Silver Lies Read online

  Dead center in the mourning wreath splayed the frozen form of a barnyard rat.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The rat’s brown fur was picked out with flecks of snow. Rivulets of frozen blood painted small red streaks down the door. A knife hilt protruded from the pinned rat. Silent punctuation to a deadly statement.

  The reverend’s hand closed on Inez’s shoulder. "Give me your gun." His voice, next to her ear, sounded foreign in its abruptness.

  Inez turned. His mouth was a tight line. Snow clung to his eyelashes and patterned his hat.

  She slowly pulled the Remington out of her pocket. Emma gasped again. "Inez! You brought that into church?"

  Reverend Sands spun the cylinder to inspect the chambers.

  "It’s fully loaded," Inez said belatedly. Then, "You’re going in? Alone?"

  "Mrs. Rose, your key."

  Emma opened her reticule and handed him the key.

  "Ladies, Joey, back into the rig."

  "I’ll walk them to my house. It’s just two doors down," said Inez.

  Reverend Sands swung around. "No." His voice was flat. "Take them to the rig."

  She bristled and opened her mouth to retort. His expression caused her to reconsider. Strangling a stifled protest, she took Emma and Joey by the hand and hurried them away.

  At the rig, Inez turned in time to see the ghostly, snow-obscured figure of Reverend Sands push open the front door. He slipped into the dark interior.

  "Was that a rat on the door?" Emma’s teeth chattered as she huddled with Joey on the back seat. "This must be some kind of horrible prank."

  Inez gathered the reins, remembering the dead rat in Joe’s office and the rat pinned through her skirt at the bank. "I think it’s a warning, Emma."

  "What kind of warning?"

  Inez said nothing, but gripped the reins more tightly, feeling unprotected with her empty pocket.

  If he’s not out in five minutes, we’re straight off to the marshal’s office. I’ll drag Hollis back by his nose if I must.

  Sands reappeared at the door and strode to the rig.

  "No one’s there or even been inside, as far as I can tell. Inez, I’m going to hold onto this for a while longer." He set the safety on the pocket revolver. "This is what we’ll do. We’ll all go inside. Mrs. Rose, gather what you need for two days. Then we’ll go to the Clairmont Hotel and get you a room. Inez, you should probably take a room, too."

  Harry Gallagher’s hotel.

  Protests rose simultaneously from Emma and Inez.

  Reverend Sands shook his head through the blizzard of words.

  "Listen to me!" Inez shouted over the storm. She threw down the reins and climbed down to Sands, clutching her cloak as the wind gusted and threw snow in her face. "With this weather and the holidays, there won’t be a free room anywhere much less at the better hotels. You think a hotel room is safe? Think again. One door. No other avenue of escape. What do you plan to do? Post yourself as sentry?"

  "If necessary."

  "No." Now her voice brooked no argument. "The Roses will stay with me. I’ve an extra room. And a shotgun."

  Reverend Sands glanced from Inez to Emma and rubbed his face as if missing the absent mustache more than ever. "Done."

  Inez blinked, thrown off-balance at his unexpected capitulation.

  He continued, "And I’ll stay as well. The parlor floor will suit me fine."

  "You can’t." Inez was speechless.

  "Can’t what? Spend the night on your parlor floor?" Reverend Sands sounded as if, under different circumstances, he’d find her protest comical. "There are plenty of chaperones to go around, if that’s what you’re thinking. Discussion’s over. Now, let’s be quick."

  The four hustled back up the walk and into the house. The banked stove eked out a thread of warmth that barely raised the temperature of the parlor. Trunks and boxes, packed and ready to go, lined the nearby walls. The house felt empty, cold, abandoned in spirit.

  In her room, Emma handed Inez a carpetbag and threw open a trunk. They were stuffing a quilted petticoat into the bag when a scratching noise drew them to the hallway. Joey was tugging his rocking horse down the hall toward the front door. Long gouges trailed behind in the polished planks.

  "Joseph Lawrence Rose!" Emma sounded beside herself. "What do you think you’re doing?"

  "Papa said my horse’s our ticket to freedom. Papa said it’s my res…respon…job to watch over him. I’m taking him to Auntie’s house." Joey tugged. The gouges lengthened.

  "You are not! You heard Reverend Sands. We take only the necessities."

