Josiah's Treasure (27 page)

She wouldn’t mention that he’d purchased her watercolor of Seal Rocks, the one he’d so admired. Not when just thinking about it left her even more bewildered. And flattered.

“I continue to hold out hope for his ultimate and total reform, nonetheless.” Brushing off her hands, Lottie watched Sarah’s face. Probably seeing more than Sarah was willing to admit. “Do you want to go inside and see what has been delivered?”

Sarah followed her, setting her reticule on the counter alongside a paperboard box. She lifted one of the flaps. Inside rested a thick cast iron disc about the size of a supper plate. Six holes had been drilled in the top at regularly spaced intervals. A wood handle lay alongside, tucked against the wall of the box. The levigator would be used to polish the lithograph stones: water and fine sand would be placed on the stone’s surface and then, with broad circular motions, spun along the stone until any prior etching was removed and the surface properly ground to accept the new work. Any ridges left behind would mar the next print. Careful work requiring a careful hand. Like Anne’s.

Sarah let the flap drop into place. “I really thought Anne might change her mind and be here to see the equipment delivered.”

“I thought so too.” Lottie opened another box and started to lay out the crayon holders and squeegees and palette knives in neat rows across the counter. Elsewhere, Sarah knew she’d find the inks and stacks of tracing paper. Probably on the shelves in the back room.

With a huff, Cora bustled around the half-wall separating the main room from the lithograph area, wiping her hands down a sackcloth apron. “You’re going to have to talk to those two, Miss Sarah. They don’t seem to know where to put the press, but for the life of me, I can’t understand what they’re saying! I think they might be gypsies or something.”

“They seem to be working very efficiently, Cora,” chided Lottie.

The girl cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “Yeah, well, you’re not in there with them.”

Lottie laughed and went to tend to the press. Sarah went to finish unpacking the box Lottie had opened when the shop bell rang.

Minnie rushed through the door, her brunette curls springing free of her straw bonnet. “Miss Sarah, you have to come. I went to Anne’s place to convince her to come to the shop today, but no one answered the door and no one I could find said they’d seen her leave. But there’d been a row between her and that Frank and . . .” Fear was sharp in her eyes. “Oh, miss, I’m just scared to think what’s happened to her!”

With Minnie close on her heels, Sarah turned down the alleyway toward Anne’s house. She dreaded what they might find. She would break down the door, if required, to find it.

Sarah dashed up the steps and paused to look back at Minnie, standing, pale and trembling, at the street. “I need you not to faint if we find . . .”
Lord, not that
. “If Anne has been hurt and there’s blood.”

Minnie squared her shoulders, looked defiant. “I don’t faint, miss.”

Good, because I might.
She banged on the door. “Anne? Anne!”

“Are you going to break it down?” Minnie asked.

“I will if I have to.” She rattled the knob. The door shook on its hinges. It wouldn’t take much to knock it down.

A stout woman, her rough wool skirts hiked above her ankles and tucked into the waist of a filthy apron, strode out of the adjacent tavern and tossed a bucket of slop water onto the roadway. She spotted Sarah. “Hey! What are you doing there? Frank’ll thrash you all to pieces if he sees you trying to break in!”

“I’m here for Anne.”

The woman looked Sarah up and down. “Don’t know why you’d bother.”

“Because I think he’s hurt her badly this time.” Sarah pressed her shoulder to the door and bumped against it as hard as she could, wincing at the responding pain.

“Oh, here, let me. You’re as scrawny as a wet cat.” The woman set down her bucket and charged up the steps. With one heave of her elbow, she broke the door latch. She grinned at Sarah, revealing a few missing teeth. “After you.”

Sarah went inside, Minnie hurrying behind her, skirting the woman from the tavern. “Anne?” Sarah called.

Minnie ran into the tiny back room, returned in a second. “She’s not here.”

“They’d a dreadful row earlier.” From the doorstep, the woman squinted at the dingy front room, the stains on the rag rug, one looking pretty much like the other, any one of which could be blood.

“Do you think she’s run away?” Sarah asked her.

“If she had any sense, she would’ve.” The woman scratched at her bare forearm and considered the contents of the room as if she might return after Sarah had left and help herself to some of the items. “I might’ve seen her running off. Couldn’t say for certain, though. Was just a glimpse when I was scrubbing the floors over there. Through the door, I noticed a tall woman rushing down the road. I noticed ’cause she was all bundled up. Sorta strange, given it’s a warm day. Might’ve been Anne.”

It might have been. “Any idea where she would have gone? Who would take her in?”

“Can’t say. Other than that Miss Whittier and Frank, there’s no one she ever talked ’bout at all.”

“Thank you for your help,” said Sarah.

“Guess I should get back to work.” The woman stomped back to the darkness of the tavern.

“We’ll never find Anne,” said Minnie, stepping around the reddest stain on the rug.

They left, Sarah closing the door as best she could behind them. She couldn’t lock it again—the mechanism was ruined.

Out in the street, she glanced up and down the road, hoping—pointlessly—that she might find some clue as to Anne’s whereabouts. “Where might you go if you wanted to get help, Minnie? Someplace where your man might not be able to bother you?”

