The Only Gold (36 page)

“He’s breathing, but….” Liam raised anguished eyes, his own face gone pale. “He’s out cold.”

“Upstairs,” Reid said, and motioned for help as he eased his hands under Gil’s shoulders. Before Reid and Liam could take him, Scroggs bent with a grunt and lifted Gil in his arms. As he started up the stairs, Liam close behind, Reid turned to Jonah. “You’d better come with us.”

Jonah heard the weariness in his voice. “Don’t let this go on. Reid, please. You have far more to lose. However they’ve coerced you, end it and I’ll stand by you. It will be our word against theirs.”

Reid merely directed a sardonic glance at Barton. “Weren’t you the one who said I’d never win his trust?”

Barton smiled. “You have an impressive talent for deception. Mr. Woolner, wouldn’t you agree?”

Jonah couldn’t. Reid’s implication that Jonah hadn’t lost the man he knew—that he’d never had him—rang false. Reid had tried to protect him. He wouldn’t have bothered if he didn’t care. On that, heart and mind were one.

Barton, however, seemed persuaded. His smile turned pitying. “I do sympathize, Mr. Woolner. No one knows as I do, how it hurts to be betrayed by someone you trust.”

Jonah could not let that pass. “You imagine you’re as entitled to the government money?”

Barton, to his surprise, laughed aloud. “I see young Mr. Abbott was rather voluble in his anxiety. I’m here on his behalf, sir. Not my own. And so I shall be for any man denied what he is owed. It’s a duty I’ve taken on with pride, and you may relate that fact to your colleagues, should you live to tell the tale.”

Jonah stared at him. “A duty? You can’t be serious.”

“I think we have more pressing concerns,” Reid said. “If Gil’s not on his feet soon, we may have no choice but to start locking up the clerks as they come in. I’d rather not have to resort to that. If you’ll escort Jonah upstairs, I’ll get some towels and water, and be up in a minute.”

“The salve Margaret uses….” At Reid’s questioning look, Jonah clarified. “The burns on Mr. Abbott’s hand. Salve might ease the pain he’ll be in when he wakes. It’s in Margaret’s desk—”

“I know.” The old warmth shone through Reid’s businesslike manner. It woke an ache Jonah welcomed, cradled close.

“You may need some help. I’ll come with you.”

“Best come along with me,” Barton said. “Mr. Hylliard will have his hands full. Mine, as you can see, are nearly empty.”

He had drawn his revolver. Jonah backed away, but Reid only sighed. “I don’t think you’ll need that. Jonah will cooperate.”

“Forgive me if I am over cautious,” Barton said mildly and waved the weapon toward the stairs. Jonah preceded him up to Mr. Grandborough’s office. The storm raged against the second-story windows, and Jonah shivered at the thought that the snow might soon be covering them. Liam had laid his brother on the sofa in front of the dark hearth and had removed his own coat to cover Gil. Scroggs knelt over a charred log, attempting to light it.

Barton crossed the dim room to the middle of the three windows that faced William Street and pushed back the shutters. Though snow had not blanketed the glass, it flew so thick and furious, the buildings across the street were no more than intermittently seen shadows. Cursing, Barton turned to the gasolier above Grandborough’s desk and turned the valves—in vain. The gas had fallen victim to the storm, leaving only Scroggs’s pitiful hearth fire to brighten the room.

“Well.” Barton sat on the edge of the desk. “Quite the pass, gentlemen. We shall have to make some quick decisions—and not pleasant ones, I think.”

Reid appeared, bearing a washroom pitcher and towel. Without a word, Liam took them and set to tending Gil’s burned hand. The cold water on reddened skin didn’t rouse him, nor did Liam’s quiet voice, urging him to wake.

Reid fished a familiar glass jar from his pocket. “Jonah thought this might help.”

Liam glanced at Jonah as if suspecting a trick. “What’s in it?”

“I don’t know,” Jonah said. “But it’s the best we’ll do without a doctor.”

Liam spread the salve on his own skin, and seeming satisfied, applied it to Gil’s palm with the steadiest care. Finishing that, he pulled a flask from his coat pocket and downed the better part of the contents. A concerned look passed between Reid and Barton, but Barton only straightened with an irritated grunt and drew out his watch. “I think, in light of the circumstances, we must face the possibility of leaving young Mr. Abbott here at the bank.”

Liam no more than glanced at Barton. “I’m not leaving without him.”

“I thought you might say that.” Barton spoke as calmly. “Mr. Scroggs?”

“We’re smarter to leave together,” Scroggs said.

Apparently expecting the same from Reid, Barton turned back to Liam. “Do you intend to carry your brother out or remain here until he wakes?”

Liam’s jaw tightened. “I’ll carry him, if it comes to that.”

“Very well. Then all that remains to discover is a way out of the bank.” Barton peered into the street. “I don’t know that we’ve rope enough to descend from this floor, and I cannot make out whether we will land safely.”

“Snow’s too deep,” Scroggs said. “And no telling what’s under it, with the wind busting everything apart.”

Jonah peered around the shutter and caught a glimpse of wagons and carriages, some overturned, most abandoned in the middle of the street. The wind battered them, sending debris flying. Scroggs laid hands on the window as if he wanted to push both fists through the glass. “Not too far to fall, but you could damn well land yourself on something that’ll run you straight through.” He looked at Jonah. “Now if we tested it first….”

