“Word is she ain’t quite right in the head, that she’ll likely give false names and make up some story. Gerald said getting kidnapped by the Rose Kid rattled her something fierce.”
“Then don’t bother interrogating. Just take her to Prescott and turn her over to her uncle. If it’s a mistake, you let her go then.”
“The money is good.”
“Damn right, it’s good. Even after giving Norman his ten percent for sending her our way. I’ll get the horses ready.”
One set of footsteps fades out, leaving the foyer, and the other gets louder as it moves down the hall.
I back away from the door, reaching for the Colt, only to remember I left it with the woman. The footsteps stop outside the door. I fly to the desk, my hands scattering papers and inkwells. The doorknob turns. My fingers close over the column of a wrought iron candlestick.
Parker grabs my shoulder, and I spin, swinging in defense.
He jerks his head away, trying to dodge the blow, and the candlestick connects with his temple. There’s a sickening, dull thunk, and he falls to the floor like a lead cannonball.
Then comes the blood, pooling beneath his head.
There’s too much of it.
The candlestick slips from my fingers and clatters to the floor. Bile scratches my throat. I stumble away, still staring at Parker as I wipe my mouth.
His chest isn’t moving. His eyes aren’t blinking. The blood seeps toward me, traveling along the grooves between the floorboards.
“Parker?” comes the woman’s voice.
I race from the office, where I collide with the woman, knocking her off her feet. Then I’m sprinting down the hallway, slowing only to grab the Colt from where it still sits on the desk, spilling into the midafternoon sun. I dart for the sorrel, my heels aching as the fresh blisters there burst. I’ve no sooner untangled the mare’s reins from the hitching post and stepped into the saddle than the woman hobbles into the street, yelling, “She killed Parker! She murdered him!” A pistol flashes in her hand.
I heel the horse and fly out of Banghart’s. When the first bullet screams, the sorrel nearly bucks me. My thighs and torso ache in protest as I use every muscle to stay in the saddle. With a firm hand on the reins, I manage to keep the mare headed straight, and after five additional shots miss me, there’s a brief lull. I glance over my shoulder.
Banghart’s is shrinking in the distance, and no one is following me.
Even still, I ride as hard and fast as I can manage, my heart never slowing its frantic beating in my chest. Shadows begin to stretch across the plains. The sun starts to sink toward the craggy land to my right. When I think I’m nearing the turnoff point, I slow and search along the rail until I spot my tiny marker.
I dismount to kick it over, scattering the stones. Then I’m back on the sorrel, turning her west and ascending the hill that leads to that faded, godforsaken trail I had no intention of traveling again.
Chapter Thirty-One
* * *
Reece
As dusk falls, the sound of approaching hooves startles the lot of us.
Kate’s just starting dinner and I’m stoking the fire, so it’s Jesse who grabs the Winchester and darts to the window, expecting the worst.
“It’s just Charlotte,” he says, sounding ’bout as puzzled as I feel.
It were a surprise to all of us when we woke to find Vaughn gone, but we all understood. Kate was even a little relieved. “Let her go home. She ain’t gonna find her way back, nor will she wanna.” And that’s why Vaughn’s reappearance don’t make a lick of sense.
I set the poker aside and push to my feet, following the Coltons out the door.
Vaughn draws rein near the stable and swings off the sorrel. I take one look at her and know something’s wrong. She’s wearing the same spooked look she had on for most of the time in the stagecoach, and her hands are trembling.
“We didn’t think you’d be coming back,” Jesse calls, ’parently unable to see the tension in her shoulders.
“Something’s wrong,” I say, shoving past them and jogging into the clearing. Vaughn’s wearing the beige dress borrrowed from Kate, and there’s blood on the skirt—dark, as though the material were dragged through a river of it—plus a spattering on her front.
“Oh my God. What happened?”
“I went to B-Banghart’s,” she says, her lip trembling ’bout as bad as her hands. “My uncle has a b-bounty on me. He’s said I’m not right in the head after being kidnapped by you and that he just wants me home.”
“You were recognized?”
She nods. “I thought I was hiring a gunslinger, but he was a bounty hunter, and instead of proposing a job for him, I had to . . .” She puts her hand to her mouth. There’s water building in her eyes, but she blinks it back. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I only meant to knock him out, but there was so much blood . . .”
“Were there witnesses?” Kate asks.
“A woman at the hotel,” Vaughn says. “I wasn’t followed.”
“If’n yer uncle’s bounty mentioned that I kidnapped you,” I say, thinking out loud, “it won’t matter that I let you go, that you came to Kate on yer own or went to Banghart’s solo, neither. The Rose Riders’ll hear yer name and my name and assume I’m holed up near Banghart’s too.”
“Jesus Christ, this ain’t what we needed,” Jesse says. “They’ll come searching. They’ll be crawling the valley.”
Vaughn starts scrubbing at the blood on her skirt, not bothering to look at him.
“We were supposed to take care of them boys on our own terms, but now we gotta do it while they’re looking for us!”
She scrubs harder.
“You might as well’ve advertised the whole thing!”
She works the material so hard, her hand blurs.
“Whitewashed a building and painted WE’RE HERE! Sent a telegraph saying—”
“Can you not do that?” I snap at Jesse. “Not now.”
His mouth hangs open, mid-sentence.
“It’s already done,” I insist. “And a lecture ain’t gonna change what happened.”
Kate gives Jesse a knowing look, as if to say I’m with Reece on this one. Then she squeezes Vaughn’s shoulder reassuringly. “I’ll boil some water for tea,” she says, and waddles for the house.
It’s quiet for a moment, the clearing silent ’cept for the grunting of the pigs over by the tank.
“I’m sorry,” Jesse finally says to Vaughn. “It’s just—it ain’t what we needed. More folk looking for us.”
“Lord Almighty, I get it!” Vaughn erupts. “I messed everything up! I get it, I get it, I get it!” She jogs away from us, heading for the tank.
“You shoulda stopped at sorry,” I tell Jesse.
“Kate says I never know when to bite my tongue.”
“She ain’t wrong.”
He runs a hand through his hair, frowning, then grabs the sorrel by the reins and leads her to the stable. I grab a blanket from one of the stalls before darting after Vaughn. She’s dropped to her knees in the shallow tank, scrubbing at the hem of her dress while she shivers.