Mrs. John Doe

Chapter 43

It was dark in the stable, but there were windows, a row of square openings flanking the big double doors in the wall to her right, facing the drive. To her left were the stalls, six of them, with enough room in each for two animals. There were no horses now, of course, but the faint, sweet scent of them lingered. She moved slowly, silently forward down the corridor in front of the stalls until she reached the far end, where two open areas had served as a smithy and a tack room. She saw a black iron anvil mounted on a table beside a potbelly stove, and rows of empty pegs along one wall that had once held reins and bridles. Discarded burlap feed bags were piled in one corner. There was a walled-off space at the end of the stall side, and its shut door had the words THE GROOM ROOM crudely scrawled across it in white paint.

The archway before her led directly into the barn. She stood under the arch, peering into the enormous space. It was two stories high, with a hayloft suspended ten feet above the floor on the opposite side from her. Big bales of straw were stacked in the loft, and the rustling sound she heard from there informed her that rats or mice had made this place their home. Otherwise, the barn was empty.

Almost empty. Several large wooden crates were stacked near the front doors, which were closed and padlocked. She counted the boxes: eight. Four for each truck, she decided, because it was obvious to her that these crates held the goods that had just been sold. She wondered, briefly, what was inside them. Then she swept every inch of the cavernous place with her gaze. She thought, Where the hell is he…?

She turned around and studied the only enclosed space in the entire complex: THE GROOM ROOM. Her husband must be in there, beyond that door, but she didn’t rush forward to fling it open. Instead, she reached into her purse and pulled out the LadySmith revolver. It was empty, useless, but the person or people guarding him wouldn’t know that. And they would definitely be armed.

Holding the gun out in front of her, she went over to the door and gently pushed it open. Nothing-no sudden shout or swift movement. It was very dark in here, and she had to pause a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the gloom. When she could see, she held back a cry.

There were two cots in the room, one against each wall, and both of them were occupied. Jeff lay on the one to her left, covered with a plain brown blanket, his eyes shut as though in sleep. She took a step forward, just to be sure: Yes, it was definitely her husband, and she fought down a nearly overwhelming urge to rush to him. Tearing her gaze from his ashen face, she walked directly over to the other cot and pressed the tip of her revolver against the temple of the bearded young man lying there.

Nothing. No reaction whatsoever. Nora leaned down, peering closer, slowly lowering her weapon and dropping it into her bag. This man was dead, eyes wide open, his head lying at an impossible angle on the pillow. Someone had broken his neck, placed him on the cot, and covered him with a blanket. She touched his cheek: warm. He’d died recently, very recently.

Now she turned to the other cot. She sank to her knees, staring at her husband, sheer dread rising up in her chest. His face was a mass of dark bruises and dried cuts under a five-day growth of beard. She gently touched his pale cheek, noting the warmth. The intense warmth-a fever. He was alive.

Uttering a soft moan, she threw herself across his chest, weeping. His eyes opened, and he weakly raised one hand to grasp her shoulder, pulling her head toward his face. She kissed his lips, and he groaned. His lips moved with no sound, so she carefully pressed her ear against them.

“I’m okay,” he whispered. “Hide. Loft.” He winced, drew in a breath, and added, “Now. They’re coming!”

Nora straightened up and looked down at him. His head fell back against the pillow, but he continued to watch her, the urgency clear in his dark eyes. She didn’t want to go, didn’t want to leave him here.

“They have the manila envelope,” she said. “Bill and that son of a bitch Craig Elder. I swear, I’d like to-”

“Hush,” he croaked. “Don’t worry. They don’t have anything. It’s all right, Pal.”

She stared at him, wincing at the sight of the wounds on his nose and cheeks. “But the envelope-I mean, if that wasn’t it, where-?”

He reached up to touch the gold locket on the chain at her breast and whispered, “Always-keep me close-to your-heart. Now get in the hayloft, Pal. Quickly!”

Close to her heart. Of course, she thought, feeling a sense of relief mixed with sheer triumph. Of course! Whatever they were looking for was in the locket.

She stood and went over to the door, brushing the tears from her eyes before turning to face him again. She fought another urge to bundle him out of the bed and carry him, drag him from this place. If only there were still horses here! Perhaps there was a handcart or a wheelbarrow…

“What about you?” she asked. “I can’t just leave you here like this. What will you do when they come in here and find him?” She jabbed a thumb toward the other cot.

Despite his obvious pain, a little smile crept across his face. He withdrew his other arm from under the blanket and held up his hand. It clutched a gleaming silver gun, a snub-nosed revolver that looked almost exactly like her LadySmith.

“He won’t be needing this anymore,” he whispered. “Go!”

With a last quick smile for him, she slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her. She moved swiftly through the archway into the cavernous barn, searching the loft platform for a ladder. There it was, at the back of the barn, five slats nailed between two support posts. She made her way over to it and grasped the rungs, pulling herself upward as the first sounds reached her from beyond the padlocked barn door. Voices, a foreign language. She arrived on the platform and dived forward into a pile of ancient, rancid hay. She heard rattling at the door now, a key working into a lock, as she landed on something solid, something concealed beneath a layer of straw. She brushed the straw away with her hands and reared back, rising quickly to her knees, staring down.

A man’s face stared blankly up at her, white and waxy. The dark eyes were clouded over behind the thick glasses above the generous mustache. Small gray insects swarmed across the pallid cheeks, in and out of the open mouth. The odor of decay rose up from him, mingling with the overripe scent of the hay. Even in this condition, he was immediately recognizable. She had found the missing Maurice Dolin.

She gasped, scrambling back from the corpse. She fell backward, directly into another solid object: another body, only this one was alive. An arm reached out from behind her, circling her chest, and a hand came around to clamp itself firmly across her mouth. She was pulled roughly back behind a pile of hay bales just as the lock clicked and the barn doors swung open, flooding the room with overcast light.

Nora leaned back against the warm body sitting behind her, relaxing in strong arms, feeling his heartbeat against her left shoulder blade. His legs extended out at either side of hers. She wasn’t surprised that he was here; she’d half expected it. The broken door, the dead guard, the weapon in her husband’s hands. Jeff was seriously injured; he hadn’t overpowered the guard. This man had stolen over the wall, dismantled the door, killed the guard, armed Jeff, and climbed up here mere minutes before Nora’s arrival. His presence was fine with her.

She nodded to let him know she wasn’t going to scream, then reached up and removed his hand from her mouth. His other hand, she noticed, clutched a big black pistol with a gas suppressor attached, extended straight out beside her right arm, aimed at the top of the ladder in front of them. Anyone climbing up here would be blown away. That was fine with her too.

Not moving, not daring to breathe, Nora and the young man she knew only as Yussuf sat in the hayloft, listening as the room below them filled with their enemies.