Elias wanted me sent away.
Not politely.
Not as a suggestion.
“You and your father are going to Colorado Springs.”
“No.”
“Nellie.”
“No.”
“A man fired a rifle into a room while you were standing beside a window.”
“I noticed.”
“This is not negotiable.”
“Then stop negotiating.”
Elias stared at me across his office desk.
I had never seen him so angry.
Or so afraid.
“Ada will go with you.”
“Ada can decide for herself.”
“My mother agrees with me.”
“Traitor.”
Ada, sitting by the fireplace, raised one hand.
“I’m fond of living.”
Papa, in the opposite chair, said, “I vote we stay.”
“Thank you.”
“Mostly because moving hurts my leg.”
“Less helpful.”
Elias pinched the bridge of his nose.
I almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
Finally I said, “Pembroke wants the documents.”
“Yes.”
“If we leave, he will search the hotel.”
“Probably.”
“So let him.”
Elias looked up.
I continued.
“We give him something to find.”
Within an hour, the argument became a plan.
We created false account records suggesting Elias had located only a small portion of the missing money and intended to meet a federal investigator in three nights.
The real documents were placed inside a steel cashbox.
Papa suggested hiding it somewhere obvious.
“Thieves expect clever hiding places,” he said. “Put it under something boring.”
Ada chose the laundry soap cabinet.
“No respectable man voluntarily opens it.”
She was right.
Then we waited.
I hated waiting.
Every sound became suspicious.
Every stranger became dangerous.
Meanwhile the Imperial Hotel opened.
Despite the fire.
Despite the sabotage.
Despite rumors that Elias Mercer was financially ruined.
On opening morning, carriages lined the street.
The lobby glittered with brass lamps.
Fresh flowers stood beneath chandeliers.
The dining room served more than two hundred meals.
And I supervised all of it.
I wore a new navy dress Ada had insisted on purchasing.
“No,” I had protested when I saw the price.
“Yes,” she replied.
“I can buy my own dress.”
“Then call this wages for all the bread you smuggled me.”
“That bread was not worth this.”
“It was when I was hungry.”
That ended the argument.
The dress fit beautifully.
Not because it disguised my body.
For once, nothing was attempting to disguise me.
The waist followed my shape.
The skirt moved when I walked.
I looked in the mirror and recognized myself without immediately searching for flaws.
Papa whistled.
“Your mother would’ve cried.”
“So will I if you continue.”
He smiled.
Elias saw me in the hotel lobby.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Ada walked past and whispered loudly, “Close your mouth, son.”
I laughed.
Elias actually blushed.
It became one of my favorite memories.
But danger remained.
That evening Charles Pembroke arrived for the opening celebration.
He brought Mrs. Dalloway.
Of course he did.
I watched them enter together.
The pieces connected instantly.
“You know each other,” I said.
Mrs. Dalloway smiled.
“Charles and my husband have conducted business for years.”
Pembroke offered me champagne.
I declined.
“You look transformed, Miss Ward.”
“I’m still the same woman.”
“That depends entirely on circumstances.”
His eyes flicked toward Elias, who was speaking to investors across the room.
“You have become influential.”
“Is that what bothers you?”
He smiled.
“What bothers me is unpredictability.”
“I’ll try to remain inconvenient.”
“You already have.”
Later, music began.
Couples moved into the ballroom.
I remained near the dining-room entrance supervising servers.
Elias approached.
“Dance with me.”
I nearly dropped my notebook.
“I’m working.”
“The dining room is functioning.”
“I don’t dance.”
“Neither do I.”
“That seems like an excellent reason not to begin publicly.”
He held out his hand.
Behind him, Ada was grinning.
Traitor again.
I took his hand.
Conversation followed us onto the floor.
I felt eyes on my body.
Some curious.
Some amused.
Some openly disapproving.
Old instincts told me to shrink.
To apologize.
To move carefully so nobody could accuse me of believing I belonged there.
Then Elias said quietly, “Look at me.”
I did.
“Not them.”
Something in my chest loosened.
We moved badly.
Not disastrously.
Mostly.
“You lied,” I whispered.
“About what?”
“You can dance.”
“I can negotiate.”
“With music?”
“With you.”
I laughed.
Across the ballroom, Mrs. Dalloway stared as though she had swallowed vinegar.
I should not have enjoyed that.
I absolutely did.
Then Charles Pembroke disappeared.
I noticed ten minutes later.
So did Elias.
Our guards moved into position.
The trap had begun.
Pembroke entered Elias’s office shortly after midnight.
One guard watched from the courtyard window.
Another waited at the stairs.
Pembroke opened the desk, found the false records, and placed them beneath his coat.
