Kissing Comfort (42 page)

“More?” he asked, taking it from her when she gasped. She nodded, and Bode brought another. Comfort finished the second glass with only a little less enthusiasm, but when he asked if she wanted more, she declined the offer and said she could wait for Tapper to bring tea. Bode set the empty glass on the table and came back to bed. She'd uncurled but moved so close to the edge that there was nowhere for him to sit.

Bode dragged a chair away from the table, spun it around, and sat. He laid his forearms across the back and rested his chin on top. “What finally awakened you?”

“I'm not sure, but I heard you and Mr. Stewart. I couldn't make out what either of you was saying.” She pressed her fingertips to the hollow of her throat and massaged. The ache was on the inside, but it helped just to do something. “It was kind of you to ask him to bring tea, but what did he want?”

“He wanted to be sure you were all right. Tapper was leaving watch on his way to his quarters. He heard you screaming.” Bode's grin was humorless. “He probably thought I was hurting you.”

Comfort closed her eyes. “Oh God,” she whispered. “I'm so sorry, Bode.”

“It's all right. You didn't do anything wrong.” He decided against telling her about the injury to his hand. If she saw the teeth marks tomorrow, he'd explain. Otherwise, she didn't have to know.

“But Mr. Stewart . . .”

“I told him it was a dream, and he'll see that you're fine when he returns.”

Comfort levered herself up to a partial recline and glanced sideways to where her nightstand would be if she were in her own bed.

“What is it?” asked Bode. “What are you looking for?”

“Hm? Oh, nothing. It's not important.”

Clearly it was. “Tell me.”

Comfort still hesitated. If his voice had been less gentle, she would have refused, but he spoke with rather more encouragement than command. “I was looking for my tin. At home, it would be at my bedside.” Self-conscious, her eyes darted away. “I like to hold it sometimes.”

Bode understood. She meant that she liked to hold it after a nightmare woke her. “One of the crew might have—” He stopped because she was shaking her head. “No, I don't suppose it would be the same, would it?”

“No.”

“Will you tell me about your dream this time?” he asked.

She had become accustomed to saying no to that question, and the word hovered on the tip of her tongue. She withheld it just long enough to change her mind. Bode was her husband; he should know.

Comfort sat up and edged backward until she could rest against the headboard. “It was different. I can't explain it, but the glove was part of it this time.”

“You mean the glove that you thought you saw?”

“Yes.” She smiled crookedly. “I know. It's confusing. The same men find me hiding in the rocks, and they're joined by a third. The third man is the one who tells them to let me be. His voice . . .” She shivered involuntarily and dragged the quilt up to the level of her breasts. “His voice is rough. Raspy, I suppose you'd say. I can't see his face, but his voice is like a signature to me, and when I hear it, my skin prickles. He takes a tin out of his pocket, opens it, and drops something into his mouth. That didn't happen this time. The other men told him they'd found a kid glove, not a kid, and he took it from me and then tossed it back. Usually it's the tin he tosses. That's how I came to be clutching Dr. Eli Kennedy's Comfort Lozenges when Newt and Tuck found me.”

Bode was quiet, taking it in. He wanted to ask her to repeat it, and this time tell him everything she remembered, but that could wait until later. He could hear the strain that speaking put on her voice. “Why do you scream?” he asked.

“They put the rocks back. Close me in. I'm afraid of the dark. They leave me, and I know they can hear me screaming.”

Bode had learned about the saloon cellar from some of the men. Small. Dark. Virtually airless. It was her nightmare all over again.

Comfort saw a muscle jump in Bode's jaw. His expression was grim. “What is it?” she asked.

He started to shrug and thought better of it. “The cellar,” he said. He heard the harsh rasp in his voice and wondered if she could distinguish it from the one she heard in her dream. “I was thinking about you in that cellar.”

“Mm.” He looked as if he was also thinking about revenge. She didn't know what to say to him. She wasn't capable of talking him out of it. Not yet. Perhaps never.

Bode lifted his head, straightened his back, and braced his arms momentarily as he blew out a short breath. Tapper Stewart couldn't arrive soon enough as far as he was concerned.

“Why do you suppose I dreamed about the glove?” Comfort asked. “I don't understand that at all.”

Bode didn't either. “I wish I could explain it.”

“I was so confused.” She suddenly recalled something she'd heard the third man say in her dream. “The third man, the one who told them to leave me?”

“Yes?”

“What he said was odd.” She closed her eyes, concentrating. “After he thanked the other men for finding his glove, he said, ‘I am cursed with an annoying inclination to lose one.' ”

Bode didn't understand, and his expression revealed as much.

“That gentleman at the opera house,” Comfort explained. “He said something very much like that to you. ‘I am cursed with an annoying tickle in my throat.' Don't you find it strange that I would more or less hear those words again in my dream?”

Bode found everything about her vivid dreaming strange, but he refrained from saying so. “It seems as if you're melding the experience at the opera house with what happened after the attack.”

“I wonder if I've done it before, perhaps without knowing. What if my dream has changed in small ways over the years and no longer bears any resemblance to the truth of that day?”

“Is that important?”

“I don't know. It's not as if I've ever seen the faces of the men who were talking over me, but now that you ask, I think that I really have allowed myself to believe that I would know them again in any circumstance.” She shook her head. “I
am
self-deluding.”

“That's hardly true.”

She snorted. “That's not the view from my porch.”

Chuckling, Bode rose from the chair to answer Tapper's knock. He accepted the wooden tray while Comfort called to Tapper from the bed and apologized for worrying him. They had a brief exchange, and Bode waited until Tapper bid Comfort easy sleep before he turned away and used his heel to close the door. He set the tray on the table and poured a cup of tea for Comfort. Tapper had been thoughtful enough to add a second cup to the tray, but Bode didn't take any. He carried the cup to her and made sure it was prepared the way she liked it before he returned to straddling his chair.

“I was curious about the gentleman at the opera house,” Bode said. “After you and I talked about him, I spoke to your uncles. They gave me permission to make some inquiries.” Not surprisingly, he saw Comfort's eyebrows arch. “I know. No one asked for your permission.”

Comfort didn't anticipate there would be an apology. She wasn't disappointed. “Well? Did you?”

“Yes. And I couldn't find anyone who knew him.”

Comfort blew softly on her hot tea. The surface rippled. “Perhaps he was only visiting the city.”

“That's what I thought, but I've since learned he's renting rooms at the Carter House near Union Square.”

“But you said you couldn't find anyone who knew him.”

“That's true. I never did. Mr. James R. Crocker found me.”

“Naturally, I've heard of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency,” Alexandra said, once her guest was seated. “This is my first occasion to have need of their services.”

The detective inclined his head to indicate that he understood. “Then I imagine you are experiencing a trying time, and I'm very sorry for it. I find it is often best for our clients to simply state the problem and allow me to ask questions that will provide the detail I need. If that is satisfactory to you, then we should begin.”

Alexandra nodded. She approved of this straightforward approach. Making the decision to meet with someone from the agency had been difficult in its own right. She had no liking for involving outsiders in the affairs of her family, and she required some guidance as to how to proceed.

She purposely chose her husband's library for the meeting. While this room was the site of countless infidelities, Alexandra still believed the spirit of Branford's intellect and scholarship favorably influenced all business conducted here. Until he made the unfortunate, and she would add, wildly romantic, gesture to support a cause as ill conceived as the secession of the Southern states, she had trusted his judgment as it related to Black Crowne.

The Pinkerton man sat opposite her in a Queen Anne chair that was easily the least comfortable chair in the room. It seemed to her that he had chosen it purposefully, underscoring that this was a business meeting, not a social call. She appreciated that he was direct and self-assured, yet also respectful. Had he demonstrated the least inclination for toadying up to her, she would have had Hitchens escort him out.

