Wild Roses (20 page)

 

 

“I wasn't really sure that would work,” Harold said as he tossed Ella's limp body onto the bed.

Margaret stared down at her unconscious cousin. “I think my slip of the tongue might not have been as ill-advised as we thought. I suspect it made her a little less sharp and cautious than she usually is. It was probably completely occupying her mind.”

“True. It has, however, made killing her far more necessary. She is clever. I don't think she can find any proof that I murdered her family, but if there is some out there, she is one who could find it.”

“And she is stubborn enough to never stop looking for it.” Margaret grimaced. “Sorry, Father.”

“No real harm done, dear. I understand how furious the bitch can make a person. We will just have to move a little faster than we planned. It's probably wise, anyway. Mahoney is still poking around in our business, and Thompson is getting nervous about keeping Louise and her mongrels in jail when he has nothing substantial to charge them with.”

“Louise could be charged with Robin Abernathy's death.”

“Not any more. Not only has it been eight years, but not many people still believe the tale we so assiduously put about back then. It did what it was intended to—got rid of Louise before she could get her brother to change his will. I remained the heir.”

Margaret lightly chewed on her bottom lip. “Louise could be trouble.”

“Not if we're careful. Everyone thinks the woman is mad, an embarrassment. And now that they have seen the sort of people she travels with, many think she is little better than a whore.” Harold put his arm around his daughter's shoulders and led her toward the door. “I am a little more concerned about Mahoney. It's time to come up with a way to completely destroy his credibility.” Harold paused outside the door to speak to the muscular, bearded man standing just outside. “The minute she shows signs of growing clearheaded, make her drink some more of the lemonade.”

“What if she won't drink it?” the man asked.

“Then pour it down her damn throat.” He shook his head as the man shuffled into the room and shut the door behind him. “Once I have Ella's money, I think I'd better loosen my purse strings enough to hire a few men with some brains.”

“Brawn is also important, Papa,” Margaret said as they headed down the stairs.

“True, but just once it'd be nice to give an order without having to explain it or repeat it.”

“How long are you going to hold Ella in that room and pour opium down her throat?”

“A few days, just until she is so filled with it that it'll take a long time for her mind to clear, and long enough for a few select people to notice her problem before we take her to the river.” He smiled. “People will shake their heads and murmur
poor girl
. They'll recall what an emotional little thing she was and the ones we allow to see her will speak of the opium, the glazed eyes, and the incoherence of the girl in her last days. They will all think it a tragic suicide.”

“Ah, yes, the poor thing never really did recover from the death of her family, did she?” Margaret laughed along with her father.

 

 

A voice in Ella's head warned her not to swallow, but she had already done so. She looked up at the bearded, homely man who had poured the drugged lemonade down her throat and wished she could think of some curse to spit at him. Tiny flashes of memory poked through the haze enveloping her mind. There had been people in her room, tsking, and shaking their heads as they had looked down at her. That should worry her, but she was not sure why.

Her uncle's face came into her view and she felt a sudden strong wave of hatred and fury, but it faded as fast as all other feeling and thought. “How long have I been like this?” she asked, fighting to cling to the tiny scrap of rationality she had grasped, before it was swept away by the new dose of opium forced upon her.

“Only three days, Ella.” He sighed and shook his head, looking at someone behind him. “I do not understand such mental disorders, Mr. Stanton. I just do what I can. She is either like this, or raging and thus a danger to us as well as to herself.”

Ella looked at the man who moved to stand next to Harold, and heard herself laugh, a strange giggle that alarmed even her. Harold was lining up his witnesses. Who would question the minister of their church when he said that poor Ella Carson had lost her mind? Ella wished she could think straight so that she could figure out how spreading the tale that she had lost her mind would help her uncle.

“It's the lemonade,” she said, and could tell by the way Mr. Stanton shook his head that her words made no sense to the man, simply worked to confirm Harold's claim of madness.

“Has there ever been insanity in the family?” asked Mr. Stanton.

“Well, we have often wondered about poor Louise,” Harold replied. “We always tried to explain away her wild actions by saying she had too much spirit, or that her upbringing was unusual, but now, I confess, I begin to wonder. Right now Louise is in jail, alongside the four half-breeds with whom she's been galloping over the countryside,” he added, as if revealing some confidential family shame.

