The Stranger's Secrets Read online

  “Fine then, we’ll wait here. With you.” Whit conjured up his sternest scowl. “I’m sure you won’t mind.”

  Gunderson looked like he wanted to smack Whitman with something, preferably hard.

  “Of course I don’t mind. Don’t block the desk, though. I do have customers to think of.” He pointed toward two hard-backed chairs by the door. “You can wait there.”

  Whitman growled under his breath, earning a startled glance from Gunderson. Lorenzo grinned at Whit. “Fine. We’ll wait over here.”

  The chairs, of course, were as uncomfortable as he expected, but he wasn’t about to give the hotel owner the satisfaction of seeing his discomfort. After all, Whit was a trained soldier, not the pampered aristocrat everyone assumed he was.

  He folded his arms and leveled a stare at the front desk, making sure Gunderson didn’t forget whom he had just insulted.

  Whit hoped they didn’t have to wait long.

  “Whitman, I remember something.” Lorenzo startled him by jumping off the chair ten minutes into their wait.

  “What did you remember?” Whit shifted on the seat, easing the pressure of the hard wood.

  “In Belleville, I remember seeing the man with the bow tie. He talked to the man who attacked Sarah.”

  Whitman tried to absorb what Lorenzo said. “Are you telling me Abernathy talked to that dirty son of a bitch who hurt Sarah?”

  Lorenzo nodded. “Yes, yes, I saw them talking outside the depot, a few minutes before Sarah appeared.” He held up his hands. “I never saw her move that fast before.”

  “You can talk to Sarah about that later. Tell me exactly what you saw.” Whitman wanted to shake the boy for not remembering earlier, but he didn’t. Lorenzo might have found the key to figuring out what had happened to Abernathy.

  Lorenzo sat down and pursed his lips, looking up as he apparently reviewed the memory in his mind. “I was around the corner, trying to figure out what had happened to Sarah. She’d missed the train that morning.”

  “Yes, I know. That was Mavis’s fault. Continue.” Whit fell so easily into his captain’s voice. He needed to be careful.

  “I saw movement in the depot and realized you were in there with Sarah. I was relieved and happy to see her. Two men were standing in the shadows, talking. The older man with the bow tie gave the dirty man something, but I couldn’t see what.” Lorenzo looked excited. “Then the man with the bow tie got on the train and Miss Ledbetter walked toward him, calling his name, I think.”

  Whitman couldn’t believe he’d missed the connection. Abernathy must have known Mavis had already gotten rid of Sarah once. When he’d seen her in the depot, he had likely paid the sheriff to keep her in town.

  It all made sense, but Whit still didn’t understand why. Mavis had no money as far as he knew, but perhaps he was wrong. Maybe the older woman had saved every penny, enough to attract an old wolf to darken her door.

  “So why was Sarah moving so fast? And how?” Lorenzo’s questions pulled Whitman out of his thoughts.

  “Talk to her about that, boy. I’m out to catch a murderer.” Whit stood, determined to get past Gunderson to talk to Sarah. He had to find out exactly what kind of money or property Mavis owned.

  That was the key to solving the mystery. He was sure of it.

  Sarah compared the list with the hotel registry and found that fourteen of the men had checked in with wives. That left ten of them who could still be suspects.

  Patrick was a sweet young man who was eager to help them solve the mystery. He was apparently an avid reader of mysteries and loved detective work.

  She had more men than she needed, or knew what to do with. A first for the tough wench from the Spalding Plantation.

  “Take a look at the list of ten men, Alfred. Do you recognize any of the names?” She peered at the list, hoping something would jump out at her.

  “No, I’m afraid I don’t. Perhaps your husband and Mr. Torreno have eliminated more names from the list. We can then narrow down the pool of suspects.” Alfred stood and grinned down at her. “I don’t remember when I’ve had so much fun.”

  Sarah had started out wanting to use the conductor for her own means, at any cost, in any way possible. Yet here he was, helping her save her neck and having fun at it. She felt a bit guilty, but Alfred was enjoying himself, a side effect she hadn’t expected.

