“You don’t even like to say his name,” said Phoebe.
“Remington. There. I’ve said it. I don’t know what you imagine is changed by it.”
Phoebe searched Fiona’s stubbornly set features and recognized that they were at an impasse. She could only offer a contrite smile to ease the tension in the moment. “Will you help me rinse my hair?” she asked.
“Of course.”
And just like that they closed the door on the subject of Remington Frost.
• • •
Thaddeus tossed a brush to Remington after they removed the tack from the animals. He picked up another one and began grooming the mare. “How did this one do?” he asked.
“Fine. She led Phoebe around a little, but Phoebe doesn’t know that. They’re both feeling their way.” Remington paused and looked over at his father. “You know what Phoebe named her? Mrs. McCauley.”
Thaddeus gave a bark of laughter that made both horses stir. He quieted the mare. “I’ll be damned,” he said, applying the brush again. “Suits her, though, doesn’t it?”
“I thought the same thing.”
“So tell me. Did you treat her right?”
“I wondered when you were going to get around to asking. I think it’s safe to assume you’re talking about Phoebe.”
“I am.”
“You probably should ask her, then.”
“I might do that, but I’d feel better hearing it from you. Fiona says that Phoebe could drink hemlock and would only admit to a mild case of dyspepsia. That’s about verbatim.”
Remington chuckled. “And it sounds accurate. As to your question, yes, I treated her right.” He told his father most ofwhat had transpired at Thunder Point, and if Thaddeus suspected there was a great deal left unsaid, he did not press to hear more. Remington was grateful for that. He had no illusions that Fiona would let Phoebe off so easily.
Thaddeus said, “Tell me again what she said about Shoulders.”
Remington repeated the description that Phoebe was able to give him. “She thinks she has seeds in her brain. Maybe she does. She can recall the odd detail now and again. I don’t think her memory is playing her false, but I don’t suppose we’ll know for sure until we find Mr. Shoulders.”
“We?”
“Me. Sheriff Brewer. Blue Armstrong. The detective from Northeast Rail.”
“You’re not going to leave it alone, are you?”
“I know what you said the night we found her, but is that what you really want?”
Thaddeus said nothing for a time. He brushed Mrs. McCauley’s coat with increasingly harder strokes until Remington laid a hand over his and stopped him. “I don’t care about the money—you know that—but I don’t imagine that’s your motivation. I won’t ask you to let it go.”
Remington held his father’s gaze. For all that Thaddeus’s eyes were a clear shade of blue, they could still be as impenetrable as his own darker ones. But that was not the case now. “You know something,” he said, and watched his father’s eyes dart sideways before returning to him. As a lapse, Thaddeus’s shifting gaze was infinitesimally brief, so brief, in fact, that Remington might have been convinced he had imagined it if his father had tried to explain it away. He did not, though, and Remington amended his thinking to an earlier notion he’d had when his father had announced that there would be no pursuing Shoulders and the others on Phoebe’s account. “You suspect something.”
Thaddeus shook his head.
“You do,” said Remington. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing, is what it is. Phoebe’s safe. I can be contentwith that. Jackson will do what his job requires. So will that detective. I’d like to see the passengers have returned to them what was stolen, but after all this time, I suspect there’s nothing left. As for Phoebe’s abduction, that’s a stone I’d rather not overturn. I won’t put her through the unpleasantness of a trial.”
“Supposing Shoulders and his men are eventually found, surely that would be her choice.”
“Hmm. Has she said that she wants her day in court?”
“We never talked about it.”