Brow furrowing, Minnie considered the questions. “The streets wouldn’t be safe at all. Not if he was looking for her. I don’t know if she has enough money for one of the better boardinghouses away from around here. And if she didn’t look for a room with me or with Emma, then I’d guess she’s gone to one of the charity organizations. Though they’re not all as sympathetic as they claim to be. Some of the women who run those places can be awfully harsh to females like Anne and Phoebe and Cora.” She lifted a shoulder, her expression more sober than Sarah had ever seen it. “And me.”

Sarah hugged her hastily. They must look a sight, two women embracing in the middle of a Tar Flat alleyway, sure to be run over by a trundling delivery wagon or cart at any moment.

“If you think she’d go to one of the benevolent societies, then I have an idea of where to search for her. You don’t have to go with me. Go back to the shop and help Lottie. I think she’d appreciate that.”

“Good luck,” Minnie said, her hand catching Sarah’s, her callused fingers rough against Sarah’s skin.

“I’ll need more than luck.” She’d need help from God. Could she rely on Him, though?

Out of the corner of his eye, Daniel spotted an unwelcome figure leaning against a column near the elevator. He wouldn’t make it to the dining room for dinner without Jackson spotting him.

He tried, though. Within moments, the reporter trotted over.

“You back again?” Daniel asked him. “Don’t they give you an office at the
Chronicle
?”

“Told you I would return. And here I am,” he said, grinning as he doffed his derby.

“Yes, here you are. I was heading to dinner—and they don’t like reporters in there, I’m certain.”

“Not a problem. If you don’t wish to speak to me, Mr. Cady, that’s of course your business.” He nodded. “But I do want to get my story correct. Just tell me you’re sure there’s no gold up there, if that’s the case, because I’d hate to think of more folks trying to break into your father’s house—very nice place, by the way—to get to something that doesn’t exist. Don’t you agree?”

Daniel cocked an eyebrow. “You’re here again because you want me to refute the story, or because you want to add fuel to the fire?”

Jackson bobbed his head, the motion beginning to remind Daniel of a high-strung pigeon. “I’ll be honest. I want to sell papers. That’s what I’m paid to do. Whichever way the story goes doesn’t much matter to me.” Tucking his hat beneath one arm, he retrieved a notebook, along with a pencil, from an outside pocket of his coat and flipped it open. “I’ve learned your father came here from . . .”

He paused and squinted at Daniel. He wasn’t going to help Jackson by filling in the blank. “You tell me. Seven years ago was the last time he let us know where he was.”

“Slippery character, eh?” Jackson winked. “Best as I can tell, he’s been all over California—Sacramento, Los Angeles, Placerville, Grass Valley.”

His mention of Los Angeles triggered a memory, but it was gone before Daniel could latch on to it. “Is that the sort of information the
Chronicle
is interested in? Your paper can’t be that desperate to fill columns.”

Daniel’s sarcasm did nothing to deter the reporter. “Josiah Cady originally came from Chicago, didn’t he? Where he married
the daughter of Addison Hunt, railroad tycoon. Big society, I’d wager. Must have been mighty embarrassed to see a daughter of theirs marry a gold mine owner. Even one who hit it big in a placer claim in the Black Hills. Ever wonder where those nuggets went to? Some went to his partner, of course, and the men who worked for them, but there’s always a chance a few are hanging around . . .”

Fury was replacing annoyance. As much as he wanted to, Daniel couldn’t clout the man in the middle of the hall leading to the dining room. Even if Daniel had once wondered where all that gold had gone to, as well. “Are you finished?”

“Not yet.” Back on surer footing, his grin had returned. “What do you know about that woman living up there? The Miss Whittier who inherited your father’s estate. Not from around here, is she? Showed up all of a sudden, I hear. Mighty curious doings, all in all.”

Daniel leaned into Jackson, catching the pungent smell of the greasy pomade he’d rubbed into his thinning hair. “You leave her alone.”

“Taken a liking to her, have you? I’ve seen her. She’s not bad looking.”

“I don’t like you questioning her character. She came to San Francisco to take care of my father when he was dying, and my father was grateful.” It was one thing for Daniel to have doubts about her story; it was quite another to see them splattered all over the pages of some newspaper.

“Extremely grateful, apparently.” Chuckling, Jackson scribbled notes in his compact leather-bound book then slipped it into his coat pocket. “I’ll let you go for now, Mr. Cady. Here’s my card, in case there’re any tidbits you’d like to add to your long-lost papa’s story. Because dollars to doughnuts, there’s more to this story than meets the eye. Yes, siree. Dollars to doughnuts.”

“I wish to speak with Mrs. Hill.” Sarah leaned toward the narrow gap between the front door and its frame. The door was held ajar by a woman, tall and broad as many a man, who appeared to have been selected for the job of answering the bell because of her size. And the uncompromising glower of her deep-set eyes.

“You need shelter?” she asked.

“It’s not for me—”

“In that case, you can come tomorrow. Mrs. Hill has set down for dinner, and I won’t disturb her.”

The door inched closed. Sarah pressed a hand against the wood. “I want to speak to her about a young woman she might have taken in. Anne Cavendish.”