  Sarah realized she held herself above most people, or at least outside of the same existence as them. There was never a time when she allowed herself to step out of that odd relationship she had with the rest of the world.

  She was startled to realize she’d done it countless times on this trip.

  “Sarah?” Alfred held out his hand. “Are you all right?”

  She thought about how to answer, how to explain to him that she’d been turned inside out, upside down, and backward by her grand adventure on a cross-country train. Instead, she chose the simple route, and a half-truth.

  “Yes, I think so. Let’s go find Whitman.” She accepted his help to stand, then smiled at Patrick. “You’ve been amazingly helpful. I can’t thank you enough.”

  The freckle-faced young man smiled back. “Happy to help, Miz Kendrick. I hope you find him.”

  Together she and Alfred walked back to the lobby. Apparently just in time to prevent Whitman from pummeling Patrick’s grandfather. The old man was a curmudgeon, to be certain, and had taken some hearty convincing to allow them to compare their list to the hotel register.

  In the end, he had insisted only Patrick view the register, while Sarah called the names out to him.

  “What’s happening?” She hobbled as fast as she could toward them. “Are you all right?”

  Whitman dropped his raised fist and stared at her. He blinked once and seemed to be unable to speak.

  She touched his cheek. “Whit?”

  He shook his head as if to clear it and stepped out of her reach. “Yes, I’m fine. Gunderson was just about to see the error of his ways when you arrived.” He scowled at the hotel owner. “You’re a lucky man.”

  Sarah took Whit’s arm and led him away from the desk. “Are you trying to get put in jail for punching that old windbag? Believe me, he isn’t worth it.”

  “What did you find out?” he asked through clenched teeth.

  “We narrowed the list down to ten names. Let’s go sit down and eat and compare them.” She led him toward the dining room, Lorenzo and Alfred behind them.

  Beneath her fingers, the muscles in his arm felt as tight as guitar strings. She’d never seen him so out of control, and it worried her although it shouldn’t. As she’d told him before, they were adults and made grown-up decisions, accepting the consequences as they came.

  The consequence of falling in love with a Yankee, however, would cost her dearly.

  Supper turned out to be a wonderful meatloaf with mashed potatoes and fried squash. The good Southern cooking was exactly what Sarah needed. It made her think of home, which led her to think of Lorenzo. He was a sad-faced young man across the table from her.

  She refused to get pulled into his fantasy of making her his woman. There were several reasons why they couldn’t, not the least of which was a huge age difference and the fact she didn’t, and wouldn’t ever, love him.

  Alfred took on the task of comparing the two lists, surprising Sarah. He was definitely a man who enjoyed food, yet he’d set aside his hunger to do work.

  Sarah wondered if it was to help them or to satisfy his own curiosity. Either way, she was grateful. The nightmare of Mavis’s murder investigation was peppered with the bright lights of a few people in town who believed their innocence.

  “How does it look, Bannon?” Whit speared a forkful of mashed potatoes and chewed without taking his gaze from Alfred’s bent form.

  “So far, we’re down to six men, and I’m not quite finished.” He shot a small grin at Sarah. “I think we’ll be able to give Sheriff Miller a short list of suspects to interrogate.”

  “Goo
d.” Sarah didn’t add she thought the sheriff would need a short list. His investigative skills were obviously lacking.

  “How are you eliminating the men from the list?” Whit kept chewing mechanically, not meeting Sarah’s gaze.

  “Ones who are traveling with wives, or those who didn’t board the train until after the initial departure in Virginia, and any men under the age of thirty.” Alfred pushed the hair from his forehead. “I believe we now have four suspects on this list.”

  Whit held out his hand and Alfred gave him the list. “Four? Really? That’s incredible.” For the first time that afternoon, Whit sounded almost normal.

  “It’s good detective work,” Alfred preened.

  “Thank you, Alfred.” Sarah was truly grateful for his help, and for Patrick’s and Lorenzo’s. Alfred and Patrick didn’t have any reason to assist them, but they did anyway.

