Into the Light (21 page)

Shenandoah
was the second play Deborah had attended at the new Hubbell Theater. Like the First Street Hotel, the theater had generated excitement all over town when it first opened.

Tonight the ornate, gold-trimmed moldings and thick carpet underfoot were lost on Deborah. So was the play.

She sat in the aisle seat Trey had reserved especially for her and stared at the stage, seeing only the blackness inside her mind. She applauded when others did, let Trey help her with her coat when it was over, nodded to people she knew as they left, and saw nothing around her until they arrived on Judith’s doorstep.

“You haven’t heard a word I said since we left the theater, have you?” Trey said.

“Of course I have.” He was a shadow in the night the way he had been when they first met, his voice even more compelling. The same sliver of moonlight that reflected from remnants of last week’s snow gleamed on the skin of his jaw. The clouds of their breath mingled in the few inches of icy air between them.

“No,” she admitted. “I’ve been distracted by.... Before I left tonight, Judith said you’re courting.”

“Would that be so terrible?”

“Yes! I can’t be what you want.”

“Are you sure you know what I want?”

“You want what all men want, a woman like Judith, like Miriam. I’m not like them. I’m not like other women.”

“Aah. And is what makes you different the same thing that made your cousin kill your father?”

She jerked back so sharply the back of her head hit the door frame. Panic brought bile to the back of her throat. She would have run blindly into the night, but he held her by the wrists.

“Who told you that? Who told you?”

“You did.” Trey’s grip loosened slightly, tightened again when she tried to yank away. “You told me your cousin killed your father in front of you when you were seven years old, and Sutton admitted to me he’s that cousin. So I had to wonder — what would make him do it, and why wouldn’t you hate him for it?”

“He did it because Papa tried to kill him with a shotgun, that’s why. That’s the only reason.” She sagged in his grip, all the fight gone.

“Deborah.”

“No. My father wasn’t like yours. I loved him.”

“I know you did. That makes it worse, doesn’t it? Betrayal by someone you love. Someone who should love you too much to do it.”

“Don’t. Please, please, leave it alone. Leave me alone.” Oh, curse him. How could he understand so well what no one else did? Aunt Em had worried at it for a long time, not because she understood, but because she didn’t. Why couldn’t he be like all the others, pretending they didn’t know, eyes sliding away from her whenever she did something strange?

Trey wasn’t through with her. “You’re right, my father isn’t like yours. His is a different kind of evil, but I loved him too, and in a deep down, twisted way I still do in spite of what I know now, in spite of not wanting anything more to do with him.”

“Let go of me,” she whispered. “Let go of me and go away. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

He let go of one wrist, reached around her and opened the door. He didn’t let go completely until she was inside.

H
E SHOULD NEVER
have done it. Confronting her with it had to be the stupidest thing he’d ever done, and frustration over her stubborn refusal to consider a future was no excuse. He’d frightened her, hurt her, probably done damage.
Damaged.

The day of his quarrel with Jamie, Trey had taken a room at the First Street Hotel. Cursing under his breath, he walked toward the hotel now, oblivious to everything except his own anger.

The huge shadow coming out of an alley as he passed never caught his eye. The gleam of streetlight on metal did.

Ducking his head low and swiveling the cane high, Trey deflected the smashing blow aimed at his skull enough to save himself. The cane shattered, the short piece left in his hand slamming into his face.

“Rich bastard.”

The big man rushed again, swinging wildly. Trey danced backward, pivoted as the blow came. As his assailant’s momentum carried him past, Trey jabbed what was left of the cane into the back of the man’s thick neck. He roared, smashed an elbow into Trey’s side and knocked him down in the street.

Trey rolled, scrambled. The pipe hit the walk where he’d been with a deadly thud. Grabbing the pipe end Trey kicked at the thick arm and bearded face on the other end until the man’s grip loosened. Lunging to his feet, backing away, Trey flung the pipe into the night.

Shouts sounded down the street. His attacker turned to run. Trey tackled his legs, got a good hold on one and hung on, pounding the sharp end of the broken cane into anything he could reach.

