But the next thought to enter her mind had her struggling against Mal’s hold, desperate to do what she had just vowed not to. “What if he’s setting another fire?”
She had to get inside, stop whatever damage the fiend had planned. Everything her aunts owned was in that house. All the heirlooms they prized, their family heritage. Bertie’s needlework. Henry’s suffrage-tract collection. Things that could never be replaced. And the quilt! If it was destroyed, there’d be no hope of the sewing circle filling their quota in time.
Yet Mal refused to budge. His grip on her arm only tightened. “You run in there,” he growled, “you could get shot. Leave or die. Remember, Em? I’m not about to give him the chance to make good on that threat. Nothing in that house is worth your life.”
She hated that he was right. Hated that she was useless as day-old toast with the rifle she carried. Hated that she was a liability instead of an asset.
Hated that, the longer she argued with him, the greater the likelihood that the outlaws would escape.
She ceased her struggles. “Fine. I’ll stay.”
He eyed her skeptically.
“I promise. Now go.”
Mal had no choice but to trust her word. Thankfully, Emma was the trustworthy type. She hadn’t lied to him in all the years he’d known her, and he didn’t expect she’d start now. He prayed not, anyway.
“Keep the women back behind the church,” he instructed as he released his grip on her arm. “For all we know, he could have staked out a sniper position upstairs in the station house and is just waiting to start picking you all off as soon as you get within range. I’ll clear the building and let you know when it’s safe.”
Emma gave a sharp nod, then spun around and hurried back toward the growing crowd of females clustering along the edge of the church.
Mal headed the opposite way, not directly toward the station house, but veering into town. Someone had shot off a warning, and Mal’s money was on Porter. Find the freighter, and he’d find the information he needed to rout the outlaws.
But when he found Porter, the information the man shared was not at all what Malachi wished to hear.
“He’s gone,” Porter announced without preamble when Mal caught up to him out by the telegraph office. He was leading a limping Helios back toward the station-house barn. Porter looked none too steady himself. “Lit out right after I fired the signal shot. I tried to give chase, but the canny devil drove all the animals out of the corral. Took the main road, too, so picking out his tracks will be a nightmare unless you noticed something distinctive about the chestnut’s shoes the last time you went after the shooter.”
Mal slammed the flat of his hand against the plank siding of the telegraph office. He’d spent hours staring at tracks in the dirt and mud around the river. No nicks, chips, or identifying marks. The shoes had been easy enough to track in the countryside with no other hoofprints to compete for attention, but they’d be impossible to pick out on a well-traveled road.
He had one day to find the outlaws. One blessed day. And they’d slipped in and out of town right under his nose. For pity’s sake. He’d been in the barn not thirty minutes ago. They must have crept in the moment he left.
“One man or two?” Mal clipped out the question.
Porter answered just as abruptly. “One.”
“Stocky build or slight?”
“Stocky.”
Mal grunted. The leader, then. He’d figured as much since Porter had mentioned the chestnut.
Mal decided to head to the station house and assess the damage. Make sure the second man wasn’t lingering behind somewhere. Mal recalled Emma’s fears and started jogging toward the Chandler residence.
“I’m going to check out the house,” he called to Porter over his shoulder. “I’ll help you round up the stock when everything’s clear.”
The front door stood wide open, a casualty of the outlaw’s hurried exit. Mal ascended the porch, drew his revolver, and pressed his back against the wall just outside the door. With a quick turn of his head, he glanced into the front room, then jerked his head back. No bullets flew in his direction. He tried again, taking a longer look this time. No one in his line of sight.
Mal caught his breath and bounded into the parlor all at once, leading with his gun. He sensed no movement. Keeping his back against the wall, he scanned the room. A lamp lay overturned and busted on the floor, oil seeping into the wood, but nothing else looked disturbed. Nothing smelled like smoke, either, thank the Lord.
Keeping his weapon drawn, Mal worked through every room of the house, one by one. The kitchen and upstairs bedrooms seemed untouched. The only places he found evidence of the outlaw’s presence was in the parlor, hall, and basement. Dirty footsteps marred Bertie’s clean floors, but it was what adorned the basement wall that turned Mal’s blood to ice.