“Coming.” Isaac grabbed a crate and clomped down the stairs. Thomas followed, both sacks of papers slung over his shoulders.
A handsome blond man in a suit paced the office. Thomas set the sacks down and narrowed his eyes at the familiar-looking businessman.
“Herod.” Isaac gave the man a nod. “What’s happened?”
“It’s gone. All of it. Last night. Someone must have stolen it.”
“Stolen what?” Isaac found a spot on the floor for his crate and set it down with a thud.
“My safe. It was blown open. The gold’s gone too, candlesticks and chandeliers.” The man spread his arms wide before dropping them back to his sides. “All of it except the few pieces I keep in the girls’ rooms for show.”
Thomas’s stomach soured. That’s why the man looked familiar. He’d been stalking around the saloon part of The Pretty Penny giving out orders when Thomas had stopped by with Isaac his first night on duty.
Isaac took a notepad off his desk and began scrawling details. “What time do you think the theft occurred?”
“When we heard about the fire. I closed down the brothel and sent everyone to help… well, besides the girls.” The man paced from one side of the office and back again, fiddling with a gold pocket watch while he walked. “I locked them in their rooms and left Rufus to keep watch.”
Isaac paused in his writing. “And Rufus didn’t spot anything suspicious?”
“Rufus was knocked out and tied up. Didn’t find him until I opened the place up this morning.”
Thomas moved his gaze to Isaac, and he could see the sheriff thinking the same thing as him. Jessalyn’s fire had been arson, all right. But if the target had truly been The Pretty Penny, did that mean his wife was safe?
Chapter Seventeen
“No, you spin it like this.” Jessalyn turned away from the pot of simmering soup and plopped herself onto the floor. Then she took the top in her hands, threading the string around it, and letting it loose on the wood boards.
“Ma, where’d you learn to do that?” Olivia picked up her own top and tried spinning it. “You’re better than Ivy, and she’s the best in the whole school.”
“Can you teach me?” Megan peered over her shoulder.
“Of course. All it takes is a bit of practice.” She picked up the top again, then paused. Three sets of blue eyes blinked expectantly back at her. Her lips tilted up in a slow smile as she wound the string around the top once more.
The door to the apartment opened just as she released the toy.
“Aw, Pa, couldn’t you have waited?” Claire stuck out her bottom lip, but pushed herself off the floor and went to her father rather than watching the top. “Ma was teaching us to spin tops.”
“She’s good at spinning tops, isn’t she?” Thomas hefted Claire into his arms, then winced.
Winced? Why would Thomas wince when picking up their daughter? Had he already injured himself working as a deputy?
“What’s that I smell?” He sniffed the air. “Cookies?”
“We helped Mama make them!” Megan jumped up from the floor, leaving Olivia to practice with her top.
“It’s been a while since we made cookies.” Jessalyn tried to shrug, but the gesture came off more stiff and jerky than intended. “I figured?—”
“It was the first time ever, and it was fun!” Megan bounced up and down on the balls of her feet.
“It wasn’t the first time ever, it’s just been…” Four years? Five?
Too long.
How quickly the girls had grown while she’d been elbow deep in piles of mending. This year she’d even been too busy to take off all of Thanksgiving Day to spend with them.
And even today, without a stitch of mending to tend, their time together was ending. The scent of sugar and flour called her back to the oven, as did the simmering soup on the stove. Did time with her daughters always have to pass so quickly? No more than the curl of smoke from a chimney before it disappeared into the winter air.
She pushed to her feet and headed into the kitchen, then reached for her potholders and pulled the tray of cookies out.
