Page 77 of Heart on the Line

Grace released her hold on the hero of the hour and stepped aside, eager to hear his answer. Amos’s blue eyes glowed with joy and love as he grinned at Grace before turning to Emma and the others.

“Mr. Mallory died protecting these books. He wouldn’t have done that if he’d removed the documents and stored them elsewhere, so I knew the will and the Pinkerton report had to be in the books themselves somehow. We all examined the pages, the bindings, and found nothing. The only option left was to look inside the cover. If the documents hadn’t been beneath the endpapers, I would have pulled the cloth from the pressboard next, then unsewn the binding.” His gaze found Grace’s. “Whatever it took.”

“Good work, Bledsoe.” Detective Dunbar eased his injured leg down from the crate and made to stand. “Think there’s another page or two under the back cover?”

“Don’t you be gettin’ out of that chair, Leander Dunbar,” Helen scolded. “I’ll fetch the paper for you.”

She made it two steps before Lee grumbled, “I’m fully capable of fetching the paper myself, woman.”

“Wrong answer,” Ben Porter remarked in a stage whisper. “You’re supposed to say, ‘Yes, ma’am.’”

Tori swatted his arm, but the big man gave no indication that he felt it, just shared an amused glance with Malachi. Grace ignored their antics, much more concerned with what Amos was doing.

Working meticulously, Amos separated the endpapers from both books and extracted all three pages of Haversham’s will along with a single-sheet report from Detective Whitmore regarding the identity of Tremont’s daughter.

“Margaret Flanders of Worcester, Massachusetts.” The name felt surreal slipping from Grace’s tongue. How many times had she read the letters between Tremont Haversham and his seamstress bride, Deborah, and tried to picture their daughter? “Raised by Horace Pierce, a machinist, and his wife, Ann. Their only child. Margaret married Owen Flanders, an employee of Crompton Loom Works, in 1891.” She glanced up from the report. “Can you imagine how this woman’s life is about to change? The money. Ownership of a mine in Colorado. All the people, the responsibility. It’s bound to overwhelm her.”

“Worcester women are strong,” Emma said.

Grace’s brow scrunched. “How can you possibly know that?”

Emma grinned. “Worcester hosted the first two National Women’s Rights Conventions in 1850 and 1851. Strong, forward-thinking women make up the backbone of that place. She’ll be fine.”

“Don’t forget she’s got a husband to help her deal with all the changes, as well,” the marshal added, giving his wife a telling look.

Helen snorted. “Unless he turns out to be a weasel and steals everything out from under her, leaving her high and dry.”

Detective Dunbar, safely seated back in his chair, reached for Helen’s hand. “Not all men are scoundrels.”

She ducked her head. “I know. But more are than ain’t.”

Dunbar smiled and brought the back of her hand to his lips. The gallant gesture seemed to flummox Helen and turned her cheeks bright pink, but she didn’t tug away or flay him with the sharp side of her tongue.

“I’ll investigate her husband’s work history and reputation before I deliver the news,” Dunbar promised, “to avoid any surprises.” Without releasing Helen’s hand, he shuffled the papers lying in his lap, grasped the second page of the will, and scanned the contents. “Though it might not matter. Haversham’s will stipulates that the money belongs to Margaret Pierce Flanders in her own right. The only way her husband will be able to access the funds is with her permission.”

A dark thought tripped through Grace’s mind. “You don’t think Chaucer Haversham will try to harm his half-sister in order to reclaim his inheritance, do you?”

The Pinkerton shook his head. “No. The will stipulates that the monies will pass to Margaret’s children in the event of her death. If she has no children, the funds will be disbursed among several Philadelphia charities supported by Tremont’s first wife. Margaret should be in no danger.”

Grace nodded, relief trickling through her. She wouldn’t want any woman to go through what she had this last year. “I guess all that’s left for me to do is turn over Tremont Haversham’s letters to you, then, so you can be on your way.”

Grace expected the Pinkerton to readily agree—after all, he’d been pursuing these answers as long as she had. Surely he was eager to bring his case to a close. Yet his face went oddly blank at her words, and his grip on Helen’s hand tightened.

Regretting her careless words, Grace moved toward Helen, trying to think of something reassuring to say, but the tapping of an incoming message from the telegraph made her reverse course.

Amos scrambled to get out of her seat so she could respond to the call. Grace smiled her thanks, reached for a telegraph blank and pencil, then sat and tapped out the code signifying that she was ready to receive.

“The message is for you, Marshal.” Grace glanced quickly at Malachi, her pencil continuing its stilted scribbling as she deciphered the incoming code. “From Bart Porter.”

“Bart?” The freighter’s questioning tone hushed the room. “We just left his place this morning. What could he possibly—?”

Amos’s sharp pivot toward Grace cut off Ben’s words. The sounder continued tapping out code, but Grace had stopped transcribing. She looked up, met Amos’s eyes, and saw her own shock reflected there.

“Bart Porter just spotted a man in a fancy suit with a silver-headed walking stick leaving the undertaker’s building,” she reported, breaking Western Union’s confidentiality policy for the first time in her career. “It appears he’s rented a horse from Stranton’s Livery and is planning a visit to Harper’s Station.”

Lee Dunbar shot to his feet, a grimace the only evidence of his pain. “Wire Sheriff Tabor to gather some men and meet us here,” he ordered through clenched teeth. He shoved the will at Grace and pointed to Emma. “Lock the documents back in the safe and spread the word to the ladies to keep off the street.” His penetrating stare moved from one man to the next in the room. “Looks like Chaucer Haversham is paying us a visit.”

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