Josiah's Treasure (30 page)

“Miss Sarah isna here, Mr. Cady.” Mrs. McGinnis wiped her
hands down her apron and eyed Daniel. “Should be here soon, though. She went to the shop this morn but said she’d be back right after luncheon to hear if there’s any news about Anne.
Nae
that I expect much. The police have most certainly been less than useful, if you ask me, and none so kind to her yesterday.”

Daniel wasn’t surprised. San Francisco wasn’t some small town in Arizona, where a missing woman might be more noteworthy.

“I saw the item about Miss Cavendish in the newspaper,” Daniel explained. The article had been brief, almost buried beneath the announcements of political galas and a sarcastic commentary on the women’s suffrage movement, a lurid article describing a recent spate of murders in Chinatown, and a tongue-in-cheek account of how ladies might best catch suitable husbands. But there, on the second page of the
Daily Alta
, which he’d been reading over lunch, he’d spotted it.

“I want to help find her,” he said. Anne Cavendish must have finally suffered more than some bruises at the hands of her man. It was the only explanation for her disappearance that made sense.

The tiny wrinkles crisscrossing the housekeeper’s forehead deepened. “
Och
, Mr. Cady, I canna see how you’re going to help find that poor girl. But I don’t mind telling you that Miss Sarah’s half out of her mind with worry. Everyone is. Miss Charlotte was here yesterday evening, wanting to look too. Miss Sarah sent her home, because what else can we do but wait and pray?”

“I can’t sit around and do nothing.” He had to help, if only to show himself he wasn’t the fiend Sarah and her girls believed him to be, even if come Monday at the probate hearing, they’d all be proven right.

The housekeeper nodded her approval of his statement and opened the door wide. “You can come in and wait for Miss Sarah in the parlor, if you’d like.”

Beyond her, Daniel noticed the collection of packing crates and boxes assembled in the parlor, and in the hallway, a bright
rectangle on the wallpaper where a watercolor of a farm used to hang. Sarah was preparing to leave the house. The sight brought him up short.
Not at all proud, Sinclair.

Daniel took a step back. “I’ll just wait out here on the porch. I don’t mind the porch. It’s rather comfortable and the weather’s good.”

A tiny smile tweaked the housekeeper’s lips. “As you see, the wicker chair’s still sitting where you left it, Mr. Cady. The thought keeps slipping my mind to return it to the garden where it belongs.”

“I did notice. Thank you.”

“Do you want lemonade? It’s fresh made.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Just mind that Mr. Malagisi next door.” She inclined her head to her left. “He’s awful curious over what’s afoot around here.”

Daniel took a seat, the wicker creaking and yielding beneath his weight, removed his hat, and stretched out his legs. The neighbor—Mr. Malagisi—was tending the rosebushes in his terraced front yard. Between snips of his pruning clippers, he shot Daniel surreptitious glances from beneath his broad-brimmed straw hat. Daniel stared straight ahead.

He didn’t have to wait long before he caught sight of Sarah coming down the road from the cable car stop. She was clutching a copy of one of the city newspapers and attempting to read it while walking. She made it halfway up the stairs before noticing either Mr. Malagisi’s called-out greeting or Daniel sitting on the porch.

Daniel nodded down at her. “Good afternoon, Miss Whittier.”

“Mr. Cady!” Her cheeks flared, as they always seemed to do.

He stood. “I hope you don’t mind . . .”

“Would you cease showing up at my house if I did?” Sarah folded the newspaper closed, securing it beneath her arm alongside her reticule, securing her composure as well. Already, her color was back to normal. “Wouldn’t Mrs. McGinnis let you inside?”

“She said you’d be home soon.”

“I suspect you’re not here to enjoy the view from my porch, Mr. Cady,” Sarah said calmly, climbing the rest of the stairs to join him. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, revealing how little she’d slept. “Especially without Ah Mong to keep you company.”

“I read the notice in the paper about Anne Cavendish. What happened?”