We had him.
But not enough.
The plan required following him to whoever financed the theft.
What we did not expect was Mrs. Dalloway.
She intercepted me in the corridor.
“You.”
Her voice was low.
Furious.
“What have you done?”
“I’m walking.”
“To Elias.”
“That seems healthy.”
She grabbed my wrist.
I looked down.
“Remove your hand.”
“You think you can humiliate me?”
“I rarely think about you.”
That enraged her more.
She raised her other hand.
I caught it before she could strike.
The scene from the Copper Lantern flashed through my mind.
Ada.
The cane.
My thirty-seven cents.
How strange that a single decision could bring me here.
Mrs. Dalloway stared at my hand gripping hers.
“I’m not Ada,” I said quietly.
Then I released her.
She stepped backward.
“I could destroy your reputation.”
“What reputation?”
I smiled.
“You already told everyone in Silver Pass I was fat, poor, unmarried, and insolent. There isn’t much left for you to reveal.”
For once, Mrs. Dalloway had no answer.
Then a gunshot exploded downstairs.
I ran.
Pembroke had realized he was being followed.
One guard lay wounded near the rear door.
Elias pursued Pembroke into the street.
I reached the entrance as two horses tore away.
“Elias!”
He mounted another horse.
“Stay here!”
Naturally, I did not.
I could not ride fast enough to follow.
But I knew where Pembroke was going.
The false records mentioned a rail warehouse at the eastern yard.
He believed the federal investigator meeting would occur there.
I grabbed a carriage driver.
“East rail yard.”
“Ma’am—”
“Now.”
The warehouse was dark when I arrived.
Elias’s horse stood outside.
So did Pembroke’s.
I entered through a side door.
Voices echoed.
“You should have taken my offer,” Pembroke said.
Elias answered, “You should have learned arithmetic.”
I moved behind stacked crates.
Pembroke held a pistol.
Another man stood beside him.
Mr. Dalloway.
Honoria’s husband.
Suddenly everything made sense.
Warehouse interests.
Mine shares.
Rail expansion threatened their control over freight pricing.
Elias’s new rail spur would reduce what mining companies paid to move ore.
Pembroke and Dalloway had been draining Mercer’s capital to stop construction.
Mr. Dalloway laughed.
“Kill him and his empire breaks apart within six months.”
“Perhaps.”
Elias sounded remarkably calm for a man facing a gun.
“But then you’ll have to explain the copies.”
Pembroke froze.
“What copies?”
“The ones Nellie made.”
He was bluffing.
I knew because I had made no copies.
Pembroke did not.
His face twisted.
“That damned waitress.”
I stepped from behind the crates.
“Present.”
Every man turned.
Elias closed his eyes for half a second.
“Nellie.”
“Before you start, yes, I know you told me to stay.”
Pembroke swung the pistol toward me.
“Where are the copies?”
I tried to look confident.
“Somewhere you’ll never find.”
“I’ll ask once.”
Elias moved slightly.
Pembroke noticed.
“Don’t.”
The pistol returned toward him.
My mind raced.
Then I heard something.
Hooves.
Lots of them.
Our guards?
No.
Too many.
Pembroke heard them too.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing,” I said.
True.
The warehouse doors burst open.
Federal marshals entered.
Behind them stood Ada.
I stared.
She smiled.
“I made copies.”
Later, I learned she had secretly taken the documents to the marshal two days earlier because, as she explained, “All of you were being much too dramatic.”
Pembroke tried to flee.
He made it twenty feet.
Dalloway surrendered immediately.
Elias lowered his hands.
Then he looked at me.
I smiled weakly.
“Before you say anything—”
He crossed the distance between us and pulled me into his arms.
No hesitation.
No concern about marshals.
No concern about witnesses.
He simply held me.
I felt his heart hammering.
“You are impossible,” he whispered.
“I’ve heard that.”
“You followed a man with a gun.”
“Technically I followed you.”
“That does not improve matters.”
I pulled back.
“You’re alive.”
“So are you.”
He looked at my face.
And kissed me.
It was not elegant.
It was not planned.
I heard Ada say, “Finally.”
One marshal coughed.
Someone laughed.
But for a few seconds, I heard none of it.
Because the man I had been told could never want someone like me was kissing me in a warehouse full of stolen ledgers.
And for once in my life, I did not wonder what I looked like.
I only knew how I felt.
Alive.
Terrified.
Loved.
And not yet safe.
Because Charles Pembroke had not acted alone.
Before the marshals took him away, he looked over his shoulder.
“You think this ends it?”
Elias’s hand tightened around mine.
Pembroke smiled.
“You have no idea what Mercer signed.”
And Elias’s face went pale.