“Only two are half-breeds,” Ella said, but no one paid her any heed.

When the two men moved away from the side of the bed, Ella struggled to lift herself up enough to watch them. Neither man paid any attention to her, talking as if she was not even in the room. It was clear that Harold's tale of madness had its believers already. When the men walked out of the room, shutting and locking the door behind them, she flopped back down onto the bed.

There was a faint hint of clarity in her mind and she fought to hold onto it. Lethargy held her body in a tight grip. She knew she was in danger, but each time her mind tried to tell her to save herself, she either did not heed it or she forgot the warning the minute it had sped through her mind. Her strength and will were still there but it was as if they were held captive in hundreds of layers of heavy batting. The opium was making her more of a prisoner than the locked doors and the bars on the window.

All the doses forced upon her after the first one had been weaker, she realized. Harold did not want her unconscious. He wanted her to be awake enough to confirm his tale of insanity with the strange way she acted and the odd, disjointed things she said. This was the clearest of mind she had been in a long while, although it was still not enough for her to plan an escape and enact it. She could feel the newest dose of the drug intruding upon her mind and trying to steal away her thoughts.

There was no way to fight it, she thought with a flash of alarm that was immediately soothed by the drug. That inability to be afraid, that sweet blind compliance now infecting her, was the worst, she thought as she slowly closed her eyes. She was going to walk to her death with a smile on her face and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Harrigan scowled at the papers spread on his desk. They blended with all the testimony he had gathered to paint a very grim picture. His blood ran cold as he finally conceded that everything Ella had told him was the truth. In fact, he suspected Harold was even worse than she had ever imagined. He had given Ella over to her executioner just as she had tried to tell him so many times.

There was no doubt in his mind that he had let fear overcome his true instincts. The closer they had gotten to Philadelphia, the harder his common sense had tried to tell him to listen to Ella, to at least hesitate before handing her over to Harold. He had refused to listen to those instincts, too alarmed by the strength of his feelings for Ella to be impartial or analytical. All he had been able to think of was putting some distance between them before he was unable to, before he gave himself over to her, heart and soul. Now he was not sure he had even accomplished that goal.

He cursed and swept everything from his desk, then reached for the crystal decanter that held his dwindling supply of strong whiskey. The question he had to answer now was what he should do with all he had discovered. Harrigan cursed again and took a long drink of whiskey as he realized there was not much he could do. It raised a hundred and one questions, but answered very few. It roused a lot of strong suspicions but held no real proof of a crime. Even if, by some miracle, his information proved to be enough to get Harold before a judge, the man needed only a mediocre lawyer to get it all laughed right out of court. About all he could do was spread a lot of nasty rumors around and maybe hurt Harold Carter's business. If he was going to help Ella, he needed a great deal more than that.

Louise and her friends were in jail, so they could not help him unless he could come up with some way to set them free legally. Thompson really had no crime to charge them with, but Harrigan did not think he had the power to make the man go against Harold's orders. That was just another problem he had to solve.

There was always the option of just taking Ella away from Harold, he mused, then shook his head. That would only help Ella for a little while. Harold would simply hire men to come after them and they would all be on the run again. Harrigan knew it would be impossible to find proof of Harold's crimes if he was in hiding, constantly watching his back. And if Harold caught them, this time he would be the one in jail, charged with kidnapping and anything else Harold could think of. Ella would then be completely alone.

The only thing he was sure of was that George would readily help him if he could come up with a plan that would remove Ella from her guardian's deadly grip, yet not set the law on their trail. That, he decided as he sipped at his drink, would not be easy. He was not sure how much time he had to come up with something, either.

“You look very dark spirited,” came George's voice next to his ear.

Harrigan started and nearly spilled the last of his whiskey, then slouched in his chair and watched George pour himself a drink. “Just trying to think of a way to clear up some of the mess I've made.” He was glad when George did not press him to be more specific. “I have all the information I need to call Harold a snake, but not one thing I could take before a judge.”

“Harold is a smart thief.”

“He's worse than that, my friend. He's also a clever killer.”

“Who has he killed? Not Ella? I've been watching and I haven't seen anything yet.” George helped Harrigan pick the papers up off the floor and restack them on his desk.

“No, he hasn't killed Ella. Not yet, but I now believe that that is his plan. Why should he hesitate to kill her when he has already murdered the rest of her family?”

“That drowning seven years ago was no accident?” George asked in a soft voice, as he pulled a chair up to the desk and sat down.

As he piled the papers that had roused his suspicions in front of George, Harrigan replied, “No, and I'm almost certain of that. Harold may not have murdered them with his own hands, but he might as well have. And Ella should have died with the rest of her family, but for some reason she was not with them that day.” He waited a moment for a frowning George to finish looking over the papers. “That scowl on your face tells me you reached the same conclusion I did.”

“None of this is the hard proof needed to convict him of the crime.”

“Exactly. You'll also see my little notations that reveal that very few of these people will repeat such things in court. They will deny it all, in truth. There are a lot of people who are scared of Harold Carson or so caught up in his net that they would hurt themselves as much as they would hurt him. And that's if they even considered testifying against him, for, if Harold caught wind of it, he could destroy them. Those who suspect him of murdering his own family would fear even worse than financial ruin. Their consciences might urge them to speak out, but everything else tells them to shut their mouths.”

“Then what use is all of this?” George asked as he tossed the papers back down on to one of the many piles littering the desk. “If we have no hard proof of his guilt, how can we stop him now?”

“That's what I've been trying to figure out.”

“Well, I'm more than willing to lend my assistance.”

“I was hoping you would say that,” Harrigan said even as he stood up and walked toward the door.

“Oh. You have to leave now? I had wanted to have a little talk.”

“Soon as I get back, George.” Harrigan stuck his hat on his head and stepped through the door. “I need to get away from that pile of papers and walk. It often works to clear my head. I'll walk and you can read and maybe, when I return, one of us will have found a way to bring Harold down.”

“Ah, and that will allow Ella to escape his hold.”

“That's the plan. Dig away, George, and, hopefully, you will find some tiny, useful gem I have overlooked.”

 

 

Ella struggled to sit up on the bed and heartily cursed her body for its inability to obey her commands. Her mind was beginning to clear and she desperately wanted to make use of that, but her body was still held tightly in the grip of the opium. Even her hands felt heavy and awkward.

Something was about to happen, she was certain of it. Although she was not sharp-witted enough to know why she felt that way, something told her that Harold would act against her today. It was also the first time in days that she had been left alone. She was sure there was not even a guard at the door, a door she seemed totally incapable of getting to. When she heard the door open, she just sughed, knowing she had lost any chance she might have had.

“I told you it was silly to leave her alone,” came Margaret's sharp voice even as a hard push against her shoulder sent Ella tumbling back onto the bed.

“She wasn't getting very far, was she?” snapped Harold as he scowled down at Ella.

“Dissension among the troops?” Ella said, dismayed at how slurred her words were, for it proved that she was still held tightly in the grip of the opium.

“I also think it was a mistake not to give her more of that stuff,” said Margaret. “She seems dangerously clear of mind to me. What if we meet up with someone before we get her to the river?”

“I believe we have convinced enough people of her unsteady state of mind, the kind of people who have probably spread the tale all over the city by now. Add to that the fact that no one thought she was quite normal before, and that she has spent nearly three years with the mad Louise, and I don't think anyone will listen to her. If we give her another dose she may well be so unclear that people will question why we are taking her for a carriage ride.”

Margaret glared at Ella and grumbled, “I suppose, but I do not like it. This means that we will have to listen to her all the way to the river.”

“A small price to pay for what we shall soon gain.”

Ella cried out softly in protest when one of her uncle's hulking men suddenly appeared at her bedside and scooped her up in his arms. In her mind she was putting up a glorious fight, but her body refused to move, lying limp in the man's thick arms. Ella decided that it might have been better if she was still completely under the spell of the drug. At least then she would not be so aware of what was happening to her.

As they started down the stairs, Ella managed to gain enough control of herself to grab the railing, but it was a short-lived resistance. Harold's burly guard just kept walking and a smirking Margaret punched her hand, forcing her to release her weak grip on the highly polished wood. Ella stared at her cousin and found herself wishing that the woman would suffer some horrible, painful, and lingering death. She was a little surprised at her bloodthirsty thoughts, but decided that Margaret had earned them.

