Chapter Sixteen
THE EMPTY HOUSE ATthe edge of town was empty for good reason.
In the time she’d been sitting on the floor in the corner of what Charlotte presumed was the unfurnished parlor, she’d heard the telltale signs of rodents scratching wood and had sneezed at least three times from dust. Not to mention the hole in the ceiling, through which she could see stars. The wind found its way through cracks in the walls, whistling and giving the house a good shake now and then. A single lamp, turned down low, made just enough light to keep the darkness outside from overtaking the house.
Ruby sat against the opposite wall, crying silently ever since they’d arrived. Charlotte couldn’t decide whether she felt bad for the woman she thought had been her friend, or whether she was simply angry at Ruby’s ploy to get her here.
And Charlotte had believed her—right up until they’d walked into the empty house and she’d found two armed men waiting. They’d grabbed hold of her, pushed her into the corner, and refused to let her leave. One was Bertram McNab. Charlotte barely recognized him with the scraggly beard and clothes that hung on a too thin frame. Then again, she’d only seen him once back in Baltimore, so she might not have recognized him even if he had looked himself.
The other man she knew only as Polson, which was how Mr. McNab referred to him. He was even meaner looking than McNab. The house apparently belonged to this Polson, who’d made quick work of asking McNab when they’d get paid for all this work.
What, precisely, they’d be paid for, and what Charlotte had to do with it all baffled her. After she’d swallowed her initial shock and anger at Ruby’s betrayal, she’d tried to ask Ruby why she was here. But her husband had immediately told her to shush, and Ruby had skulked away to cower in the corner across the room.
“The sooner we get this into motion, the better.” Polson leaned against the front door, presumably to keep Charlotte from leaving through it. At least he’d holstered his revolver, although his eyes kept flitting toward her, as if he didn’t trust the way she was sitting quietly. She’d turned to run only one time, but Polson had grabbed her arm and dragged her back into the house. Despite the currents of fear that seemed to have overtaken her entire body, something in the back of her mind told her to be still.
If they thought they could trust her, she might find a way out of this.
“Ruby!” McNab snapped.
Ruby jerked, her eyes wide.
“You write this.” He fished a stub of a pencil and an old crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket and dropped them onto the floor in front of her.
Slowly, Ruby reached down for the pencil. She flattened the paper against the floor and waited.
Charlotte shifted as McNab appeared to be thinking. She pressed her hand against the gritty floor and then immediately lifted it, not wanting to know what exactly she sat on. The floor was uncomfortable, to say the least. Polson’s eyes flicked to her again, and she stilled, not wanting to draw his attention.
“To Mr. C. Montgomery,” McNab said.
Charlotte froze, her breath catching in her throat as Ruby wrote down her husband’s words. They were writing a letter to her father. And she feared she knew why, although her heart didn’t want to believe it of Ruby.
“Asset is safe.” He paused, looking up at the hole in the ceiling as he appeared to think. “For return, payment of . . . twenty thousand dollars—”
“Twenty-five,” Polson interrupted.
McNab nodded. “Change that to twenty-five thousand dollars,” he instructed Ruby. “By July first, or asset will be disposed of.”
His gaze sliced over to Charlotte. She forced herself to remain rigid, her arms clasped around her bent knees and her face—she hoped—devoid of any expression. But inside, a panicked scream yearned to force its way out and her heart beat so hard she worried the men would hear it. She moved only to bite her lip to force the scream back down.
McNab smirked at her. “You’re gonna make us rich men, Miss Montgomery.”
