Microsoft Word - Jenny dreamed (10 page)

Five

As Beau Stanner unlocked the storeroom door and bent to place the lantern he carried on the floor, the last conscious thought he had was that he was proud of himself for following through with a plan to help Jenny Bryant. Then, as something that felt like a two-by-four slammed against the back of his neck, he slumped to the floor, out cold.

Dev smiled, slipping the matched pair of Peacemakers from the man's holster and tucking them in his belt. Damn if it didn't feel good to finally get one of these sons-of-bitches, he thought, and used the toe of his boot to roll the body over before he closed the door.

Dragging Lil's man in to the corner, he left him slumped against the wall. By the looks of him, he'd be unconscious for a while yet, and Dev didn't plan to stick around long enough for him to be any trouble.

At the door, he extinguished the lantern and opened the door just a crack, checking the hall for any companions the man might have had with him. Nobody. So far, so good-his luck was beginning to turn now. If it held, he'd have Jenny out of this hellhole within a half-hour. The Peacemakers, fancy, short-barreled models with the trigger guard filed away, felt very reassuring against his belly and luckily the little Spanish girl was out of the way.

When he'd finally gotten through to her and persuaded her to pull the knife from his boot, he was free in a matter of minutes. The only thing he could think of was to have her wait in the back alley, while he went looking for her mistress. There was no way to give her directions to the sheriff's office, and, besides, even if she'd been able to find it, there was a good chance the same two-timing deputy was on duty-the one who'd bashed him on the head in Lil's office. She'd only just gotten out the window and down the side balcony steps when Dev had heard the rattle of the key in the door.

Keeping his hand near one of the guns, he moved quickly down the hall and paused by Lil's office door. By' the light that had steadily grown stronger through the storeroom window, he judged it was close to six in the morning. Everyone would be asleep, something that could work in his favor if he was able to surprise her. Then again, it could be a hazard-the loud, raucous noises of the saloon at full capacity would have covered the sounds of a scuffle.

Some instinct made Dev turn aside and check the two rooms opposite each other, just before the office ended the hallway. If he were Lil, he'd have kept Jennifer Bryant in one of them, keeping the kidnapped girl close on the slight chance that even if she somehow escaped, she wouldn't get far without notice.

Both doors were unlocked, both rooms were empty ... that wasn't too unusual, especially at this hour. Most of the girls working here lived at a rundown white house Lit owned at the north edge of town and used these rooms only for "business." He was about to close the door on the right-hand side when he noted an odd, strangely familiar smell, and investigating further, found an uncapped bottle on the nightstand.

There was no label on the dark green, rectangular container, but he picked it up, held it to his nose, and recognized the odor. A lot of old ladies, prim and proper ones, too, bought this stuff by the case. Generally it was labeled a "Tonic" that supposedly cured everything from arthritis to warts, but the ladies favored it for their nerves. Its main ingredient was an opium derivative called laudanum. The bottle was nearly empty.

Almost before he heard a soft rustle at the door, Dev had drawn and whirled around, revolver extended, hammer cocked. Lil stood at the door, wearing a long, black silk robe and holding a lamp aloft. "If I'd known you were up and visitin'," she claimed with a calm smile,

"I'd have dressed for the occasion!" Behind the pleasant mask her face had assumed, Lil's thoughts were a tangle of emotions. How had he escaped from the locked store-room? Had he sent Jenny's maid for the sheriff? How could she get him back into her office, where she had a derringer hidden on the desk? "You're not going to shoot down a defenseless lady, Devlan?' she asked, affecting horrified innocence.

Dev kept his gun pointed at her heart. "You're about as defenseless as a rattler, Lil ... and I don't see any lady around here at all. Where's the girl?"

"Come on back to my office and we'll discuss it. You look like you could use a drink, anyway, and I got a fine bottle of bourbon just waitin' for somebody who could appreciate it."

"Last time I walked in, all I got was a headache, Lit I suppose it's foolish of me to think that Pauly might be waiting behind the door?"

"Pauly?" Lil snorted a laugh. "He's been passed out for hours now ... besides, Pauly wouldn't be no threat to a man your size." Lil's gaze swept him in appraisal and she gave an earthy laugh from deep in her throat. "Hell, no, Cantrell! You could take on ten Paulys and still not come up with a scratch. Come on, son ... I'm gettin' damned cold standin' out here." She turned and took a step in the direction of the office. "Hold it, right there," Dev ordered, corning forward until he stood next to her. He felt better having the gun up to her back in case Pauly was armed and waiting. "Just take it slow and easy, Lit" Lil obeyed the order but as she walked forward, clucked, "There just ain't any trust in the world no more, no trust at all!"

