Thea Devine (31 page)

“She’s at loose ends,” Logan explained. “This gives her something to do with her time.”

“I know a hundred things she could do better with her time,” Arwin said tartly, thumping his hand down on a stack of
Colville Clarions
. “Like this rag, for instance.
You just lookit this. And you tell me, Maggie Colleran, that this town don’t need the clear eye of the
Morning Call
.”

“The
Morning Call
is in mourning,” Maggie retorted. “This town has gotten exactly what it wanted: a positive picture of the beneficent Denver North.” She turned her head to peer out the window again. “That man must be chained to his desk,” she whispered to Logan.

“He always struck me as being extremely dedicated to his work,” Logan said. “And you,” he added without expression.

She jumped. “I suppose he is. After all,
two
proposals. Oh, there he is …”

“Hell, heading straight for here. Damn, duck Maggie. Arwin, get that back door open, and hold him here.”

“Whatever for?” Arwin protested, bewildered by their sudden unorthodox departure, but they were gone by then, sliding along the side of the store and racing across the street to the building where Dennis had his offices.

“There’s a back entrance,” Maggie whispered, pushing at Logan until they were out of view of the front windows of Bodey’s store.

The rear staircase was narrow and dank. “Second floor,” Maggie directed, “in the front.”

They pulled up in front of a frosted paned door with Dennis’s name lettered across it in gilt.

“This looks like it,” Logan said, grasping the knob.

“You didn’t expect it to be open?” Maggie said in disbelief.

He grinned at her. “Maybe I did. So now we break in.”

“What with?”

He smiled again and reached into his pants to unsheathe a small knife he wore strapped to his belt.

“I never noticed that,” she said, awed by his cleverness.

“You were too busy noticing other things, Maggie. All
right, let’s see if I can spring the lock.” He inserted the blade between the door and the molding and moved it upward until it hit something solid. Then he removed it and reinserted it so that just the tip of the blade pressed against the lock catch, and pushed against it gently. “It’s giving, just a little. Another … You have to coax it sometimes …”

“And you’re so good at that.”

“You noticed. There!” He swung the door in. “Check the window, Maggie. The last thing we need is him climbing back up the stairs now.”

“I don’t see him. Damn, he could have gone to Arwin’s to get some supplies or something. No, wait, he’s going on down to the hotel. Good.”

“All right. I’ll keep watch. You look.”

She rubbed her hand over her face. “I wish I knew what I thought I was looking for,” she said plaintively, as she tackled his filing drawers.

Nothing was locked. And nothing was coherent.

“You would think he could have made things easy for us,” Maggie said ungraciously, as she raced through the drawers trying to find one piece of paper that related to her or to Frank.

“I don’t understand this,” she whispered finally. “There’s a mountain of paper and nothing that makes sense. Nothing pertaining to the estate.”

Logan came and looked over her shoulder as she sifted through a pile of papers, scanning each in grim comprehension. “It’s a smokescreen, Maggie.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I mean, this is supposed to look like he has a closetful of clients, but look … the dates, the descriptions. Not Colville cases, Maggie. Look. How is that kind of legal action possible here?”

“Damn.” She shoved the drawer closed. “Where else?”

“The closet,” Logan said from his post back at the window.

“He has a strongbox,” she said suddenly, as she rooted through the closet. There were a couple of boxes of papers there, too, but nothing relating to Frank, nothing about her. “He must have stored everything at the bank.” She shoved the boxes back into the closet, with a sinking feeling of defeat.

“Damn, we learned absolutely nothing.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Logan whispered, cautioning her to silence as they crept out of the office and closed the door carefully behind them.

“I would,” Maggie said gloomily as they exited onto the street.

“Maggie, you just didn’t put everything together the right way. What we learned was that Dennis doesn’t have any other client but you, and it makes an awfully strong case against him that he’s asked you to marry him
and
he’s urging you to sell.”

She would be wise to cooperate occasionally, Dennis had said. An implicit threat, she had thought. Dennis had never been her friend, her confidant, or her advisor.

