A haze of smoke tainted the air, growing thicker as dark curls rose from the smoldering hook rug. Blackened wood chips tipped with glowing embers threatened to consume the ready fuel. The last thing they needed was another fire.
He tucked his weapon in its holster, grabbed another vase of flowers from the table behind the sofa, and dumped the water over the charred space. The hissing sound and puff of steam indicated he’d put it out. Just to be sure, he called for Miss Plane to bring more water. With the sole of his boot, he brushed the debris onto the brick hearth and against the ash tray littered with the remains of kindling. Flames still danced along the two thicker sticks lying at odd angles across the fire grate. With the potential fire starters safe within the confines of the fireplace, Abraham turned his attention to Lydia.
“It’s gone.” Her small, pained voice suggested more than the loss of her writing career was responsible for her distraught response. “He must have rushed in and taken it the moment Lawson and I left.”
“Are you sure it didn’t just burn to ashes?”
Her countenance called him daft. “I’m positive. There are not enough ashes here for even a small portion of the manuscript to have burned. Maybe if I’d just burned the pages, but I was an idiot. I decided my career needed a symbolic coffin, and burned the story in my wooden manuscript box.”
That would slow the burning process considerably. Abraham stared at the empty spot on the grate. “How much of it had burned before you left?”
“The box had just caught, and the lid popped open, giving the fire access to the pages, but that’s all. I didn’t think the pages would last more than a few minutes.”
“So it’s possible he just has a box of ashes.”
“Possible, but I doubt it.” She pointed to the fire poker sticking out from beneath a chair. “It appears he yanked out the box, then smothered the fire.”
The poker wasn’t the only indication Poe had been in the room. Smudged with sooty fingerprints, an envelope with Lydia’s name written in Poe’s distinctive handwriting lay flat on the settee.
Lydia must have spied it at the same moment as he. She snatched it from the chair. “Why? Why does he have to exist?”
Abraham reached around her and plucked the envelope from her hand. “I think it’s best if I read this first.”
She scowled at him. “Absolutely not. I won’t be shielded from his monstrosity.”
Miss Plane and her two female companions rushed into the room with buckets of water, Lawson and Dr. Pelton just behind.
“What’s happened?” The redheaded friend’s eyes swept the room, stopping on the smoldering rug. She charged over and dumped her bucket onto the spot, then indicated the other two should douse the smoking trail to the fireplace.
“He got it, and he had the audacity to leave another letter.” Lydia snagged the envelope back from Abraham’s hand and dropped onto the chair.
She ripped it open and started reading silently.
Her friends crowded behind her so tightly, he’d never be able to read over her shoulder.
Lawson joined him, his own hands bandaged from fighting the destruction that was Billy Poe. “What does she mean, ‘he got it’?”
“The manuscript. Apparently, she was burning it in a box. When everyone was distracted by the fire, he nabbed it.”
“So he has his next target?”
“It appears so.”
Paper crumpling drew his attention, and Lydia launched her note toward the dying fire. Thanks to her brown-haired friend’s quick reflexes and swatting the ball a different direction, the paper landed in the middle of the soggy, soot-stained rug.
“Good job, Flossie,” Dr. Pelton said before admonishing Lydia to think through her actions even when upset.
Lawson gingerly collected the paper and smoothed it out on his leg.
Lydia pushed from the chair and paced. “He insists I am wrong about him, that I should trust him.”
Abraham tensed. Just last night, Monroe had said she needed to trust him. Was this another attempt from him? He took the note from Lawson, intending to read it, but Lydia’s agitation made it hard to focus.
“He wants me to be ready to run away with him so he can prove it! Is he mad?”
Flossie scoffed. “I think we know the answer to that one. The brute will probably get off on a declaration of insanity and be allowed to live out the rest of his days in the asylum.”
“Allowedto live out the rest of his days?” A quiet but fierce tone of disbelief sharpened the redhead’s soft voice. “There is noallowedabout it. Life in an asylum is a fate worse than death. I’m not sure I’d wish it even on him.”
