Jane Bonander (7 page)

“What would that be?” The lawyer took out some papers and rifled through them.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I represent the university, Mr. Evans. If the body is Mr. Odell’s niece, my clients, the regents, get the trust.”

Ignoring him, Martin leaned forward and asked, “What question, Mr. Evans?” His facade was one of deep concern.

“The question of who, then, is on that table in the morgue, and why.”

The doctor stepped into the room. Martin’s pulse raced with anticipation.

“I checked the arm, radius and ulna, on both sides. No visible fractures.”

Evans studied Martin, whose relief was real, if not for the right reason.

The vulturine lawyer cleared his throat. “You have exactly six months to find your niece, Mr. Odell. If you can’t locate her within that period of time, the trust automatically transfers to the university.”

“There’s another question, Mr. Odell.”

Martin waited for the police chief to explain.

“If it isn’t your niece on that table, where is she? And is she in any way responsible for the death of the woman we can’t identify?”

“Are you insinuating that my niece might have murdered someone?” Murder. That would be perfect! He could have the chit put away forever. He squelched a nervous giggle.

“I found it!” Mrs. Linberg bustled into Tristan’s study, holding the letter over her head. “Ya, I woke up last night and knew right where it was. Do you know where I’d put it?”

Hiding a smile, Tristan took the letter from her. “I can’t imagine, Alice, but I knew it would come to you sooner or later.”

She smacked the letter on the desktop. “It was in the bookshelf in the great room.” She gave him an astounded look. “Can you imagine?” She turned and left the room, shaking her head.

Still smiling, he opened David’s letter and scanned the contents, not at all surprised by what he found. Daisy Jenkins. The nurse David had hired for him was someone named Daisy Jenkins.

Tristan tapped the letter against his chin. How in the hell had Dinah Odell turned up on his doorstep instead?

He stood, shoving his chair back with such force it hit the wall. “Alice!”

He was at the door when the housekeeper appeared, her face a mask of worry.

“I’m going into Hatter’s Horn to send a wire.”

Tristan paced, hoping David had been home and was able to answer immediately. He pulled out his pocket watch. Two hours. It had been two hours since he’d returned to the ranch.

He was pouring himself a brandy when Alice knocked and opened the door.

“It’s here,” she announced, handing him the telegram. He tossed down a gulp of brandy, ignoring the sting, and grabbed the paper. David wrote:

Item in the
Times
says body found at Trenway Asylum not patient Dinah Odell STOP Guardian Martin Odell searching for escaped niece STOP Jenkins terminal with consumption maybe pressured patient to escape STOP Odell posted reward for niece’s apprehension STOP Letter to follow STOP

Tristan sank into his chair by the fire. So the minx wasn’t a nurse at all, but a patient. An escapee, at that. It was a frightening thought. Why wasn’t he appalled?

Because she wasn’t insane. Perhaps what she’d told him the day she arrived, about women being incarcerated for no reason at all, had more than a little truth to it.

He stared into the fire, frustrated because it would be weeks before David’s letter of explanation would arrive.

Charlotte’s beautiful strawberry blond hair floated around a face that had no features. But Dinah knew it was her sister. She cradled a baby in one arm, the other reached for Dinah, pleading for help, her beseeching voice coming from the obliterated face.

All at once, a man appeared, yanking the baby from Charlotte’s arms. A mouth materialized on the faceless mask amidst her hair, screaming Dinah’s name.

The man rushed at Dinah, shoving both her and the baby off a cliff. Dinah felt herself falling, frantic with fear because she couldn’t reach the baby. They both tumbled into oblivion.

The sound of her own voice woke her with a start. She sat bolt upright and waited for her heart to stop pounding. She’d taken to sleeping with her light on; she hadn’t gotten used to the dark yet, not since Trenway. Charlotte’s diary lay on the bedside table.

Dinah sank into her pillows, unable to hold back her tears. Poor, darling Charlotte. Not a day went by that she didn’t wonder what had really happened to her sweet, innocent sister. She carried around a load of guilt about that, too, because unlike their parents, Charlotte hadn’t had a proper funeral. In fact, Dinah didn’t know what had happened to her sister’s remains.

She reached for the journal, knowing it was what had brought about the nightmare in the first place. Opening to the page that haunted her, she read it again.
He was here again today, my Teddy was, promising to take me away. To California.

