“We surprised him before.”
Ridley’s eyebrows rose. “What did he expect this time if he felt the need to be armed?”
Ben shrugged. Roen shook his head.
“I don’t like this,” said Ridley. When silence followed her observation, she knew it was the same for them.
Roen said, “I’d like to look around Victorine’s private car. I don’t feel especially confident that I’ll find anything, but it can’t hurt.”
Ben nodded. “Good idea. I’ll go with you. You can pick up your shoulder holster on the way.”
Mrs. Rushton appeared just as the men were getting to their feet. They looked at each other and then at the tray with coffee and a pyramid of sweet rolls. Without a word or a glance between them, they sat down again.
Ridley chuckled. “You’ll think better with something in your belly.”
•••
Lily read several stories in the broadsheet before she set the paper aside. Solomon was sorting mail. Since there had been no train since yesterday morning, his deliveries were already a day past due. Lily smiled to herself. Nothing moved particularly quickly in Frost Falls.
She came to attention when the telegraph machine began to tap out its code. Solomon dropped the half-dozen envelopes in his hand and took the pencil from its resting place behind his ear.
“This is what you’ve been waiting for,” he told her.
Lily stood and went to the counter, where she set the newspaper aside. The rhythmic tapping meant nothing to her, but she observed that it was a language Solomon Winslow understood very well. He scribbled on the notepad, his fingers ceasing to move only after the machine had stopped communicating in a series of dots and dashes and the letters appeared on the dial. She leaned over the counter, trying to read Solomon’s scrawl upside down. “Is it from Victor Headley? What does he say?”
Solomon read: “‘Express train arranged. Arrive the 18. Bring daughter home.’”
“The eighteenth,” Lily said under her breath. “That’s only three days.”
The station agent shrugged philosophically. “He does own a rail line. There’re benefits to that.”
Lily ignored him. “May I?” she asked, holding out her hand.
Solomon folded the paper and placed it in her palm.
Lily removed her mittens from her pockets and put the note in one of them. “Thank you.”
“No reply?”
She shook her head and began to put on her mittens. Turning to go, she stopped suddenly as a figure crossed in front of the station window. “You have a customer, Mr. Winslow.”
“Been expecting him. That’s Mr. Cabot. That’s the fella I told you about who came in first thing this morning for a ticket on the earliest train out.”
Lily turned back to the counter. “First thing?”
“First customer of the day. Only customer, come to think of it. Your husband was the second but that was later. And you’re my third. Slow day.”
Martin Cabot opened the door and stepped into the station. He dropped his bags on one of the benches and approached the counter. “The train’s running on time?” he asked the agent.
“Haven’t heard otherwise. It’s been known to show early. Afraid you were going to leave it until too late.”
Lily wound her scarf around her neck and the lower portion of her face and backed away from the counter. She ducked her head slightly, turning away from Mr. Cabot, and made for thedoor. He was a stranger to her. For all that she had heard about him, she had never laid eyes on the man, but she doubted the reverse was true. If he gave her any attention at all, he would be able to identify her. At the moment, she was unimportant to him, not worthy of notice. That was precisely as she wanted it.
Roen and Ben would be very interested to know that Martin Cabot had already arranged to leave town before they ever spoke to him this morning. As far as Lily was concerned, there was only one reason for him to prepare for a hasty departure. He had murdered Victorine Headley. It was his misfortune that today’s earliest train wasn’t arriving until just before noon. If he had been the least bit familiar with the countryside, he would have been better served to hire a mount from Hank Ketchum and head out. He would have had a decent start, although his chances of not being run to ground by Ben and a posse were slim indeed.
Lily had one foot out the door when she heard her name. He spoke it softly. There was nothing menacing in his tone, nothing that should have alarmed her, and yet experience with exactly that sort of tone warned her sheshouldbe alarmed. The skin at the back of her neck prickled and blood drained from her face. She was cold. She recalled moments when she had been this cold before. The last time was the night of the fire that destroyed her home and almost destroyed her life.
Lily considered pretending she hadn’t heard, but she had already paused and the length of that pause had certainly given her away. She stepped back inside, turned, and closed the door. “Yes?”
