The Treasure Hunters (3 page)

But it was too late.

Eden walked into the room just as
her father put the pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger. A deafening
roar exploded throughout the room, and Ruby’s ears pulsed with the
reverberation. Inside, the white room was now covered in a thick splattering of
red.

Eden looked down at herself. Red blood
splatters covered her face, arms and chest. Merridie caught Eden just as she
fainted.

****

Later that night, Ruby, Merridie
and Eden sat in Ruby’s living room. All the lights were out, as if in
solidarity with the dire day. Merridie held Eden, rocking her. In some sad way,
Eden’s loss had seemingly brought Merridie out of her own depression.

Now they were all orphans.

“What do you think is going to
happen?” Merridie asked softly.

Ruby sighed and reached over to
pour more wine in her glass.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “My once-employed
accountants told me to expect the market to continue its decline.”

“I dismissed the rest of my staff,”
Merridie said sadly. “I wrote them all letters of reference, but everybody is
just like us. How could this have happened?”

“There were signs,” Ruby told her. “They
were ignored. Even Eden’s friend, Mr.
Redmont
, tried
to talk about it.”

That’d been two weeks ago. Two
weeks ago their lives were full, happy. Now it was all gone, and she didn’t
mean the money. The security had been ripped from them ungraciously and she was
having difficulty thinking of what to do next.

“I’m sorry about Robert,” she said,
latching onto the easiest of thoughts.

Merridie shrugged, cynical. “I
should’ve known he was just interested in the money. I should’ve let Eden keep
his wallet.”

Ruby smiled wearily at that. God,
she was tired.

“Some people are coming tomorrow to
evict me,” Eden said, her voice small and disembodied from reality. “I don’t
know where I’m going to go.”

“You’ll come live with me, of
course,” Ruby told her. “You’ll both come live with me.”

“You lost everything too, Ruby,”
Merridie reminded her. “It’s just a matter of time before this house has to go
as well.”

“I know,” Ruby whispered. “But I
promise you both, I’ll find a solution.”

“Just please, promise me you won’t
hurt yourself,” Eden murmured and began crying again. Merridie held her
tighter.

Chapter Three

When the front door bell rang early
the next morning, it took Ruby a moment to realize that no one was going to
answer the summons. She’d let go of the staff a few days before. She hurried to
answer it and saw a messenger boy holding out a slip of paper to her.

“For Miss Ruby
Talcott.”

“I’m Ruby Talcott,” Ruby replied. Taking
the paper, she looked at the markings and saw that the telegraph came from
London. Who would be contacting her from England? The boy cleared his throat
and when she looked at him, he had his hand out. “Oh, right.”

She reached behind her to the foyer
table and snatched up her purse. She pulled out a coin and handed it to him. The
boy grabbed the coin, tipped his hat, and darted away. Ruby closed the door,
her mind once again turning to the message. Making her way down the hallway to
the veranda where Merridie and Eden sat eating breakfast, she opened the envelope
and read. There were only a few sentences, but Ruby’s heart stopped for a brief
second before racing off like a Thoroughbred.
 

“Merridie!
Eden!” she called out, racing to the veranda. Both her friends looked at her in
surprise as she burst outside. Eden had cried off and on through the night,
leaving her with dark circles under her eyes. Merridie looked tired from taking
care of the younger woman.

“What’s wrong?” Merridie demanded. “I
don’t think I can handle one more thing.”

“I was sent a wire from my
relatives in England,” Ruby told them. “They heard what happened and offered me
a position with the main company.”

“That was nice of them,” Eden
murmured.

“A position?”
Merridie asked. “Meaning a job?”

“Yes, you snob.
A job.
And you two are coming with me.”

Eden nodded sagely. “I could use a
vacation.”

Merridie looked at Eden like she
had a screw loose. Eden continued to nibble on her biscuit as she stared at
Ruby.

“So why are
we
going to jolly old England?” Merridie asked.

“I need financial stability to get
back my father’s dream,” Ruby told her. “Working at the main branch will
strengthen ties, so I should be able to get their support.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

“I’ll train you both up in the
company, of course,” Ruby said. “We’ll be like my father and create our own
future. Besides, there’s nothing left for us here.”

