27

She looks so normal.” A muffled, unfamiliar feminine voice tickled the periphery of Grace’s consciousness.

Grace struggled to open her eyes, but her lashes seemed to weigh a hundred pounds each. Something hazy tugged at her memory. Like a dream, it dodged her grasp as wakefulness pulled her in the opposite direction. She considered surrendering to sleep in order to chase the elusive dream, but in the center of the fog filling her mind, one small pebble of certainty refused to blow away in the mist.

Danger.

She was in danger. She had to wake. Had to fight. Escape.

“She doesn’t look mad, but she must be if she drowned her own child.”

A child? Was it a child who was in danger? Grace needed to shake off this unnatural lethargy. Now. She tried again to lift her eyelids and managed the tiniest slit.

“Will she hang, do you think?” A dark-haired woman in a black dress stood a few feet away, sniffing her disapproval. Only a touch of white lace at her collar and cuffs softened the severity of her appearance—that and the flirtatious smile she aimed at the man beside her between sniffs. The smile vanished, however, as she leaned forward and scowled at Grace. “She should hang, if you ask me, mad or not. Any mother who would kill her own child deserves to die.”

Grace tried to shout a denial, but all that escaped her raspy throat was a quiet moan. The woman jumped back at the sound.

“There’s nothing to fear, ma’am. Not while I’m around.”

That voice! That slick, arrogant, womanizing voice. Grace’s stomach clenched as memory raced back. Dunbar.

He strutted into Grace’s narrow field of vision with a cocksure smile on his face and swagger emanating from every pore. The woman gazed up at him hungrily, as if he were a slice of chocolate cake with buttercream icing.

Which was odd since there was a heavy odor of—Grace sniffed—manure hanging about the place. She pried her lids open another smidgen, careful not to moan again and draw unwanted attention.

“I’ll make sure no harm comes to you or your father,” Dunbar assured the woman. “But as a precaution, when you bring dinner out later, just leave it on the ground outside the door and knock to let me know it’s ready. She’ll be awake by then, and I don’t want her to frighten you.” He stepped closer to the woman and reached out to cup her cheek. “When the madness comes upon her, she can chill the bones with her screams.”

The woman shivered and leaned closer to him. The deceitful detective wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “If you happen to hear strange noises, just ignore them, darlin’. I do my best to keep her calm, but I can’t keep her sedated all the time. The doctor warned that too much laudanum can be dangerous, and while her destiny lies either at the end of a rope or in a locked room at an asylum somewhere, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I unintentionally hastened her demise. She’s still a child of God, even if Satan has broken her mind.”

“You’re such a good man, Detective Dunbar. This world needs more men like you.”

Grace’s stomach roiled, either as an effect of the heavy dose of laudanum Dunbar had poured down her throat or from the naïve woman’s syrupy adoration.

The two stood together by a dark wooden beam. Gardening implements and pieces of harness hung on the wall behind them. Straw littered the floor between them and where Grace lay on her side.

A barn. They must be in a barn. But where? On whose property?

Grace stared harder at the woman, trying to make out her features. Thin streaks of gray threaded through the brown bun pulled tightly at her nape. Her face showed a few lines but no discernable wrinkles. Not a young woman, but not terribly old, either. Yet Dunbar mentioned a father, not a husband. So a spinster? A widow?

Whoever she was, she was ripe for Dunbar’s picking. And since the father was not the one seeing to the Pinkerton and his prisoner’s comfort, Grace concluded he was probably infirm or, at the very least, uninterested in the people taking shelter beneath his roof.

Dunbar had mentioned dinner, so it must still be daytime. Grace strained to hear noises from outside the walls. Anything to help her piece together where she was. People. Horses. Wagons. A train whistle.

Nothing.

So they weren’t in a town, which made sense. He’d not want to move too far from Harper’s Station if he believed she’d hidden the documents there.

The fog continued receding from Grace’s brain, and her eyelids felt lighter, but she didn’t open them further. Better for Dunbar to believe she remained insensate. What she did do was rock forward very gently. He’d laid her down on her right side, and her derringer was strapped to her right thigh. When she moved, she felt the bruising from lying atop the hard metal. Thank God! Dunbar hadn’t found the weapon.

She gently tested her arms. Her left arm refused to budge. She glanced away from her captor to examine her hands. Rope bound her wrists. She wiggled her fingers and silently breathed a sigh of relief when they moved on command.

“You get on back to your father, now, Irene,” Dunbar drawled. “And be sure to thank him again for his hospitality. My horse couldn’t continue on much longer with the double load. I’ll try not to inconvenience you for long.”

Irene smiled. “It’s no inconvenience, I assure you. Father and I are glad to aid an officer of the law. Besides, you paid well above what lodging and food would require.”

Dunbar dipped his chin and doffed his hat. “The Pinkertons thank you for your gracious assistance, ma’am. But I do have one request. You must not tell anyone of our presence here, for your own safety. The woman’s brother insists she is innocent despite all evidence to the contrary and has attempted to cut me down on more than one occasion in a misguided effort to rescue his sister.”

Irene gasped, her gaze raking the detective from head to toe. “You’re not injured, I hope?”

The cocky grin reemerged. “No, ma’am. The fellow’s a telegraph operator. Worthless with a gun. Outwitting him was no hardship, but I’d hate for you or your father to be caught in the crossfire should he somehow track us down.”

“I’ll not say a word,” Irene vowed, “and I’ll ensure that Father keeps quiet as well.”

