Circle of Spies (49 page)

He didn't even slow as they passed his mother's room. He just called out, “I'm leaving.” Marietta heard harried steps behind her but didn't look around lest she stumble on the stairs.

Two sets of steps, though. Dev must have noted the same thing, for he glared over his shoulder. “I said not to involve the slaves, Mother.”

She huffed. “Well, I could hardly pack on my own, and I cannot get along without Jess. She must come with us.”

Dev's lips pressed to a thin line. He paused on the second-floor landing and turned to face the two older women. He raised his pistol, probably set to wave it at them as he had at—

Bang
.

Screams. Mother Hughes's, Jess's, and given the burning in her throat, her own. The servant crumpled to the stairs, clutching her leg. Crimson soaked through her skirt.

Marietta's stomach heaved upward, and her vision blurred. Voices clamored and clanged, but she couldn't unravel them from each other. Couldn't tell which way was up. Couldn't…couldn't…

A blast of wind blew some of the cobwebs away, but that made her
stomach churn more. Dev was putting her on her feet, outside, beside his carriage, and she had no recollection of getting there.

“I am sorry you had to see that, darling.” He brushed her hair from her face with one hand and tossed her valise into the coach with the other. “I know how you detest the sight of blood. But she will likely survive, so calm yourself.”

Calm herself?

Mother Hughes was crying. Farther away, someone screamed her name. Barbara—she must have heard the gunshot.

Her vision cleared and latched onto a spot of shining gold. It took her a second to realize it was a small head—Elsie's, and the girl stood nearly under Barbara's window, partially concealed by the hedge.

Marietta opened her mouth, but she daren't try to answer Barbara, not with Dev's finger still on the trigger and too many targets about.

Elsie pulled her thumb out of her mouth, pointed both fingers, and then made the letter D and shook it.
Where are you going?

“Enough, Mother. Mari, up you go.”

Lord, let her understand and remember!
Discreetly as she could, she made the sign for Dev and two fingers along the matching two from the other hand for train. She managed to add a quick
Tell Daddy
before Dev lifted her into the carriage.

Thirty-One

S
lade paced to the window again, worry's teeth gnawing at him. Perhaps a scrap of peace would have been instilled by the steady stroke of Mrs. Lane's pencil over her paper, but her husband's pacing, mirroring Slade's, negated it.

He had detoured to the telegraph office, had sent a wire to Pinkerton.
Can't come tonight
, he had written, their agreed-upon code for when the KGC was acting.
Attending the theater at Ford's with friends.

Once he arrived at the Lane residence, he had explained the situation to the old man. His promise to help, though, hadn't relieved the anxiety building like a thunderhead.

Marietta should be here by now. “Where is she?”

“Helping Barbara with Cora, no doubt,” Mrs. Lane said from her desk.

Slade shot a glance to Lane, who exhaled and shook his head. “I don't know, sweet. I have a bad feeling.”

Mrs. Lane's pencil stilled, and she spun on her chair to face them. “Then why are you still here?”

“I thought at first it was unease over the situation in general, but…” The old man slapped his leg and spun to the door, face set. “You're right. Come, Oz. Waiting will accomplish nothing. If she is on her way, we'll pass her along the street.”

Unless she took side streets to avoid detection, which was why they hadn't immediately headed back to intercept her. But Slade followed Lane across the room. If they missed her somehow, her grandmother would tell her where they went.

Walker's grandfather had horses waiting and handed them the reins with a grim face. “You need me, you let me know,” he said to Lane.

“As always.” The old man swung into the saddle with the ease of a youth. “Be praying, Henry.”

“As always.”

Slade nodded his appreciation and, once mounted, nudged the horse into a trot.

According to Lane, they could count on Walker, Hez, Henry, and the two of them. Isaac could be called upon in a pinch. So they had five or six—certainly better odds than one against four, even with two of them being eighty.

What really struck him was how quickly Lane had rattled that off. As if accustomed to examining his family through such a lens.

It seemed to take forever to make their way to Monument Square, though he recognized there were few others out on this holy day before Easter. Many businesses were closed, school children ran about at play in the spring sunshine, little traffic clogged the roads.

The shouts could be heard from Marietta's house from halfway down the street. Kicking their mounts up to a canter for the remaining distance, Slade ended up swinging down a second before Lane at the carriage house.

Barbara and Walker staggered from the side door of the big house, old Jess carried between them. The woman's head lolled, and a huge patch of red stained her skirt.

“Thunder and turf.” Lane took off at a speed that shouldn't have been possible for a man of his age, one Slade had trouble keeping up with. “What happened?”

Barbara, holding Jess's feet, looked up at them with gratitude. “Praise Jesus. I was uncertain I would be able to get her up the stairs. Mr. Hughes shot her. He and his mother and Mari are all gone, and I don't know to where. He locked me in my room. Walker only just freed me.”

Every vile word he had ever heard vied for a place on his tongue, but Slade bit them all back. He would follow Barbara's example. “Lord,
guide us.” He took Jess's legs from her and motioned with his head for her to precede them to the carriage house stairs. “When?”

