The Loner: Crossfire

Chapter 6

Conrad kept the pressure on Lorraine Eastman’s chin, preventing her from screaming or making even the smallest outcry. Her blue eyes were wide with fear as he pinned her to the wall. He was aware of the warm, full curves of her body under her dress, but at the moment they didn’t mean much to him.

Down the hall, the bearded man continued to knock on the door of Conrad’s suite for a minute or so. Then the knocking stopped and he heard receding footsteps as the man walked away. A moment later the elevator door rattled as it closed and the cage started to descend.

“We’re going to my suite,” Conrad told the blonde. “Don’t make a racket, and you won’t get hurt.”

She hissed something unintelligible at him. He figured she was trying to curse him. Quickly, he shifted his grip on her, getting his left arm around her waist from behind and clapping his right hand completely over her mouth. She struggled in his grasp, but he was too strong for her. He pulled her out of the alcove and forced her down the hall toward his suite.

He hoped no other hotel guests or employees came along before he was able to get her through the door. If they did, trying to force a young woman into his suite would certainly look bad for him. Luck was with him, however. The corridor stayed deserted long enough for him to open the door, which he had left unlocked. A hard shove sent Lorraine Eastman stumbling into the sitting room.

She turned toward him and opened her mouth to scream. He grabbed her again and clamped his hand around her throat, stifling any outcry.

“I know I’m not being much of a gentleman,” he told her, “and I’m truly sorry about that. But you’ve attacked me a couple times now, and I want to know why. If I take my hand away from your throat, do you promise not to scream?”

She glared at him for a couple seconds, then a look of resignation came into her eyes and she nodded.

Conrad didn’t believe her. “I can knock you unconscious before you manage to get a peep out, and I will if you don’t cooperate. I’ll try to pull my punch, but I can’t promise you won’t be injured. I have the rest of the day and all night if you want to be stubborn about this.”

The fear in her gaze struck him as genuine. When he asked again if she promised not to scream, she nodded and he believed her. He moved his hand away from her throat but held it ready to strike if he needed to.

“I’m not going to yell,” she said in a surly voice. “If you’ll swear to let me go, I promise to tell you whatever it is you want to know.”

“You answer my questions first, and then we’ll talk about what’s going to happen to you,” Conrad suggested in return. “That’s the best deal you’re going to get.”

She sighed wearily. “All right. I agree. Now, will you stop pawing me and let me sit down?”

“Keeping you from trying to kill me isn’t exactly the same as pawing you,” Conrad pointed out. He released her and pointed to one of the well-upholstered armchairs. “Sit down.”

The blonde sat. She wore the same dark blue dress she had worn at Monroe’s office earlier. A matching hat perched on her head. She had tucked her hair back up as best she could after Conrad wrecked the arrangement of curls. She looked down at the floor. “What is it you want to know?”

“Your name is Lorraine Eastman, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. How did you know that?” Before he could answer, she went on, “Never mind. I suppose the law told you. They’ve been trying to get something on Mr. Monroe for as long as I’ve worked for him.”

“How long is that?” Conrad wanted to know if Lorraine had been Monroe’s secretary when Pamela came through Carson City with the twins.

“I’ve been his secretary for the past year and a half.”

If she was telling the truth, that meant she had probably never seen Pamela or the children.

“What happened to the secretary he had before that?”

“He fired her when she ... well, when she turned up in a delicate condition.”

“Pregnant?”

Lorraine made a face. “If you want to be crude about it.”

“And I suppose Monroe was responsible for that?”

“Again, if you want to be crude about it ... yes. I didn’t really know what happened until later, when the woman came back to the office to beg Mr. Monroe for money. He ... he laughed at her and sent her away.”

“Nice fellow,” Conrad said in a disgusted tone. “I suppose you were so quick to defend him earlier because the two of you—”

He stopped short at the look of utter revulsion on Lorraine’s face. “God, no!” she exclaimed. “He was the most contemptible little weasel I ever met. But he paid well, and I didn’t want anything to happen to him.” She rolled her eyes. “That didn’t work out too well, did it?”

“Is that the only reason you cared? Because of the money he paid you?”

She hesitated, then said, “I didn’t want any trouble with the law. When you said he tried to have you killed, I was afraid you were going to bring in the authorities and they’d finally have something on him they could use to convict him. I knew if that happened, they would arrest me, too, and claim that as his secretary I had to be aware of all his crooked dealings.”

“Well, weren’t you?” Conrad demanded.

“Of course I was,” she snapped. “I’m not a fool. I saw the sort of men who came and went in that office, and I typed up his correspondence and notes. I hadn’t worked for him long before I knew what he was up to.”