What had Dennis been? A man reaching to control a great deal of money through her, but a man so desperate for it that he would stoop to killing and arson?

A conspiracy?

What did she have to offer him that Frank could not have given him upon the sale of the property once the railroad had arrived? Dennis would have shared in the profit, surely.

“Maybe,” Logan said thoughtfully, “Dennis wanted you and the money and the hell with Frank.”

Her heart sank. “He must have been damned disappointed at how independent I am. He could never
persuade me to do anything he wanted me to do. How did he think he would convince me to marry him and give him management of Frank’s estate and the proceeds of that sale?”

“You’ll have to ask him, Maggie.”

“I’m sure he’ll be … frank,” she said satirically. “It still doesn’t quite piece together.”

“No, it doesn’t. It’s one possible explanation.”

“I don’t like it.”

“It’s a start.”

“I think I have to do something drastic.”

“And I know something drastic you can do, too, Maggie.”

Her eyes softened. “I’d love to say yes.”

“So say yes.”

Wasn’t it tempting? She would marry him to smoke out the conspirators and have his luxurious lovemaking for the rest of her life.

“Yes to perpetrate a plot?” she asked doubtfully.

“Yes because you can’t live without what we have together,” Logan said firmly.

“Without working out any details?”

“Details take care of themselves, Maggie.”

“I couldn’t do that, Logan; it wouldn’t be fair.”

“To who? You? You can’t presume to say what would be fair to me. You know what that is already, without my telling you.”

“But I have to …”

“I know, I
know
. I’m waiting, Maggie,” he added, flicking her cheek. “Maybe that’s all
you
have to know.”

She had her own plan, her own plot; she didn’t need
him
to carry it out. She didn’t need anything but her own courage, because this was the thing she had told Logan she had decided to do.

She went to Dennis’s office first thing in the morning. He was there, busily turning papers, absorbed in work, or so it seemed.

But now things were different, Maggie thought. Now she had an inkling of how things were really. Dennis was a potential adversary, and she was wary of him now as she sat across from him.

But he didn’t sense anything different. “I’m happy to see you here, Maggie. What can I do for you?”

“I believe it’s time to make a decision about the Colleran property.”

He nodded. “That is a wise decision. I recollect that Mr. Brown offered you twenty thousand and said he would neither dicker nor make you another offer. Are you ready to take that offer?”

“Actually, I’m not,” Maggie said boldly.

“Oh? Then you have nothing to discuss with me, Maggie. The fire has made the price a debatable issue.”

“My very thought,” Maggie agreed cheerfully.

“And you do understand my fee for negotiating the sale will be fifty percent of the proceeds?” Dennis added flatly, intending to shock her.

He did. “I didn’t understand that at all,” she said slowly. “That does throw a different light on things. It really does. All right, Dennis, consider this. My offer to you is the equivalent percent of the dollar amount that you can get for the acreage. In other words, if you can get fifteen dollars an acre, I will pay you fifteen percent of the profit. Or thirteen. Or twenty if you’re wily enough to negotiate that. I will tell you that I won’t pay you half on any terms whatsoever, and you would do well to settle for my offer rather than not have me sell that land at all.”

She saw she had caught him totally off guard. He had sincerely believed that he could coerce her into his exorbitant terms.

“Even if I am the only one who can negotiate
for you?”

“You can’t negotiate if I don’t want to sell, Dennis. Think about it. You know my terms now, and you can’t bamboozle me into thinking the land’s worthless just because someone burned it down. Nor will I allow you to accept what is ostensibly Mr. Brown’s offer, and then pocket the difference between that and what you really asked. Are we clear?”

“You’ll regret this, Maggie.”

“You could come away with as much as a hundred thousand dollars, Dennis. I certainly wouldn’t regret
that
, if I were you.” She rose and went to the door, then turned to face him. His expression was ugly, frustrated. “You have to agree, Dennis, I’m being extremely cooperative.”

“And damned foolish,” he growled, but she didn’t wait to hear that. The die was cast now, and she had to sit back and wait to see who turned out to be snake eyes.

