CHAPTER 23

Rachel stood, slowly and looking weak, but once upright she did not totter. She walked to the window and looked out into the rain.

“I want to leave here,” she said. “They’ve been good to me here, but I’m tired of being in this room. And I have a feeling that there is danger.… I’ve had dreams in which David Kevington comes here, and appears right in this room. And even though I run, he’s always there.”

Roxanne rose and joined her at the window. “That will not happen, Rachel. Alex and I are taking you away from here. You’ll go home with us.”

Rachel smiled. Roxanne smiled back, then looked out the window and lost the smile.

“Alex, he’s still there.”

“Who?”

“The man with the newspaper. It’s raining harder than before, but he’s still there.”

Gunnison went to the window and looked out. This time it wasn’t so easy to dismiss his wife’s concerns. The man did look absurdly out of place, seated in an inadequate shelter in a pouring rain, staring at a newspaper that was growing more sodden by the moment.

“We’ll take no chances,” Gunnison said. “We’ll leave here by a back way. And we’ll find a different cab. The question is, though, if Rachel is really strong enough.”

“I’m strong enough,” she said. “I’ll go now. Do you believe that man out there was sent by David Kevington?”

“Maybe so,” Gunnison said. “We believe that he might have been on the train that brought us here and followed us from the station. But we’ll shake him off. I’ll try to get the cooperation of the good sisters as well, should he come inquiring.”

Rachel withdrew and seemed to grow smaller and paler as she pondered the idea of being watched and pursued.

“How much do you have to pack?” Roxanne asked Rachel.

“What I have on and two dresses given to me by the hospital.”

“The cost of your treatment will be paid by the Illustrated American,” Gunnison said. “And we’ll keep watch over you until we can reunite you with Kenton, and—we hope—Victoria.”

*   *   *

The man in the shelter outside was named Morrisey, a name that had once garnered a lot of respect in the Davenport Agency for Detection Services, one of the leading detective agencies in the nation. A certain incident involving the disappearance of a key piece of evidence in a case—a small cache of jewels—had destroyed his career even as it enriched his pocketbook. A poorly played game of cards had made the enrichment short-lived, and from then on he had worked as an independent, contracting for whatever work he could find. It was unlikely that he’d ever again find the opportunity to get his hands on any money to compare to what he’d had so briefly, so he didn’t try. The comfort he’d taken in wealth for that one short and glorious period he now found in whiskey.

As he sat on the soaked bench under the leaky shelter, holding a soaked newspaper in his hand, he was looking more forward by the moment to the minute he could leave his position and head for the nearest saloon. Part of him was ready simply to desert his job, which at present was most uncomfortable. But the money the Englishman was paying made this too lucrative a hire. He’d stick it out, no matter how wet he got.

Morrisey, though, had some serious doubts about this assignment. The Englishman just might be loco, with his talk of the legendary Brady Kenton really being alive even though the Illustrated American itself had reported his death. Supposedly there was a chance that Alex Gunnison and his wife, whom Morrisey was hired to track, might lead him to Kenton.

It seemed unlikely. Kenton’s funeral had been a lavish and highly reported affair, visited by all kinds of dignitaries. Of course, there was the fact that Kenton had been cremated, so there was no body to be seen. And it was always possible that what had really been cremated was a good-sized dog or goat or something, with Kenton himself being alive and snickering while everyone wept over a bunch of animal ashes.

A more likely explanation was that the English doctor was simply crazy and his notion of a still-living Brady Kenton was a madman’s figment. What else could it be, considering that Dr. David Kevington also seemed to believe that Brady Kenton’s wife—who Kevington also apparently claimed as his own wife—was also still alive and with Kenton. It was absurd; everyone who knew anything about Brady Kenton knew that his wife had died in a train accident many years ago.

Madman or not, Kevington paid well. Morrisey would stick it out as long as he could and milk as big a fee as he could from the obsessive Englishman. And if by some miracle the good doctor’s wild notions proved to be correct, maybe he could deliver up Kenton to him as well. Pondering the size of the bonus that would generate was enough to make Morrisey’s mouth water.

Could it be that Brady Kenton himself was inside that hospital?

Morrisey vowed he wouldn’t let this job slip out of his hands. He’d almost gotten himself caught aboard the train when Gunnison’s wife saw him looking into their private car. From then on he’d been extremely cautious and somehow managed to evade being seen by them for the rest of the journey.

His newspaper was so soaked now that it looked foolish to keep pretending to read it. Morrisey tossed it aside and simply sat on the bench, staring at the hospital and trying to look like nothing more than a common pedestrian who’d taken shelter from the rain.

Time dragged by, the rain slowing, then building again, then slowing, but never fully stopping. The cab that had carried the Gunnisons, and which Morrisey had followed, came rolling around again, slowing, but the Gunnisons never came out. Ten minutes later the cabbie made another go-around. Again no Gunnisons.

Morrisey began to grow concerned. But he made himself wait another hour. Still the Gunnisons did not emerge.

The rain stopped and the sun even managed to break through over toward the west. Morrisey could wait no longer. He rose and went to the door.

Sister Anna answered, smiling at him.

“Pardon me,” Morrisey said, touching the brim of his hat and nodding a greeting. “I happened to be passing a couple of hours ago and thought I saw an old friend of mine, name of Gunnison, come in here with his wife. I had pressing business and couldn’t stop to be sure, but now I’m finished and thought I’d drop in and see if they might be here. It would be good to see old Alex again. He’s here visiting a friend or relative maybe?”

“Do come in, sir,” Sister Anna said. “I’ll go see if this gentleman you are looking for is here.”

“All right … but if he is, don’t tell him I’m out here looking for him. I’d like to surprise him myself, you see.” In fact, Morrisey planned to slip out the door again if Gunnison proved to still be in the hospital. The last thing he wanted was to actually run into the man.

“Very well. Do have a seat on our waiting bench. I’ll be back around to give you information.”

He sat down, picking up a newspaper that chanced to lie beside him. If Gunnison or his wife should appear around the corner, he’d make sure to have his face hidden in the paper, just in case Mrs. Gunnison had caught a clearer glimpse of him on the train than he thought she had.

Ten minutes passed and Sister Anna did not return. It dragged on to twenty minutes, then thirty, and finally Morrisey rose and walked farther into the hospital, where he encountered another nun.

“Pardon me, Sister, but have you seen Sister Anna in the last few minutes?”

“No, sir, but I can find her, if you wish.”

“Please do. She was to come give me some information about a man I saw entering the hospital, but it’s been some time now and she’s not done so.”

“Please be seated again. I’ll find her.”

He didn’t sit down but paced, restless and beginning to suspect something was up. Another ten minutes dragged by. He was about to plunge into the depths of the hospital and find Sister Anna on his own when she came around the corner.

She had no apologies for her tardiness. “I’m sorry, sir, but the man you are looking for isn’t here,” she reported.

“What? Where is he?”

“He and his wife departed, with one of our patients.”

“Patients … male or female?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but we make it a practice to release no information regarding our patients except through a formal inquiry system.”

“They couldn’t have left. I’d have seen them coming out the door.”

“You told me you were elsewhere on business. How could you see our door? But it doesn’t matter; they left by one of our side entrances.”

Morrisey swore bitterly, turned, and left the hospital on the run.