She pulled in a long breath and brushed fingers over the brooch pinned at her waist. He’d seen her do that before, caressing the small oval painted with yellow roses like a talisman.

“Anne tried to leave Frank, and she had actually found refuge at a home for women who need that sort of help.” She paused for another breath. “He found her, though. Yesterday morning. She took off running, and no one has heard from her since. A policeman was here before breakfast to let me know that they’ve searched for Frank, but the house in Tar Flat is empty and looks like it has been for a day or so. It seems they’re both gone.”

“How can I help?”

“You did enough when you went to Tar Flat with me.” And she’d surprised him with a hasty kiss afterward. Her gaze danced away for a moment, as if she were remembering too. “I can’t ask you to do anything else. Besides, I don’t know where she is or even where to start to look. And don’t think I didn’t try to figure that out. I wasted a lot of time last night poring over an old street map Josiah kept in his office, trying to guess where Anne might be hiding among all the roads. So many choices, so many places, one worse than the next, and all assuming Anne has chosen where to go. If Frank has abducted her, they could be anywhere.”

Suddenly, she wobbled, collapsing like a marionette released from its suspending strings onto the porch step before he could grab her.

“Sarah!” He dropped to his knees at her side, her skirts and
bustle almost tripping him. Irritated, he swept them aside. “Let me fetch Mrs. McGinnis.”

“Please, don’t. I’ll be fine. I’m just a little tired.” She smiled gamely at him. There was pain behind that smile, though. “I’m letting myself think the worst about Anne. I need to hold on to hope. Don’t you think?”

She was asking him for reassurance that life might turn out fairly?

“I could hire a cart and search the streets for her,” he suggested as he helped her to her feet.

“You and Lottie think an awful lot alike, at times.” She was watching him as if judging the sincerity behind the offer. “I appreciate your thoughtfulness, but—”

“Sarah,” he interrupted. “There’s not much I can do for you and keep my promises to Lily and Marguerite. But I can do this.”

“You don’t know your way around San Francisco,” she protested.

He clasped her hand and looked into her warm brown eyes. “Then come with me.”

The cart horse’s head hung wearily, dragging on the reins looped around Daniel’s fingers. Sarah was just as tired as the animal and her back hurt from bouncing over San Francisco roads—most of them badly paved and a few, in the parts of town where they’d gone, narrow and gloomy and dangerous. She didn’t expect better down by the wharves and warehouses.

Daniel caught her contemplating him and smiled briefly as he sat up tall to stretch out the kinks that must be bothering him too. She wanted to return the smile, but what did either of them have to smile about? Anne Cavendish was nowhere to be found.

She gripped the bench seat as they rocked over a set of cable-car rails and sighed, which triggered a yawn. As tired as she was,
she could only imagine how tired, how very weary Anne must be. Cold and alone on the streets somewhere.

Dearest Lord . . .
she began and stopped, wanting to ask that Anne be alive but unable to. She
should
pray. The words, however, and the rush of faith required to make them genuine would never find her.

Gathering her paisley shawl close around her shoulders, Sarah deeply inhaled the damp evening air. Overhead, the sky was shading from peach along the western sky to lavender to indigo, the first night stars beginning to sparkle between the clouds like pinpricks of candlelight through a pierced tin shade. Along the streets of Nob Hill, gas flames blazed behind their bulbous lamp shades, the stately rows of houses beyond them settling in for the night. How quiet and peaceful it could be up here, as if the worries and miseries of the city at their feet didn’t exist. How easy to forget all those people who struggled to make a living, whose hold on a proper existence was as tenuous as the cling of dandelion fluff. One breath and it could blow away. Take someone like Anne Cavendish with it.

Daniel steered the cart onto Jones Street, the wheels clattering over the cobbles. Within seconds, they were at the house.

“We’re here,” he said, tying off the reins and hopping down to help Sarah descend to the street.

