“No. My daughter is coming home with me and her father.”
He gripped the banister and craned his neck to see up and around the corner. All he could find was the broad back of the man he knew was Samuel Snyder.
“Snyder!” he yelled, taking the stairs slowly so as not to startle the man into any sort of violence.
Snyder whipped around, that cat-like smile Max remembered turning his face into something most men would back quickly away from.
Max would have too, when he was younger.
But he wasn’t that boy anymore, and he’d do anything to protect his family. He took another step up, and then another. “I wrote and told you that Anna was staying here. With me.”
Snyder laughed. “You’re a hotel clerk. A gambler. A ne’er-do-well who corrupted my daughter and then ran off like a dog in the night. You aren’t capable of raising a child.”
Max bit back the words he wanted to stay. Snyder had run him off. Perhaps he should have stood his ground, but the man probably would have shot him dead. “I had no choice in leaving, as you might remember.” He took another step up.
Behind Snyder, Anna tugged at Delia’s arm, and Delia leaned down so the girl could whisper in her ear.
“That doesn’t change who you are inside,” Snyder said, one hand on his hip, pushing his jacket back just far enough for Max to see the pistol resting there.
Max swallowed the fear rising in his throat. He couldn’t back down now. Hewouldn’t. Not with Anna’s life—and possibly Delia’s—at stake.
“You don’t know anything about me,” Max said. “But I know about you. I know you left Vivian to fend for herself, for her and Anna to live in squalor. And then, when they were desperate enough, you tried to take Anna from her mother for a box of food. And I know how you run that gaming hall of yours. You’re ruthless, and that’s no place for a child to grow up.”
He wanted to say more. That it was no wonder Vivian was as wild as she’d been after being raised in such an environment. That her death would have likely been prevented if she’d had a warm, safe place to live with her child.
Snyder eyed Max as he took another step up. Behind him, Delia moved slowly in front of Anna.
“The marshal will be here soon,” Max said. “It’s in your best interest to admit you were wrong. I’m sure he’ll let you return to Denver if you hand Anna back over to me.”
Behind Snyder, Delia slowly backed up to the corner. Then she disappeared. Where she’d gone—and where Anna had gone—Max didn’t know. He hoped they’d returned to Anna’s room and locked themselves inside.
At least he only needed to worry about himself now, if they were safely tucked away.
“Did she say she wished to go with you?” he asked, thinking that perhaps he could make the man see reason.
“She’s a child. She doesn’t know what’s good for her,” Snyder said, practically spitting the words at him.
“She’s smarter than you give her credit for,” Max said, pausing where he was. There was no need to continue going upthe stairs. He only needed to distract the man long enough until Marshal Wright arrived. “And she’s happy here with me and my wife.”
Snyder laughed again, shaking his head. “Where did you find a poor girl desperate enough to marry you? Sweetheart, what did he—” Snyder paused when he discovered that neither Delia nor Anna was behind him.
He looked around, but of course, they were nowhere to be seen.
Snyder turned an angry gaze toward Max. “Where did that trollop take my granddaughter?”
The fear he’d been holding back shifted immediately into fury. Max glared at the man, and just as he was about to run up the remaining stairs, a quiet whistle sounded from below. He looked down to see the marshal standing there.
And beside him were Delia and Anna.
Max forced himself not to show surprise. He didn’t want to give away their whereabouts to Snyder. There must have been another set of stairs, somewhere down that hallway behind Snyder. A staircase the housekeepers used, just like they had at the Hannan Hotel.
“You afraid to come up here?” Snyder said, drawing Max’s attention back upstairs.
But before Max could reply, two men appeared behind Snyder, guns drawn.
“Samuel Snyder. Turn around slowly,” one of them said.
Snyder’s face twisted. He yanked the pistol from his side and turned around. He hadn’t even raised it when one of the men shot at him.
