Nigel waited for her on the stoop with a crushed piece of metal in his hand that had once been a telegraph bird. Westie looked at the broken bird. She should never have believed Doc Flannigan when he said he would wait an hour to tell Nigel about Alistair.
Westie dismounted and climbed the steps. Jezebel pushed her bucket head into Westie’s hand, forcing her affection. She scratched the beast dutifully in the spot behind the ear where she liked. Nigel watched her expectantly.
“Would you like to tell me why you weren’t in Sacramento with Isabelle as your note said, and how Alistair was shot in the face?” He asked the question as if he were asking about the weather, but Westie could see the emotion of that news lingering in the tremble of his lips.
It was an honest question, so she gave him an honest answer. “No.”
His eyes examined the dried blood covering her riding clothes. “Very well.”
She opened her mouth to counter his objections, but tilted her head when there was no resistance and closed her mouth again, happy not to disappoint him further.
He said, “I was hoping we could talk a bit.”
Talk. Nigel always wanted to talk. He knew a lot of words and he liked to use them: big ones, fancy ones, and some she was sure he made up.
“Later,” she said. When she saw the dubious look on his face, she added, “Promise.”
He nodded with a resigned smile and led her into the house, where she pulled the parasol from its leather scabbard and placed it in the stand by the door that held the other umbrellas.
Westie hesitated, eyes scanning the foyer, when she noticed that a black suede coat lined in purple silk, smaller and more expensive than Nigel would ever buy himself, hung on the rack next to the umbrella holder.
“Who’s here?” she asked.
Nigel’s jaw tensed. He tried to smile through it, though it looked more like the grimace of a man constipated with secrets. “James stopped by for a visit today. He wanted to look at some of my inventions.”
Westie wondered if James had been eavesdropping, for he walked into the room as soon as he heard his name.
“So good to see you again, Westie,” he said. Westie said nothing in return, only fussed with Jezebel, who had been particularly invasive in seeking her attention, nearly knocking her over. She tried to shoo the beast but failed. “How was your trip to the city?”
She thought about the wide, unseeing eyes of the dead leprechauns and the outlaw whose body she’d sliced in two like an anatomy lesson. Her body gave an involuntary shudder.
“Fine,” she said. “Where’s your family?”
Nigel gave her a stealthy shake of the head. She ignored him.
James shrugged. “Off spending money, I’m sure. I don’t really know and I don’t really care.” The piqued tone he used to speak of his family intrigued her, but not enough to ask why.
Jezebel’s behavior had gotten to where it could no longer be ignored. The chupacabra had nearly lifted Westie off the floor with her enormous head. When Jezebel started to tear the fabric of her shirt, Westie had had enough and pushed the beast away.
James leaned in as if he were going to whisper into her ear, then stepped away with a frown. “Is that blood on your clothes?”
“What?”
The entire hem of Westie’s shirt was crusted brown with old blood and swatches of dried skin.
“I reckon it is.” She tried, unsuccessfully, to hide some of the bigger patches of blood with her hands. “We, um, went hunting, caught us some rabbits . . . could you excuse me? I need to get some air.”
Once outside, she sat on the stoop, head tucked between her legs until the sickly feeling passed. When she lifted her head, James was sitting beside her. She held back the sigh waiting in her lungs.
“Are you feeling all right?” he asked.
“Fine. It’s a little stuffy in there, is all.”
“Maybe this will help.” He pulled a silver flask from his trouser pocket, offering it to her. “Scotch, single malt. Not that it matters. Still tastes like hot piss, but it gets the job done.”
Westie hesitated. Before drinking at the saloon, she’d gone two years without even a sip, and she’d managed without alcohol on the trip to the cabin. But that was before she’d killed a person, before Alistair was shot. Her resolve couldn’t take much more.
Just one drink to take the edge off, she told herself when she reached out and took the flask. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she tipped her head back, shivering as she felt the familiar burn.
James picked up a dried leaf on the porch. “I think I’m going to like it here in Rogue City,” he said.
“Why?” she asked, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve.