The Only Gold (34 page)

Liam strode to the vault gate, Gil staying with him. Scroggs picked up one of the two dark lanterns they’d brought, and followed. Contemplating a dash to the lobby door, Jonah slipped off the stool, but Barton and Reid, both at the gate, were watching him even as Liam brought the last tumbler into line. Scroggs raised the lantern, throwing its light against the vault door as Liam turned the handle. It took only an instant to determine the vault would not be breached with just the combination.

Reid was the first to look his way. “You set the time lock.”

If he sounded impressed, the others appeared less so. Jonah thought they might kill him for setting the lock, if Reid gave them leave. “You can’t open the vault. No one can, until morning. For your own sakes, you’d better go—” At Liam’s advance, Jonah retreated, but not quickly enough. Liam flew into him and fell with him to the floor. Pinned, Jonah flung up his bound hands and closed his eyes, bracing for the blow he couldn’t escape. The weight atop him abruptly increased, and he opened his eyes to see Reid with an imprisoning arm around Liam’s shoulders and a white-knuckled grip on the upraised fist.

“Let him go.” Reid held on as Liam fought to free himself. “For God’s sake. Is this what you’re here for? If we’re going to open the vault before daylight, we’ve got to start now.”

Liam’s jaw clenched. “The son of a bitch….” He pulled away from Reid and pushed himself to his feet. Rising with him, Reid guided him back toward the vault. Jonah stood with difficulty, only to be seized upon by Scroggs and shoved in the direction of the cloakroom. Reid and Gil joined them, and as they passed the vault, Jonah got a glimpse of the tools Barton and Liam were laying on a burlap sack. It was more than a little optimistic to imagine they could drill through by morning, and Reid, at least, had to realize it. But they would not be talked out of trying, and Jonah stayed quiet until he’d been shut in the cloakroom under Gil Abbott’s guard. Then he dared let hopes for his own prospects rise.

“Mr. Abbott….”

Gil took up the dark lantern Scroggs had left him and pushed the shade aside to throw a ray of light and an abundance of shadows across the room. The lantern light touched his boyish features, and Jonah saw the uneasiness written in the tight line of his mouth and knit of his brows. Gil combed falling brown strands off his forehead with a nervous hand and regained a firm grip on the gun butt protruding from under his coat. “I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

“Liam told you not to talk to me?”

“That’s right. So I’d be obliged if you’d keep quiet.” He turned to the window, cracking the shutter just far enough to peer out.

Jonah straightened in his chair as well as he could with bound hands, and set his feet on either side of the casters to roll himself closer to both Gil and the door. “Is it still raining?”

Gil didn’t glance his way. “Wind’s picking up. I suppose that’s good, if we’ve got to use powder on the vault.”

Jonah shuddered at the thought. “You may succeed in drilling the lock. Barton, at least, seems to know what he’s doing.” And Reid. He hated to think of it.

“Liam knows.”

Jonah heard the defensive note. “He’s done this before.”

Gil looked at him, then. “He never has. He wouldn’t.” The angular planes of Gil’s face tightened further, with such fear Jonah felt a reluctant sympathy.

“Why now?”

“Keep quiet.” Gil dropped onto the window seat, his gun thudding against the wood plank.

“You can understand my curiosity,” Jonah said. “Liam’s protected the bank. He’s stopped robberies in the past. I don’t know why—”

“He ain’t robbing it. He won’t take anything that ain’t by right his.”

The boy was young—twenty, Jonah recalled—but surely not so naive. “By what right is anything in that vault the property of Liam Abbott?”

Gil shook his head. “You don’t know. You rich bankers. No one’s hurt you or left you wanting. How can you know anything?”

A fresh assault of grief caught Jonah off guard, and he fought it, determined to pursue an explanation. “I will admit to being supremely ignorant at times, Mr. Abbott. But I am not without the desire to understand, if you will allow it. If your brother has been betrayed, how is he righting things by betraying his employer?”

“Liam ain’t betraying anyone.” Gil rose and went to the door to stand there, seemingly listening. From without came the clink of metal and the intermittent echo of a raised voice. Returning to the window, he pressed a palm against the glass. “Damn. Storm’s coming on quick.”

Jonah noticed the drop in the temperature despite the warmth of his overcoat. “I imagine it’s quite miserable at Blackwell’s in the winter.”

Gil snorted. “Maybe so. We ain’t getting caught.”

“You can’t be sure. You say you’ve no experience at this.”

“We don’t, but Barton does—” Gil appeared to realize he might be saying too much. He threw an irritated glance at Jonah. “Can’t you keep quiet? I won’t shoot you, but Liam would sure like to.”

“You said Liam would take nothing that isn’t his. You do understand the money in that vault belongs to our depositors?”

“Not all of it.”

“Of course all of it—” Jonah stopped, realizing what Gil meant. “The government deposit. That’s what he’s after?”

“His share.”

“His share?”

Gil blew out an exasperated breath. “That’s what I said. His share. What should’ve come rightfully to him if they hadn’t stopped it.”

“They? Who—”

“Grandborough. Your directors. All of them sitting high and mighty in judgment on the rest of us.”

“In judgment?” Each word out of Gil’s mouth only bewildered him further. “Of what?”

