Victoria Adams raised a hand. Mal nodded to her.
“Several of the buildings had to be repaired when we first arrived. Some were enlarged. I know Maybelle added a room onto the clinic, and I expanded the back storeroom of my shop. Emma made some modifications at the bank, too, so it could support the large steel safe she special-ordered from Chicago. If this man hid his ill-gotten gains here five years ago, we’ll only find them if we envision what the town looked like back then. I’m pretty sure Emma had to have the café’s chimney rebuilt before it was safe for occupancy. If the masons didn’t find anything suspicious, it makes sense that Flora wouldn’t be able to, either.”
“Good point, Miss Adams.” Mal lifted his gaze to the rest of the group. “How many of you were here when the colony first started?”
The aunts both raised their hands. As did Betty Cooper, Maybelle Curtis, Victoria Adams, and Stella Grimes from the boardinghouse.
Mal released his grip on the podium and leaned his forearms on it instead as his mind started processing the possibilities. “I doubt he would have hidden the money outside. If he had, he could have just slipped into town on a moonless night when everyone was asleep and retrieved it. So it has to be in one of the buildings. But which one?”
Betty thunked the stock of her shotgun against the floor. “It prob’ly ain’t the church, since he set the place on fire a while back. Wouldn’t be smart. Too much risk of the place burnin’ to the ground and leavin’ the payroll unprotected in the rubble.”
“Agreed.” Mal pressed his weight onto his elbows as he bent over the lectern. “Any other buildings we can eliminate?”
Grace Mallory slowly got to her feet at the back of the room. “There’s no stone in the telegraph office. There’s a single cast-iron stove used for heating. No hearth or chimney. The rest is made of wood.”
One of the seamstresses, Pauline, Mal thought, raised a timid hand. She glanced at the woman seated beside her then turned back toward the front. “Our house is the same. No chimney. Just a cookstove and a stovepipe. It was really more of a shanty when we first moved in.”
Her companion nodded emphatically. “All the smaller homes were. Only the larger, more established businesses have stonework.”
“All right,” Mal said, straightening. “Show of hands . . . Which buildings have some type of stone feature?”
Stella Grimes from the boardinghouse raised a hand. As did Betty Cooper, the aunts, and Tori Adams.
The aunts . . . the station house. The one building they knew for sure the outlaw had been inside. Mal’s heart thumped in a wild rhythm. Until he remembered that the muddy footprints they’d found had never approached the parlor hearth. Or any other stone feature in the house. Just the plaster wall in the basement where Angus had tacked his threatening note. Nothing but another scare tactic.
Mal cleared his throat and forced his mind back to a more logical, methodical plan. “I think we can eliminate Betty’s farm,” he said. “It’s isolated enough that Angus could have attacked whenever he wanted.” He looked to the aunts in the front row. “What about Emma’s bank?” He thought back to the few times he’d been inside the building. “I remember wooden floors in her office.”
“She paid a builder to reinforce the floors to ensure the interior room holding the safe would be supported,” Aunt Bertie said, “and reinforced the walls with brick covered in plaster. But before that, the building was as simple as most of the others.”
“So we have three main places to search. Porter . . .” Mal met the freighter’s gaze at the back of the room. “You’ll take the store. Tori, you and Lewis focus on packing up what you don’t want to leave behind while Porter examines your chimney and hearth. I’ll check out the boardinghouse, then move on to the Chandler home. Everyone else needs to pack their belongings and start heading out of town. We can’t take chances with Emma’s life. Angus is sure to be watching, and I want him to believe we are complying with his demands.”
Mal paced to the left side of the stage, too antsy to stay behind the podium any longer. “Grace is going to wire the sheriff’s office, and I sent Andrew to fetch additional support,” he said. “I pray Tabor or one of his deputies will be here by the time we find the gold and can help us set a trap. If not, we’ll find a way to manage on our own.”
Because there was no way he’d leave Emma alone with Angus come nightfall. If they didn’t find the gold by early afternoon, he’d have to abandon the plan and go after her without it. His chances of success would be greatly diminished, but now that he knew some of the outlaw’s tricks, he prayed he’d do a better job of tracking.
Prayed . . .