Jonah broke from his gaze, sensing any retort would only encourage the man. Reid had turned to tend the fire, and Liam paid no mind to anyone besides Gil. Barton, alone, found amusement in Scroggs’s suggestion. “‘They took up Jonah…’” He spread his arms wide. “‘And cast him forth into the sea.’”

Scroggs chuckled. “We’d know for sure, then, wouldn’t we?”

Jonah retreated from the window. Barton might be joking, but his eccentric nature was enough to cast doubt—and Jonah’s uneasiness seemed to entertain him all the more. “Deep into the sea,” Barton murmured, leaning against the sash as he gazed out. “And the sea, so they say, ceased from raging. There’s an effect we’d do well to recreate, if we want to avoid a rather longer imprisonment.”

Scroggs’s smile faded. “I don’t see we’ve got any choice. We try digging out downstairs, and we might dig neat as you please into more wires. We’ve come to this end through his doing, so he can damn well get us out.”

Reid swore softly and tossed down the poker. “We’re facing a few years at most, if we’re caught. You hurt him and it’ll be worse for all of us.”

Scroggs moved behind Jonah and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I say we open the damned window. Woolner can dig through for us—”

“Or he can run for the police,” Barton said cheerfully.

“He won’t run.” The voice in Jonah’s ear was low and full of cold promise. “I got no problem putting a bullet in his back.”

From under his coat, Reid drew a gun and leveled it at Scroggs with disquieting composure. “Let him go.”

Scroggs snorted in disbelief. “You’d shoot me just to keep me from killing this son of a bitch?”

Reid smiled, no trace of it reaching his eyes. “I’ll serve less time for killing you.”

Scroggs spat a sharp oath and hooked an arm around Jonah’s neck. Despite a surge of fright at the press of ice-cold iron against his jaw, Jonah didn’t resist—Reid’s gaze warning him not to. Reid moved away from the fire to the middle of the room. “Liam, you’d better tell him to keep his head. We’ll get out, but this is not the way to do it.”

“There’s only one way out of here,” Barton said, and hauled up the sash, admitting the storm. The force of it sent them all staggering. Freed, Jonah ducked behind the sofa and raised his coat collar to shield himself from the stinging ice pellets. Something heavier than ice bounced off his shoulder, and he dared a look around—to see the flutter of wings everywhere; sparrows, a score of them, half-alive and flailing in a fruitless effort to escape the wind. Under its onslaught, the hearth fire flickered and died, plunging the room back into night. A sharp drop in temperature followed—but as suddenly as the intrusion had begun, it ended. Barton shut the window and collapsed, breathless, beneath it. In the relative quiet, he laughed, a sound as harsh as the wind outside. “I’ve overestimated the Lord’s favor, it appears. We’ll have a rough trek back, in that.”

“Goddamn,” Scroggs muttered. He jerked his head in Jonah’s direction. “What about him? If we don’t put a bullet in him, we’ll have to take him with us.”

“To James Street?” Barton’s brows lifted. “We leave him trussed up there, and the rats will make short work of him.”

Jonah realized the weather must have slowed or even stopped the trains and streetcars, but before long, the staff would begin to trickle in, and a dangerous situation might turn deadly. “I’ll go with you anywhere you want.” He could not meet Reid’s gaze, despite directing the surrender at him. “I’ll do what you want, but for God’s sake, let us go before anyone comes in.”

“I’ll be damned.” Barton was amused again. “Mr. Abbott, you may have savaged Mr. Woolner’s character unfairly.”

Liam, fixed on Gil’s quiet face, didn’t seem to hear. Scroggs scowled. “I’m going to check the fire escape.”

That woke Reid. “We’ll look at it on the way downstairs.”

It proved unnecessary to open the corridor window to judge the condition of the fire escape. The arc-light wires entangled on the fallen telegraph pole swung wildly in the wind’s grasp, sparking each time they whipped the metal stairs. With no safe passage that route, Jonah knew they would have to dig through the snow to make their escape.

The lobby remained a dark tomb, bitterly cold and devoid of life. Jonah was thankful to see no one had breached the wall of snow from the street. Despite his heavy heart, he took some relief in the thought that none of the clerks and tellers were at Scroggs’s mercy—or Barton’s, as Jonah sensed the decision to spare lives would fall to him.

Scroggs appeared to have been hired on solely for the muscle he could provide, and with the time lock’s release of the bolts, he went at once to fill one satchel with cash, the other with anything negotiable. Expecting to be forced at gunpoint to assist, Jonah instead sat at Margaret’s desk and watched as the three men, working by lantern light, made a neat job of the transfer. It was clear they’d planned the job to the last detail, so methodically did they choose what to take and what to leave. He was even more certain of it when Scroggs emerged with a bag of gold coin and Barton looked askance at him.

“I’ll carry it,” Scroggs muttered, and set the bag on the desk. The clink of coins seemed to heighten the lure for him, and he opened the bag to grasp a gleaming handful. In that moment, something other than fear seized Jonah. Inches away hung Scroggs’s revolver. It was an invitation to set things right, and Scroggs’s preoccupation made it so Jonah could do naught else. He took the gun, sliding it from the holster with panicked speed, and swiftly stepped back as Scroggs swung around.

“Son of a—”

His oath brought Reid and Barton out of the vault. Jonah backed further, and steadying the gun with his left hand, trained it on Scroggs, the nearer threat. “You’re finished. Return the money to the vault.”