The fact that he was of an age with her supported her confidence that he was experienced. He did not smile continuously as men sometimes did when they were trying to please her. His expression was more carefully guarded than that, but when he tilted his head and offered a slim, encouraging smile from behind his neatly trimmed mustache, she noticed there was a small gap between his front teeth. For reasons she couldn't begin to understand, that put her at her ease.

“All right,” Alexandra said. “I shall start by telling you that there is little distinction in my mind between matters of business and matters of family. They are inexorably linked. Whether your view is the same, I don't know, but I require strict confidentiality regardless.”

“Of course.”

“My immediate concern is for my older son, Beauregard. He is the head of Black Crowne and has been since my husband's death. While he often consults me and values my opinion, I have entrusted him with the day-to-day management of the operations. Until recently, I have not been displeased.”

“I hope you will forgive me, Mrs. DeLong, but perhaps engaging your lawyer would better suit than hiring a detective agency.” He cleared his throat. “Pinkerton men don't settle disputes; we often enforce the settlement.”

Alexandra found the slight rasp in his voice pleasant, but she noticed that he raised one hand to his collar as if his throat were bothering him. She offered him refreshment earlier and he refused. She offered again.

His hand dropped back to his lap. “No, thank you. Go on.”

“I haven't asked for your help with a dispute. Rather, I want your help finding my son.” She folded her hands together. Her knuckles whitened. “For all intents and purposes, he's disappeared.”

“Disappeared,” he repeated calmly. “Has he done this before?”

Alexandra supposed that from his vantage point it was a reasonable question, but she could barely contain her annoyance. “He has
not
,” she said firmly. “This is out of character.”

“When did you last speak to him or have some sort of correspondence?”

“He was here eight days ago. I spoke to him briefly, and he spent some time with his younger brother.” She explained Bram's bedridden condition. “I did not see him leave.”

“I hope you will allow me to speak to . . . Bram, is it?”

“Abraham. Yes, of course you may. He says Bode gave him no indication that he meant to travel or would be unreachable, but Bram might reveal something different to you. It is entirely possible that he is lying, although whether his intent is to protect me, his brother, or himself, I cannot possibly know.”

“What inquiries have you already made?” the detective asked. “Friends? Relatives? Business associates?”

Alexandra told him about her encounter with John Farwell. “When I didn't hear from Bode the following day, I sent a second message. Several days later, I sent a third. Mr. Farwell insists that my son has received the notes. He will not say more than that. He is not at all helpful. Bram seems to think that Mr. Farwell's behavior can be laid at Bode's door, but I am not happy with that explanation. Mr. Farwell must be made to give over information about my son or be held accountable for his disappearance.”

“Do you suspect this Farwell of foul play?”

“Until my son is standing unharmed in front of me, I am not ruling it out. I am hiring you, of course, to do exactly that. Find my son. I will give you a list of business associates. Bode rarely speaks of friends, so neither can I. Bram might have information. We have no relatives here in California. My late husband and I have family in Boston. Bode and his cousins occasionally correspond.”

“Your son is unmarried?”

“Yes. This is not about a woman.” The detective did not given any indication that he was skeptical, but Alexandra felt compelled to explain, “If we were discussing my younger son, I would tell you that it is certainly a possibility you should consider. I have complete confidence in my answer as it pertains to Bode. He is ruthlessly devoted to Black Crowne. That is something all his competitors will tell you.”

“Very well.” He asked one question after another regarding Bode's living arrangements, his activities outside of work, and the management of Black Crowne in his absence—if indeed he was truly absent. “I must tell you, Mrs. DeLong, that I haven't heard anything that convinces me your son has disappeared, and I say that to ease your mind, not to distress you further. I will pursue every one of the leads you have given me, but you must prepare yourself for the possibility that Mr. Beauregard DeLong's absence is because he's deliberately ignoring you.”