With a shaky sigh, she carefully closed the book and returned it to the table. What had she been thinking? Escaping to California to find the man responsible for Charlotte’s death had been foolish. Futile. All it had done was get her away from Uncle Martin, which, of course, wasn’t a bad thing. But how did one begin to look for a needle in a haystack?

Overhead, the ceiling creaked; she swore she heard footsteps. A shiver jolted her, and she huddled under her covers, clutching her furry bear to her chest.

She hid her bear safely away during the day, where no one would discover it, for she was ashamed that she needed its comfort. But when darkness came, and it was time for bed, Dinah dug it out from its hiding place and held it to her chest while she slept.

In the daytime, she called herself a childish numskull. The daylight made her brave. At night, all the names in the world didn’t phase her, because night brought out Trenway’s ghosts and goblins, and Dinah felt lucky, if she could sleep at all.

Dinah saw her coming but had no time to prepare. Emily pushed her, sending her sprawling to the floor, emitting a screeching sound that penetrated Dinah’s eardrums as sharply as if it had been a needle.

Dinah lay there, trying to catch her breath. What in the devil had set her off? This sort of behavior hadn’t happened since the day she’d arrived, three weeks before.

She struggled to sit, still fighting for breath. Her head pounded where it had hit the floor. Before she could get to her feet, Emily screamed again. Dinah looked up in time to see her coming toward her with something gripped in her fist.

“Emily!”

Tristan strode into the room, dragging his sister to him and wresting the object from her.

Dinah got to her feet, her head reeling.

“What in the hell happened here?”

Emily threw herself against Tristan’s chest and sobbed.

“I’d tell you if I knew,” Dinah answered, rubbing her rump.

He had one arm around his sister and the other stretched toward Dinah. “How did she get this?”

Dinah studied the weapon, a mother-of-pearl-handled letter opener. “I have no idea, but I’m grateful you came by when you did.”

His gaze was piercing. “What sort of punishment do you intend to use?”

Dinah frowned. “Punishment?”

“Surely you won’t let this go unpunished.”

Dinah chewed her lower lip. “I can’t punish her, Tristan. For all I know, I could have said or done something to set her off.”

“How would they punish this kind of behavior at Trenway?”

One of Dinah’s hands automatically went to her other wrist, and she massaged the skin, her memory vivid and chilling. “They would have… tied her to her bed and left her there for days, or … shackled her in a tub filled with ice water, then dunked her until she fainted.”

Both forms of punishment Dinah had experienced first hand. Once when she’d admitted to another inmate’s transgressions because she knew the woman wouldn’t have survived the torture, and once when she’d tossed her plate of spoiled food against the wall.

Tristan’s curse was like an angry hiss and although he embraced Emily, rocking rhythmically with her in his arms, his intense gaze was on Dinah, and she had the oddest feeling that he knew more about her than he let on. It was probably only her guilt, knocking hard at the door to her conscience.

Dinah’s fourth week was almost over. Her month was nearly up. She’d worked hard at becoming indispensable, not only to Emily, but to Alice, too. It would be more difficult for Tristan to send her home if both women had come to rely on her, even in some small way.

Take today, for instance. Alice was in bed with a severe case of the gout. Her big toe had swollen to the size of a lemon and her foot couldn’t bear weight. Dinah had insisted she stay in bed.

“But it’s bread day,” Alice had lamented.

Dinah had fluffed the pillow and straightened the bedding. “Leave the bread making to me.”

The housekeeper had been incredulous. “You? You can bake bread?”

“Certainly. I’ve done it dozens of times before,” Dinah had answered with a flourish. Well, she’d watched it being done that many times and more. Surely that accounted for something.

Now, enveloped in one of Alice’s enormous aprons, she looked at the lumps of browned dough she’d removed from the oven, and her heart sank like a stone. They were the same size coming out as they’d been going in. They hadn’t risen. Not even a smidgen.

With a knife, she sawed through the hard crust, only to discover that the insides were doughy. She glared at the four weighty blobs. Maybe they could use them as doorstops, she thought with a wry smile. Who would have thought it would be so difficult to make a simple loaf of bread?

Sighing, she tapped her lips with her finger. She had to do something. Get rid of the evidence, first of all, then somehow replace the bread.

Scooping the failed loaves into her apron, she crept from the house, looking carefully to make sure no one was around. Then she hurried across the yard. She stepped into the chicken coop. Chickens ate anything, didn’t they? Her flypaper mind held on to that bit of information from somewhere. Even if they didn’t, it was worth a try.

