CHAPTER

32

My God. What happened to your hair?”

Camille King was beautiful. Brilliant. My relief at hearing her sarcastic comment, seeing that perfectly plucked eyebrow rise in amusement at my expense, was the closest to home I’d felt since I’d stepped off the train at Grand Central Depot. I fell into her arms and hugged her so tightly she coughed.

She returned my embrace. “I missed you, too, Katie,” she whispered. “Who is this?”

I could tell from the timbre of her voice she’d seen Kindle. I held her at arm’s length. “Behave. He’s my husband.” Camille looked Kindle up and down with clear appreciation, which thrilled me. I would never admit it to Kindle, but I loved to see admiration in other women’s eyes when they saw him. “Stop staring or his ego will grow to alarming proportions.”

Kindle’s expression was stoic, but I knew he was reveling in Camille’s attention. I pointed at him. “Stop it.”

He raised his hands. “I’m merely standing here.”

Camille put her hand through my arm and led me upstairs. She leaned in and said, “I suppose your flight wasn’t all bad.”

“He’s the only good thing to come of it.” I squeezed her arm. “I have so much to tell you.”

“Yes, you do.”

She led everyone into her drawing room, ordered coffee from a servant girl, and closed the door behind her. Hazel Dockery’s head was on a swivel, her eyes as wide as saucers. “So this is what a brothel looks like? I’ve always wondered.”

Who is this? Camille’s expression said.

“Hazel Dockery, Camille King.”

Hazel held out her hand. “Thank you so much for facilitating this.”

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Camille asked me.

“It has to.”

There were footsteps on the stairs and Bertram Langton walked into the room. He didn’t look nearly as surprised by the inside of a brothel as Hazel had. “Camille, this is Bertram Langton. George’s father.”

She held out her hand. “Pleasure to meet you.” The clock on the wall chimed. “This way. Kline will be here soon.”

She led me and Langton out of the room. We passed Henry at the door. “Party’s in there,” Camille said. “Be a dear and make me a drink.”

Henry ran his hat through his fingers and nodded. “Will do.”

We went up two more flights of stairs until we were in the attics. She opened the door to a sloped roof room with a dormer in the middle of the back wall. Two single brass beds with white blankets were shoved against the wall, with a bedside table between them beneath the dormer. “The maids’ room,” Camille said. “Didn’t want to give James the wrong idea.” She opened the closet door and said to Kindle and Langton, “There’s only room for one of you in the closet.”

“Mr. Langton,” I said.

Kindle looked as if he wanted to object, but he didn’t. He knew the only way for this to work was for Bertram Langton to be the witness. Kindle kissed me on the cheek, whispered, “I love you. Good luck,” in my ear, and left.

When Kindle was gone, Camille said, “When this is over, we’re going to have a long talk over multiple bottles of wine.”

I nodded. “It’s a date.”

Camille glanced from me to Bertram Langton and left. Langton opened the closet door wider and placed his cane and hat inside. The room was plain, lending nothing interesting to note for polite conversation. I set my carpetbag on the bed, placed my hand over my stomach, and took a few deep breaths.

“I almost feel I should reintroduce myself,” Langton said. “You look quite different as a woman.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“As it was intended. Your indigent hospital was part of your masquerade?”

“Yes.”

He studied me as if trying to make his mind up. “Maybe it doesn’t have to be.” He stepped forward. “I realize now that I failed George. Trying to make him into someone he wasn’t.” Langton inhaled. “I can’t change what happened, but maybe I can do something good in his name. Something he would have done if he lived.”

“I think that would be a lovely tribute to him.”

Langton nodded and looked away.

There was a knock on the door and Camille’s maid poked her head in and said, “He’s here.” She closed the door and Langton moved to the closet.

“There isn’t a handle on the inside,” he said, panic filling his eyes.

“We will leave it slightly ajar.”

He nodded and stepped back into the shadows of the closet. I made sure the closet door didn’t click and sat on one of the beds. I took my gun out of Cora Bayle’s carpetbag and slid it beneath the pillow. My heart raced as I wiped my damp palms on the blanket.

The door opened, banging against the closet. Everything about James’s appearance said he was a man in control—his clothes were impeccable, his shoes highly polished, not a hair out of place, his sideburns expertly groomed—except his eyes, wild with astonishment and something else. Desperation?

I stood, my legs wobbling beneath me.

