Travis’s corners curved. “I’m glad to see you’re finally listening to me.”
Josie chuckled softly. “Goodnight, Travis.”
“Goodnight, Jo.”
Josie raised a brow. “Jo?”
Travis’s cheeks warmed. Had he said that out loud? “Ugh, is that all right? Since the children call you Josie, I just thought I’d call you something else. You know . . . to add some distinction.”
Josie hummed thoughtfully and rubbed her chin. “Jo.” She nodded. “I like it.”
As she stepped out the room, Travis took in a large gulp of air then exhaled, his hand behind his head.What just happened?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Statesville, North Carolina; October 1872
“I’msorrytosay,sir, but I have investigated every record of cab drivers, interviewed marshals, sheriffs, and hotel managers in Wilmington. I’m afraid there’s been no trace of your wife there,” Detective Dalton stated.
General’s fingers curved into fists, pressing his fingernails deep into his palms. His face and ears burned like coal. “You are telling me, I spent all that money on the best-known Pinkerton in Raleigh, and I received no report? How does that work, Detective?”
Detective Dalton’s youthful face turned ghostly pale. “I deeply apologize, General Wellington, but sometimes even I hit dead ends. Please know, I have tried everything in my power to obtaininformation. This case honestly doesn’t make sense, and neither do the facts you tell.”
Idiot woman,General thought to himself.She really thinks she can cover her tracks.“And what do you suggest as your next step?”
Detective Dalton leaned forward from his chair. His voice lowered and his eyes moved around his surroundings. “General, I may be wrong, but I believe your staff might have played a part of your wife’s disappearance.”
General gritted his teeth. His wife was always too soft. She was an embarrassment to him, trying to befriend the servants. It was his grace to allow Mammy to stay, despite having forbidden their time together. Mammy’s duties were strictly to run the house, and she was only to speak to Josie when given permission.
“What are you saying?”
Detective Dalton cleared his throat. “I believe if you investigate each of your staff members, you might find valuable information . . . They know more than they are saying. I’m not buying what that mammy says about most of the staff being in bed. Sheknowssomething.”
The general’s jaw clenched as his glare burned into the man before him. In a flash of fury, he leapt from his bed, seizing the lanky man’s thin neck in an iron grip. Detective Dalton’s eyes widened in terror as he gasped for air, clawing desperately at the general’s hands. Unrelenting, General slammed him against the wall, his thumbs pressing deeper into Dalton’s throat. The man’s struggles weakened, his face turning blue as his body grew limp.
“General Wellington!” Mammy screeched, bursting into the room.
The plump woman rushed forward and shoved at General with all her strength, but he remained rooted, his grip unyielding on Detective Dalton’s throat.
“Stop it this instant!” she barked, her voice shaking with a mix of fury and desperation.
Despite the rage surging through him and his overwhelming urge to finish the man, the General relented. He released Detective Dalton, who collapsed to the floor like a discarded rag doll, gasping and sputtering as he clutched at his bruised throat. General stumbled back, holding onto his bed rail. He heaved as his lungs tightened like an iron vise.
Mammy knelt beside Detective Dalton, her hands steady as she rubbed his back in soothing circles. “Breathe, Detective,” she urged, her tone softening, though her sharp eyes darted accusingly toward the general.
“You coulda killed ‘em, suh. What was yuh thinkin’?”
General’s cold eyes followed the woman’s every move, his grip tightening around his bed rail. Oh, how he longed to rid the world of both of these wretched creatures with his own bare hands. Mammy was hiding something—he was certain of it. And he’d get the truth out of her, one way or another.
But first, he’d have to be patient. Quiet. He’d watch her every move. He’d catch her red-handed and make her pay.
“Escort him out, Mammy. I don’t want to see his sorry face again.”
Willow Grove, Montana; October 1872
At nightfall, Travis returned home with a letter tucked into his pocket. He had picked it up from the post office earlier, assuming another offer to buy his grain. In the past year, citieslike Virginia City, Helena, and Cheyenne had contacted him about selling. Before then, he had sold only to Bozeman.
Standing on the porch, he read the return address, holding it up to the faint moonlight. He squinted, bringing it closer to his face.Charlotte, North Carolina,it read. His eyes followed each curve of the penmanship, transcribing the sender’s name as Victor Anderson. His brows arched high.
