accompanied his employer to Fort Worth, fell in step beside him.
“So, we get the dinner now, boss?” José asked as the two walked the sidewalks of the city towards their hotel.
Darcy couldn’t answer—he just nodded his head. He was too busy reevaluating his cousin, Catherine Burroughs. He always knew she was a hard-nosed businesswoman, but he never dreamed she was capable of murder.
Until now.
TO G WHITEHEAD—stop—HARVEST IS IN—stop—SILO IS FULL—stop—READY TO START ON NEW BARN— stop—SUGGEST YOU PREPARE BACK FORTY—stop—MOTHER MISSES YOU—stop—E—end
“What the hell does that mean?” cried Denny.
Whitehead laughed. “It’s a coded message from Elton, my man inside the Knightly syndicate. Allow me to enlighten you. ‘Harvest is in’—that means that the investor meetings are completed. ‘Silo is full’ and ‘ready to start on the new barn’ means that the Knightlys have all the funds they need to move forward with the railroad and that construction will start soon. The words ‘back forty’ means that we better have all our affairs in order, because the syndicate will start acquiring rights-of-way.” He tossed the telegram on the desk. “See? I told you all we had to do was wait and the riches would come to us!”
“Yeah? When?”
“Soon.”
“What’s that about your mother? I thought you said you was an orphan.”
“That means Elton’s available for a meeting.”
“So, you goin’?”
Whitehead nodded, his face studying Denny’s countenance. A sudden idea came to him. “Why don’t you come with me? That way you can talk to Elton yourself—see how things are going. What about it?”
Collins perked up. “All of us?”
“No, you need to stay here to help keep Burroughs and Phillips happy. It’ll just be Denny and me with a couple of riders.”
“What about… her?” Pyke asked, pointing a finger upstairs.
“That’s your job,” Whitehead said easily, betraying the tension he felt when talking about the girl. “Keep her out of sight. You can do that, can’t you?”
“Yeah,” sneered Denny, “keep my property well looked after. Just don’t look
Collins started to open his mouth, but whatever he was going to say, he thought better of it. Whitehead didn’t need to hear it, anyway, for the banker was only going to voice what had been running through his own mind. The girl had become a distraction and a threat. Things were too important; the money and the power that would come with it were too damn close to chance that she would be discovered.
Denny walked to the window. “When do you wanna leave? Been raining hard for two days. Roads will be muddy for sure.”
“As soon as it stops. We’ll go on horseback rather than the carriage. Be faster.”
It didn’t stop raining until after Darcy returned to Pemberley. The next evening he learned from his spies in town that Whitehead, Denny, and a couple of riders had left that morning for Fort Worth.
He forced himself to stop thinking of Whitehead; he had more pressing issues on his mind. The storms had scattered his cattle all over the range. Every hand was needed for the roundup. He knew he had days in the saddle before him.
It would only delay the confrontation with Cate Burroughs.
The rains may have stopped, but the river kept rising as the storm waters flowed into Rosings Creek and the Long Branch. Higher and higher the river rose, turning Thompson Crossing into a raging torrent. Downriver, the townspeople watched the single bridge across the river with concern, hoping it wouldn’t fail. It survived, but just barely.
The same couldn’t be said for the abandoned homesteads in the new settlement. The long-timers’ predictions rang true when the Long Branch overflowed its banks, inundating the bottomland and the houses that stood like lonely sentinels. They were flooded one by one, and a few, like the Washingtons’ place, could not stand the deluge and were swept away.
One old wag opined that God Himself was cleaning the foul stench of the crime that had been committed there. Publicly, most scoffed at the idea, but it was telling that, for generations, folks in Long Branch County would consider the site haunted.
The days were growing shorter as October ended, but the air still held a hint of summer’s warmth. Therefore, Charlotte was not chilled as she carefully walked home from the jail, the streets still damp and slightly muddy from the rains that had fallen for the past week, and she was able to lose herself in thoughts of Fitz. Her progress was halted by a loud noise, and she turned to observe some of Denny’s men entering Younge’s Saloon, singing and cursing. Charlotte frowned, wondering again why Rosings tolerated such an establishment. She looked up and down the muddy street at the storefronts and shops, at the banks and the church, at the new schoolhouse going up. All signs that the town was leaving its frontier roots. Even Whitehead’s building, next to Younge’s, spoke of the future—
Charlotte froze.
Looking from a second-floor window in Whitehead’s building was a young, blonde woman. Her face was painted and her clothes could only be described as indecent, but Charlotte recognized the girl beneath the harlot. A moment later, the woman turned from the window, responding to a voice within the room. Then a man’s arm drew the curtains closed.
Charlotte blinked. A less self-assured person might have thought the sighting had never happened, but Miss Lucas was nothing if not confident. She looked about to see if her response was of note to anyone on the street. Assured of her safety, she quickly returned to her father’s office.
“Charlotte, are you
Charlotte rubbed her forehead, weary of the interrogation. “Yes, Paw. It was Lily Bennet. I know it! It was her!”
“Maybe we oughta go and take a peek,” Deputy Smith offered helpfully. He blanched at the look his boss threw at him.
“I’m still not convinced it was the Bennet girl,” Sheriff Lucas insisted. “Perhaps it was a trick of the light —”
“Paw!” Charlotte cried. “I know what I saw! It was Lily Bennet looking out a window in George Whitehead’s building not thirty minutes ago. I know it as sure as I’m sitting here. Why do you insist I didn’t see what I saw? Are you afraid?”
“
