Merrick nearly sank against the wall in relief. “We need to get them out of there,” he whispered to Wright.
His voice low, Wright turned to Deirdre. “Did you see a weapon?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t tell.”
Wright turned back to the door. “Mrs. Benton’s husband is home and worried about her. What about your husband, Mrs. Inman? Won’t he worry when he returns?”
“I don’t see why he should. I’m here, and his son is here. We’re all perfectly well.” Mrs. Inman sounded entirely convinced of her delusion.
As if cued in a stage play, Inman came running down the hallway at that very moment. His eyes were wide, and his tie was askew. “What’s happened? Miss Darby said Felicity had a baby?”
Deirdre took him aside and filled him in. The man dropped his head into his hands, and if Merrick weren’t so concerned for his own wife and child—and so horrified by what Inman let happen—he might have felt badly for the man.
“I can’t believe it came to this. I can’t. Benton, you have to believe me. I didn’t know she’d do something like this.” Inman’s face was a map of fear and worry as he whispered the words.
Merrick couldn’t say anything. What was he supposed to do, forgive the man? He’d been entirely blind to his wife’s seriousproblems. She had no business here. He should have gotten her medical attention in Chicago.
Inman turned his pleading to Wright. “Marshal, she wouldn’t hurt anyone. Not Mrs. Benton, and certainly not that baby.”
Irritation rose in Merrick’s throat. Felicity Inman was the last one who deserved anyone’s sympathy right now. “Shetookmy son,” he hissed. “She’s in there now with my wife and our baby and she’s saying she has a pistol.”
“Benton, step back. Now.” Wright inserted himself between them and glared at Merrick until he took a step backward. Satisfied, Wright turned toward Inman. “Does she possess a firearm?”
Inman glanced at the door, grimacing. “I gave her a small pistol before we came out here. I thought—I didn’t know what we’d run into. I thought she’d be safer that way.” He raked his hands over his face. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Wright said nothing as Merrick glared at Inman. He was half-settled on taking his frustrations out on the fellow when Wright spoke up.
“All right. She’s not opening the door, and I’m not sending anyone else in there.” He looked pointedly at Inman. “Not when she’s in this state. We need another way in, some way she won’t expect.”
“Each room has a window,” Deirdre, who used to live at the boardinghouse, said from where she stood against the wall with a lamp. She pointed to the room next door, where the door was propped open. It was unoccupied, and—just as she said—a dark window reflected back at them when she lifted the lantern just inside the door.
Wright’s eyes raked the room in a practiced glance, and he motioned Merrick and Inman inside. “That’s it, then. We go through the window. But I have to keep her talking to distract her.”
“I’ll do it,” Merrick said immediately. The windows were large enough that he should have no trouble fitting through.
Wright eyed him through a narrow gaze. “Can I trust you to keep calm?”
Merrick bit back a curse. “Yes,” he forced himself to say. “My child and my wife are at risk. I’ll do what I have to in order to get them out of there.”
Wright watched him a moment more, as if deciding, before nodding once. “All right, but Inman’s going with you.”
Merrick opened his mouth to refuse—he didn’t need assistance from a sniveling coward of a man who couldn’t see his own wife’s desperation—but Wright held up a hand. “If you protest, I’m going myself.”
“Fine.” Merrick shoved down everything else he wanted to say.
“Do the windows lock?” Wright asked Deirdre.
“They do, but most folks forget to lock them.”
“Let’s hope Mrs. Inman forgot too.” Wright led the way back out of the room. “Deirdre, can you stay here by this window? Benton, you or Inman give her a signal before you go in. We’ll time it so that I’ll turn the key in the lock at the same time. Maybe the commotion will confuse her.”
Wright didn’t sound entirely convinced as he spoke, and Merrick’s stomach turned at the thought of anything going wrong.
“Ready?” He turned to Inman, trying to keep the disgust from his expression.
The man nodded, ghost white and looking as if he was bound for the fainting couch rather than a rescue mission.
“God help us,” Merrick whispered under his breath. And they stepped out the door as Wright began speaking to Mrs. Inman again.
