rose in front of her face in a purely instinctive manner. She stood motionless, waiting for the pain.
But it never came.
Silence shuddered around her, then a muffled cry. A thump. Opening her eyes, Lettie gazed in disbelief when she found Natalie sprawled across the carpet, a crimson stain seeping from her chest. Slowly turning, Lettie looked up to find Ned Abernathy standing behind her, his fingers wrapped around the pearl handle of his revolver.
He gazed at Natalie’s body for a moment, then turned to Lettie, lowering his weapon. His eyes were sad but unrepentant.
Lettie could only whisper, “How did you know?”
“I’ve been following the Star for months. Even entered their ranks to try and get information on who was copying my brother’s methods.” At the mention of his brother, he suddenly paled and blurted, “You’ve got to go.” He grasped her wrist and pulled her toward the door. “The Star is planning to kill Ethan and Jacob at the jail. They’ve set charges against the foundation in back of the building.”
Lettie could barely comprehend what he was saying, and Ned grasped her shoulders, shaking her as if it would help to settle some of his words into her brain.
“I’ve got to get help, Lettie. I was on my way to get Goldsmith when I heard Natalie.” His voice became strained. “Go to the jail and warn your brother. You’ve got to convince him to let Ethan go and get out of the building. Fast!”
He forcibly pulled her out of the house and lifted her onto his horse.
“Ned, why?”
His features became solemn and just a little proud, and his words tumbled over themselves in a rush to be expressed. “Because I love you, dammit. But you could never be happy with me. Go save your Ethan McGuire so that I know you’ll at least be happy with someone else.” His eyes gleamed with a sudden pride. “And when you see him, tell him Ned Abernathy’s debt has been paid in full.”
His hand reached out and he slapped the mare across the rump, sending it into a startled trot. Lettie glanced over her shoulder for only a moment, before digging her heels into the mare’s stomach and urging her into a race against time.
Though the horse ran in a flat-out gallop, the animal seemed to stand still to Lettie, inching as slowly as a worm along a stalk. If Ned’s information were correct, then she only had a few moments to get to him before…
She touched the reins to the mare’s neck, guiding it down the block and into the commercial center of town. Her heart began to pound in terror and her mouth filled with the taste of fear. She had to reach him in time. She had to!
Thundering toward the jail, Lettie bent low over the neck of her mount. Her heart ached in relief when she saw her brother leading Ethan out through the front door. “Jacob!” she called. “Jacob, get away from the building!”
But her brother didn’t seem to hear her. Instead, he looked up, saw her approach, and shoved Ethan back into the jailhouse.
Lettie cried out in horror. “No, Jacob! Jacob!”
As she brought her mount to a shuddering stop and slipped from the saddle, Jacob emerged from the building again and stepped onto the boardwalk. “Lettie, what the hell are you doing?”
Without warning, the air shattered about them into a thundering explosion. Thrown to the ground, Lettie cried out in horror, wrapping her hands around her head as rocks and timbers showered to the earth around her. She heard the squeal of her horse, the ripping impact of crumbling stone. Shards of rock bit into her flesh and pounded against her limbs.
Then the air shuddered and grew quiet. The shower of rubble that had spattered against the ground grew still.
Slowly—ever so slowly—Lettie lifted her head and looked behind her. Jacob had been thrown to the ground a few yards away, and he pushed himself to his knees. His first glance was for Lettie.
“Are you all right?”
“Ethan!” Fighting the tangling of her skirts, Lettie pushed herself to her feet.
“Ethan!”
Screaming, Lettie ran toward the gutted shell of the building, but before she could get more than a few yards, Jacob had dodged out and caught her, preventing her from going any farther.
“No, Jacob! Ethan!”
“He’s dead, Lettie! There’s no way he could have survived that blast.”
“No.” Her eyes grew wide and tortured, and she stared up at her brother in horror, then turned to search the rubble for some sign of life.
“He’s dead,” he repeated more softly.
A low, primeval cry of pain rose from Lettie’s chest and seeped into the dawn. She tried to break loose, tried to lunge toward the jail, but Jacob held her fast. The last few remaining walls of the jail creaked and groaned, then collapsed in a shower of dust.
“Nooo!” she screamed, then whirled toward her brother, pounding him with her fists. “You killed him! You killed him!”
Lettie looked up to find four men on horseback circling them and edging closer, with Judge Krupp at the lead.
She wrenched free from her brother’s grip. “You did this!” Lettie shouted. “Didn’t you?
Didn’t you!
”
Krupp drew his revolver from his holster. “My men were simply seeing that justice was served. The Star Council has been sworn to uphold the law.”
“The law? What law? You’re nothing but butchers!
Butchers
, do you hear me? Ethan didn’t rob those banks, he didn’t kill Jeb Clark. Natalie did. Natalie and Silas Gruber. And you, Judge Krupp.
You
are more responsible than anyone here.”
“You’re hysterical.”
“I’m not hysterical. It’s the truth. I swear, it’s the truth! Natalie admitted it herself.”
Krupp’s features hardened. “Then I regret the fact that you will have to die as well.”
Jacob swore and pushed Lettie behind the cover of his body, but one of Krupp’s men lifted his own weapon and aimed it at the center of her head.
Without warning, the click of hammers being drawn into place shattered through the early dawn.
“Gentlemen, put your weapons down. Now.”
Looking beyond the circle of Star members, Lettie noted that a much larger circle of people had arrived at their aid. Sobbing, she saw the Beasleys with rifles, Ned and Goldsmith with revolvers, Harold Beechum, Irma and Adolph Schmidt, Dorothy Rupert, and even Celeste Grey, all holding assorted Derringers, pistols, and shotguns. From a distance, she heard the first clamoring rings of the alarm bell near the church.
Judge Krupp’s features grew desperate and hard. “Shoot them!” he shouted to his men, but, one by one, they dropped their weapons to the ground.
Jacob took a shuddering breath. “Take them away. Lock them in the cellar of the church until we can find a better place to keep them.”
Since the sound of the explosion had brought a crowd of townspeople to the site, Krupp’s men were easily overpowered and led away.
Celeste Grey moved toward her children, reaching out to draw them into her arms, but Lettie wrenched free, turning toward the rubble.
“He has to be alive!” she rasped from a throat nearly closed with tears. When she dodged toward the building, Jacob lunged after her, catching her around the waist and forcing her to back away.