“What’s ours and what ain’t.” Gil sat beside the lantern and closed the shade, leaving the room in darkness but for the light seeping through the shutter behind him. “Our pa, he fought hard as any of them. Harder than some. Come close to dying at Stone’s River. He deserved better than he got.” Gil turned on the seat, and drawing his knees up, laid his arms across them. “Liam’s making it right, and I’m with him, even if it means Blackwell’s or worse. So talk all you want. You ain’t stopping us.”

No further questions would be tolerated, but Jonah did not require more. Mr. Grandborough had served some time as a pension examiner, as had Nat Gavet. With Cleveland’s demand for greater vigilance in weeding out false claims, the examiners had of late denied a substantial number of pensions. Jonah had never considered that some men might turn to illegal means to set right what they deemed wrong. His own father, slowed for the rest of his days by the bullet he’d taken at Fredericksburg, had sought no recompense from the government. He could not work as he had before, but his sons had taken up the slack. Even if they hadn’t, Jonah doubted anyone could have convinced his father to accept what he had considered charity.

Jonah didn’t know the trials Abbott senior had faced because of the war, but his sons were ill-advised believing they might avenge him. Reid, as well—drawn into the scheme out of empathy, Jonah thought. If that made a little more sense, it hurt yet, knowing Reid had used him to further the Abbotts’ misguided hopes. As for Barton… Jonah wondered if the man were a veteran himself, and seeking the same redress. If so, he apparently considered himself deserving of a considerable sum, since Gil had averred Barton was no novice bank robber.

Whatever reasons drove them, they seemed equally determined to breach the vault, no matter the hours it took. Once done, they would steal whatever they could carry—Gil’s assertions aside—and the bank would not be able to meet its obligations tomorrow without rescue from the directors and stockholders. News of the robbery would damage the bank’s reputation beyond repair—if the bank didn’t fail altogether.

As unbearable was the inevitable end of Reid’s bright career. Jonah could not muster a trace of hope or wishful thought in that regard. He felt sick to think he might have prevented the robbery if he hadn’t been so swept up in his own contented dream. He might have made sense of Abbott’s earlier threats or more diligently pondered the meaning behind Reid’s sudden absences. Now it was too late—and if redemption lay in stopping the robbery, he saw no chance of that.

Time whittled down each hour as the five men worked in shifts, two resting while three kept the drill boring into the stubbornly resistant metal. Judging by Reid’s face as he and Barton came in after midnight, they were making little progress. Barton flung himself on the window seat and leaned his head back against the shutter. “Mr. Abbott, kindly ask your brother to join us. If he does not rest, he will be useless to us before we’re done.”

“He won’t rest?” Gil looked at Reid.

“Claims he’s not tired.” Reid’s attention shifted to Jonah. “Everything all right in here?”

Gil gave Jonah barely a glance. “He ain’t tried nothing, if that’s what you mean. I’ll talk to Liam.”

He went, but Reid didn’t sit; Jonah, weary yet wakeful with fear he couldn’t chase away, sensed something similar tormenting him. Reid surveyed the room as if he did not know what to do with himself, and finally went to the window. “It’s snowing.”

Barton seemed amused by Reid’s disgust. “So we won’t be lightening our flannels just yet. Cheer up, Mr. Hylliard. Snow will deaden the sound when we explode the vault. The Lord is on our side.”

“If we don’t freeze to death,” Reid said, buttoning his coat. “It must be forty degrees in here.” His troubled gaze returned to Jonah. “I think we need to risk disabling the time lock.”

“Taking the sledge to the vault….” Barton shook his head. “That’s a racket we’re wiser saving till the small hours. I’ve never seen it work, anyway. We agreed to drill until six.” He tugged a flask from his pocket and drank till he’d surely drained half. He offered the flask to Reid, who declined it.

“If the storm gets any worse, we may not need to wait.” Reid turned his back to Barton, and lips curving with a hint of reproof, gestured for Jonah to button his coat. Jonah stared at him, at a loss. Why in the world it mattered to him….

Barton abruptly rose. “If you gentlemen will pardon me.”

He vanished into the washroom, and just as swiftly, Reid crossed to Jonah’s chair and bent close enough to whisper. “Listen—”

“Did they force you?” Jonah searched the face so near his, desperate for the truth. “Blackmail you? Let me help you. Untie me and I can run for the police.”

The eyes that met his were as intent and resolute. “Jo, listen. I’m going to get you out, but you’ve got to cooperate—”

“What?” Jonah recoiled in disbelief. “I won’t help you rob this bank.”

“I’m not robbing the bank—”

“Then it’s a magnificent approximation.”

Reid exhaled a breath that seemed to carry with it the last of his patience. “Goddamn it, I don’t have time—”

Beyond the lobby door, a floorboard creaked. Reid cursed and drew away as Liam came in. But Liam ignored Reid and turned instantly on Jonah, hauling him out of the chair by the rope binding his wrists. “You try to get any more information out of my brother, and secrets or no, I’ll make sure this bank’s your last resting place. You understand me?”

Jonah winced at the saw of rope over his bruised skin. “I understand you all too perfectly. Please don’t—” He sucked in a breath as Liam dragged him closer.

“Leave my brother alone.”

Reid set a hand on Liam’s shoulder. “Gil’s handling himself just fine. And Woolner’s not worth hanging over. Let him go.”

Liam’s eyes stayed on Jonah another minute, the threat in them unchecked by any reasoning. Shaking Reid off, he pushed Jonah back into the chair. Then he hooked a finger over the temple arm of Jonah’s glasses.