“What is your clever little plan, Harold?” she asked, struggling to make her words clear. “Are you going to toss me out in the woods and leave me for the wild animals? Or perhaps you mean to shoot me and try to claim that I was accosted by thieves as I staggered down the road?”

“I mean to take you to see your family, m'dear,” Harold replied coldly as they all paused at the front door.

“You're taking me to the cemetery?”

When Harold and Margaret laughed, Ella cursed. She hated the way the drug slowed her ability to think. Her wits were what had kept her alive so far, and the opium had stolen them away. She felt totally defenseless. Then a brief flash of clarity gifted her with an understanding she almost wished she had not had. Harold was going to take her to the river and drown her, just as he had done to her family.

“People won't believe I went boating, Harold,” she said.

Margaret cursed. “She needs more of the drug, Papa. She understood you far too quickly.”

“It's fine, Margaret,” Harold reassured his daughter, then patted Ella on the head. “They'll believe a poor, mad girl would throw herself in the river thinking she could be with the family she had lost. Ah, yes, poor little girl just couldn't bear their loss any longer; she missed them so much.”

The man carrying her stepped outside and Ella saw Harold's ostentatious carriage waiting at the foot of the brick steps. She thought about screaming, but doubted she could get that much power behind her voice. She also doubted it would do much good. Harold had made sure that everyone thought she was mad. Screaming in the middle of the day as she was put into a carriage would simply make the neighbors shake their heads in pity.

“Aunt Louise,” she began.

“Can't help you this time,” Harold said.

“You can't really believe that she will let you get away with this.”

“Louise might work her way out of jail in the primitive land she now calls home, but she has no power in Philadelphia. Here she is just an embarrassment. People see her as a mad woman with no morals. They will believe anything I say against her. Hell, if she gets to be too much of a problem I might just give Margaret what she wants and kill the bitch. I could always blame it on her little pack of mongrels.”

Ella swayed as Harold's man set her on her feet by the carriage door. She could think of nothing to say and that infuriated her. Fear was a sour taste in the back of her throat, fear for herself and her aunt. That she could feel anything at all was proof that she was slowly crawling out from beneath the influence of the opium, but she was too concerned about her aunt to be pleased by that. Her recovery was not fast enough to do her any good anyway.

“Hello, Harold, Miss Margaret, Ella,” said a deep voice that caused Ella's heart to skip.

She slumped against the man who still kept a firm grip on her arm and looked at Harrigan. There was only a little flicker of the anger and pleasure she always felt when she saw him. His expression was cold, his grey eyes dark and hard. Something had made him very angry and she wished she could ask him what. Ella dared not hope that he had finally found out the truth about Harold. There was a small chance, however, that she could give him some hint of what was about to happen. If he had begun to believe in her, he might act on a clue and do something to help her. Even if he figured it out too late to save her, it could serve to warn Louise about the danger she was in.

Harrigan stared at Ella, and she smiled sweetly. She looked achingly lovely in her soft green gown, yet something was not right. There was glazed look in her eyes and the soft look on her face reminded him of the look on a witless child's face or a happy drunk's. Gone was the spirit and the wit that had always given her lovely face such life and character. Also missing was the anger he had expected and now knew he deserved.

He fought the urge to knock down the man holding Ella and take her away. She looked as if a part of her was missing, and that alarmed him. Harold and Margaret looked tense and were clearly not pleased to see him. The scene before him was telling him something, but he could not figure out what, and that infuriated him. Ella would tell him, but there was no chance of a private word with her.

“Hello, Mahoney,” Ella said, praying that her cloying sweetness would give him some hint that something was very wrong. “It's so nice to see you again.”

“I'm glad to see that you have sorted out your problems with your guardian,” he said, fighting to hide his uneasiness and act as if this was no more than some casual, polite meeting.

“Oh, Uncle Harold and I have spent many pleasant hours together. I have learned so much.”

“That's good to hear. A family should get along.”

“Yes, we are as close as the grave.”

Margaret laughed as she moved to take hold of Ella's free arm and try to urge her up the steps of the carriage. “What a strange choice of words.”

“You're going somewhere?” Harrigan asked.

“Dear Uncle Harold is taking me to see my family. He says that soon I won't miss them any more.”