“Well, well, Callahan, finally we meet again.” Sullivan was smiling. “But you show up in the middle of the night and try to abduct Miss Mitchell and do who knows what else? I’ll have to turn you over to the sheriff. You should be thrown in jail for attempting something that low.”
“No, Sullivan, I just hate to see my dead partner’s daughter with scum like you. She doesn’t know anything. Let her go. You can deal with me now.”
Sullivan laughed. “Too late. I don’t need you anymore. Miss Mitchell is going to show me where her father’s mine is located, and yours too, as I understand they’re right close to each other. In fact, I offered her a hundred thousand dollars for her mine, and she’s going to get her brothers’ approval to sell it to me.”
Morgan snorted. “She might look like a lady, but she’s a viper and a liar. She doesn’t own that mine; it’s an invalid claim. She can’t sell it to you or anyone else. Besides, she doesn’t know where it is. She’s led you on a wild goose chase.”
“I think you might be the one who’s lying.”
Sullivan turned to Violet expectantly. She was horrified that she had to lie and act like the viper Morgan had just labeled her in order to preserve the rescue plan.
“Idoown the mine and I know exactly where it is,” she insisted. “He’s the one lying to you!”
Morgan glowered at her before turning back to his nemesis. “Don’t get taken in, Sullivan. She might have spent some time in my camp driving me crazy, but she doesn’t know the exact location.”
Sullivan smiled. “But you do.” And then he told his men, “Tie him up, and it better be as tight as if he were in a prison cell. He gets away and you’re all fired.” Yet he was smiling again at Morgan when he added, as if giving Morgan a choice, “Why don’t you spend the night with us and show us to the mine tomorrow morning?”
“I saw you coming. There’s no way you’ll ever get your hands on those mines. I planted dynamite charges in them. You go near them and step in the wrong places, half the mountain will come down on you.”
The guards looked a little worried, hearing that, but Sullivan didn’t. “Nice bluffing, Callahan. But you’ll take me there, and you’ll step in the right spots, otherwise Miss Mitchell could have a fatal accident. No one would be surprised if a gently reared lady fell off her horse and broke her neck riding up these rocky slopes.”
Violet blanched. Morgan was gagged before he could respond. She stared at him, but he didn’t seem to notice because he was glaring daggers at Sullivan as the man walked away. One of the guards nudged Morgan pretty hard in the side with his boot, sneering, “There’s no need to wait till the morn.”
“What do you think you’re doing, O’Donnell?” Shawn demanded as he walked back to the group.
The guard stepped back, but wasn’t contrite. “I was thinking to get the answers you want.”
“Beating him isn’t necessary, not when we have her. We can’t leave now in any case, no matter what he says, so he’s got the night to decide if the lass lives or not. That’s all the torture he needs. Miss Mitchell or his mine.”
Oh, good Lord, what a choice to give Morgan when he was so angry at her! Violet did the only sensible thing she could think of at that point—she started screaming as loudly as she could and wasn’t going to stop. She ran around the camp, trying to evade Sullivan’s guards, who definitely wanted her to stop it. But the sound would travel far, especially in the stillness at night. If the sheriff was close enough to save them, he’d hear it. If not, she and Morgan would both die tomorrow.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
VIOLET WAS TACKLED BYtwo of the guards, who gagged her and tied her up for the night. They put her on a bedroll and tossed a blanket over her. She craned her neck to try to catch a glimpse of Morgan, who lay behind her, which was a little too difficult to attempt more than a few times, and he wasn’t looking at her anyway. She so regretted not getting a chance to convince him that she hadn’t betrayed him. He obviously hadn’t believed her when she’d said it. And now she might never get another chance.
When she awoke, dawn had come and gone. The sun hadn’t topped the ranges to the east yet, but the sky was bright with early morning light. Just one campfire was burning and a pot of coffee was boiling on a rack that had been placed over it. By rolling her body, she managed to sit up, and glanced over to where Morgan lay, but couldn’t tell if his eyes were open yet. Her hands, which were tied behind her back, tingled uncomfortably.
One of the guards poured cups of coffee for Sullivan and himself, but didn’t offer her one, so she had a feeling she wasn’t going to be untied today. Why would they bother when it was likely she’d have an “accident” later and end up in a shallow grave before day’s end?
Violet was startled by the thunderous sound of hoofbeats. Sullivan looked alarmed as at least twenty men on horseback surrounded his camp.
He grabbed the arm of one of his men and shoved him toward Violet. “Untie her immediately, and take off that gag!”
But when the man took a step toward Violet, a bullet hit the dirt between them, changing his mind. Rifles were already aimed at Sullivan and his men.
As the posse dismounted and started handcuffing Sullivan’s guards and collecting their weapons, Sullivan walked confidently over to a big, barrel-chested man who looked older than the others and remained seated on his horse. “You’re just the man I wanted to see, Sheriff Gibson. Callahan over here”—he gestured toward Morgan, who was still bound and gagged—“showed up last night and abducted Miss Mitchell. If my men hadn’t rescued her, good Lord, who knows what would have happened to her. Arrest that scoundrel immediately!”
The sheriff tipped his wide-brimmed hat back and smiled down at Shawn. It wasn’t a friendly smile. “Save it for the judge, Mr. Sullivan. Imagine my surprise, if you can, when a dead man walked into my office yesterday, and quite a tale Charles Mitchell had to tell. Oh, and even better, your own housekeeper confirmed every word of it.”
As one of the men in the posse helped Violet to her feet and took off her gag and untied her, she saw that Sullivan no longer looked so self-righteous. In fact, he was scowling. “I just took the burden off Dr. Cantry by letting Mitchell convalesce in my house. He should be thanking me, not accusing me of wrongdoing.”
Sheriff Gibson laughed. “Is that so? Then I’m guessing you don’t know that he regained consciousness sooner than you thought and was awake to hear you and your sister discussing when and how to kill him?”
Sullivan’s face turned red. Gibson continued, “So here’s the thing, Mr. Sullivan. Abduction and confinement of good law-abiding folks doesn’t sit well with our circuit judge. Falsifying a man’s death and causing his family untold grief, when all along you’ve got the fella imprisoned in your attic, won’t either. And here you are giving me even more evidence against you, out here trying to steal a couple of mines, hog-tying the two owners of those mines. The judge really won’t like that charge, not when he’s a mine owner himself, you know. But I do thank you, Mr. Sullivan. Been a long while that I’ve been hankering to tell you that you’re under arrest, and that’s what I’m telling you now.”
“You’re making a mistake, Sheriff Gibson,” Sullivan said furiously. “I warn you—”
The sheriff interrupted sharply, “Like I said, save it for the judge. You know they hang horse thieves out here. Won’t be long before they start hanging mine thieves, too. You better hope the judge hasn’t reached that point yet. And don’t think I won’t be presenting my earlier suspicions alongside all these new facts, like those two mines on either side of yours that you miraculously managed to buy right before the owners had very odd accidents. But you were careful then not to leave a trail of crumbs. Weren’t so careful this time, now, were you?”