The pungent smell of chicken manure wafted through the air. A rooster swaggered about, stopping now and then to peck at the ground. Dinah dumped the doughy loaves onto the dirt-packed floor, one loaf tumbling into the recesses of the shed, then left.

On her return to the house, she lifted her nose and sniffed the air. Bread. Honest to goodness bread, certainly not lumps of baked stone. Following the smell, she discovered six loaves cooling near an open window of the foreman’s cabin. His wife, a pretty Mexican woman—Dinah thought her name was Leeta or something like that—was weeding the vegetable garden.

Dinah turned in that direction. It was about time the two of them got better acquainted.

After graciously accepting two loaves of delicious bread and putting them in the kitchen, Dinah hauled the laundry out to the line and began hanging it. At least this was a chore she could handle without looking like an inept boob. She rather enjoyed it, too. With the wind on her face and in her hair, it was quite pleasant. The more she could be outside, the better she felt. Small, tight places, sometimes even big rooms, continued to distress her.

Glancing toward the road, she saw Lucas, the foreman, talking with a peddler. They both watched her work, so she smiled and waved. Lucas returned the greeting. With a sense of worth, she finished her chore and returned to the house, anxious to prepare dinner.

David’s letter finally arrived. Tristan finished reading it and stuffed it into his pocket, then mounted his Arab and headed for home.

The letter had explained a lot. Having influence at the asylum because of the paper he was writing on his work with the insane, David gave Tristan information about Dinah’s sister, Charlotte, Martin Odell, the trust fund and the death of Daisy Jenkins, which had yet to be fully explained.

From the letter, Tristan decided that Martin Odell was a dirty bastard. What decent man could incarcerate a perfectly sane woman, merely because he wanted control of her money? It was reprehensible. Criminal. Not only had Odell offered a reward for Dinah’s return, but he was assisting the police in their search so they could talk with her about Daisy’s death. At this point Dinah wasn’t suspected of murder, but there were numerous unanswered questions, one of which was how Daisy Jenkins ended up in the punishment box in the first place.

The police, he discovered through David’s missive, didn’t feel Martin Odell had committed a crime. Incarceration was a family’s prerogative. And doctors could be bribed to diagnose insanity where none existed.

David’s fury was palpable on the pages of the letter, and Tristan knew that if anyone could help bring mental health out of the dark ages, it was David Richards.

The day Dinah had arrived, when she hadn’t known he was behind her in her room, she’d mumbled the name Daisy. She’d said it with a certain amount of despair. He didn’t believe for a minute that Dinah had killed Daisy Jenkins, but he was very curious to know what exactly had happened.

Intrepid little Dinah. Since discovering who she was, he’d taken to watching her more carefully. For someone who had been incarcerated for a year, she was surprisingly strong and confident. She was quick to laugh and prompt to help. Now and then he caught a sadness in her eyes, and he wondered what she was thinking, but it was quickly gone, replaced by a laugh or a smile or a humorous story about her Norwegian relatives.

But he’d been inside Trenway. Could she have escaped unscathed? Even if he hadn’t been allowed to see the worst of the place, what he had seen was bad enough. Although Dinah hadn’t been there when he’d visited, for his visits had been two years before, he wondered how a sane woman could stay that way once inside asylum walls. She would have to be remarkably strong. He wondered if Dinah’s strength went deep, or if it was only a facade.

Over the past few weeks, he’d discovered what she was doing. She was trying valiantly to become so helpful that if and when he found out the truth, he’d be hard-pressed to send her packing. She’d had it planned from the beginning, he was certain. The deception should have bothered him; it didn’t.

He dismounted and led his horse to the barn. Lucas was there, shoveling out the stalls. He grinned as Tristan entered.

“Saw your little nurse out talking to Leeta earlier. Seems they’re finally getting to know one another.”

Tristan was about to tend to his horse when Miguel took the reins and led him into a clean stall.

“How’s that arm, Miguel?”

The boy grinned and wiggled his wrist. “I gotta work it to make it as strong as it was before.”

Tristan returned the smile. “Smart boy.”

Leaning on the shovel, Lucas watched Miguel disappear. “He’s already talking about playing kick ball when the children arrive. Leeta’s afraid he’ll hurt his arm again. I told her we can’t wrap the boy in cotton. Maybe Dinah has some suggestions. Have you told her about the children yet?”

