Deadly Vows (17 page)

“Hey.” He caught her face in his hand. “Why are you crying?”

And she gave up. She didn't even try to reply.

“Maggie,” Evan murmured, and pulled her into his arms.

Maggie held on, hard.

 

F
RANCESCA STARED OUT
the carriage window as Hart's coach continued west on Seventy-second Street, entering Central Park. They were nearly at the bridge spanning the lake. Within moments, she would be confronting her blackmailer. Very grimly, she faced Joel, but it was Bill Randall she was thinking about.

The last time she had encountered Randall, he had been vicious and cruel. He had locked her in his sister's bedroom, tying her ruthlessly to the bed there. She had managed to escape. When he had realized that, a violent encounter had ensued. Fortunately she'd had the winning hand—she'd struck him over the head with a fry pan.

He'd been hateful before she had exposed his sister as a murderess. With Mary incarcerated at Bellevue, his
mother serving a sentence at Blackwell's Island, she imagined he was even more hateful now. And she feared she was about to meet him on the bridge.

She tamped down her fear. She was going to get her portrait back!

She inhaled, opened her purse and stared at the two small pistols there. She took the one she had recently purchased and looked at Joel.

He started. “Is that a new gun?”

“It is. I realized some time ago that I had better have a substitute. And today, you will carry this one.”

His mouth dropped wide open. “I ain't never shot nuthin' or no one.”

“Don't worry—it isn't loaded.” It had seemed terribly irresponsible to give Joel a loaded gun. “But you are going to be my protection. I am assuming we are about to come face-to-face with Bill Randall—and he has never seen you. You can hide this under your shirt. Do not reveal it unless I am in trouble. He won't know the chambers are empty.”

He smiled at her. “I can strap it to my waist with my belt and pull my shirt over it,” he said, clearly excited.

She wondered if she should have told Hart the truth. He wouldn't be very pleased with her right now, either. But she had overcome Randall once before. Surely she could do so again.

She also had to consider that the blackmailer might not even be Randall. She might come face-to-face with Solange—whom she considered an even more dangerous adversary. “I am going to wait on the bridge with the valise for the blackmailer. But you will precede me, Joel. I want you to take that ball and play with it, about halfway across the bridge. When you see me make contact with our thief, pretend not to notice, but watch us with care. If
all goes well, I will exchange the valise for the portrait. If things go awry, come running with that gun.”

“Don't worry, Miz Cahill,” Joel said with arrogance. “We been in worse times before. We'll get the painting—and the buzzer.”

Francesca certainly hoped so. She turned to gaze out the window. The bridge was beautiful, pale gray stone spanning the lake, with a few pedestrians and carriages crossing it. Ducks and swans floated on the water, as did one small toy sailboat. She noticed two boys on the lake's edge on this side of the bridge—apparently they had launched the miniature sailboat.

Overhead, puffy cotton-candy clouds floated in an azure sky, the sun shining brightly. It was a perfect summer day.

With any luck, the nightmare of her missing portrait would be solved in a few more minutes.

She knocked on the ceiling of the coach and told Raoul to park. A moment later she and Joel alighted. The hansom that had been behind them now passed. Raoul waited for his instructions. “You can stay here,” Francesca told him. “I won't go more than halfway across the bridge. I do not know if the thug I am meeting will cause trouble or not.”

Raoul grunted. He was a big, dark man of Spanish descent who had served with Teddy Roosevelt in the Rough Riders in the war for Cuban independence. Francesca had not a doubt that Hart had already instructed him to keep a close eye on her. Before they had even become engaged, Hart had decided that Raoul would be a bodyguard of sorts for her.

She warmed in her chest, just a little. Hopefully, later that night, she and Hart would share a scotch together as she recounted the events of that afternoon. Hopefully, they would be celebrating the outcome.

She turned off her thoughts, glancing at the bridge. A single couple was crossing it now, as were two hansoms. She wondered if Randall—or Solange Marceaux—was in one of those cabs. She nodded at Joel.