Inside the office there were no lamps lighted, and the one Lil placed on the desk after Dev had carefully checked the room for any surprises cast a dim glow over the plush surroundings. Beyond a door to the right that led to her bedroom suite, Dev could clearly hear the sounds of Pauly's loud, intermittent snoring.

Lil turned and frowned and with a gesture of her head motioned to the door. "Told you he was out. The little fool got into my bar liquor last night. That rot gut'll put anybody under the table! Now if you want a good drink ..."

"All I want is to know where the Bryant girl is. Go ahead and have one-if it helps jog your memory any."

Lil moved to the sideboard and opened the cabinet, pulling out a nearly full bottle of amber-colored liquor. "My memory's fine, Cantrell," she said finally, bringing the shot glass of whisky she'd poured over to the front of the desk. Dev leaned casually against the hall door, but she was quite aware that he could move with lightning speed if he was alarmed in some way. "The girl isn't here any more. I won't tell you where I sent her, but here," she reached down to the desk and picked up a picture frame and tossed it to Dev, "this is the reason I got her."

Dev kept a wary eye on Lil but glanced at the frame. His brows pulled together as he wondered over the reason she'd have an old newspaper clipping of one of Mariah and Jared's visits. The picture was a bit blurry but there was no doubt it was Mariah smiling back at him, with Jared's arm around her shoulders.

"That's my kid you're lookin' at, the fancy-ass Countess from London." When Dev's gaze told her he doubted the claim, she sniffed somewhat indignantly and further explained, "Yeah, it's true enough. She's a half-breed, an' I was only sixteen when I had her. My Ma took her off my hands and I thought that was the last I'd see of the brat. Unfortunately she showed up about nineteen years later and broke up a nice, cozy romance between me and ... and Jared Bryant."

The bitterness in her voice was as fresh as if Mariah had just taken Jared away from her.

"And you think you're getting revenge against your own daughter by hitting out at her daughter."

"I don't think so ... I had my revenge already. 'Fore she left here in the company of a couple of my men, Beau Stanner had her, paid pretty high for her, too. And where that prissy little English bitch is gain', she'll find a lot more -men willin' to put out cash for what he got!"

Then everything happened so fast that Dev had time only later to wonder where the pearl-handled derringer she'd pulled on him had come from. When he'd cursed and called her a bitch the small handgun had come up, and she was laughing as she pulled the trigger. Maybe she wasn't a good shot, maybe the cackling laughter threw off her aim, but as the bullet creased his ribs with a streak of hot, searing pain, he fired and the blast from the forty-five's barrel smacked into her belly, knocking her body back-across the desk.

The lamp crashed onto the floor, the flames spreading quickly wherever the kerosene had splashed, catching the rug and the red velvet upholstery of several nearby chairs. Smoke was filling the room, even as Dev gathered the silk bodice of Lil's robe and jerked her up. She was near death from the gut shot, beyond pain as she dangled like a broken doll. "Where is she?"

Dev shouted, choking from the acrid white smoke.

"... ne ... ver find ... her!" Lil gasped with her last breath, and then the gurgling sound in her throat told him it was useless to ask her again. He dropped her and waved the smoke out of his eyes, trying to see if both exits were already blocked by the flames. The door to the bedroom opened and a groggy, hung-over Pauly stumbled into the room, shielding his face as a wall of scorching flame flared up.

There was just enough room for Dev to get to Pauly. He kicked one of the burning chairs away from the wall and in another second had the choking, squealing man by the scruff of his nightshirt and dragged him past the licking flames to the outside door. Pauly was shoved out into the bright morning sunlight, and when he hesitated on the landing, a brutal kick sent his short, thin body tumbling head over heels down the flight of wooden steps.

There was a reception committee waiting for him as he bounced off the last step and landed in a heap of tangled, smoke-smudged limbs. Behind him, with a cold and grim expression, came Dev Cantrell. Pauly looked up at him and saw his own death reflected in the man's steady glare, then scrambled toward the safety of a growing crowd that included the sheriff, his deputy, and Chicago Joe and her bouncer. The little Spanish girl who'd been abducted with Jennifer Bryant stood off to one side, sobbing against the shoulder of one of Josephine's older girls.