Tristan kept Dinah’s true identity to himself. “She’ll find out about them soon enough. They’ll be here from school tomorrow.” He wondered what sort of sound advice she’d give Lucas regarding Miguel’s mending arm. He had an odd feeling that she’d probably come up with a satisfactory solution. She hadn’t dug herself a hole too big to get out of, yet.

Lucas continued his chore, but began to chortle like an idiot.

“What’s so damned funny?” Tristan pushed a dipper into a pail of water, pulled it out, and drank.

“Is Alice sick today?” Lucas asked around a laugh.

Tristan nodded. “She’s in bed with a bad case of the gout.”

“Well, I’m not saying your nurse had ulterior motives for getting to know my wife, but Leeta did give her a couple of loaves of bread.”

“What’s wrong with that? Next to Alice, Leeta makes the best bread this side of the Canadian border.”

Lucas continued to chuckle. “I’d take a gander in the chicken coop, if I were you.”

Curious, Tristan left the barn and crossed to the coop. Stepping inside, his gaze went to the ground, on which lay three brown lumps. With a puzzled frown, he squatted and brought one to his nose. Bread? Or, at least something that passed for bread. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

His smile lingered as he got to his feet, but a strange squawking noise drew him deeper into the coop. From a dimly lit corner, his rooster peered up at him, clucking frantically. One of his feet was stuck in bread dough all the way up to his spur.

After reading over David’s letter for the third time, Tristan knew he had to mention the part of the bargain to which neither he nor Dinah had referred. The contractual marriage. Now he wondered if Dinah was even aware of it.

Lucas had been right. It had been an insane offer in the first place. He’d been willing to sacrifice his freedom for a few years to find a pleasant, compassionate companion for Emily. David had assured him that Daisy Jenkins was such a person. All right, so he hadn’t put much emotional thought into the plan, but marriages were contracted all the time for a multitude of reasons. He didn’t think his was any crazier than most.

He felt a twist of guilt, however. In his perfect plan, the woman with whom he had envisioned this agreement bore no resemblance to Dinah Odell. The woman he’d imagined would have found the marriage a benign, agreeable interlude until it was over. He’d imagined this woman floating soundlessly through his house, disrupting nothing and no one, especially him. She would take care of Emily’s needs, rock beside the fire, knitting blankets or stockings or sweaters, until it was time for bed. Then she would flutter up the stairs to her room and leave him to his own devices, happy to do so. That was as much of her as he’d wanted to see.

She would not have wanted to share a bed, and he would have happily found his pleasures elsewhere. No one expected a man to be celibate for five years.

Surely there were women in the world who were amiable and would have agreed to such an offer. Not that Dinah Odell would want him in her bed. Hell, she might well be traumatized by the idea of it. But she had no demure qualities. She couldn’t pass through a room without drawing attention to herself, for even if she didn’t speak, and she usually did, she was too pretty and vivacious to ignore. Sometimes she literally vibrated with energy.

He couldn’t imagine her being still long enough to knit anything, although there had been times when he feared that if she’d had a set of knitting needles in her possession, she would use them as a weapon against him. He’d seen only traces of her temper, but he sensed it would be formidable if she were provoked.

Time was of the essence. For all Tristan knew, Martin Odell could be close on her heels. This union would be temporary. He could get it annulled, for he had no intention of sleeping with her. He could ignore the fact that he was drawn to her and had been since the first night she had been here. He wasn’t an animal, he was a gentleman, and although she was not the recipient of his initial offer, he would not go back on his word.

If she balked at marrying him, he would use Emily to blackmail her. Hell, she could do far worse. There wasn’t a single woman around who wouldn’t jump at the chance to become his wife, and most of them would gladly share his bed.

For the first time since he’d drawn up the plan, he became uncertain of its merits or its sanity. The one thing that kept him from chucking it was that he knew that by having his name, Dinah Odell would be spared immediate action by her uncle.

And why not marry her? She was by far the most interesting and intriguing woman he’d met in years. Maybe his life.

There was another thought that rattled around in his brain. It had to do with ownership and possession. He refused to allow it to take root, but he couldn’t get rid of it, either.

From everything he’d read about Martin Odell in David’s letter, Tristan knew he was a threat to Dinah. He didn’t know the precise contents of her father’s will, but it was obvious that Odell wanted the trust at any cost. Clearly, having Dinah carefully put away somewhere under lock and key enabled him to do that. David had indicated that Martin Odell couldn’t afford to have her free to make choices.