He had his shirt out over the gun. A ball in his hand, Joel walked jauntily across the bridge, whistling. He began tossing the ball at the railing, and catching it as it bounced back.

One of the hansoms had stopped, quite near the midpoint of the bridge. Francesca's heart thundered. She picked up the heavy valise and smiled grimly at Raoul. He was expressionless. It occurred to her that she had never heard him say a single word.

She marched to the bridge and started up it. The couple glanced at her as they passed her, somewhat curiously. After all, she did not carry a parasol, wasn't wearing gloves and was toting a man's leather attaché case. She carried her purse—with her pistol—in her other hand.

Francesca paused not far from the hansom, glancing at it as she set the valise down. Joel was now some ten feet head of her, playing ball vigorously. He was truly a wonderful assistant.

She suddenly noticed that they were the only ones on the bridge. It was very odd. As she had that disturbing thought, the hansom door opened.

Francesca froze. But a pretty young woman got out and hurried to the railing, crying out in delight. She turned and said something in German, and another, older woman got out to join her.

Francesca's disappointment was acute. They were foreigners, clearly visiting the city and admiring the view.

She glanced around, but she and Joel remained the only ones on the bridge, other than the German tourists and the cabdriver. She turned to stare suspiciously at him,
but he was curled up in his seat, reading a news journal. Where was the blackmailer?

She was incredulous and frustrated, all at once. The two ladies returned to the cab, climbed in, and it drove off. Another carriage approached the bridge, along with a bicyclist. Francesca tensed, but a moment later, the carriage passed by her, unoccupied. She turned to stare intently at the oncoming bicycle.

A man was riding it. As the bicycle came closer, she saw that the rider was a man about Bill's age, but it wasn't Bill or anyone else that she knew. He looked like a laborer in his dark tweed trousers and cotton shirt. He even had a lunch pail strapped to the handlebars.

She sagged in disappointment. Francesca opened her purse and glanced at her pocket watch. She had been on the bridge for over twenty minutes. And as she wondered if the blackmail note had been a ruse, she looked up—the cyclist was veering toward her!

He meant to run her down.

Too late she realized she was about to be rammed. But instead, just as the front tire brushed her skirts, he jerked the handlebars and something was shoved into her hand. The impact was forceful enough to send her stumbling backward. She recovered her balance, her heart exploding, and glanced at the piece of paper she had reflexively grasped. Francesca opened it—and saw a rough charcoal sketch of her in the nude, clearly an imitation of her portrait.

She cried out, stuffing the paper in her purse, as Joel reached her side. “Are ye hurt?” he demanded. “He ran ye over on purpose!”

“We must get him!” she cried, about to chase after the cyclist, who had turned abruptly around and was pedaling as fast as he could back the way he had come. Then she saw the valise. She could hardly leave it.

“I'll get him,” Joel said and he broke into a run. But the cyclist was already a speck on the street ahead, on the west side of the bridge. Joel would never catch him now.

“Joel!” Francesca called. “Come back!”

Joel faltered and slowed. He halted, shaking his fist as the cyclist vanished from sight. Francesca felt like shaking her fist, too. Worse, she almost felt like crying.

“Goddamn it,” she said softly.

She felt Raoul come up behind her and she turned. “Can you take the valise for me?”

But Hart was standing behind her, not Raoul.

His expression was hard and grim. “Did you really think I would let you meet a blackmailer by yourself?”

She cried out incoherently.

He cupped her jaw. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” She began to tremble.

“Let me see the note.”

“You followed us?” She was incredulous, but she opened her purse and handed him the note.

“I followed you in a hansom, Francesca. Had you not been so preoccupied, you undoubtedly would have noticed.” She recalled a cab passing their coach when they had halted before the bridge.

“That was you?” she gasped.

“It most certainly was.” He looked at the sketch and darkened. “He is toying with you, Francesca. This is not about money, at least, not yet.”

“What does the thief want?” she cried in frustration. “Does he or she mean to torture me before destroying me?”