Chapter Eighteen

Logan stayed at the hotel. He had a feeling, a damned bad feeling. Maggie was probing, striking out, and someone was bound to get in the way, someone connected somehow to the railroad. If he were really demented he might think, as Maggie was beginning to, that everyone in town might be connected to the railroad.

On the other hand, Frank, Mr. Brown, and Dennis Coutts were enough of a mouthful to swallow for anyone, even Maggie. And the possibility of collusion sounded like a fairy tale.

But he was dead certain sure that if she announced that she were to marry him, there would be hell to pay. Dennis had asked her twice. Reese had made noises about it. Reese … he couldn’t figure out Reese. Reese had been hanging around for weeks, and barring the time he had spent in Maggie’s newsroom, he didn’t seem to have any discernible occupation other than keeping his witchy mother out of Maggie’s way.

For which, he imagined, Maggie had been duly grateful. But when it came to that, he was still Frank’s brother, still entitled to share lodgings as her brother-in-law, but what more? What more had he intended when he came rolling into Colville? Maggie? Had his sights really
been set on Maggie?

And had he known about the money? Mother Colleran had known about the money. He didn’t like what he was thinking. It was as if Reese had been another threat coming from the opposite direction with the same purpose in mind: Maggie and the lure of the profit from the Colleran land.

Reese had come and things began to happen. Up until then it had only been Dennis with a clear field to Maggie and the profit.

And who had engineered the murder, the fires, the necessity to sell out to Denver North—which of them? And from which of them was Maggie in the most danger now?

Maggie saw a familiar face on Main Street as she came briskly out of Dennis’s office. “Annie,” she hailed her, and Annie Mapes looked at once startled and happy that there was a familiar face in a week of strange, forgettable faces.

“Maggie,” she cried breathlessly as she hurled herself across the expanse between them and threw herself into Maggie’s arms.

“So you’re in town now,” Maggie said, hugging her, patting her shoulder, standing her away so she could look at her. But Annie did not look happy. She looked thinner, wan, with circles under her eyes. Her hair was untidy but her dress was immaculate—and costly—Maggie thought.

“I’m in town now at Melinda Sable’s, just as I told you I would do,” Annie said defensively. “It’s … nice. It’s clean, and she’s got it decorated real nice, classy. And she doesn’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t,” Maggie said comfortingly.

“I can have guests in my room—besides the regular guests, I mean. Would you like to see it?”

Maggie hesitated. Would she? Was she just the slightest bit curious to see how she lived, the woman whom Frank chose over her? The woman who somehow had the wit, the guile, the theatricality to keep him by her side until the day he died … ?

“Of course I’ll come,” she said warmly. “Now tell me about Sean,” she added, as she took Annie by the arm and they began walking toward the other end of town.

“They’re working down around Logan’s property now, Maggie. They’re going to slide around Gully Basin and then back up to our land. What
was
our land. When Sean sold, you know, we divided what we got. I have some money now, so I could leave at any time. It’s just that Sean … I couldn’t leave him, not till the project’s done, because he’s spending his money faster than he makes it. He may need me, and I may need more money too. Look, here we are, Maggie. Didn’t she fix this up nicer than any other house on this side of town? You’d never know that it wasn’t a boarding house. In fact, she does have some real renters that have rooms on the other side, where they don’t see the comings and goings. Upstairs, Maggie, right down the hall to the end.”

She threw open the door there, and Maggie stepped into a pale blue bower, a perfect setting for Annie’s coloring, all lace and satin, with pale blue curtains and a blue Chinese carpet on the floor.

It was nicer than anything that Annie had ever had, even at home growing up with her folks. The room seduced even her with its elegance, femininity, and peacefulness.

But it was a room designed to make an impression on a male visitor too, Maggie thought. She couldn’t forget that. It was designed to present a picture of luxurious
feminine willingness.

“It’s very nice, Annie. I hope this is really what you want.”

“Even if it isn’t,” Annie said spiritedly, “it’s better than I had.”

And Maggie had no answer for that.

“Did you ever meet Melinda?” Annie asked curiously.

“Yes, once.”

