Josiah's Treasure (9 page)

The rear door slammed open and Minnie burst through,
bounding down the steps into the garden. “Miss Sarah, I’ve found another girl.”

“Minnie Tobin,” Lottie chided. She squeezed Sarah’s arm before wagging a teasing finger at the girl. “How many times have you been told to make a more ladylike entrance?”

Minnie flushed. “Sorry, miss, but Mrs. McGinnis said you were both out here and I wanted Miss Sarah to know about Phoebe right away.” Minnie turned to Sarah. Lottie was her partner, but it would be Sarah’s decision if they took on another girl. How they could afford to, given Daniel, she had no idea.

“Phoebe, that’s her name,” Minnie continued, sensing Sarah’s uncertainty and sounding a tad frantic. “Pretty, isn’t it? Says she’s French. She’s a dress and cloak-maker alongside my sister. My sister says her needlework is first-rate, and she has embroidered designs of her own creation on some of their customers’ collars. Best yet, she’s good at talking with folks and pretty. She might make a smart shopgirl. But her ma died not long ago and she has huge debts to pay because of the doctor bills, and she’s thinking of working the streets in the Barbary.”

Sarah’s fingers must have pinched Rufus’s skin, because the cat mewled a protest.

“Not there,” Lottie whispered.

Sarah tried to catch her breath. She could not let anyone make a choice to work the alleyways of the Barbary. Daniel Cady and the threat he posed would have to be set aside. Because there was another girl for them to help. Another homeless cat with a broken tail.

“Will you help her?” Minnie asked. “Emma’s already said she can take her in.”

Lottie nodded. Sarah handed Rufus to her. “Tell Emma to get ready for her, Minnie. We’ll meet her at her boardinghouse in an hour. With Phoebe.”

“I expect, if the documents are as described, we should have no problem presenting your case, Mr. Cady. They will make a very solid set of evidence as to your identity in addition to this telegram from your father.” Mr. Sinclair darted a hasty smile, white teeth flashing beneath his ample mustache as he ran a trimmed fingernail across the crease in the telegram and returned it to Daniel. He had the round face and belly of a man who indulged his tastes and eyes that glittered with conceit. A heavy dosing of his citrusy Farina cologne permeated the closed room, causing Daniel to question Sinclair’s ability to smell. At the lawyer’s back, a tall window framed a scene of the turreted bank building across the street, a pompous view of a pompous property. Appropriate for a pompous man. “My review of the will revealed the omission of your name and that of your sisters—Mr. Josiah Cady was very thorough in his claim that you were deceased—so I will be so bold as to say the judge shall declare you the proper beneficiaries of the estate. Without demonstrated intent to leave no bequest, probate rules in favor of children.”

“I’m happy to hear it.” Daniel tucked the telegram into his inner coat pocket and reclined into the curved arms of the office chair. He didn’t have to like the view or the lawyer. He merely had to pay the man for his services and be done with him. “How much do you think my sisters and I will receive?”

“Once all the properties are sold and all taxes and fees are settled, I would say around twenty thousand total.”

“That’s all?” Much less than the thirty thousand his father had bragged he was worth. Leave it to Josiah to exaggerate his value. Or to do an exceptional job of hiding his riches.

“Twenty thousand is no small change, Mr. Cady.” Sinclair tucked a thumb into his silk waistcoat pocket. “Enough to fund your business venture and build that house you were telling me about, with money to spare. There might have been more, if the mining claim your father staked in Grass Valley hadn’t turned out to be a bust.”

A failed investment. Josiah had been a fool to the end. “Is it possible my father could have placed some of his proceeds in a secret account somewhere? Or bought property we don’t know about?”

The lawyer shrugged, his heavy gold watch chain winking with the movement. “If he did, he probably took that information to his grave. Unless he let Miss Whittier know its whereabouts. Your father seems to have been awfully fond of her. I always find it peculiar when a man leaves money to a single young woman who isn’t a relation.”

Daniel let the innuendo pass; Miss Whittier had claimed Josiah was like a father to her and Daniel believed her. “Could you look into it? As you can see in that telegram, Josiah claimed to have made more money off his gold strike, and I wouldn’t put it past him to have hidden some away if he did.”

“I might be able to uncover additional assets.” He examined Daniel. “For an extra fee.”

“I’ll pay it.”

“Good. Very good.” Another smile, all white-teethed smugness. “For her sake, I hope Miss Whittier has been aboveboard on reporting all known assets. Any deception will not sit well with Judge Doran. As it is, she’ll see her share of the inheritance severely curtailed.”

“How much might she get?” Enough to support that shop of hers? He hadn’t calculated how much her expenses might be or asked how much money her supporters were going to supply. He’d presumed the funds would be enough; he hadn’t wanted to learn otherwise. “She has a business she’s trying to fund.”

“A business? Really? Are you certain it’s legitimate?”

Daniel’s jaw tightened. “It seems legitimate to me.” If that shop wasn’t, it was a pretty elaborate hoax.

Sinclair shrugged. “Let’s just say it’s best for us to be on our guard when it comes to dealing with Miss Whittier.”

“How much might she get after probate’s settled?” he repeated.

“Judge Doran will make some provision; several hundred
dollars, maybe even a thousand. More than she probably had when she came to this town, but not much to men like you or me, right, Mr. Cady?” Sinclair chuckled. “After all—and I quote the Roman who first said it—‘money alone sets all the world in motion.’”

A quote Daniel’s grandfather would have appreciated. An opinion, he had to admit, he’d started to share.

