She’d found that verse at some point yesterday after Tressa left her apartment. She’d already decided to make sacrifices for her husband, but it seemed that God wanted a different type of sacrifice from her, one that involved being broken, because she certainly felt broken with Thomas gone. Maybe she needed this time alone for God to grow her personally before God could grow her and Thomas together.
Maybe. Or maybe she was grasping at straws, because everything simply seemed wrong without her husband.
The sheriff’s office looked dark as she approached, the curtains drawn. Maybe she could drop the basket off, provided he’d left the door unlocked. But wait, no, there was a dim light shining from beneath the curtains after all. She climbed the steps to the porch.
“Isaac? I brought dinner from Tressa.” She knocked on the door once. The knob turned easily in her hand, so she slipped inside. “A pasty and… Ah!”
Large hands grabbed her and slammed her against the wall. The wind left her lungs and her head throbbed from the impact. She opened her mouth to scream, but a meaty palm covered her mouth.
“Quiet there, princess.” A hulking bear of a man loomed over her, his massive build and features familiar, but there was nothing familiar about the cold, emotionless look he wore.
She sucked a reedy breath in through her nose, and would have opened her mouth to gulp air, but his hand still covered it.
He held her there for a minute, her body pressed so hard against the wall her joints ached. His eyes raked over her, his jaw firm, muscles taut, but he kept his thoughts shuttered behind his cold, hard eyes.
“You scream and I’ll crack your head open.” His hand left her mouth, but she barely had time for a breath of air before he jerked her forward, his hold on her upper arm so tight she winced. “Should have known it’d be you. Always meddling. Always in the way.”
She gripped the basket tighter despite her trembling hands, as though she didn’t know quite what else to do with it. Could she use it as a weapon? Panic clawed into her chest. What good would a Cornish meat pie do against such a large man?
“You don’t even remember me, do ya?” He dragged her toward one of the chairs sitting opposite Isaac’s desk.
“I remember. You showed up during the blizzard asking for your coat back. I’d barely had a chance to replace your buttons.”
“Sit down.” He threw her into the chair so hard the simple piece of furniture would have toppled backward had the man not grabbed it.
She dropped the basket to the floor and tried to scramble up, but once again he was faster, his big hands landing on her shoulders and shoving her down with enough force to leave bruises.
“I don’t understand.” She tried to stand again, but this time a length of rope wrapped around her middle. “No!”
Her cry echoed through the empty room. With his brute size and strength, he had her tied to the chair in a matter of seconds, her hands bound behind her back while her middle was strapped to the wooden frame behind her.
Then he hunkered down and leaned in close, his breath brushing her cheek. “You scream like that again, and I’ll break your jaw so hard you’ll never scream again.”
Her heart thundered in her chest and blood rushed in her ears. This man was large, probably bigger than Thomas, and just as strong. He’d have little trouble shattering her jaw. “Let me go. The sheriff will be here any minute, and when he finds you, he’ll?—”
A deep, jeering laugh resonated from the man’s belly. “The sheriff’s a mite too preoccupied breaking up a fight down at The Penny to bother with his office just yet.”
“My husband, then. He’s a deputy, and he’ll return soon.” A lie, but she’d tell it again if it frightened this man into letting her go. “And if he?—”
“Your husband ain’t coming back.” The man ambled to the door and slid the deadbolt, then headed over to Isaac’s desk, where he’d set his dim, narrow-beamed lamp, the only light in the room. “He ran off two days ago, thinking he needed to go save that hotel of his.”
Her chest deflated on a giant rush of air. How stupid of her to try bluffing. If this man spent any time in Eagle Harbor, of course he’d have heard about the deputy leaving.
“Traveling’s hard this time of year, you know. Good chance your husband won’t reach that fancy hotel of his. And even if he does, he’ll have a nice little surprise waiting for him.” He picked up a stack of papers from the desk and began shuffling through them.
“What do you mean?”
“Getting rid of him was a mite too easy.” He looked up at her and sneered. “How’s it feel to know he left you for it because of a simple telegram?”
Too easy? A surprise when Thomas got to Deadwood? Her hands dampened with sweat and perspiration beaded on her forehead. “Did you send the telegram? Did you want him gone and?—”
“I don’t owe you any answers.” The man set the stack of papers back down where he’d found them, with the top one slightly askew, then bent and sorted through a desk drawer. “Now quiet.”
She clamped her teeth together, her jaw already throbbing as though he’d struck it—just not hard enough to break it yet.
The scents of pasty and cornbread from the spilled basket rose up around her, churning her stomach rather than causing her mouth to water. She expected him to riffle through things, make a mess of the papers on the desk, but instead, he was meticulous about his searching, slow and methodical. He put everything back just how he found it, or close enough that Isaac would never realize someone had been through his office.
Her gut churned again. What about those times she’d struggled to find things in her shop? The basket of buttons moved from where she usually kept it by the other buttons and shoe laces. The way she’d not quite been able to find the sketch of her bridesmaid’s dress.