“She’s not hard.”

“No. She seemed very practical, very tough-minded,” Maggie said with a faraway note in her vice.

A door slammed down below, cutting off her next thought. Annie didn’t need to know that Melinda had suggested that she, Maggie, had a peculiar kind of talent that was well suited to a place like this. She wondered what kind of room Melinda might have put her in. Not lace and satin and pale blue, like this. Something strong, radiant. Red. Velvet. Her imagination was running away with her.

“I should go.”

“You won’t forget me?”

“We’re still friends, Annie,” she said sadly, because she knew it would become a friendship that could only be clandestine once Annie became known for what she was.

“I’ll show you down,” Annie said, and led her out into the hallway. The staircase curved downward sinuously into an entrance hallway. Off of this was the parlor, and as they made their way downstairs, they could hear voices, one thick and loud, one murmurous.

“… bitch, bitch, bitch …” A grunt followed this, and then a soothing feminine voice. And then, “I’ve never had a day like this … damn goddamn …” Another grunt. “Damn her for messing me up … like … that …”

Annie cringed. “Oh no, oh no,” she whimpered, her
voice tinged with fear. “It’s him.
Him
.”

“… hold still, bitch …”

Maggie caught the frantic note in her tone. “Who? Who is
him?
” she demanded, clutching Annie’s arm because she thought she already knew.

“A man I had the other night. He was a terror. He was wild. He wanted ….he wanted Melinda. He’s having … Melinda …”

They reached the bottom step with Annie clinging to her tightly. They couldn’t miss the sight in the parlor. Melinda Sable lay on her back, stark naked, on the floor, her legs in the air, and pounding away at her, fully dressed, was Reese Colleran, in a frenzy of anger and resentment. Money lay scattered on the floor all around them.

But there wasn’t enough money to remove the glazed look from Melinda Sable’s eyes.

Reese looked up and saw Maggie, her expression of total revulsion, and he felt like choking Melinda because she wasn’t Maggie. Then Maggie was out the door and he pulled himself away from Melinda, pulling up his trousers hastily, and went tearing after Maggie, out into the street and back down toward the hotel.

Oh Maggie, he vowed, you will pay for this. You will. You saw me ravaging you in my heart after you had savaged me, and I will make you pay for that. I know just how!

Emotion pumped through his veins with the same force with which his manhood had taken Melinda, and even that was not enough to give him the wind to catch her as she raced away to find sanity, to find Logan.

Melinda and Reese, Melinda and Frank, Maggie thought to the pounding of her footsteps as she ducked
down side streets in an effort to elude Reese. It was all of a piece, and maybe all men were the same. Maybe even Logan had taken the plunge into the reassuring depths of Melinda Sable’s sex for the asking price. She would never know, but at the moment he represented everything that Frank and Reese were not. She needed him desperately to wipe away the sight of Reese on top of Melinda.

It was hell, it was sheer hell, and she didn’t know if she could even live through it. It was her worst nightmare come true: that Melinda could take anyone from her, everyone, that she was not woman enough to hold a man by her side.

And she was not fast enough. By sheer will, Reese gained on her and gained on her, never allowing her from his sight. Finally she felt him grasp her arm tightly and jerk her to an unbalanced stop.

“Walk slowly now, Maggie.”

“All right, Reese.” What could she say to this man who was in the grip of some unholy emotion that was still reflected in the timbre of his voice. She had no choice.

They walked slowly, and he took several deep gasping breaths to calm himself.

“You have to let me explain.”

“There’s nothing you have to explain to me,” Maggie said shuddering. She couldn’t help it, and she knew he felt it and that it fired him up all over again.

“You will listen,” he said threateningly, and she turned her head away. “And now you see why, Maggie. You’re such a bitch.”

It was like he had turned on her. She never dreamed he was capable of such resentment. It poured out of him in waves as he hauled her into the hotel lobby and up the steps into the suite, locking the door behind him.

