Page 54 of Heart on the Line

“Lee doesn’t wear a beard,” Helen added, excited to help prove Lee’s identity. “He’s grown some stubble over the last few days while he’s been recovering, but no regular beard. Oh! And his sister . . .” She snatched the Bible away from Emma and shoved it at Mr. Bledsoe. “Rachel.” She pointed at the name written in the inscription. “Her married name is West. She lives in Carthage, Missouri. You can wire her. Get all the details on her brother you could ever want.”

“Right now I’m more concerned with finding Grace than sorting out identities.” Bledsoe handed the Bible back to Helen. “Although getting on the wire is a good idea. I’ll telegraph the area lawmen, let them know about the false Pinkerton credentials and Lockhart’s physical description.” He turned to Malachi. “Would it be all right if I sent the information in your name? It would give the message more immediate credibility.”

“Absolutely.” The marshal thumped Bledsoe on the back. “I’ll grab some extra weapons from the jailhouse. You need to be armed with something more than a bunch of dots and dashes.”

Helen couldn’t agree more. Bledsoe might have sufficient brainpower for the hunt, but only a fool would chase down a killer with no firepower. Thankfully, the telegraph operator felt no compulsion to argue.

“Thanks,” Bledsoe said. “I can have the telegrams sent in ten minutes. I’ll wire Seymour and Wichita Falls directly, then get my colleague in Denison to spread a wider net while we start the search.”

Malachi nodded and strode toward town, taking his wife’s arm as he went. “I’ll have the horses saddled and ready in fifteen.”

Bledsoe hurried after them. “Mrs. Shaw?”

Emma glanced around. “Yes?”

“When you gather the women, would you ask them to pray?” His voice thickened. “Grace is out there—alone—with a killer. She’s going to need divine protection.”

Emma touched his arm. “We will pray without ceasing until Grace is returned to us.”

Bledsoe nodded his thanks, then set off at a jog toward the telegraph office. Malachi and Emma continued on to town, their steps long and hurried. Helen hesitated, leaning a hand against the station house wall.

Divine protection. How often had she prayed for that very thing when she lay huddled in a corner, begging the Lord to hide her from her father? To shield her from his fists? And how often had her father found her anyway?

Scripture calls you a hiding place, a mighty tower, a shield to those who put their trust in you. Yet sometimes evil penetrates your defenses. Helen bit her lower lip. I never understood why. She lifted her chin and squinted at the sky. But deep in my soul, I believe you are good. I believe you are strong. And I believe that I don’t have to understand everything. I just have to trust. So that’s what I’m going to do. Trust you to take care of my friend. Please be her shield. And don’t let evil win.

27

She looks so normal.” A muffled, unfamiliar feminine voice tickled the periphery of Grace’s consciousness.

Grace struggled to open her eyes, but her lashes seemed to weigh a hundred pounds each. Something hazy tugged at her memory. Like a dream, it dodged her grasp as wakefulness pulled her in the opposite direction. She considered surrendering to sleep in order to chase the elusive dream, but in the center of the fog filling her mind, one small pebble of certainty refused to blow away in the mist.

Danger.

She was in danger. She had to wake. Had to fight. Escape.

“She doesn’t look mad, but she must be if she drowned her own child.”

A child? Was it a child who was in danger? Grace needed to shake off this unnatural lethargy. Now. She tried again to lift her eyelids and managed the tiniest slit.

“Will she hang, do you think?” A dark-haired woman in a black dress stood a few feet away, sniffing her disapproval. Only a touch of white lace at her collar and cuffs softened the severity of her appearance—that and the flirtatious smile she aimed at the man beside her between sniffs. The smile vanished, however, as she leaned forward and scowled at Grace. “She should hang, if you ask me, mad or not. Any mother who would kill her own child deserves to die.”

Grace tried to shout a denial, but all that escaped her raspy throat was a quiet moan. The woman jumped back at the sound.

“There’s nothing to fear, ma’am. Not while I’m around.”

That voice! That slick, arrogant, womanizing voice. Grace’s stomach clenched as memory raced back. Dunbar.

He strutted into Grace’s narrow field of vision with a cocksure smile on his face and swagger emanating from every pore. The woman gazed up at him hungrily, as if he were a slice of chocolate cake with buttercream icing.

Which was odd since there was a heavy odor of—Grace sniffed—manure hanging about the place. She pried her lids open another smidgen, careful not to moan again and draw unwanted attention.

“I’ll make sure no harm comes to you or your father,” Dunbar assured the woman. “But as a precaution, when you bring dinner out later, just leave it on the ground outside the door and knock to let me know it’s ready. She’ll be awake by then, and I don’t want her to frighten you.” He stepped closer to the woman and reached out to cup her cheek. “When the madness comes upon her, she can chill the bones with her screams.”

The woman shivered and leaned closer to him. The deceitful detective wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “If you happen to hear strange noises, just ignore them, darlin’. I do my best to keep her calm, but I can’t keep her sedated all the time. The doctor warned that too much laudanum can be dangerous, and while her destiny lies either at the end of a rope or in a locked room at an asylum somewhere, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I unintentionally hastened her demise. She’s still a child of God, even if Satan has broken her mind.”

“You’re such a good man, Detective Dunbar. This world needs more men like you.”

Grace’s stomach roiled, either as an effect of the heavy dose of laudanum Dunbar had poured down her throat or from the naïve woman’s syrupy adoration.