Wordlessly, Sarah let him grasp her around the waist and lift her onto the road. He didn’t let go immediately, and she didn’t pull back. How warm he was, how reassuringly solid and strong. If only they had met under different circumstances and weren’t battling each other over the legacy of a heartbroken old man.

“Will you be all right?” he asked, his voice gentle.

“As all right as I can be.” The damp chill of the night air made her shiver.

“No, you’re not.” He tucked her shawl around her neck, the backs of his fingers brushing against exposed skin, causing a very different shiver. “You’re freezing.”

“The house will be warm, and what I’m feeling is nothing compared to what Anne must be going through.” She studied his face. How could he be so set on revenge, so ready to spoil her plans, and yet so concerned about a woman he barely knew? Who was Daniel Cady, really? “Thank you. You didn’t have to search for her tonight.”

His hands rubbed down her arms. “I wanted to help you, Sarah. It’s the least I could do, given . . .”

He didn’t have to say more. Given his goals. Given the hearing on Monday. Given that he’d up and sell her house out from underneath her as soon as it was his to sell. Given that he’d rush back to Chicago and leave her here, the bits of her life shattered around her feet, the makings of a family and a future in ruins.

She didn’t hate him, though. She couldn’t hate him any longer, and that fact tore at her heart.
Despite everything, you make me want to care for you, Daniel Cady. Despite everything, you make me want to believe in love again.

His eyes were on her face, on her mouth, and he drew her closer. Was he going to kiss her? Her pulse raced. Would she let him?

Up at the house, the lamp in the parlor flared to life.

“It looks like Mrs. McGinnis is waiting for news,” he said with a tiny smile, his clasp easing. Her questions wouldn’t be answered tonight.

Sarah moved out of his hold, brushed at her sleeves where his hands had gripped her, a guilty gesture to wipe away any evidence of his touch. “If I hear anything about Anne, I’ll let you know.” He noticed the motion, and she was sorry he had. “And thank you for buying my painting. I don’t know why you did, but if we ever find Anne, I’ll use the money to send her to safety.”

“That’s the best use of my thirty-five dollars I could imagine.” He touched fingertips to the rim of his hat. “Good night, Miss Whittier.”

He waited at the curb until Sarah reached the safety of the
porch. Mrs. McGinnis threw open the front door and swept her inside, where Rufus curled about her skirts, depositing hairs along the hemline.

“What did you find?” the housekeeper asked.

That I’ve lost my heart to the wrong man?
But Mrs. McGinnis was inquiring after Anne, not the state of Sarah’s feelings.

She shook her head, and the housekeeper’s face fell. “
Och
, poor lass.”

Indeed
, thought Sarah.
Poor, poor lass.

S
he couldn’t remember. Why could she not remember which place was Emma’s?

Anne scanned the road. To her left stood a row of two-story houses, the shadows descending to fill the nooks and crannies between them with ebony. Above and to her right was an uneven line of backyards, empty clotheslines and rickety porch balconies jutting over scraps of gardens and unpainted wood fences, thin flickers of lantern light peeping between gaps in shades and blinds. The houses clung to the side of Telegraph Hill, ascending haphazardly to the summit, better and more solid homes with stone steps and large windows that could catch the first rays of the morning sun up there. A good rainstorm would turn the streets to mud and wash them all down, she thought.

She simply wished she could remember which one was the boardinghouse where Emma lived. It had to be somewhere nearby. She’d been there once, shortly after Miss Whittier had brought Emma to work with them, but long enough ago that she could no longer recall precisely. So much misery and pain between her and clear recollection.

A horse dragging a cart trudged up the incline of the road toward her. Anne’s pulse surged and she looked around her for
somewhere to hide, someplace to scuttle to like a frightened spider seeking shelter. Her head told her it wouldn’t be Frank, but a day spent running and then a night spent huddled in an alleyway between a storehouse and a Chinese laundry, only a begged cup of rice in her stomach, followed by another day of hiding had made her witless and fearful.