Kate’s nightmares had left her fearing walls smeared with blood and corpses on the floor.
Another deep breath. She almost choked on it. She gripped the pistol hard until she stopped shaking.
Where to look? Sutter Hall had been added onto over the centuries, back when the extended family was growing and prosperous. It had been empty for a long time. She didn’t have any notion what was where any longer. She should have come over when Brydie was fixing it up. Stupid coward that she was, she’d refused, and now her ignorance might hurt Lavender or Maryann. Or even Vivien, for all she knew.
She listened for Fletch but still heard nothing. She supposed he had to tie up the horses and seek a way in if the front was locked.
The main door out of the low-ceilinged kitchen led to a gloomy dining parlor. Through that was the foyer and front parlor, where Fletch should be entering. Not knowing the house as she did, he may have gone up the stairs in the foyer, to the bedchambers.
The service stairs on her right would take her to the same place.
She simply couldn’t imagine Hugh carrying anyone taller than himself up stairs. He’d take the easiest path. . .
Which led in the direction of Kate’s nightmares. . . down a more recently added narrow hall that went to the workshop, woodshed, and drive.
The actors’ cart had been stopped outside the workshop. Assuming Hugh didn’t want to carry a burden far. . . She should go that way.
She very much didn’t want to. Maybe she ought to see if Fletch was still at the front. . .
“Can’t go on without coin,” Hugh’s voice approached the open door. “We’uns can nick a piece or two.”
Panicking, Kate darted down the dark side hall.
“Hark at me, ye old fool! We ain’t leavin’ now,” Wilma shouted from the yard. “He left. Didn’t ye ’ear ’im?”
Fletch left? Not possible. Shivering, Kate listened to their arguing. Hugh apparently wanted to steal funds and move on. He’d always been itinerant. Wilma was digging in her heels.
The children had said Hugh had promised Kate’s house to Wilma.
Vivien wanted Kate’s position.
Could they really have mistaken Lavender for Kate? That made no sense. Young, fair-haired, willowy Lavender in no way resembled Kate’s shorter, auburn-haired, plump self.
Find Lavender. Let Fletch take care of the cork-brains.
And she actually had confidence that the grumpy clockmaker would do just that, that he was even now sneaking around to catch them by surprise. He wouldn’t desert her. She didn’t know why she knew that. Her judgment had never been the best. . .
It was that lack of confidence that had kept her home all these years.
Clinging to the shreds of her courage, Kate gritted her teeth and edged down the narrow hall toward the workshop. Someone had hung a clothesline in here. It dangled outrageously colored and strangely-sized drawers, corsets, hose. . .
Odd undergarments didn’t hide the specters awaiting in that workshop office. She really didn’t want to go where ghosts lingered. She couldn’t shoot ghosts.
She ought to wait for help. The guard behind the barn had to have some notion that the scoundrels were planning an escape. Fletch had to be nearby. Perhaps he was searching the other wing.
A muffled thump from the workshop office startled her. Could Wilma or Hugh have gone in there while she was dithering? What were they doing?
Could she cower behind the damp clothing until they left? The alternative was the crude door out to a skeleton-haunted woodpile filled with spiders and other nasties—and possibly an ax.
She was less afraid of snakes, spiders, and skeletons than that haunted office. When the muffled thumping continued, she had horrible visions of someone killing the victims. Panicked, she darted into the woodshed.
The firewood supply had dwindled to almost nothing, but the worst webs and spiders had been swept out. In the dark, she had difficulty finding any weapons.
At another thump, she cast a glance to the hall behind her, praying rescue was on the way.
She saw no one—but she heard the wretches screaming at each other in the distance. If she heard rightly, then Wilma and Hugh weren’t in that office. She refused to believe ghosts thumped. Could she flee the shed, cross the wide backyard, and find the guard?
If the scoundrels saw her, they would be warned that they’d been discovered. That could turn violent.
