CHAPTER

5

The toe of a boot nudged me awake.

I opened my eyes and saw a carpetbag lying deep beneath the bed, a clean strip of floor amid a thin layer of dust leading to it. My head was thick and heavy, memories hard to recover, but the telltale feel of opiates flowed through my body. Slowly, I remembered tossing and turning, and finding solace in the glass of whisky on the dresser. There, memories ended. Why I didn’t get back in bed, I couldn’t know.

Someone nudged me again. “Wake up.”

I lifted my head and a string of saliva dripped from the corner of my lax, numb mouth. I wiped it, roughly, having trouble controlling my arms, and sat up. The blanket covering me fell from my shoulders, revealing the fact that I had slept in my clothes. A man wearing an open-necked blue striped shirt with a tin star pinned on his leather vest looked down on me with a disgusted expression. His boots were muddy but his black hat was pristine, as was his gray handlebar mustache.

“You Laura Barclay?”

“Who?”

“It’s her, but you’re wasting your time, Sheriff,” Martha Mason said. “Look at her. She can’t hardly lift her hand, let alone a knife.”

“Where’s your sister?”

“I …” I glanced around the empty room, lifted myself up higher, and checked the bed. Disheveled and vacant. I slumped down. “I don’t know. Why?” Using the footboard, I pulled myself to my feet and leaned heavily against the canopy pole.

“You two had dinner with Cora Bayle last night,” the sheriff said.

“We did.”

“Things get a little heated?”

“Heated?”

“She’s no use to you, Sheriff Toomer,” Martha said.

“Why are you asking about Cora?” I asked.

“Someone killed that hatchet-faced redhead,” Martha said.

My brain felt like it was covered with heavy brocade drapes. “I’ve never killed anyone with a hatchet.” My brows furrowed. A bounty hunter was killed with a hatchet, but I didn’t wield it. Did I?

Bile rose in my throat. I swallowed and spoke with a thick voice. “You think I killed Cora with a hatchet?”

“See, Sheriff? She don’t know what the hell she’s talking about. Come on downstairs and we’ll find the sister.”

The sheriff held up his hand to silence Martha. “Cora was murdered on the train platform sometime last night.”

“How horrible. Poor thing.”

“Heard you threatened to kill her last night,” the sheriff said.

My mind sharpened and cleared in an instant. “I did no such thing. I would never threaten someone like that. Besides, do I look capable of killing anyone?” I hoped I looked as poorly as I felt. If Sheriff Toomer’s evaluation of me was any indication, I did. Relief surged through me like a drink of cold water. “How did she die?”

“Stabbed,” Toomer said. “In the throat.”

“A messy business.” I held out my arms. My hands and sleeves were clean.

“How do you know?” Toomer said.

“I am …” A doctor. I smiled thinly. “I was a nurse in the war. I know how neck wounds bleed.”

“What side?” Toomer’s ice-blue eyes bored into me. He was still fighting the war.

“Confederacy.”

He nodded slowly, suspecting my lie, no doubt, but not able to prove it. Rosemond breezed through the door. I sat on the bed, exhausted from trying to be strong.

Rosemond wore my laundered dress, her bosom straining against the bodice.

“Laura? What’s going on?” She noted the tin star pinned on the man’s vest. “Sheriff?”

“You Rosemond Barclay?”

“Yes.”

“She your sister?”

“Yes. What’s the meaning of this?”

“You two were the last people to talk to Cora Bayle last night. After she left you she was murdered on the train platform. Stabbed in the neck.”

“I suppose we weren’t the last to talk to her.” Sheriff Toomer furrowed his brows. “Her murderer would have been,” Rosemond clarified. “What kind of town is this? I heard a whore was killed last week as well, correct?”

Toomer’s eyes narrowed. “How did you hear that?”

“The town is talking of little else. Frankly, I’m glad to be leaving. Grand Island, Nebraska, doesn’t seem safe for a woman, does it?” A train whistle sounded in the distance. “Is that the east train or the west?”

“East. The westbound train is readying to leave.”

“We should hurry, sister.” Rosemond held out her hand to me.

“Martha said Miss Bayle received a note during dinner?” the sheriff said.

“She did. Looked like a masculine hand. From her killer, no doubt. I don’t suppose you found the note on her person?”

Toomer’s ice-blue eyes fell on me. There was more than one note on Cora’s person. He knew who I was from the letter I’d given Cora.

I closed my eyes, tilted my head back, and inhaled, at peace. It was over. No more running. No more being manipulated by people like Rosemond, or used as a pawn by men like Cotter Black. No more looking over my shoulder and worrying if the man walking behind me was a Pinkerton, finally come to track me down. I was going home. Back to New York, to face whatever might come. I thought of Kindle. Maybe if I cooperated, I could convince the sheriff to take me to him, to say good-bye.

“We found nothing on her at all,” Toomer said. I opened my eyes, which went automatically to the bed, underneath which sat a carpetbag. Cora Bayle’s.

“I told you you were wasting your time here,” Martha said. “You oughta be talking to Bullock. He gave me the note.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” Sheriff Toomer said.

“Didn’t I?”

“You must excuse us, Sheriff, or we’ll miss our train,” Rosemond said.

“Thank you, ladies,” the sheriff said, touching his hat.

Martha shut the door behind him. Rosemond dropped to her knees and pulled the carpetbag from beneath the bed. She pulled my mother’s necklace from it and held it out to Martha, whose eyes lit up.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, standing.

Rosemond glared at me but didn’t answer. She kept hold of the necklace. “What did you do with the dress?”

“Burned it in the stove.”

“You sure it’s gone?”

“It’s ashes. I made sure.”

“This is worth the reward for my sister, at least. You get out of town. East, far away from us and Grand Island.” Rosemond released the necklace.

“With pleasure.” Martha left, but instead of heading to the main stairs, she turned toward the back stairs and was gone.

Rosemond picked up Cora’s carpetbag. “Let’s go.”

“You killed Cora,” I whispered. “Why?”

“She was a threat to us.” She shoved her free hand into my chest. I looked down and saw the letter I gave Cora twisted in Rosemond’s fist and streaked with dried blood. “What were you thinking, giving her this letter? Did it not occur to you she would read it?”

“Of course not. I didn’t know she recognized me when I gave it to her. Anyway, you said she wasn’t the type to turn me in.”

“I lied. Everyone’s the type to fucking turn you in. Don’t you get that yet?” She shoved me away and went to the dresser. She lit the oil lamp and set the letter on fire. It curled and smoked, destroying my grand idea to contact Mary Kindle. A grand idea that had left an innocent woman dead.

Rosemond dropped the letter into the ceramic water basin and said, “I went to meet Cora last night to give her the necklace and buy her silence. Imagine my surprise when she waved the letter in my face and refused. Without the letter, we could have argued you’re not the same person because you do look like hell, Laura. But, thanks to you, that option was gone.”

“I thought you’d kidnapped me. You hadn’t bothered to tell me where we were going or anything at all.”

“You’ve been high as a kite. Hell, you could barely talk a day ago, let alone lift a fork to your mouth.” Rosemond stuck her finger in my face. “No more dope. If you hadn’t called out for Kindle on the street, Cora would be alive and we’d have your mother’s necklace, and don’t you forget it. You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“You don’t care if I die. You just want to use me for your own means.”

“You’re goddamn right I do. Don’t you ever go behind my back again or I guarantee you will never see William Kindle again.”