The Only Gold (41 page)

Reid
stood, pulling from Jonah’s assistance, and held his ground as if not the smallest tremor of pain plagued him. “Let Jonah and Alice go, and I’ll help you get Gil out of here.”

Liam set the lantern on the floor and drew his Colt. “I knew you took Woolner for a fool. Guess I should’ve figured you took me for one too.” He examined the chamber before lowering the gun to his side. “Or does lying come so natural, you can’t quit?”

“It’s not a lie.”

“Hell if it ain’t. I know what you are. What you’re here for.” Liam paced to one corner of the narrow closet and turned back. “You won’t let a one of us go, if you can stop us.”

Reid closed his eyes briefly. “Liam, I can help your brother. I can probably keep him out of prison—but you’re going to have to switch sides and do it quick.”

“Switch sides.” Liam’s lip curled. “You want me to cross Barton?”

“He’d do the same to you in the blink of an eye.”

“Quick,” Liam agreed. “But not as quick as you.”

“I’m not lying to you—”

“The story about your pa at Cold Harbor. Your ma with consumption. That all true?” Liam cocked the gun. “Not a word of it, I’d guess. And you want me to think you’re going to save my brother? Give me one goddamned reason why I shouldn’t shoot you where you stand.”

Reid blew out a ragged breath. “Liam….”

“You
are
a fool.” Brought to his feet, Jonah gave voice to his indignation. “For two months, I’ve watched this man put forth every effort to steer you from disaster. He’s argued, coerced—
lied
—on your behalf more times than I can count. He thinks you worth saving. And I don’t think he was wrong. But you’ve let Barton blind you to your duty to your wife and brother—and you do no honor to your father’s memory. Not like this—” He stopped as Liam swore and swung the gun on him. Heart pounding, Jonah did not relinquish Liam’s gaze. “It’s the truth. You know it.”

“My father’s memory.” The grim line of Liam’s mouth tightened. “Yeah, I remember him—lying on a barroom floor, drunk, sick, without a penny in his pocket. Always trying to get away from his own goddamned memories. And no one who put him there raising a hand to help him.”

The familiar ring to Liam’s words wakened something in Jonah. His own father had suffered nightmares, and though he’d avoided refuge in the bottle, Jonah remembered the nights his father spent pacing the floor or walking the fields, desperate to get as far from the memories as he could. His father had never shared the details, but Jonah knew those details had stayed with him all his days. The words on his lips as he died—
there will be peace
—he hadn’t repeated over and over to comfort his stricken family. Jonah remembered the glad anticipation in the fading voice. The longing.

Retreating from the memory, Jonah met the dark shine of grief and defiance in Liam’s eyes and nodded. “I know. I’m sorry.”

The gun fell to Liam’s side as his shoulders sagged, his face a twisted mask of faltering self-control. “They killed him. If I can’t kill them, I’ll hurt them the only way they’ll feel it. That’s my goddamned duty.” His eyes brightened as he turned away. “To hell with honor.”

Jonah couldn’t stay quiet. “What else will you have, without it?”

The door burst open, spilling more light into the room, along with a scowling Scroggs. “What’s this about? You separating them or not?”

“We don’t need to.” Liam holstered his gun. “They ain’t going anywhere.”

Scroggs sent a cursory glance, rife with contempt, over Reid, then Jonah. “Not yet, I guess. I came to tell you your brother’s coming to. Asking for you.”

With that, Liam was gone without a glance back. Scroggs lingered, as if he didn’t quite trust Liam’s assertion. “In case you do come up with a way out of here, let me promise you—if you leave the bank, your little sparrow will suffer for it. I don’t guess her pa will thank either of you for that.”

“We won’t leave the bank,” Jonah said. “I give you my word.”

Scroggs laughed. “Your word. Ain’t that a fine thing.” At the door, he stopped long enough to take up his lantern. “You won’t have to wait much longer, gentlemen. On that, you have my word.”

Just as the light dimmed, Reid grabbed Jonah’s wrist and gestured for silence. Not until the footsteps faded did he speak. “I’m a goddamned fool, myself.” He pulled Jonah near. “We’ve had a way out. I didn’t realize it until Liam brought the lantern in. All along we’ve had a lock pick.”

Jonah wondered if he was growing too accustomed to the dark or if Scroggs had left the lantern in the hall, for he could see the lines of a rueful smile on Reid’s face. “We do? Where?”

Reid gently pushed Jonah’s glasses up his nose. “I don’t like to ask. You’ve suffered the loss of them more than enough the past couple of days.”

His sympathy was so pronounced, Jonah smiled. “In this instance, I’m not inclined to object.” He handed them over. “Can you manage it with so little light?”

“It’s a trick learned in pitch dark, of necessity.”

“Does it take long?”

“To learn or do?”

“To do—” A muted clink of metal against metal interrupted him. It sounded verily as if Reid had turned a key in the lock.
“You—”

Fingers pressed to his lips silenced him. Reid’s voice was barely more than breath in his ear. “As quiet as you can.”