  Whit peered at the list as Alfred dug into his supper. Sarah wanted to snatch the paper out of her “husband’s” hand, but thought it better not to, considering his odd behavior.

  She didn’t want to have to whack him with the cane to get the list either.

  They ate in silence as Whitman apparently read the list about a hundred times. Sarah’s patience was beginning to wear thin when Sheriff Miller appeared at the table.

  “Well, this is a cozy group.” He nodded at Alfred. “Bannon, I’m surprised to see you here with the Kendricks and, uh, this foreigner.”

  “We’ve been investigating Miss Ledbetter’s murder.” Alfred apparently couldn’t keep his mouth shut about how excited he was to be a detective, at least for a day.

  “That so? And how are you doing that?” Miller grabbed a chair from another table and sat down, straddling the seat and leaning on the back.

  “Well, you see Mr. Torreno witnessed the man Mrs. Kendrick identified as Abernathy. We determined he had nefarious purposes for befriending Miss Ledbetter.” He pointed at the list in Whitman’s hands. “With the passenger manifest and the hotel register, we’ve narrowed down the suspects to four men.”

  Miller’s face grew redder the longer Alfred spoke. While the conductor was excited to display his cranial power for the sheriff to see, the idea he’d been doing the sheriff’s job apparently hadn’t occurred to him.

  “I suppose you’re going to explain how and why you decided to investigate a murder in my jurisdiction?” The handsome sheriff speared Alfred with his sharp gaze.

  Alfred sputtered and looked at Sarah. “I was helping the investigation, not taking it over, Sam. The fact is, I believed Miss Sarah when she said she was innocent. I thought it was my duty as an employee of the railroad to ferret out the murderer.”

  Sarah was proud of the portly conductor. He had stood up to a bully like Miller and spoke his piece.

  “You believe she’s innocent? What about her Yankee soldier husband?”

  Sarah’s blood froze in her veins. “What are you talking about, Sheriff? My husband is a banker from New York, not a soldier.”

  Her heart pounded so hard, her ears hurt. Yet when her gaze met Whitman’s, it nearly stopped. In his green gaze, she saw the truth.

  He was a Yankee soldier.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Why, I don’t believe it.” Alfred Bannon looked as surprised as Lorenzo.

  Sarah, however, looked as if Whitman had driven a knife in her heart. He had dreaded the day she would find out the secret he’d been hiding from her. Of course, she didn’t know the other half of that particularly nasty secret.

  Her face drained of color, and her freckles stood out on the pasty white skin. Her eyes, however, were the worst part. Sarah was completely and utterly in shock. Her mouth opened and closed, but she didn’t speak. Then she looked away.

  Whitman’s heart stopped beating for a moment as her emotions hit him square between the eyes. He tried to catch Sarah’s gaze, but after the initial look of shock and hurt, she didn’t look in his direction again.

  “You married a Yankee soldier and it don’t bother you, a Southern gal such as yourself?” Miller peered at Sarah, earning a growl from Lorenzo.

  “Do not be mean to Miss Sarah. She does not lie to you.” Lorenzo needed to work on his intimidation tactics.

  “Look, all of you, my job is to find out who killed that poor woman out behind the hotel. I appreciate your help—well, actually no, I don’t—but that’s beside the point.” He pointed at Alfred. “You hand over that list and I’ll take it from here. I am an elected lawman.”

  Sarah touched his arm. Her voice was hoarse and full of emotion. “Then find that man before he hurts someone else.”

  Somehow she’d find the right thing to say to the prickly lawman.

  He looked into her eyes and nodded. “I’m not sure how you do it, Miz Kendrick, but you have a way of making folks believe you.” He held up the paper. “I’ll track down these four and bring them to the jail. You all meet me there in an hour.”

  Sarah rose with painful dignity and nodded to Alfred. “Mr. Torreno, please escort me to my room.”

  Whit felt the impact of her request all the way to his heart. She’d asked Lorenzo, the boy puppy who’d followed her scent from Virginia, to help her. Not Whitman. Not her supposed husband.

