“No!” She couldn’t cause a scene. They’d see her for sure. “But if you’d let me take your arm . . .”
“Of course.” He offered it, then laid his other hand over hers.
She turned her face, nearly burying it in his shoulder as they walked past the two men who would kill her, given the chance. Surely, they wouldn’t dare accost her if she was with Gideon. She didn’t even glance at them to see if they recognized her, but her heart hammered so loudly, she imagined they could hear it. Surely, Gideon Bates could hear it.
And then they were through the terminal and outside again, where a row of vehicles waited to carry passengers to their destinations.
David Vanderslice’s shout drew them to a motorized cab, and Elizabeth let Gideon Bates hand her inside and onto the seat beside Anna.
“Oh, Elizabeth, I’m so glad you’re coming with us.”
“You’re right. I do need to rest before I try to go home,” she said as Gideon and David took their seats up front with the driver. She’d go to the hotel with them for the night. Maybe she’d even travel to New York with them. She’d be safe from Thornton’s men if she wasn’t alone.
“So tell us, Gideon,” Mrs. Bates said. “How were you able to get Whittaker to release us?”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it at all,” he called back to them. “It was David and an old friend of ours.”
“What friend is that?” Anna asked.
“You won’t believe it,” David said. “I hardly believe it myself, come to that. It’s Marjorie’s husband, Oscar Thornton.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Oscar thornton?
Elizabeth’s whole body went numb. She couldn’t have heard that right.
“That’s an unkind joke, David,” Mrs. Bates said.
“It’s not a joke, Mother,” Gideon said. “Thornton found out you and Anna had been arrested, and he offered his help. Honestly, I don’t think you’d be free if he hadn’t.”
“What on earth could Oscar do that you couldn’t?” Mrs. Bates asked. Elizabeth had never seen her so angry, not in all the time they’d been mistreated and abused at the workhouse. “And how did he find out we were arrested in the first place?”
“I’m afraid I told him,” David said. “He came to me with a business proposition and—”
“What kind of business proposition? I hope you aren’t planning to get involved with him.”
“Mother, please, don’t upset yourself,” Gideon said.
“I’m not upsetting myself. Oscar Thornton is upsetting me. How dare he approach any of us after the way he treated Marjorie?” Mrs. Bates said. “And then he expects David to help him in some business arrangement?”
“I have no intention of it,” David assured her. “I’m afraid I used Anna’s situation as an excuse to avoid having to turn him down directly, though, and then he offered his assistance. When it seemed as if he really could help, I had to listen.”
“And he really did assist us,” Gideon said.
“In what way?” Mrs. Bates asked skeptically.
“He sent his bodyguards out to find a deputy to serve Warden Whittaker with the writ to force him into court today,” Gideon said.
“Gideon and Mr. O’Brien—he’s the attorney for the Woman’s Party—had been trying to find a deputy for days, but they were all hiding,” David added.
“What do you mean they were hiding?” Mrs. Bates asked.
Elizabeth’s head pounded as she tried to follow the conversation and make sense of it at the same time. David and Gideon explained how President Wilson or someone had hidden the deputies so they could keep the women in prison, which seemed very strange to Elizabeth. How would the president hide deputies? But somehow Thornton and his thugs had outsmarted someone or other and saved them all. Mrs. Bates couldn’t believe it, but that was only because she didn’t know Thornton wasn’t trying to save her and Anna at all. Oh no. He was trying to get his fat hands on Betty Perkins. Elizabeth shuddered, remembering poor Jake out in the alley.
“I simply can’t believe this of Oscar,” Mrs. Bates said. “I actually saw him a few weeks ago. That first morning we were in Washington, I think. In the hotel dining room. I’m afraid I was terribly rude to him.”
Elizabeth looked over at her in surprise. She remembered that morning only too well. Mrs. Bates had been the woman who’d cut Thornton dead the day they dropped the leather. How could she not have known? She hadn’t seen the woman’s face, but still . . .
“He has apparently forgiven you,” David said.
“Or else he didn’t even notice you were rude,” Gideon added with a sly grin. “You’ve always believed he lacked genuine human feelings.”
Another thing Mrs. Bates and Elizabeth agreed on.
“I shall have to send him a note to thank him,” Anna said, her voice still a whispered croak from the forced feedings.
Mrs. Bates patted her hand. “I’m sure he’d appreciate that.”
Elizabeth was so addled, she couldn’t tell if Mrs. Bates was being sarcastic or not. “Who is this Oscar Thornton?” she managed to ask. What she really wanted to know was who Thornton was to them, so she’d know how he planned to use them to get to her.
“No one you need to worry about, dear,” Mrs. Bates said.
“He was married to our cousin Marjorie,” Gideon said.
“And he made her life miserable,” Mrs. Bates said.
Thornton had mentioned being married, of course. He’d even bragged that his late wife had come from an “old money” family. But who could have imagined the wife would be related to Mrs. Bates? “Did she divorce him?”
For an awkward moment no one spoke, and Elizabeth wondered if perhaps they found the mention of divorce too shocking to discuss in polite company. Then Gideon said, “Marjorie died.”
Mrs. Bates drew an unsteady breath. “They said it was an accident.” But plainly, she didn’t believe it.
Elizabeth didn’t believe it, either.
“Here we are,” David said with forced enthusiasm.
The cab had pulled up in front of the Willard Hotel. Elizabeth’s stomach lurched at the memory of her last visit here, when she’d seen Jake beaten bloody and fled in fear for her life. Where was Jake now? And would she ever see him again?
But she couldn’t think about that now. She was too exhausted to think about anything except getting out of the cab and somehow finding a place to lie down.
“We have a suite reserved,” Gideon was telling them. “David and I moved into it yesterday in hopes that we’d be bringing you ladies back here today. He and I will share one of the bedrooms, and you and Anna can take the other, Mother. We weren’t expecting Miss Miles, but I’m sure we can find a room for her—”
“Oh, Elizabeth, don’t leave me,” Anna begged, her eyes enormous in her drawn face. “She can stay with us, can’t she, Mrs. Bates?”
“If she doesn’t mind being a little crowded. We’d be happy to have you with us. You can help me take care of Anna, and I can look after both you girls,” she added with a smile.