He thrust her onto the sofa and pulled a chair up beside her. “This is why, Maggie. Don’t you see? You won’t give yourself to me, even though I know what a whore you
are. Oh, yes, I know all about you, Maggie,” he added tauntingly at her horrified expression, “and I’ve been aching for you ever since I got here. Even now. You think that Sable bitch could take your place? She’s a convenience. Men have conveniences when they can’t get what they want from their bitches at home.”

“Reese, you are talking nonsense,” she said firmly, as her mind raced wildly. “You’re upset about something, obviously. I don’t care if you pay Melinda Sable for her time and energy, truly I don’t.”

“I only do it because I need you and I can’t have you. But right this minute I could have you.”

She sucked in her breath. “You won’t do that.”

“I won’t do that, you’re right, and you know why, you scheming bitch? Because you double-crossed me. Because there was hell to pay because of your goddamn double-cross, and you don’t deserve all the pleasure a
man
can give you. But you’re not going to see your cowdog any more either, Maggie. From now on, you’re mine. And I will take you. I will! You’ll moan and beg for me. But not tonight; tonight I have to make amends for your treachery. Tonight I have to make other things right, and then I can take you, and give it to you the way I give to Sable.” He reached out and pinched her arm and then jerked her to her feet and pushed her into her room. “I’m locking you in, Maggie, until you make the right decision.”

As she fell onto her bed she heard the door slam shut and the key turn. She looked up at the window and she saw that someone had boarded it up from the outside and that there was no light. There was a metal grid with a lock like a screen over the inside of the window.

His words suddenly registered: “… until you make the right decision …” Someone wanted her to make it badly, badly enough to insure her cooperation by these very crude means.

Cooperation again. Decisions. It was all connected, it had to be, and the end result had driven Reese just a little crazy. More than a little crazy. Her treachery. What was her treachery that she should be imprisoned like this?

And where was Logan with his pronouncements of danger and his theories of conspiracy. He had scared her half to death and now it was all coming true.

What had she done to precipitate this?

And then she knew: she had told Dennis she was going to sell the land for as exhorbitant a price as he could command from the greedy corporation.

It was the only change, a catastrophic change, but to whom was it a signal that she was involved in a double-cross, if the only one who needed the land were the railroad?

The answer was so simple it was like a beacon of light revealing the track.

Mr. Brown and Denver North, who had only wanted to pay her twenty thousand dollars for that land. And now she was asking five hundred. A damned double-cross, she thought, and not hers. Not her treachery, not her conspiracy. And Reese was involved in it somehow.

She sat on the bed and thought about it. The hours crept by, and she had no idea whether it was daylight or dark, nor could she figure out just how Reese figured into things.

A long time later she heard footsteps and a knock at the door.

“Well, Miss Maggie.” Mother Colleran, triumphant and condescending.

“Good evening, Mother Colleran. Have you brought the water and the gruel?”

“Oh, you stupid girl, making light of all this. Why couldn’t you just have done what you were told?”

“What I was told?”

“You should have sold the land sooner, Maggie, and
none of this would have happened.”

“How do you know, Mother Colleran?”

“I know.”

Interesting, Maggie thought. “Well, Mother Colleran, I’ve agreed to sell it now, and for a fairer price.”

There was a long pause. “How
much
fairer?”

“Lots.”

“Enough for us to be comfortable again?”

“Enough, even, for you to have a separate income.”

Another pause. Money was seductive to that old bat. Why hadn’t she known that?

“Do you mean that?”

“There’s no guarantee that Denver North will pay my price, Mother Colleran.”

“
If
they pay your price?”

“I mean it. But only on the condition you settle back in San Francisco.”

A long pause once again. “Frank wouldn’t want me to leave you, Maggie.”

“But I’m going to marry Logan Ramsey,” Maggie said with great conviction, and she thought at the moment that maybe she even meant it.

She heard a choking sound. “If you put it in writing, I’ll, I’ll let you go.”

“Get me a piece of paper.”

A moment later it slid under the door.

“I need a pencil.”

“No tricks,” Mother Colleran warned, as she opened the door a crack and threw in a pencil.

Maggie wrote furiously. “I’m ready,” she called, and the door opened again that cautious inch.