“Mrs. Tyler told me you were Mrs. Apple. Is that true or a detail to complement your disguise?”
Phoebe did not answer immediately. Finally, with no inflection, she said, “A detail.”
Remington was hard pressed not to smile in the face of her irritation. If not precisely angry with him, she was definitely annoyed. Because he was curious as to what she would say, he asked, “Is ‘Apple’ really your surname?”
“I can’t think of a single reason to tell you.”
“Ah. Tit for tat, then. You’ll tell me yours if I tell you mine.”
“Yes.”
“That’s fair.” He suspected that response would frustrate her because she was spoiling for a fight, and he knew he was right when he heard a growl rumble deep in her throat. He did smile this time, although he was careful to turn away when he did it.
Once the silence settled between them, Remington concentrated his listening on the sounds around him. The wind swayed pine boughs so they brushed against one another, whispering to him as he passed under them. He never saw the small animals that ran for cover in the underbrush, but he heard them leaping and scurrying. Casting his focus to more distant points, he listened for something out of place, the sounds of snorting horses, hoofbeats, conversation among their riders. He heard none of that.
In consideration of Phoebe’s safety, Remington had chosen to take an indirect, meandering route to Frost Falls. He did not expect to cross paths with her abductors, but then he wasn’t confident that he knew their destination. Not Twin Star Ranch. In spite of what he had observed or concluded thus far, he still could not believe they would be so foolish as to show themselves at the ranch with any kind of demand. It was perhaps a little more likely that they would go to Frost Falls, but Remington didn’t hold out hope for that.
If Mr. Shoulders had spoken the truth, if Phoebe had not misunderstood, then some kind of arrangement had already been made. Remington did not believe for a moment that Phoebe Apple had been plucked at random. She was chosen.
Remington considered his father’s request in light of this new way of thinking. Had Thaddeus gotten wind of something he was not prepared to communicate by telegram? Before Phoebe told him what Mr. Shoulders said, Remington’s opinion of his father’s excess of concern was that it reflected his new wife’s apprehensions. Nowtherewas a woman who liked to exploit opportunities for drama. Remington typically took it in stride, and on the one occasion he hinted at her predilection to Thaddeus, his father had shrugged it off, excusing it as a consequence of Fiona Apple’s life—and success—in the theater.
If Thaddeus’s cautions had indeed been prompted by Fiona’s fears, then it was unfortunate that those fears had been reinforced. Remington thought they might never hear the end of it. If, on the other hand, Thaddeus had suspected something was going to happen, then Remington damn well wanted to know more about that.
“They took my ring.”
Remington required a moment to make sense of what Phoebe was telling him. During the quiet, her thoughts had obviously gone in a very different direction than his. “Perhaps it will be recovered when they’re caught. You’ll get it back.” He could see she was doubtful. “Tell me about the ring.”
“It was not merely a detail, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Of course, I wore it so I could pretend there was a Mr. Apple somewhere, but Mrs. Sweetings gave it to me. It was her wedding band, not that she was sentimental about it because Mr. Sweetings was an adulterer and in bed with a chorus girl when he died, but still, she meant well, giving it to me as a gift. And now it’s gone. I suppose I’ve come around to realizing that I miss her. Miss all of them, actually. My friends.”
“If your friends are in New York, what’s waiting for you in Frost Falls?”
“Family.”
He thought she might elaborate, but she didn’t, and he let it rest. “You were right about something,” he said instead.
“You’ll have to be specific. I’m right about a lot of things.”
Her butter-wouldn’t-melt reply made him laugh. “Very well. You were right. Iwaspeeved.”
“I wouldn’t say that. I would never say that. I might say you were brooding, sulking even, but not the other.”
“You really are getting some of your own back.”
“Hell-bent on revenge.”
That response, delivered with unexpected saucy humor, set him back in his stirrups. He thought he might catch a wicked gleam in her eye compliments of the moonlight, ormaybe a hint of sauce in her smile, but when he looked over, he could only see her in profile. No gleam. No sauce. He made peace with that. He knew what he heard; there was no reason for her to punctuate it.
“So tell me why you thought I might be one of them,” he said.
“Oh, you don’t want to hear that now.”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
“Then here it is. You were dressed in a similar manner. The hat. The long coat. You were armed. I know. I know. The same could probably be said of others, but you were the one in my car. When you fell in the aisle, I thought you were unconscious. It was only later that I began to doubt it. I covered your gun with your coat, but it seemed odd to me that no one searched you. They accepted that you were not a threat. In their position, I don’t think I would have done that. The men wearing the blue scarves walked right over you. How could they know for sure that you weren’t a threat unless you were one of them?”
