She gave him a look that dripped with curiosity. “I suppose.”
Mark waited another few minutes, tamping down the urge to run upstairs and check himself. The ladies in the parlor whispered, and he didn’t dare turn around to meet their stares again.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the woman returned downstairs. But this time, she frowned.
Mark stepped forward, the women in the parlor forgotten. “What happened?”
“It was unlocked, so I opened the door and . . . Well, she isn’t in there.”
“She said she was going outside earlier, when we were all playing cards,” one of the women in the parlor said. “But I never saw her come back inside.”
The woman next to her nodded. “I assumed she’d gone upstairs to sleep. She seemed very distracted all throughout dinner. I thought perhaps she was tired.”
“Has anyone seen her since then?” Mark asked, his fingers digging into the brim of the hat in his hands.
The women all shook their heads or said that they hadn’t.
“Thank you for your help.” He replaced his hat and made for the door, his mind going in six different directions, trying to determine where Charlotte might have gone.
“Please, are you going to find her?” the woman near the desk asked. “Otherwise, we’ll all worry ourselves sick over her.”
“I will,” he promised.
He was the one who was supposed to keep her safe. He was beingpaidto ensure her protection. And here she’d disappeared. He’d let his guard down, and look what had happened.
As he stepped outside, worry began to snake its way through his mind, pushing away his anger at himself. He’d find her if it was the last thing he did in this life. All he had to do was think through the possibilities.
It was late evening when Charlotte had left. Where could she have gone? Andwhy? He knew she would be waiting for him, to find out what he’d discovered. Why would she disappear before then?
What if she was coerced? Or snatched off the street like an abandoned sack of goods? His heart clenched at the thought of her in any danger. If anyone hurt Charlotte, so help him, he’d ensure they paid.
Slow down, he told himself as he strode down the street. Charlotte had ventured into the most dangerous of places when she first arrived in town. She likely wouldn’t think anything at all about venturing out in the dark for . . . what, exactly? What would entice her to leave the comfort of the boarding house when she knew he would return for her?
The shops were closed. She wouldn’t have needed dinner. She had no use for a horse—Mark didn’t even know if she could ride. It was too late to go visiting. She didn’t know enough people to be invited to a party.
He worried his fingers against the edge of his pocket. There wasn’t a place he could think of where she might have gone . . . but perhaps it hadn’t been to aplace.
Maybe it had been with a person.
Mark picked up speed, glancing down alleys as he passed, making his way from one street to the next until he’d covered most of the town.
Fear gnawed at the edges of his senses.
That note had feltwrongto him. Couple that with the fact that no one had been there the entire time he and Sheriff Young had waited, and the entire situation was suspicious. They’d spent so much time waiting that Charlotte had disappeared right out from under him.
Unless . . .
That was the point. If he was distracted, and the person who sent the missiveknewhe wouldn’t allow Charlotte to accompany him, that was the perfect opportunity for them to lure Charlotte out of the boarding house to . . . somewhere.
He didn’t know where she might have gone with this person—or people—but he would find them.
Mark turned on his heel and strode toward the sheriff’s office.
He would find her, and he would do it with the full force of the law behind him.