“Katie?” It was the voice of my friend, the man who’d loved me, wanted to spend his life with me. The man who had my best interests at heart when he encouraged me to leave town. But his eyes gave him away.

I opened my arms. “James.” My voice cracked, thick with anger. James saw in it what he wanted and rushed to me. He took me in his arms.

“Oh, Katie, I’m so glad you’re safe. I’ve heard so many outlandish stories.” He held me at arm’s length. “You look … well.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

He touched my hair. “What’s the matter with your hair?”

“I’ve had to dress as a man.” An expression of distaste crossed James’s features. “I had little choice, James. It was either that or live my life in constant fear of being found out.”

“Why did you come back? It’s not safe for you here.”

“It’s not safe for me anywhere. You must have heard what I’ve been through.”

“The lies that hack Pope has been peddling?”

“They aren’t lies, James.”

James’s head jerked back as if he’d been struck.

“I came back to clear my name. I need your help.”

“Where is your husband? Was that one of Pope’s fabrications or the truth?”

“I’m married.”

“Where is he? Why can’t he help you?”

“He’s doing what he can, but we don’t have access to the people involved in George’s murder. You do.”

“The people involved in George’s …? You’re the—”

“I’m the what? Killer? You know I didn’t do it.”

James walked around me and looked out the dormer. He placed his hat on the pillow hiding my gun. “Yes, but if not you, then who?”

“That’s what I need you to help me find out. You have intimate access to the Langtons, or so I hear. Congratulations.”

James turned to me, his face reddening. “Thank you.” He tried to cover the stammer in his voice with a laugh. “I’m as surprised by it as you are.”

“You seem to have done well for yourself since I’ve been gone. Partner at the firm? Engagement to Beatrice Langton. And to think, you were delivering legal papers to George in the middle of the night a mere year ago. Astonishing, really.”

James’s shoulders straightened and his expression hardened. “Of course you would think so. You never appreciated my talents.”

“Didn’t I?”

“It was hard to tell. You were so wrapped up in your own.”

I walked to the window, forcing James to move out of the way. “Is that why you didn’t bother to defend me to the newspapers?”

“What?”

“I’ve read everything written about me in the New York newspapers and you, my oldest and best friend, the one person I was sure would defend me, are only mentioned as a spokesperson for the Langtons, if you’re mentioned at all.”

“I couldn’t very well … I identified a dead woman as you to give you the freedom you needed. Then you had to go and ruin it.”

“Yes, orchestrating my wagon train massacre was a mistake, I admit.”

“You didn’t have to save that man, turn yourself into some sort of heroine. Of course people would find out who you are if you’re performing surgery with General Sherman holding the Goddamn lantern.”

“How did you know about that?”

“It was in that ridiculous book.”

“So Pope isn’t a hack?”

“I’m sure he is, but when I read that I knew it was outlandish enough to be true.”

My shoulders slumped as the last flicker of hope that we were wrong about James’s role in Langton’s death dissipated. “I didn’t believe them, but they were right: you really do hate me,” I said, with astonishment.

“What? Why would you say that?”

“Why else would you frame me for Langton’s murder? Why did you kill him, James?”

“Me? I didn’t kill him.”

“Were you and Beatrice having an affair and you needed to get him out of the way?”

“No! Beatrice would never do that. She has no idea—”

“You killed her husband?”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“I left George in the library, alive and well. Were you watching, waiting for George to be alone so you could confront him about your relationship with Beatrice?”

“No—”

“Or did Beatrice kill him? Are you covering for your lover?”

“No!” James said, panicking. “She has no idea what happened.”

“But you do. And instead of telling the truth you decided to frame your oldest friend for the murder, knowing full well I would be railroaded by the system. You wanted me to be railroaded.”

“I saved you! You ruined it all!” James moved toward me. I inched toward the bed, leaning away from him, sliding my hand beneath the pillow. “Now you’re back and going to ruin everything I’ve worked for.”

“Everything you’ve been given for covering up who murdered George Langton.”

“Yes. And I’d do it all again.”

I pulled the gun from beneath the pillow, pulled back the hammer, and placed it in the middle of James’s forehead in one smooth, quick motion.

“Catherine,” James choked.

I pressed the barrel of the gun hard against his head, forcing him to retreat until his legs met the other bed and he fell backward. I kept the gun firm to stabilize my trembling arm. “Do you realize what you’ve done, James? Maureen is dead because you convinced me to run.”