“It certainly seems that way.” He took her arm, signaling Joel, and guided her back to the coach. When they were all inside, Hart looked at Francesca. “May I assume that there is a blackmail note?”

Francesca hesitated. He was angry with her. And she hadn't told Hart about the visit to Blackwell's Island, either. Her tension escalated. “Yes, you may.” She bit her lip. “Why did you follow me today, Calder?”

He eyed her. “You made it clear that you were not going to tell Rick about the blackmail threat. I would never let you meet a dangerous rough by yourself.”

She'd had Raoul as protection, but she decided not to remark on that. “I am glad you cared enough to follow me, but as you can see, it was all for naught.” She trembled, opened her purse and handed him the blackmail note. “I am so very disappointed.”

“You were almost run over by the cyclist,” he said sharply. He stared at the envelope with the word URGENT written on it in bold block letters. “We will give this to that fel low at headquarters, the one who is so brilliant at crime analysis.”

“Heinreich,” she supplied.

“What aren't you telling me?” He handed the note back to her.

She wished she did not have to tell him that their number-one suspect was his half brother. “As planned, Rick and I went to see Henrietta Randall today.” He became very still and watchful. She said, “Bill Randall was in the city on Saturday. He visited his mother at the Blackwell's Workhouse at ten in the morning. Henrietta let that slip and we confirmed that he signed in the visitors' log.”

Hart finally said, “So my damn brother is behind the theft of the portrait.”

“Perhaps. We have requested the logs for April. They are in storage.”

“The university is closed for the summer. If his roommates are not traveling, we shall certainly find them, in order to interview them another time.”

He sat facing her in the rear-facing seat. She reached
out to touch his knee. “There is a chance his alibi is the truth, and his being here on Saturday is a mere coincidence.”

“You do not believe that.”

“No, I do not.”

They exchanged a long look. Very softly, Hart said, “If Bill stole that portrait—if he is the one who has put us through hell, if he is the one who thinks to destroy us—I am going to kill him.”

Francesca cringed and looked at Joel, who sat beside her, listening raptly to their every word. “You do not mean that!” She faced Joel. “He was speaking figuratively, Joel, not literally. He did not mean it.”

“He meant it,” Joel said. “But that's okay. My lips are sealed.”

Francesca groaned as Hart called to Raoul, “Fifty-seventh and Lexington, Raoul—the old Randall residence!” He gave her a black look.

“Do not even think of blaming yourself for any of this,” she cried.

“And who should I blame? Sarah, for painting the portrait? You, for agreeing to it? Mrs. Channing, for failing to lock all her doors?”

“Yes and yes and yes!” she cried.

He suddenly reached across the small space separating them and seized her hand. Their knees bumped. “I despise it when you place yourself in danger. And I am even unhappier when I place you in danger.” He released her, his eyes ablaze.

How would they ever get through his belief that he was at fault for all that had happened? It might have been different—easier—if he hadn't come to this conclusion on so many previous occasions. She said somewhat lamely, “We are getting closer to the thief.”

“No, he is getting closer to us.”

She turned to look out the window, realizing that the day wasn't going to have the happy ending she had so hoped for. Then she glanced at Hart, acutely aware of his presence in the back of the coach. He filled up the large space, making it seem small and tight. He would turn her away that night, too, she thought dismally. It was as if the thief wanted to permanently estrange them—and was succeeding.

She looked at Hart directly. “We should speak to Daniel Moore after we search the Randall home. Joel has learned that he was at the gallery Saturday morning with another man. And someone did lock it up after I left Saturday afternoon—unless breaking that glass was a ruse.”

“And the plot thickens.”

“Moore is involved in my entrapment.”

“Obviously, but he isn't our thief—and he isn't our blackmailer. If he knew where the portrait was, we would have it by now. He is desperate for funds, in spite of the deposit he recently made into his savings at the East River Savings Bank.”

Francesca sat up straighter.

“I checked out his finances. He is behind on both leases, to the gallery and his Broadway flat. But he deposited a thousand dollars into that savings account on this last Thursday.”