White and gray smoke was now pouring out of the office, and the rest of the building was catching, its dry timber and furnishings feeding the spreading inferno. Down the street a bell was ringing, summoning the volunteer fire department to its duty. Dev had almost forgotten that he'd been shot. He wasn't aware of the blood soaking the right side of his shirt or anything but a dull burning ache as he shrugged off Joe's hand and reached out for Pauly.

As Pauly tried to scramble away, Dev'shand twisted the cotton nightshirt at his throat until he was choking, his eyes bulging, and he croaked out a plea for mercy.

Dev let him dangle for a minute as he faced the sheriff and. told him of his deputy's connection with Lil, that Lil was dead, and that the girl he'd come after was gone. When the deputy backed away at the edge of the crowd, one of the ·men who'd overheard the claim drew his revolver and held it against Deputy Akers's spine. "And this ... weasel," Dev added, giving Pauly a shake, "is going to tell me where the young lady was taken. Aren't you, Pauly?

Lil's already dead. Unless you want to join her right now, you'd best tell me."

When the strangling pressure around his throat was eased a little, all Pauly could do was cough and choke, managing to gasp in a hoarse voice, "I don' know nothin'! Lil, she never tell Pauly what she plans to do----l swear it!" He squealed as the material was tightened again.

Out of the crowd, a woman's voice called him a liar, and the watchers made a pathway for Mavis to move to the front. "He was there, last night, when Lil had two of her men tie up the Bryant girl and one other of the girls who'd been giving her trouble. They left about ten hours ago, headed for Denver." Now that she no longer had to fear Lil, Mavis was glad to help Dev find Jenny.

Two hours later Dev sat on the bed of one of Chicago Joe's rooms, watching the doctor wind bandages around his chest. He'd refused the pain pill the doctor'd tried to get him to take; it wouldn't do to have his head fogged by any drug when he rode out of Helena for Denver in an hour.

Across the room Joe frowned at the stubborn attitude her friend had taken. He'd inhaled a lot of smoke, burned his hands when he'd saved Pauly's worthless hide, and now wanted to ride off on a long, tiring trip with only a tight wrapping of bandages around his cracked rib.

"Dev, you won't do this girl any good if you end up fallin' off your mount somewhere along the trail! Doc, you tell him-Dev's in no shape to go anywhere. He'll get him-self killed in his condition!"

"A man's got to do what's he's got to do, Joe," Doc Simmons replied, tearing the gauze bandages down the middle of one strip to tie them off. "Sometimes the kind of determination Cantrell's got is the best medicine around, better than doctoring. But keep that under your wig, Joe, I don't need to lose any business!"

Joe sighed. If Dev was going to be obstinate, the only thing she could do was try to help him.

"I got a friend on the Denver line, Dev. Runs a house . . a respectable place, not like this fella, Evers. You can stay there, and Bella will give you any help you need. We goback to old times together, she's got a good heart, Bella does. You'd just damned well better take care of yourself or ..."

Dev grinned, then coughed from the smoke damage to his lungs. "Or what, Joe?" he asked hoarsely.

"Or you'll have me to answer to, that's what, Devlan Cantrell!" She tried to look threatening, but ended up laughing at the effort. A knock sounded at. the door and a moment later Duke entered, suavely stroking his mustache as he offered an interesting tidbit of information he'd managed to glean from the town's gossip mill, the local dry goods store.

"It seems that right after the fire started, a gentleman made a quiet exit out of town, heading for parts unknown. A man said to bear a striking resemblance to the outlaw Starmer." Duke grinned, proud of his news. He glanced at the guns Dev had taken from his belt and laid on the bed, then raised one elegant brow. "Apparently he'd had a run-in with some fellow who'd bested him. The man who recognized Starmer said he was wearing an empty holster."

Dev looked down at the fancy pair of guns and realized belatedly that he'd had a chance to finish off the man who'd carried out Lil's orders for the kidnapping. "Embarrassing thing, losing your guns like that. Sounds like Stanner's getting careless."· If the outlaw was headed south, maybe he'd catch up with him. The possibility brought a gleam of pleasure to Dey's narrowed eyes, and as he flexed his blistered hands, Dey smiled, an expression that held no amusement at all.