Dammit! he raged. After three hours of searching, he hadn’t found a single house for rent in or anywhere around Willow Patch. The boarding house had rooms available, but the lady who ran the establishment sheltered a cluster of whores beneath its roof. The thought of Theodosia living in such a squalid place sickened him.
They’d have to move on to another town, one in which he might be able to find a house to rent during the coming months.
“Here you are,” the shopkeeper said when he’d finished piling the supplies on the counter.
Roman turned back around, withdrew a wad of money from his pocket, and peeled off several bills. While waiting for the mercantile owner to count out his change, he stared absently at the merchandise on display inside the glass-topped counter.
He saw a highly polished violin, a crystal wineglass, and a pair of sterling silver candlestick holders. A gold calling-card case with the nameAlfred Chippersengraved upon it twinkled up at him, as well as a small emerald ring and a brooch.
Roman frowned. Then narrowed his eyes. Then clenched his fists.
The brooch. A heart-shaped ruby, and from its bottom dangled fragile gold chains.
Theodosia was gone. She’d sold the pin and left town.
Fury tightened around him like a thorny vine.
“Purty, ain’t it?” the shopkeeper said. Tapping his fingers on the top of the glass case, he too peered down at the brooch. “Jest bought it about three hours ago. A girl come in here askin’ a hunnerd and fifty dollars fer it. Her eyes was real red and swollen, and I could tell she’d been cryin’. I figgered she’d run into a spell o’ bad luck, but her woes was my gain. I give her thirty-five dollars, and she tuk it. I reckon I can sell that pin fer two hunnerd and make me a hunnerd-and-sixty-five-dollar profit. Ain’t bad, huh?”
Roman grabbed the man’s shirt collar and pulled him up and across the counter. “You bastard! How could you have cheated her like that?” he shouted.
The man’s eyes bulged; his face reddened.
“Where did she go?” Roman demanded.
“Don’t—don’t know! She did—didn’t say!”
His eyes glittering, Roman released the sniveling man. “Give me the brooch.”
The man rubbed his throat for a moment and then reached for the gun he kept behind the counter.
But he stilled instantly when he felt cold metal at his temple and the clicking sound of a gun hammer in his ears.
“Give me the brooch, you damned son-of-a-bitch,” Roman ordered again, pressing the barrel of his Colt further into the man’s fleshy temple.
The man practically tore the doors off the back of the counter in his haste to retrieve the ruby brooch.
Roman snatched it out of the shopkeeper’s hand and stormed out of the mercantile. Recalling that he’d just seen Theodosia’s horse and wagon in the livery when he’d stabled Secret, he realized she’d left Willow Patch by other means. He went back to the hotel but learned nothing from the hotel manager.
Most of her belongings remained in the room, which meant she’d packed only what she could carry.
If you leave this room, I’ll hunt you down,he had warned her.No matter where you go, I’ll find you.
His vow a chant that beat through him in cadence with his heart, Roman left the hotel again and soon found out that no stages had left Willow Patch. Several travelers had come and gone during the course of the day, but no one in town knew who the travelers were or where they’d gone.
For hours, Roman described Theodosia to everyone he met. Many townspeople remembered seeing her, but not a one could recall her leaving.
Only the arrival of nighttime, when everyone had gone home to sleep or into the saloon to drink, did Roman finally cease his frenzied inquisition and admit to himself that Theodosia had really escaped him.
He was filled with rage. Worry. Guilt.
And emptiness.
Secret and moonbeams showed him the way out of Willow Patch. He didn’t know where to go and so he headed nowhere. Just straight ahead, into the darkness. Night creatures talked to him with hisses, chirps, buzzes, and snarls, but he heard no wagon wheels behind him.
“CanI ask you a question?” he shouted into the darkness.
No one corrected his grammar.
