Silver Lies (42 page)

breech of the side-by-side and loaded one shell. It slid in

with a cold metallic click. Emma squeezed Joey’s shoulder. "Go get ready for bed." "I’m not sleepy." "Joseph—" He walked reluctantly across the room, giving his rocking

horse a shove as he passed. The rockers clickety-clacked against the plank floor as he went into the bedroom and closed the door.

Emma grabbed Inez’s wrist. "Promise me something." Inez looked up, startled. Emma’s blue eyes bored into her like the double barrels of the shotgun. "If anything happens to me, I want you to take care of Joey."

"Don’t say that! Nothing will happen. Tomorrow, next day at the latest, you’ll both be heading to a new life in the Golden State."

Emma shook her head, not to be placated. "Promise me you’ll raise Joey as your own. You’ve a strong spirit. You’ll protect and love him. Let no harm come to my son."

"Emma, don’t talk such foolishness." "Promise!" "All right, all right. I promise." Inez looked down at her friend’s freckled hand and noticed

how Emma’s pale wrist was as bony as her own. Events of the last month combined with the high altitude were eating away at them both, leaving them shadows of their former selves. Inez had seen it happen to others in Leadville. Faces became gaunt, necks thin.

The only ones who stay sleek and prosper are Mrs. DuBois and the rats.

"Mama!"

Emma released her grip and straightened with a sigh. She went into the bedroom, then returned a moment later. "I can’t believe I forgot it."

"What?" Inez sorted through the shells in the box.

"My Bible." Dismay etched lines around her mouth. "I must have put it on the bed while we were packing and got distracted by that horse."

"We’ll get it tomorrow morning." Another metallic click as the second shell entered its chamber. Inez closed the action with a decisive snap.
If anyone tries anything, I’ll blow a hole through him and any nearby walls big enough to walk through.

"We read verses last thing every night and first thing every morning. We’ve never missed a reading. Not even the day Joe—" Emma covered her mouth with a hand.

"Use my pocket Bible. It’s on the sideboard."

At the sideboard, Emma froze. "Inez?"

Oh no.
Inez pictured Joe’s watch by the decanter, exactly where she’d left it last night.

Inez placed the loaded shotgun under the sofa to give herself time to think. When she straightened up, Emma was waiting, Bible in one hand, Joe’s pocketwatch in the other.

"I was going to bring it to you after church. But then all this happened." Inez’s tired mind raced, not prepared with a ready lie. "Someone dropped it off at the Silver Queen yesterday."

"At your saloon?"

Ignoring the implicit "why?" in Emma’s question, Inez said, "Useless told me he turned around and it was on the bar. He didn’t see who left it," she added lamely.

Emma opened the dustcover and stared at the family portrait inside.

A soft knock wrenched Inez from a doze on the loveseat. She retrieved the shotgun from under the sofa and listened as a key turned in the lock. Her grip eased as Reverend Sands entered, black hat and coat dusted with snow.

Inez held her finger to her lips, indicating the closed bedroom door across the hall.

He nodded to show he understood. She slid the shotgun back under the sofa and rose to fix him a cup of tea. "What did Marshal Hollis say?"

Reverend Sands set down a small carpetbag and walked to the fire, removing his gloves. "The marshal said dead rats nailed to doors don’t amount to much when he’s got live cutthroats and footpads to deal with."

Inez sniffed.
About as much help as I expected.
She poured hot water over the tea strainer and watched the liquid darken to sepia. "Any room on the coaches tomorrow?"

"There may not be any coaches tomorrow. They’re talking avalanches in the passes. The Georgetown trains to Denver might not even run."

He set Inez’s revolver on the sideboard before accepting the cup.

Inez lowered herself onto the loveseat, leaving the end closest to the fire for Reverend Sands. He sat down, a polite distance away. "I stopped by Mrs. Rose’s house coming back and double-checked the windows. Everything is as we left it. My guess is," he stretched out his legs, flexing his ankles, "someone’s after something in that house. If Mrs. Rose is the target, I don’t see why they would bother with the rat. I think they wanted to scare her away. I considered spending the night there." He sipped his tea, meditatively. "See if I could ambush them. But that would leave you all here alone. I don’t like that. Household goods can be replaced. Human lives cannot."

Firelight flickered over the polished rosewood of the piano. Inez looked longingly at the covered keyboard, wishing she could lose herself in music, for just a while. Nervous fatigue had her strung tight as a piano wire. Sighing, she rested her head on the sofa back. The square nail heads in the planked ceilings appeared like so many orderly notes on a musical score. Too tired to think, she closed her eyes. "Who is doing this? And why now? Joe’s dead. Emma’s leaving. What are they after?"