“I’m sorry that happened—”

“Oh, you’re sorry? That makes it all better.” I grimaced and pushed the gun against his head again. “When you’re in your marriage bed making love to the wife you were given as a reward, I want you to think about me on the banks of the Canadian River being raped for hours by seven Indians. Every time you thrust into your loving, compliant wife, think of the Indian who raped me with my own gun, cocked and loaded.”

James closed his eyes, as if that would stem the tide of my words. Tears streamed out of his eyes. “No.”

“No? When you’re standing up in court, giving what I’m sure will be a brilliant argument, think of the frontier justice that lost my husband his eye.”

“You can’t blame me for that.”

“I blame you for everything,” I shouted. “Your decision was like a pebble being thrown in a pond; it rippled out and affected dozens and dozens of people. You ruined lives, and for what? A partnership in a law firm?”

“I had no idea.”

“Who killed George Langton?”

“No …”

“Tell me who killed him or I will pull the trigger. What will I have to lose? If I let you leave, you’ll turn me in and I’ll swing. If I’m going to be hanged, I want it to be for a murder I committed.”

James wept openly, and I saw him as he truly was for the first time: a weak, pathetic man.

“Tell me!”

“Sheridan! Sheridan killed him. I walked in and found him standing over George with the fireplace poker. It was his idea to use you as the scapegoat.”

“You just went along with it,” I said.

“He promised me so much.”

“His daughter.”

“No.” James shook his head. “That happened later. It’s real.”

The closet door creaked open and Bertram Langton stepped forward. I pulled the gun away from James’s head and his placating, begging expression morphed to one of confusion, then into anger. He turned to me. “You bitch. You set—”

I grabbed the gun by the barrel and swung the handle against his temple. James’s head jerked around and slammed against the wall. He slumped onto the bed, unconscious.

“Thank you,” Bertram Langton said. “I always knew Kline was a lizard but had no idea the depth of his sneakiness.”

Kindle and Camille walked into the room. Camille took in James’s unconscious form and her astonished gaze landed on me. “Remind me never to cross you.”

I grinned.

“Goddamn, you’re a fine woman, Laura Kindle,” Kindle said.

“Thank you,” I said, though my knees were shaking.

Langton turned to me. “Dr. Bennett.” He swallowed thickly. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’ll make sure the charges will be dropped against her,” Kindle said. He put his arm around my waist and I leaned into him to keep from collapsing.

“Kindle and I heard everything through the door, in case you try to change the story,” Camille said.

Langton looked taken aback. “I would never. It will be in the afternoon papers.”

Hazel and Henry pushed their way into the already crowded room.

“Were we right? Was it Sheridan?” Hazel said.

“Yes,” I said.

Langton looked slightly alarmed at the number of people.

“Yes, Mr. Langton, we all know and we will all make sure you hold to your promise of clearing Laura’s name,” Hazel said.

“Who’s Laura?”

I raised my hand. “Me. Laura Kindle.” Kindle pulled me closer and squeezed my waist. “Clear Catherine Bennett’s name so Laura Kindle can live in peace with her husband.”

James groaned from the bed.

“Want my boys to take him somewhere and teach him a lesson?” Camille asked.

“No,” I said. “I want him to go to the police.”

“I’ll take him,” Langton said. “If your men can take him downstairs to my carriage, Miss King?”

“Will do.” Camille left. Hazel and Henry followed.

Langton lingered for a moment, as if unsure what to do or say. Finally, he said, “When everything settles down, let’s discuss your idea for an indigent hospital.”

“Thank you.”

Langton nodded and left. Camille’s men came in, took James by the arms, and dragged him out of the room.

I collapsed into Kindle’s arms, sobbing and laughing at the same time. “It’s over.”

“It’s over.” He stroked my hair. “I thought you were going to kill him.”

I pointed the gun to the ceiling and pulled the trigger. Kindle flinched but was greeted with the sound of the small click of the hammer hitting an empty chamber. “No more death.”

“No more death.” Kindle smiled down on me. “What do we do now?”

The tension and fear I’d been living with for a year evaporated into the silent room, leaving a cautious peace in its place. I wouldn’t feel truly free until the world knew the truth, but it was a start. A new world unfurled before me, full of color, life, love, and possibilities.

I laughed and threw open my arms. “Whatever we want.”