Jonah nodded. In the faint light through the door now ajar, Reid reshaped the bent arms of his glasses and returned them not much worse for the adventure. Jonah had a bare instant to settle them in place before Reid caught him by a lapel to pull him along. The wintry dawn stealing through the shutters made little impression upon the corridor’s shadows. Stronger was the firelight and lantern glow coming from the doorway of Grandborough’s office. Voices issued forth as well, too distant to be understood. Reid slipped like a ghost to the boardroom door and silently went in. Jonah followed, to find him already at the far shutter.

On the other side of the glass, a calmer wind carried the occasional flurry of snow. No sunlight broke through the gray sheet above to warm the bleak, white hills and valleys between the buildings. Down the dim street, two lonely figures trudged, to disappear into a hotel. Jonah could not convince himself that anyone watched the bank or knew the trouble he and Reid were in. Reid offered no reassurance as he gazed on the lifeless city. He looked so grim, Jonah impulsively grasped his hand. “Maybe we have a means of bargaining. The lawyers have an old safe here—”

“To which we have no combination.”

“Can’t you break into it?”

“Probably. But it won’t win Alice’s freedom. She’s worth more than the amount in that safe.” Reid gently withdrew from his grasp and headed back for the door. “We want the gun Sewell keeps in his desk. I’ve got to get upstairs.”

“We’ve got to—”

“It’ll be risky enough for one. Any noise and we’ll be found out. The snow’s stopped, and I’m sure Barton’s ready to go, with or without Liam.” Reid peered into the corridor. “I’m going to lock you back up. Listen to me,” he said as Jonah began to protest. “If Scroggs comes for you, tell him I got out while you were sleeping. He’ll likely think I’ve left the building. When he brings you out, make a racket, and I’ll come up behind him with the gun.”

“What if you’re not down before he comes?”

“Keep him occupied. Tell him about the safe upstairs. Just don’t provoke him into shooting you.”

At the cloak closet door, Jonah pulled him near. “You won’t do anything foolish,” he whispered. “I don’t want to come out of this alone.”

A hint of exasperation in Reid’s eyes yielded suddenly to remorse. He brushed his fingers across Jonah’s brow, the old gesture imbued with infinite tenderness. His nod was meant, Jonah knew, to reassure—but the moment Jonah was alone, fears revived by the dark swarmed him. Unable to feign sleep or even sit, he paced, and with each fading sigh of the wind, listened for footsteps or a rattle in the lock. An interminable wait seemed like no time at all when a step fell outside the door. His resolution to stay calm and keep Scroggs occupied fled along with every other thought in the panic that swept over him. Scroggs burst in, lantern in one hand, gun in the other, and Jonah retreated, shielding his eyes. When Scroggs swore, Jonah knew the question that was coming and forestalled it. “He was gone when I woke—”

“Left you to fend for yourself, did he?” Scroggs lowered the lantern and raised the gun. “Had to save his own hide. Blessed shame. Takes away half the pleasure of killing you. Still….” He pulled back the hammer. “Half’s better than none.”

Jonah backed into the bench and sat abruptly. Scroggs’s eyes, darkly lit in the lantern glow, seemed devoid of anything except stark satisfaction. He would not be moved. Jonah struggled to his feet and pressed his back to the wall when his knees wanted to give. “Don’t….”

The plea brought the cold semblance of a smile to Scroggs’s lips—which vanished at the snap of a second hammer cocked. Reid came out of the shadows with Sewell’s Colt, its gold inlay gleaming. “‘Don’t’, I believe he said.” As Scroggs turned, Reid stopped in the doorway. “Put your gun on the floor. And keep in mind I could have simply killed you outright. Don’t make me regret that I didn’t.”

Not until Scroggs laid the weapon on the floor did Jonah breathe again. Reid stepped back into the corridor. “Have a seat,” he said, waving Scroggs to the bench at the back of the closet. “Jo, I’d give the man a wide berth. Barnum’s lions have better manners.”

Jonah did not need to be told. Scroggs sat heavily, and stretching his arms, laid a hand on the wall to either side. He looked like one of Barnum’s creatures, one that did not intend to remain caged long. Jonah started for the door, to be stayed by Reid. “Hand me his gun.”

Jonah retrieved it, along with the lantern, and came into the corridor—to be pinned to the spot by a calm voice coming out of the darkness. “Good morning, gentlemen.”

Aware of the two figures huddled beside the half-open door of Grandborough’s office, Jonah raised the lantern. Light fell over Barton, and Alice trapped in the long-limbed circle of his arms. She was swathed in her cloak, all but her face, pale and tense with mute terror—and her neck, exposed to the long blade in Barton’s hand.

Barton smiled and pressed a fatherly kiss on her temple. “The poor child’s trembling. There, my girl, these gentlemen hold your safety dearer than you know. More dear than all the gold in New York.” His gaze lifted in serene appeal to Jonah. “Do reassure the girl, won’t you?”

Cold despair settling over him, Jonah knelt and laid the gun on the floor. Before Reid could do the same, Scroggs was on him with a fist to the jaw that sent Reid sprawling against the banister. Scroggs wrenched away Reid’s gun, thrust it in his face, and curled a finger over the trigger.

“Not yet.”

At the command from Barton, Scroggs’s chin jutted, brows surging together, but he stepped back. “Just when? We’re leaving—”