  "NO!" Joey shouted.

  Emma moved swiftly. Her hand cracked against his cheek like a small gunshot. "You will not speak to me that way!"

  Joey screamed and started to cry. Even in the face of his mother’s fury, he wrapped his arms around the horse’s wooden neck, prepared to go down with the ship.

  Emma stared at her hand, then at her weeping child. Inez moved between mother and child, too late. "He meant no disrespect, Emma."

  Reverend Sands emerged from Joey’s room, carrying a small carpetbag. A red flag, the leg from a set of flannels, trailed out of the hastily closed top. He took in the sobbing child and the two women.

  Emma, still staring at the fire-red imprint of her hand on Joey’s fair skin, whispered, "He shouldn’t talk that way to his elders."

  The reverend strode forward, pried the horse from Joey’s grasp, and hefted it under one arm. He turned to Emma and Inez. "Ready? Let’s go."

  Back out on the porch, Reverend Sands locked the door and handed the key back to Emma. "Same key works the back door?"

  She nodded.

  "Good. It’s locked up tight as we can make it."

  The small parade worked its way back to the rig, stepping into the vanishing impressions of their footprints. Sands hesitated. "We might as well walk. It’s just a few steps."

  They bent their heads toward Inez’s home. The snow fell unrelenting, encouraged by gusts, as they waded through ankle-deep powder.

  The reverend had them wait on the porch while he entered and made a quick sweep of Inez’s house. As they shivered outside, Inez realized, with the slowed-down reactions of one completely exhausted, that he had opened her door with the key from his pocket. She glanced at Emma, wondering if she’d noticed. Emma’s eyes were closed. She held Joey’s carpetbag in one hand and clutched Joey to her cloak with the other.

  Sands reappeared at the door. "All clear."

  He stoked the fires in the parlor stove and fireplace while Inez went to her bedroom, rolled up her comforter and sheets, and put fresh bedding on her bed for Emma. She slid out a little-used trundle bed and added blankets for Joey before retrieving her own bedclothes. Up close, they emitted a faint, musky odor that reminded her of Sands.

  She spread her bedclothes on the braided rug of the second bedroom and gathered extra blankets for Sands to layer on the parlor floor. While Emma and Joey settled their meager belongings in the bedroom, Sands drew Inez aside. "You said you have a shotgun?"

  "In the pantry."

  "Let’s see it."

  Inez retrieved the twelve-gauge shotgun and handed it to Reverend Sands. As she pulled a box of shells from the pantry’s top shelf, he asked, "Can you use this?"

  She turned to face him, box in hand. "Fourteen months ago I stood off two lot-jumpers with that shotgun."

  He looked up sharply from his examination of the gun. "No, Inez. Can you use this? Not just wave it in someone’s face, but point it at them and pull the trigger."

  She extended her hand for the gun and said frostily, "Oh ye of little faith."

  He gave it back to her. "I don’t want to leave you with something you won’t use. I’m going out for a while. To talk to the marshal, return the rig, and get a few things from the hotel. Including my gun. I’ll also check for open seats on tomorrow’s coaches to Georgetown and Fairplay. If it were up to me, I’d send the Roses packing tonight. And you too. I don’t
like the situation." Grey eyes sized her up. "You could go with the Roses to Denver for a few days. Maybe I can get someone to ride shotgun on the three of you."

  "New Year’s Eve is Wednesday. I can’t leave Abe with only Useless for help." She hesitated. "Once Emma and Joey are out of town, they’ll be safe, won’t they?"

  "I’m not placing bets either way. Are you?"

  "When will you be back?" she finally asked.

  "Two, three hours. I’ll knock, so don’t shoot me." He began to give Inez her key.

  "Keep it for now. You’ll be staying tonight, at least."

  He pocketed the key. "I don’t have to tell you to keep the doors locked."

  "No, you don’t." After he left, Inez returned to the parlor where Emma and Joey sat close to the fire. Joey’s eyes went wide at the shotgun. "You’ve seen one of these up close before, haven’t you Joey?"

  Inez lay the gun across her lap and opened the box of shells. "Papa had one at the office, but I wasn’t allowed to touch it." "Well, you can’t touch this one either." She broke the

  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.

  "State Street. It ruined our lives." Her bitterness spoke volumes.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  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?"