“Ruby, New York City is still our
home.”

“We’ll make a new home,” she said.
“A new life.”

Eden cocked her head. “Have you
told your family you’ll be bringing us?”

Ruby slowly shook her head no.

Merridie sighed. “Inflation won’t
be isolated to America, you know. Pretty soon it’s going to spread to other
countries. Even I know that.”

“That doesn’t matter right now,”
Ruby insisted.
“One bridge at a time.
But we do need
to consolidate our resources. Money is especially important right now for our
passage to England.”

Merridie’s cup halted halfway to her
mouth. She wrinkled her brow as if mentally debating something. After a few
minutes, she sat her cup of tea down with a sharp click.

“I have a resource,” she finally
said.

She stood and lifted her right leg
to the chair. While she was busy lifting her skirt to her thigh, Ruby and Eden
looked at each other in bafflement. Ruby wasn’t sure she wanted to know what
was so far up Merridie’s clothes and then she saw something above her friend’s
knee, where the garter stopped. Heavy gauze wrapped around her thigh and she
began to unwind it. It only took a moment for Ruby to realize what Merridie was
hiding and her mouth dropped open in surprise. Merridie placed the bundle of crisp
bills upon the table.

“I didn’t trust it anywhere else,”
she said a bit defensively.

“Where did you get that?” Ruby
whispered in awe.

“My father hid it right before he
and my mother went on their trip last year,” Merridie said.
“Petty
cash, to invest when they got back.
I didn’t think about it until after
Robert left me.”

Eden lifted her hand to Merridie’s
face and gently swept back the wisps of dark hair from her forehead. Merridie
looked at her and froze, seeing the misty tears welling up in Eden’s gaze.

“But they never returned,” she said
softly.

Merridie shrugged. “I’m getting
quite good at desertion, but I suppose dying is a better excuse than betrayal.”

“Not all the time,” Eden told her.

There was a momentary silence as Merridie
looked away and discreetly wiped her eyes.

“Thank you,
Merri
,”
Ruby said.

“Don’t thank me. I was going to
save the money for myself.”

Out of the three of them, Merridie
had always acted the bravest. She liked to pretend she was tough and hard-hearted,
and Ruby understood. Merridie had lost her twin brother at the age of ten. She’d
lost her parents at the age of eighteen. Now she’d lost Robert and her fortune
in the same day. She’d let Merridie have her illusion of stoic toughness.

****

One week later, Ruby and Merridie
stood at the rear of the ocean liner,
RMS
Adriatic. It
was a grand ship, dubbed one of the Big Four by the White Star Line, but they
were no longer first-class passengers.

Gone were their gowns of silks and
velvets, and instead they wore simple cotton dresses. At least they were clean
and the clothes kept them warm. New York had faded away long ago, and before
them
lay
only the vastness of water. Ruby knew a
wistful look still graced her face––no matter how many pep talks she’d given herself,
she just couldn’t stop her heart from aching for leaving their home behind.

“Are you all right?” Merridie
asked.

“In one week we’ll be touching
English soil. We’ll be starting over. I feel as if we’ve given up.”

Merridie grabbed Ruby’s hand and squeezed.
“I don’t like this Ruby, this,
defeated
Ruby. What happened to the chin-up girl?”

“I have my weak moments.”

“Well, we’ve come this far––no use
crying over the past, as I always say. Things will work out.”

Ruby didn’t reply, nor did she look
at Merridie. Yes, she had to find the positive again. They were all together
and they had a plan. It could be a lot worse.

Chapter Four

The London docks were crowded and
dirty. The smell of rotten fish permeated the air, mixed with a strong odor of
sewage and mildew. Nausea rose sharply in her throat but she swallowed it down.
Now would not be the time to upchuck, although no one would notice the contents
mixed with the rest of the slime floating on top of the water. It was late in
the afternoon and a fog threatened to roll in. Only the feeble attempt of the
sun’s rays kept it marginally at bay, but Ruby knew as soon as the sun
completely sank, the docks would be shrouded in mist.