The grunts and curses turned to shrieks. A blow to the temple knocked Trey sideways, fighting to stay conscious. His attacker disappeared into the night, running with a lopsided, limping gait.

Trey pushed up to sit where he’d fallen, gasping, and cradled his head in one hand until his vision cleared.

“Are you drunk? What do you think you’re doing, brawling in the street like that?”

In the dim light, Trey made out one of the young constables on Hubbell’s police force. “Trying to stay alive.”

The man’s face floated in the air in a most interesting way. Trey closed his eyes again. Maybe his vision wasn’t quite back to normal yet.

“Mr. Van Cleve?”

“The Third,” Trey said, not sure why, but finding it funny. “There’d be a Fourth if Alice could find a legitimate way to reproduce without a husband.”

“You are drunk. Here, let’s get you up.”

“Not drunk. Tired,” said Trey, doing his best to collapse back into the street.

“Up you come. Here now. Put an arm around my shoulders. We’ll get you to the station and have a talk.”

Once the young constable had Trey on his feet and moving and got a good look at him under a streetlight, he changed their destination to the doctor’s office. “Drunk and brawling in the street,” he said to the doctor disapprovingly.

The doctor leaned in close and sniffed.

“Go away,” Trey said. “Don’t want to kiss you. Want to kiss Deborah.”

“Not drunk,” the doctor said. “He’s hit his head.”

“I didn’t hit it. Man with a pipe hit it.”

“Leave him here,” the doctor said. “I’ll clean him up and keep an eye on him tonight, and you can talk to him tomorrow. He’ll probably be able to make sense by then.”

“Good idea, keeping an eye,” Trey muttered. “Should have kept an eye.” With that he gave up and let the doctor do what he would.

D
EBORAH FINALLY FELL
asleep in the small hours of the night and woke nauseated and shaky.

Unless the weather turned nasty, the whole family was traveling to the farm for Christmas in a few days. Until then she’d stay right here in this room. Once she was home, she’d stay there, where she belonged.

The house came alive with morning sounds. The children, squealing and laughing. Judith’s voice. William’s. A knock sounded on the front door.

Deborah shoved the knuckles of her fist in her mouth. No one could force her to see him again. Not ever.

She’d tell Judith she was ill. She’d make her own way back to the farm today. A soft knock came on the door, and Judith peered in. “Aren’t you up yet?”

“I don’t feel well.”

“Oh, I’ll bring you some tea and toast after I get William off, but I thought you should know. Mr. Richmond just stopped by. He wanted you to know the office would be closed when you got there. Trey, Mr. Van Cleve, was hurt last night, and Mr. Richmond is going to get him from the doctor’s....”

“What!” Deborah jumped from the bed, scrambling for her slippers and robe. “Hurt how? Is he all right?”

“A robber attacked him. He spent the night at the doctor’s, but Mr. Richmond is going to take him to the hotel now. He’s supposed to rest today, but he’ll be fine. What are you doing? You said you didn’t feel well.”

“I lied. If William’s in the bathroom, tell him to get out. I need to get to the doctor’s.” Deborah threw off her nightgown and began pulling on clothes, barely aware of her sister’s astonished gaze.

“Yes, ma’am,” Judith said as Deborah pulled on stockings. “I will have my husband out of your way and in the clear in moments.”

Deborah ignored the tangled mess of her hair, threw a shawl over her head, and ran. Trey’s buggy was parked in front of the doctor’s house, Irene standing hipshot in the shafts.

Was he hurt so badly he couldn’t walk the few blocks to the hotel? Deborah pounded on the door, a stitch stabbing her in the side with every gasping breath.

In her imagination she had seen Trey prostrate and at death’s door. In reality, he was sitting at the doctor’s dining room table, finishing a piece of toast. He looked as healthy as a man with two black eyes, a swollen cheek, and several stitches near his hairline could look. Healthier than he had any right to in fact.

Deborah paused in the doorway for a few deep breaths. “You,” she said, advancing on him, one finger stabbing air. “You have to stop this.”

Peter Richmond put down his coffee cup with a click. “I’ll just wait in the other room.”

Deborah ignored him and kept right on stalking toward Trey. “Do you hear me? This has to stop.”