From the small darkness behind her closed eyelids, she heard the click of porcelain cup on saucer and felt his hand, warm from the teacup, smooth back hair that had escaped from her plaited knot. "I’m going to find out."

She was too drained to question why he should be so involved in what were essentially law enforcement matters. Nor why he sounded so absolutely convinced that he would succeed in unraveling her questions.

"I just wish it was all over," she murmured.

"It will be. Soon. Then, we can concentrate on other things." In the pause that followed she heard the crackle of horsehair as he moved closer. "Our chaperones are asleep."

Inez knew, in a moment, she would feel his lips on either her mouth or her throat. Once that happened, she would be swept into currents not of her own making.

"Please don’t," she whispered.

She sensed him shift away on the sofa. When she opened her eyes, he was watching her. Waiting.

She took a deep breath and straightened up.
I suppose we must deal with last night’s events now.

Clenching her hands into fists, she said a low voice, "Last night. I was…unprepared."

He seemed to shuffle through and examine the possible interpretations of "unprepared"—spiritually, emotionally, physically.

She attempted to clarify. "Unprotected."

Slight frown lines appeared between his eyebrows.

"I’m a married woman. My husband disappeared eight months ago. I was foolish to take a chance that, that—"

The frown became more pronounced. "But I thought… When I tried to…" He stopped.

They were dancing around words to describe what took place in the dark intimacy of her bed less than eighteen hours ago. At the very last possible moment, he’d tried to separate from her. The twisted flannel sheet, their tangled arms and legs, their passion—all had worked against him.
As I did.
She’d pulled him closer, deeper. With immediate and overwhelming results for them both.

Inez forced herself to face him squarely. "I thought it was safe, but I miscounted the days. I took steps after you left. But I don’t know how effective they were."

He looked as if he couldn’t quite believe their conversation.

Inez hurried on. "Even in Leadville there are situations that are beyond the pale. Not tolerated. I cannot chance that. And neither can you. Not in your position. Even if your stay is temporary."

She rubbed her tired eyes, desperate, yet determined. "In the future, we must take precautions. I don’t know what I’ll be able to do, what I can purchase or where. But we just can’t…can’t…"

Reverend Sands lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. His eyes were warm. Warm and the color of storm clouds.

"Inez. We won’t."

He glanced at the shut bedroom door across the hall before drawing her close. She buried her face in the shoulder of his damp jacket.

"There are other methods besides counting days," he murmured into her hair. "But you must trust me."

Reverend Sands settled her gently against the sofa and kissed her forehead, her eyelids. He covered her mouth with his, drawing her into a world where his touch and the pressure of his body filled her mind. A world of no thoughts, no words. A while later, he freed her mouth and began a slow descent down her throat.

Inez shivered and twined her fingers through his hair to anchor herself. It was as if she floated on the surface of a whirlpool, circling closer to the center. Upon entering that spiral, Inez knew she would go under without a struggle.

His lips brushed the hollow at the base of her throat. She felt him whisper again:

"Trust me."

999

Scritch, scritch
. The timid noise dragged Inez from a deep sleep. From the floor of her son’s room, Inez blinked, disoriented by the lack of familiar landmarks and the scant hours of sleep.

The sound continued, fingernails on wood. Joey’s voice outside her door finally penetrated the fog in her brain. "Auntie Inez. Where’s mama?"

"What? Just a moment, child." She scrambled about, gathering the minimum needed to be decently clothed. In less than a minute, she flung open the door, still buttoning a dress over her chemise. "She isn’t in the room?"

Inez heard a thump from the direction of the parlor. Reverend Sands appeared in the hallway, minus jacket and shoes, waistcoat hanging loose over his half-buttoned shirt. With his hair rumpled and the sleep still clearing from his face, he looked only slightly less disoriented than she felt.

"Could she be in the kitchen?" He started to the back of the house, buttoning up his shirt and waistcoat.

Joey jumped from one foot to the other, a small red grasshopper in flannels. "I just woke up. She’s not here."

Inez finally registered the ancillary source of his discomfort.

"Do you need a chamber pot, Joey?" At his nod, she led him back into the room and pulled the container from under the nightstand. A quick examination showed the big bed slept in, but the sheets no longer warm.

Sands appeared, terse. "The back door’s unlocked." He headed to the parlor for his boots. "Looks like footprints outside, heading to the alley."