  It was like a knife, even if it didn’t have a physical shape. It sure as hell cut like one.

  Miller speared him with one of his intimidating gazes. “If you promise to behave yourself, you can come with me.”

  Whitman was surprised by the offer. “What about your deputy?”

  “He’s taking care of a ruckus down at the Posy. He’ll be along in a while. Meantime, why don’t you use some of that bulk to find the man you say killed Miss Ledbetter.” The sheriff’s challenge was enough to make Whitman get to his feet, ready for battle.

  If he could do nothing to heal the hurt he’d inflicted on Sarah, he could at least try to clear her name of the false murder charge. It wouldn’t even begin to undo the lies he’d told her to conceal his army background, but he would do what he could. No matter what or who stood in the way.

  “Let’s go hunting.” His grin was positively feral.

  Sarah held her back straight and her head high as she walked to the hotel room. Their room, the one that held the bed she’d shared with a Yankee soldier.

  Her stomach twisted into a knot so tight, bile coated the back of her throat. Since Whit hadn’t denied the accusation, it meant the sheriff had been correct.

  Whitman Kendrick was a Yankee soldier, the very epitome of all she hated.

  The reason she was crippled.

  The reason she could never escape her self-made prison.

  The reason Sarah had grown into a bitter old spinster.

  The reason her life had been ruined.

  Lorenzo, bless his heart, held on to her arm as she stumbled near the end of the hallway. He’d been a steady presence in her life for seven years, since he was a scrawny teenager with a penchant for stealing.

  Now she had to rely on him like an anchor in a sea of misery, confusion, and betrayal.

  The more she thought about Whitman, the more she realized he had shown her the signs of his military background, but she’d refused to see it. Involuntarily or not.

  His haircut was too short for the style of the day. The way he carried himself with that back ramrod straight and his shoulders squared spoke to training.

  Hell, he probably was the right age to have fought in the Civil War.

  That thought made the vomit rush up her throat, and she barely made it into the room before she dropped to her knees with a painful crash.

  Tears mixed with regret as her heart broke into a thousand pieces on the floor of that hotel room.

  Lorenzo was there to clean up her mess and comfort her as she cried for everything she’d lost, everything that had been taken from her, and everything she’d never have.

  Sarah had finally allowed herself to grieve, and instead of grieving for the life she’d lost so long ago, she grieved for the
life she couldn’t have with the man she loved.

  The Yankee soldier who’d run away with her heart and left her with nothing but ashes.

  Whitman stood next to the very sheriff who wanted to convict Sarah of murder as they tracked down the four men on the list. Three of them were found easily, in either the dining room or their hotel rooms, and none of them even resembled Abernathy.

  The fourth name on that list, Ethan Rebay, had to be the man they sought. The problem was, they couldn’t find him.

  After determining the man was not in the hotel, Miller suggested going back to the jail to meet everyone. It seemed the sheriff was beginning to believe someone else was responsible for Mavis’s death.

  A blessing and a curse.

  When the case was solved, Sarah would be absolved of the crime.

  When the case was solved, she could ride away on the train and leave him forever.

  Whitman needed to talk to her, desperately needed to talk to her, but he’d be lucky if she even acknowledged his presence again.

  As much as his heart ached, his head told him it was for the best. Sarah was the wrong woman for him in many ways. He already had a fiancée waiting for him in Kansas City. His life was going to begin anew in San Francisco.

  The best ending for all of them was to have Whitman and Sarah go their separate ways for good.

  Too bad his heart howled against the possibility.

  Whit was not the type of man to be led by his emotions, but Sarah had knocked him out of that box he’d lived in and trampled him in the dirt. Somewhere along the way he’d fallen in love with her.

  The very rawness of his reaction to the thought confirmed what he suspected. He and Sarah were polar opposites, yet they’d found the other half of their souls within each other.

  And Whitman’s past mixed with Sarah’s had ripped them apart, painfully and irrevocably.

  Whit rubbed his eyes, wiping away the stinging from the dust on the street. After all, there was no way a tough old soldier would cry over a woman.