“Why come after me?” Conrad asked. “If you hated Monroe like you say, it couldn’t have been to avenge him.”

“I don’t care that he’s dead,” Lorraine said bluntly. “But now the law is after me, and I need money to get out of town. I did some asking around about you, Mr. Browning. You’re a rich man, even if you did come into the office with mud all over your clothes. I figured you could pay me enough to get me out of Carson City so I can start over somewhere else.”

“You mean you intended to rob me at gunpoint. That’s why you sent that telegram and paid some fellow you probably found in a saloon to come and knock on my door. You figured I’d be suspicious and try to spy on my visitor, and that alcove was the best place to do so. It was a cunning little trap.”

“But you figured out what was going on and turned the tables on me.” Lorraine’s voice held some grudging respect along with the anger. “I underestimated you, Mr. Browning.”

“So what do we do now? Do I turn you over to Deputy Wallace? I know he’d like to talk to you. He probably has a lot of questions about what went on in Monroe’s office.”

“They’ll lock me up,” Lorraine said with a slight quaver in the words. “I couldn’t stand that. I ... I’ll do anything you want, Mr. Browning, as long as you don’t turn me over to the law.”

The invitation was plain in her eyes and her voice. Conrad shook his head. “That’s not going to work.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. But I might be more inclined to let you go if you can tell me what this means.” He reached inside his coat and brought out the piece of paper he had taken from the filing cabinet in Monroe’s office. He held it out to Lorraine, who took it tentatively and studied the words printed on it.

“Who or what is D.L.?”

Lorraine shook her head. “I have no idea. You can see from the date that Mr. Monroe wrote this note before I came to work for him.”

“That’s Monroe’s writing? You’re sure about that?”

She nodded. “Yes, I’ve seen it often enough.” She pointed to the memorandum. “This other part, with the initials and the three hundred dollars ... I can tell you that was written fairly recently. It’s in a shade of ink that we never used until I bought some a couple months ago.”

That was an interesting bit of information, Conrad thought. It indicated something or someone had triggered the deal Monroe had made three years earlier. Conrad figured that trigger had been him setting out from Boston to search for his missing children. He had suspected all along that Pamela had hired spies to keep an eye on him. The conspiracy against him stretched across the country like a giant spider.

“Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“Well ... the initials have to refer to Ed Gillespie and Walt Farley, but you know that already.”

“What about Golden Gate?”

Lorraine shook her head. “That’s something to do with San Francisco, isn’t it?”

“But you don’t recall Monroe ever saying anything about it?”

“No, I’m afraid not.” She sat forward a little in the chair. “I’ve told you everything I know, Mr. Browning. I’m sorry about, well, about what happened outside.”

Conrad smiled. “About trying to rob me, you mean.”

“I was desperate. I still am. Since you were responsible for Mr. Monroe getting killed, I thought it was fitting that you help me get away.”

“Monroe was responsible for his own death. If he’d been honest, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“Honesty might postpone death sometimes. It doesn’t prevent it.”

She had a point there, Conrad thought. He opened the cylinder of the little pistol he had taken from her and shook out the bullets, then snapped the gun closed and tossed it in her lap.

“You can get more bullets. I don’t want you being tempted to point that thing at me again. I don’t like it.”

“You’re not going to turn me in?”

He slid his wallet out of his coat pocket and removed a few bills. Lorraine’s eyes widened at the sight of them.

“Take the money and get out.” Conrad extended the bills to her. “I don’t want to lay eyes on you again. A while back I ran into another pretty young blonde who kept trying to murder me. She wound up dead.”

That was true enough, although Conrad wasn’t the one who killed her. He was going to let Lorraine Eastman draw her own conclusions, however.

“If I see you again, I’m liable to get suspicious,” he went on as Lorraine took the money. “I won’t ask questions, and I won’t wait to do something about it. I’ll take action right then and there.”

“You don’t have to worry, Mr. Browning.” The bills disappeared somewhere inside her dress. “I promise you, you’re about the last person I want to see again. There’s an eastbound train this evening. I intend to be on it.”

“I’d be careful if I was you. Deputy Wallace will probably have men watching the depot.”

She laughed coldly as she got to her feet. “Those lawmen will never see me unless I want them to.”

Conrad kept his hand on the butt of his gun as Lorraine went to the door. She paused and looked back at him.

“What is it that’s so important about you? Why would someone in San Francisco pay five thousand dollars to have you killed?”

“It’s a long story.”

Lorraine shrugged. “I don’t really care. I was just curious for a second. You’d better be careful. There are probably more people out there who want you dead.”

“I think you can count on that.”