“I didn’t do this to myself,” he protested. “A robber jumped me.”

“That was no robber, and you know it,” she shouted. “I don’t care if she’s your sister. You have to make her stop.”

“First of all,” Trey said, with infuriating reasonableness, “there’s no way to be sure it’s Alice. It could be Vernon, her husband — or both of them — or someone else I haven’t even thought of.”

“You can’t just keep hoping to live through another attack. You have to do something. Surely your father would rewrite his will if he knew this one was going to get you killed.”

“Why don’t you sit down and have some toast and coffee?” Trey said.

She glared.

“Fine. Stand there. You want me to go and ask my father to rewrite his will? Do you have any idea what he’d do then?”

She didn’t, so she said nothing.

“He’d blackmail me to come home and learn his damned business by saying he’d have Alice jailed if I didn’t. Or something else just as bad I can’t even conceive of. I’m not asking my father for any favors.”

“She deserves to be jailed.”

“She’s my sister, and she has a month-old baby.”

“Leave town then. Go to — Alaska.”

“Oh, that would suit you, wouldn’t it? It would solve your problem with me.”

“So will your funeral,” she said coldly, “you stubborn, pigheaded
jackass.
”

She stomped out of the doctor’s house as angry as when she’d entered. Angrier than she’d ever been before in her life. He wasn’t going to do anything but try to dodge the next attack. Well, she was going to do something, and she even had a glimmer of an idea what.

T
REY CONSIDERED GOING
after her, decided he wouldn’t be able to catch her, and even if he could, he didn’t want to restrain her against her will again. There must be a way back in her good graces, but that wasn’t it.

When Peter Richmond reappeared, Trey stopped staring at the doorway and took a swallow of tea. Foul stuff, but the doctor said no coffee today.

He watched with envy as Peter refilled his cup with coffee.

“Doc had to go out,” Peter said, “You’re to go back to your room and rest. He’ll stop by and take a look at you in the morning and say whether you can come to the office.”

Trey nodded, then wished he hadn’t. Some vicious little devil had been banging a hammer inside his head from the minute he woke up this morning. Deborah’s outraged yelling hadn’t helped.

“I guess you know she loves you,” Peter said.

Trey stopped chewing toast and stared at the other man. “That’s love?”

“They don’t get that mad at a man unless they care about him. The madder they get, the more they care.”

The devil in his head slowed down, just a little. “If that’s love, it’s no wonder men avoid it.”

Maybe the two of them could move to Alaska. As soon as the devil went back where he came from, Trey would think about it.

D
EBORAH RETURNED
to the house to wash and dress properly before setting out again. Judith poured coffee and set bacon and eggs she’d kept warm in the oven on the table.

“If you’re going to rampage around like that, you need your strength. Something happened last night, didn’t it? I mean something between the two of you, not the attack.”

“It did.”

“And you don’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t.”

“I’ve always known, you know.”

Deborah’s stomach lurched. Her single bite of eggs threatened to come up. “Known what?”

“That it would take someone like him. Even if the men Aunt Em keeps rounding up for you were every bit as good-looking, you’d sneak away as soon as you could because they bore you. Whatever else he is, your Mr. Van Cleve is not boring.”

“He’s not mine.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“Do you think the weather will hold and we’ll make it to the farm for Christmas?”

Judith laughed and threw a dish towel across the table. “All right, I’ll mind my own business, at least for the rest of the day.”

Deborah’s course was set, but her knees shook at the prospect of actually doing it. She almost asked Judith for help but didn’t. A sister wouldn’t be much help. A male escort was needed, but every man Deborah could think of would kick up a fuss, try to stop her, and probably succeed.

In the end she stuck her chin in the air, squared her shoulders, and went alone. Two blocks into the area William had marked on his map for her to avoid, she saw the building. It looked like what it had been, a big barn. A fresh coat of white paint with bright red trim made it stand out from its run-down neighbors.

Knocking on the big front doors brought no response. From outside the small side door, she heard sounds of a hammer and saw, decided whoever was working inside couldn’t hear her, and turned the knob. The door opened to empty space. All interior partitions had been removed. Only a line of posts down the center of the building remained.