Page 51 of Heart on the Line

Henrietta Chandler harrumphed somewhere behind him as he began weaving through the crowd. “Just like a man to make a woman conform to his timetable. It’s not like he’s got a job here to run off to, is it?”

“Let him go, Aunt Henry.” Emma Shaw’s voice hinted at a concern that only added to the wave cresting within Amos. “He needs to check on Grace.”

Yes, he did.

He pushed past the last of the females fluttering around the delivery wagon and stretched his legs into a jog, then a run. When he reached the office, he slowed just enough to avoid crashing through the door.

“Grace!” he called as he flung the door wide. His gaze immediately swept toward her desk, where she should be gasping and glaring at his boorish entrance. But she wasn’t there.

His heart seized. “Grace!” His shout echoed in the empty room as he pushed through the half-door that led to the inner office. He took in the scene—books scattered over the desk, a few fallen to the floor, her chair overturned, and a discarded crate tossed onto its side in the corner by the stove.

The crate.

Amos located the lid where it had been tossed against the far wall and snatched it up. All hope that Grace might have simply gone for a walk shriveled in his chest. A crate from San Antonio. One that Mr. Porter must have brought in on the freight wagon. A crate only one other person would have been interested in opening.

Dunbar.

The slatted lid fell from Amos’s fingers.

Dunbar had her.

Amos rushed into Grace’s personal chambers, illogically hoping he’d find her asleep or huddled unharmed in a corner somewhere.

The Pinkerton was dirty. Probably on Haversham’s payroll. The very man they’d been warned about.

Amos scanned the floors, behind the bed, anywhere Grace could be hidden.

The lying snake. No wonder they’d seen neither hide nor hair of a Haversham henchman. The villain had been right under their noses the entire time, his comely sheep’s clothing throwing them off the scent.

And Amos had let an old lady and her bicycle distract him from keeping watch on the fiend.

A gust of wind blew over his heated neck. Amos spun around to face the open window. The wide open window.

He rushed toward it, planted his hands on the sill, and stuck his head through the gaping hole.

Nothing. He saw nothing.

He dropped his head in disgust and slammed his palm against the whitewashed sill. Footprints. Right beneath the window. Deep, man-sized boot prints.

A trail.

Amos had one leg through the window opening and was ducking his head under the frame when the marshal’s voice stopped him mid-straddle.

“Bledsoe?” Heavy footfalls echoed in the outer office.

“Here!” Amos called, not bothering to pull more than his head back inside. He bit back his impatience at the delay but retained enough sense to recognize that rushing around willy-nilly on his own when there was a capable lawman available to assist would be foolish. The more help he could recruit for Grace, the better.

Malachi Shaw burst into the bedroom, gun drawn. His eyes scanned the chamber. Finding the same thing Amos had—nothing—he holstered his revolver and strode to the window. “Where’s Grace?”

“Dunbar has her. I think he carted her out this window.” Amos nodded toward the disturbed dirt outside. “I found footprints leading away.”

“Did you catch sight of them?” Shaw asked as he shoved his head into the same space Amos occupied.

Amos leaned out of the way, just in case the marshal could spot something he’d missed. His spectacles focused his distant vision a great deal, but it was possible some clue had eluded him.

“No,” Amos answered, willing his spirit not to sink at the admission. “He must have had a horse tethered nearby.”

Shaw craned his neck to the west. “Station house is the closest cover. Let’s check the direction of the footprints then head to the house. Henry was busy with the bicycles, but Bertie might’ve seen something.”