Barbara looked to Walker. “I am unsure how long I was banging on the door after I heard the gunshot, but Mr. Hughes arrived not five minutes after you left, Slade.”

And he had been wasting time pacing the Lanes' drawing room. That truth knifed through him and left him quaking. Where could Hughes have taken her? Surely not the train station yet. He wouldn't risk keeping her around all those crowds too long, and the next train didn't leave for Cumberland until three o'clock.

“She was unconscious when we got to her.” Walker started up the stairs backwards, the lines scored deep in his forehead. “This ain't gonna help Cora in her labor.”

The door above them opened, and Freeda stepped out with a frown to match her son's. “Where's Elsie? Has anyone seen her?”

A twist to the knife. Surely, surely nothing had happened to the girl.

“She's here in the hedges.” Lane's voice carried a smile. “I'll stay with her. She doesn't need to see her gramma hurt like that.”

That the little girl was safe was a short-lived relief in light of all else that was so very wrong. Slade and Walker got Jess inside and onto the table, Cora's moans coming from the bedroom. Barbara rushed in behind them and set her black satchel on a chair.

“What…what's goin' on?” Cora panted. “Been so much screamin'…”

Barbara shooed Slade and Walker away and leaned over Jess. “Most of that was me, locked in my room. Your mama's been hurt, Cora, but we'll take care of her. Can you tell me how you're doing? Are the pains still worse each time?”

“Mama? How did she get hurt?”

Slade kept his gaze averted, but he could hear rustling from the bedroom.

Freeda waved her hands at him and Walker. “You menfolk get outta here, now. Ain't no place for you. If we need ya, we'll call.”

Though his friend seemed reluctant, Slade obeyed happily. He sped out and down the steps, over to where Lane crouched before Elsie. She had made a nest for herself in a break in the hedge, having dragged a blanket over, her doll, and even a cup of water. She must have been hiding here a good while.

His breath caught. “Elsie.” He crouched beside Lane and cleared his face. As Marietta had taught him, he touched the child on her shoulder to get her attention and then made the sign for her name.

She grinned up at him and waved, signing his name back.

She was so young…but he had to try, didn't he? Scrounging in his mind for the few signs he had learned, he pointed to her, his eyes, and then made the sign for Marietta.

Lane hummed. “Good thought. She could have seen them.”

Elsie hooked a finger in her mouth as she nodded. She repeated the sign for Marietta, swept her hand around her face.
Marietta is beautiful
.

His smile felt a little more genuine as he signed
yes
. He looked to Lane. “Do you know how to ask if she saw her leave?”

“I do.” He made a few quick motions, but Slade kept his eyes on the tot. Did she understand?

He wasn't sure at first. Then she nodded and formed the letter D with her hand, moving it in the word
bad
. “That's their sign for Hughes.”

“And that,” Lane added as she moved her fingers across her others, “is train. He's taking her with him. We have to stop him, Oz.”

Walker appeared and scooped up his daughter. “Someone explain.”

Slade let Lane do the honors while he stood and turned away. Why? Why would Hughes have taken them to the station already, if Cumberland were their destination? He had to know Marietta was not with him willingly. He might be conceited and obsessed, but he was no idiot. A man couldn't run a company the size of…

Of course. Slade was the idiot. The man owned the whole rail line. Why would he be bound by the timetables? He could modify the schedule as he pleased.

Which meant the train could already be gone. Or leaving in a matter of minutes. He had no time to lose.

He spun around, mouth open to ask, beg, inform, whatever he had to do.

Lane's gaze was already on him. “Go. Hurry. We'll do what we can in Washington.”

That was all the confirmation Slade needed. He ran back to his waiting horse and dug his heels into its flanks. He nearly turned the wrong way at the end of the street, toward Camden Station, until he
realized that Hughes would have to have his cars pulled through the city by horse to President Street Station if he were heading west.

Maybe, just maybe, that would have gained him some time.

The city blurred around him, each pound of hooves echoed by his heart. Each beat of his heart a silent cry heavenward.

It shouldn't be this way. He had known the stakes were high, but it should have only been about the Knights. About Lincoln. About Ross's betrayal and Slade's reclaiming of his reputation.

It shouldn't have been about loving, so definitely not about this agonizing fear of losing the one he loved. Had he known this was part of the price…

A whisper moved through him. A solid thought that wouldn't budge.

God knew. God had known all along and had called him here anyway.

A single flame of anger licked through him, but he banked it. He could ask
why
of the Lord forever and never find all the answers, but he knew enough of them. Knew that, even if he failed at his every task today, it would be worth it to have tried.

Worth it to have loved her.

President Street Station came into view, and his heart galloped far ahead of the horse. There, smoke already rolling from the locomotive's stack, was the Hughes car, with three freight cars attached at the rear.

He urged his horse faster over the final stretch of street.
Lord, get me there!

There was a whoosh of steam, a chug, and the wheels squealed into motion.

“We need to go with him.” Mr. Lane stood staring in the direction of the road, though Osborne had disappeared from view long ago.

Walker smoothed a curl from Elsie's sleeping face and straightened. He was surprised she had curled up the way she had on her blanket and
drifted off, but he was glad of it. Too much was going on inside for her to be underfoot.