As they made their way through the
swarm of people, Ruby saw a man holding a sign with her name on it. She steered
the other two towards him.

“Hello, I’m Ruby Talcott.”

The driver looked her over before holding
his hand out for her bag. She gave it to him and he turned to leave
.
“Wait. I have two people with me.”

The driver glanced at Merridie and
Eden. A moment passed before he accepted their luggage as well,
then
turned to quickly walk away. The three hurried after
him to a large Rolls Royce where he secured the bags to the roof. He opened the
back door and they got in, not saying a word. They were too busy staring out
the windows to study their new home. Ruby had been to England before, but the
other two hadn’t.

Her cousins lived near Kensington,
one of the more prestigious areas of the city, and she wondered how Merridie
and Eden would be perceived. Still, she never would have left them behind. The
car drew up in front of her cousin’s large townhouse, where Ruby immediately
saw Katherine Talcott waiting for them.

The driver opened the back door and
Ruby got out first. She reached for Merridie’s hand and held tightly, to give
her support but also because she needed some of her own.

“Welcome, cousin,” Katherine
greeted in her clipped British accent. She wore a drab, dark grey batiste gown
and her brown hair was pulled viciously back into a bun that pulled the corners
of her eyes, giving her a ‘pinched’ look. “I’m happy to help provide for you in
this trying time. However, I was not expecting there’d be guests with you.”

She looked condescendingly at
Merridie and Eden, and Ruby winced at the pressure
Merri
applied to her fingers.

“Thank you, Katherine,” Ruby said
as graciously as she could muster. “This is Merridie Morgan and Eden
Cariker
. We grew up together. I didn’t think there would be
a problem. We’re practically
family
.”

Katherine walked down the steps to
the girls and studied them intently with a raised eyebrow. She was a tall
woman, with a back so straight Ruby wouldn’t be surprised if there were a stick
holding her up, and her height caused her to look down at each of them. Only Ruby
met her gaze. Whatever she was looking for she must have found, because she
abruptly stepped back.

“They’re not
my
family,” she stressed, giving a brief but unwelcome smile. “Nevertheless,
never let it be said a Talcott doesn’t offer rations to the poor. You’ll share
the guesthouse on the other side of the gardens. Ruby, you’ll start tomorrow at
the shipping office. As for you two––we’ll see what we can find for your keep.”

She turned and walked back up the
townhouse steps, not bothering to glance back at them. Ruby grabbed her luggage
case and hurried after Katherine, nodding encouragingly to the other two. Being
led through the house and into the back, Ruby realized Katherine was taking
them the servant path. Although Katherine was only three years older than she,
Ruby rather thought her cousin looked and acted like a dowager.

The guesthouse was small but it was
secure and warm, and Ruby relaxed with the knowledge that at least they
wouldn’t be homeless. Whatever else Katherine would say or do, her standings
within society wouldn’t allow for family to go hungry.

Merridie walked around the one-bedroom
apartment looking like she’d eaten sour lemons.

“Lovely cousin you have, Ruby,” she
muttered.

“It’s not much, I agree. But we’re
together. We’ll figure everything out.”

****

The next morning, Ruby arrived
early at the shipping office and had to wait for the manager, Mike Berg, to
arrive. He got there ten minutes late, but Ruby held her tongue. The last thing
she wanted to do was start an argument on her first day. She couldn’t afford to
incur Katherine’s wrath.

Once again, she ended up breathing
through her mouth as the stench of the air made her stomach heave. Mike escorted
her to a large warehouse that looked to be old and run down. He took off the
padlock and opened the door for her. When she walked in, it was so dark and
dank that she didn’t even know what type of warehouse it was, and sneezed as
dust tickled her nose.

“An’ this ‘ere is the old
ware’ouse
,” Mike told her in a thick Cockney accent that had
her straining to understand.
“Over the years, unclaimed items
‘
ave
been sent ‘ere and basically ignored.
Ye’ll
be
categorizin
’ it.”