“I can recommend the name of an excellent real estate agent for the auction of the house once you obtain ownership,” Sinclair continued.

“I’m sure you can,” Daniel said. That was his plan—sell the house, get his money, and go back to Chicago where he belonged.

Sinclair slipped a card from his coat pocket and flipped it to its blank side. He produced a pencil from the same pocket and wrote down a name. “Contact my friend at this office. If you hire me as your attorney to represent you, you wouldn’t even need to remain in town to see the transaction through. I could handle everything for you and send the proceeds to Chicago.”

He made it sound so simple. So painless. But it wouldn’t be painless for Sarah Whittier. Daniel wondered where she would go. Back to her relatives in Arizona, possibly, even though she claimed to love San Francisco. She must have friends in town who would take her in if she wanted to stay. Where she ended up really wasn’t his concern. And neither was whatever would happen to her needy girls and her shop. If he kept that in mind, he would be fine.

Daniel slipped the card from Sinclair’s fingers and stood. “Let me know what you find out about Josiah’s assets.”

“Absolutely, Mr. Cady.”

Before the man could rise to see him off, Daniel strode across the Turkish rug covering the office floor and stomped down the stairs and out onto the street. He sucked in the San Francisco air, wanting to clear his lungs of Sinclair’s citrus-spice cologne and
the stale smell of greed. But he couldn’t, and he had a feeling the stench would cling to him a very long time.

There were worse places in San Francisco than the streets near the wharves. Worse neighborhoods, where prostitutes and opium dens and gambling houses coexisted, impoverished immigrants crammed tight into dilapidated quarters, and excrement mingled with rainwater to form a soupy, disgusting mix on the cobblestones. But not by much. If it weren’t the middle of the day, Sarah would never dare come here.

She stood in the doorway to Phoebe’s apartment and took shallow breaths. The bay breezes wafted the sour stink of a nearby tallow factory through the one window, and her stomach rolled. She wouldn’t be there much longer, though. The girl was eager to quit her dank and gloomy room, and she was hastily rounding up her few belongings with Minnie’s help. Minnie chattered incessantly, untroubled by the surroundings, happy to have another girl at the shop. A new member of their family.

More delicately boned and frail-seeming than Sarah had visualized, Phoebe met Sarah’s first criteria by looking her directly in the face and proclaiming she would work harder than anyone. Phoebe had been quick to recognize her best opportunity to flee the life she was living. Her mother’s passing had left her alone—no siblings, no relations to tend to or be tended by. Sarah understood how it felt to be adrift in the world, as untethered as a cottonwood seed. A lesson Sarah herself had learned more thoroughly than she had ever anticipated she might. She had tried to cling, nonetheless—to Aunt Eugenie, who had resented her; to Edouard, who had betrayed her; to Josiah, who had perished. Each loss harder than the last. Would she be forced to leave San Francisco, too, in order to start over once again? Find a new situation to cling to? She hoped not.

Phoebe finished bundling a spare bodice and stockings, hair
comb, and a collection of embroidery needles inside her winter shawl and strode to the front door. About the same amount of possessions as Sarah had taken away from Los Angeles. Funny how one’s life could be reduced to the number of objects one could carry in her arms.

“Do you need to leave a message for your landlord or perhaps make a final payment?”

“I have not paid him for a month.” The girl’s nonchalance surprised Sarah. “He will be happy to see the back side of me.”

“So long as he doesn’t fetch the police on you,” she said.

“The police? They think my landlord is worthless too. They will not bother.” Phoebe smiled at her. Sarah was ridiculously glad to see the girl had all her teeth. Clean, white ones that shone against her plump, pink lips. “
Merci
, miss. There has never been anyone to care about me. Never.”

The slip of French brought Sarah up short, a harsh reminder of Edouard, and she was more abrupt with Phoebe than she intended. “I want to help you and can. That’s all there is to it.”

“That is not all. There have been other women at the dressmaking shop who come and pretend they want to help. They bring flowers and such, as if a bouquet would make life better, smile and pat our hair like we are stupid children, when all we want is decent work and respect. They shame us. But you do not shame me.”

Tears burned the back of Sarah’s throat. This . . .
this
was why she had to do all she could for her girls. This need to be free of shame. This need to have a decent life full of promise and second chances. She recognized Phoebe’s feelings because she’d shared them the moment Josiah had taken her in, no questions asked, no explanation needed as to why she was on his doorstep or what she’d done that had brought her there.

“Work hard and there will be no need to thank me and no need to ever feel shame again.” Sarah smiled away the tears. “You’re one of us now, and I will take care of you.”

Minnie grinned over Phoebe’s shoulder. Sarah had said the same to her. To Cora and Anne and Emma as well. “That’s exactly right. You’re part of our little family, Phoebe.”

Phoebe’s eyes sparkled. Maybe with grateful tears. “Family? I have not had one in so long, I forget what that is!”

Oh, oh.
Sarah’s breath caught. “I will take care of you,” she repeated.

“W
hat do you think?” Sarah asked Lottie, standing next to her in the shop the next morning and also taking a break from her chores.

With an embroidered linen handkerchief, Lottie blotted the sweat glistening along her hairline. “Of Phoebe? Or the shop?”

“Both, of course.”

Lottie’s gaze tracked Phoebe as the French girl followed Cora Gallagher around, her skirts hitched into her waistband, rough boots peeping beneath the heavy twill. Compared to Cora, with her large frame and shock of luscious auburn hair, Phoebe was petite and delicate. But the two girls seemed to have hit it off, if the fact that their giggles were growing louder and louder was any indication.