“You’re a fine woman, Irene Gladstone. God surely blessed me when he brought me to your door.”

Irene Gladstone. Grace filed the name away even as she cringed at the blasphemy of her abductor claiming God’s guidance. The scripture was true indeed about Satan masquerading as an angel of light.

However, as soon as the door closed behind the starry-eyed Miss Gladstone, the demon showed his true colors.

“You can stop pretending to be asleep, Grace.” Dunbar stalked across the dusty floor and leaned his face close to hers. “Now that we have a little privacy, we can get down to business.”

Rough arms jerked her into a sitting position. The straw beneath her shifted, and her head spun at the sudden movement.

“I don’t know where the documents are!” Grace hunched forward, desperate to stop her stomach from revolting. The effects of the laudanum might be clearing from her mind, but they lingered in her belly. Not that she would mind spewing what little was left of her breakfast all over the man in front of her, but she’d rather not cover herself with it in the process.

“Now, Grace.” Dunbar dragged a milking stool over to where she sat and planted himself on its seat directly in front of her. Then he winked at her as if this were some kind of game. “I like you, sweetheart. I really do. Not many people are clever enough to fool me, but you managed. At least for a while. I can appreciate that. Respect it even.” He smiled as he paid her the ridiculous compliment, leaning forward to rest his forearm on his knee. “But Chauncey is paying me good money to retrieve those papers, and if he loses his fortune . . . well, I’ll be losing mine as well, won’t I? Can’t have that.”

Grace glared at him.

He chuckled. “Still got your spunk, I see. Well, that won’t last long.” He flattened his palms against his thighs and pushed to a standing position. Then he strode over to her, grabbed her bound wrists, and yanked her to her feet.

“Let me go!” She struggled against his grip as he pulled her toward the wall, but he paid her as much heed as a buffalo would a fly. So she screamed, loud and long.

Dunbar shot her an impatient glance, then spun her around and shoved her against the wall, pinning her arms above her head with one hand. “No one’s going to come, Grace. They think you’re deranged, remember?”

She did. She remembered how Dunbar had told Irene to ignore any screams she heard, which meant he expected her to scream. Because he was going to hurt her.

The dull sense of danger that had weighed on her since he’d barged into her office that morning sharpened into a fine point, swiftly honed by the terrifying images springing to mind of blood and bruises and death.

Dear heavens. What was he going to do to her?

Her fear must have pleased him, for he smiled, his cold eyes crinkling at the corners. “Now you’re starting to understand, my dear.” He ran a finger along the edge of her face in a calculated caress that made her weak stomach lurch. She jerked her head away from the touch, but her defiance failed to deter him. His hand cupped the inside of her exposed upper right arm where it bent near her ear and slid upwards, straightening her arms overhead, the rough wood of the wall catching on her sleeves. By the time his left hand met the right at the rope around her wrists, her arms were fully extended.

“Here we go.” And with a flex of his biceps, he lifted her slightly to the right and snagged her bindings on a vacant hook. He stepped back to inspect his handiwork and gave a nod of approval.

Her feet still touched the floor—barely—and the wall offered a bit of support, but the hook kept her arms immobilized.

So much for reaching her derringer.

“Now, Miss Mallory, let’s get down to business, shall we?” He stripped out of his coat, hung it neatly on a second hook about two feet to her left, then rolled up his sleeves.

While he fiddled with his clothes, Grace fiddled with her ropes. She raised up on her tiptoes to try to unhook herself, but her arms were already too extended. The inch she gained made no difference. She tugged downward, testing the strength of the hook, but it was anchored to the wall. It didn’t so much as wiggle.

“Writhing around like that will only tire you, Grace. If you want down, all you have to do is answer my question. Where are the documents?”

She ceased her struggling, realizing he was right. Even if she somehow managed to get herself free of the hook, she’d not get any farther, not with him less than three feet away. “I already told you that I don’t know. Nothing has changed.” She eyed him warily. “Torturing me won’t work, because I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

His hand flew up to cover his heart, and he staggered back a mocking step. “You wound me, Grace. Torture? How uncivilized. I’m a businessman, not a monster. We’re simply here to negotiate a deal. You have the books—the real books—that your father removed from my employer’s library. I wish to acquire them.”

He extracted a very long, very pointed hunting knife from a sheath at his belt. He stepped close to her, lifted the blade between their faces, and ran his thumb along the sharpened edge. Then his left hand came toward her face. She cringed, tried to pull away, but he didn’t touch her skin. Instead he captured a piece of hair that had fallen free of its pins. He stretched the tress out in front of her, lifted the knife, and sliced off a lock with a single twist of his wrist. He held the severed hair between his thumb and forefinger, then rubbed it until it scattered strand by strand onto the floor.

He lifted his icy gaze to hers, that smug smile still curving his lips. “You’ll give me what I want, Grace. There’s no question about that. All we have left to haggle over is the price to be paid.” He lifted the knife again, examined the blade, then pointed the tip at the tender spot beneath her chin.

Grace’s pulse thundered in her veins. She lifted her chin away from the sharp point and blinked terrified tears from her eyes. He couldn’t kill her, not if he wanted the information she held. Yet as a warm droplet of what could only be blood ran slowly down the front of her throat, she found little comfort in that logic.

“The price is up to you, sweetheart,” her captor taunted, his grip on the blade steady. Inescapable. “The longer you hold out, the higher the cost.”