Chapter 14

Sebastian and Kat sailed for Independence at dawn, clean and rested, decently dressed and with full bellies. The steamboat made good time on high water. Seb had to admit he wasn't in a hurry, but the boat steamed along at a surprisingly fast clip.

When they disembarked, Kat said, "I can't tell if I'm unsteady because I've been on a boat or because my knees are shaking with fear."

Kat had on a green calico dress, smattered with pink-and-white flowers. It was high-necked and long-sleeved and very pretty. She wore a straw hat with a green ribbon tied tightly under her chin or the wind on the boat journey would've blown the hat from her head.

Seb didn't spend much time noticing clothing, but his wife, in this dress, with her blond hair pulled back in a tidy bun, along with those bright blue eyes of hers, all made Kat an eye-catching woman. A wealthy, well-connected woman through her husband's family, smart and hardworking, kind and a person of faith. He felt a sudden surge of thankfulness that he'd ended up married to her.

He rubbed her back to buck up her nerves. "You look beautiful this morning."

Her blue eyes darted to him, surprised. "Thank you."

Had he never complimented her before? He really was a lunkhead of a husband. He put that aside for now. "It's not far to my lawyer's office." Seb looked around the city he'd spent his life in. "It's odd to be back and carry along the memory of being shot. To be suspicious of the men I've trusted. It'll die, won't it?"

Kat looked at Seb. "What will die?"

"Independence."

"Why would it?"

He stared at the Old Main Courthouse, part of the image of his youth. "Without the wagon trains, without this being the jumping-off point, what is there left?"

"It'll survive. It won't be the bustling place it once was, but that might be for the best. Being from Chicago, I must say bustling can get very old."

Seb drew himself out of his own dark thoughts to smile at her. "Somewhere between being trapped in Hidden Canyon and the raucous noise and motion of Chicago ... is that our goal for a home?"

"I think we can find a middle ground. I like the homestead we were living on, except..." She fell into silence and looked away from him. "Let's go see your lawyers."

She took a step, but Seb reeled her back in. "Wait a minute. What do you mean by ‘except'?"

She stared at the courthouse as if it were riveting. It was a pretty building, but not quite that interesting. He rested both hands on her shoulders and stepped directly in front of her. "I can tell by all you're not saying that the ‘except' part is important."

She drew in a deep, slow breath, then turned to face him. He thought she looked false somehow. "I'm excited for you, excited to see what you'll invent. But it gets a bit ... quiet in the house. I may get used to it. But I need something else—a friend, a group of friends, I don't know."

"I'm glad we're going to church now. It's good to spend time with people of faith. I'm sorry I let my work consume so much of my time." Seb knew he got lost in his experiments, so much so that he often forgot what day it was.

"Parson Roscoe's wife mentioned a lady's sewing circle. I'm going to join that. And since Cheyenne is the territorial capital, I'll see about learning whatever it is that swirls around a capital. Maybe Mr. Etherton would know how I might get involved. I can see if they need..." Her voice dropped in a way that drew his avid attention.

"Need what?"

She lifted her eyes, and they seemed overly bright, like maybe without much trouble she could start crying. "Maybe they'd need me."

He was stumped. Did she mean...? "I need you, Kat."

She pulled free of his grip and turned away again. "No you don't. Not really. You need meals and clean clothes, so there's that. But the days get very long for me. If I want more, if I want friends and companionship, it's my job to find those things, just as you've found your job."

She swiped the wrist of her pretty green dress across her eyes briskly.

She went on, "I'm not going to wonder about livening things up when I've possibly got a killer after me. When we get that ironed out and get back home, I'll need to see about finding my own life."

Which meant she needed more than him, locked away and inventing twelve hours a day. Maybe she needed to know she had a husband who put her first, who cared dearly for her. He vowed to do better.

"Kat, do you—?"

"Sebastian!" His name, shouted from down the street, cut through the chaos of Independence and the tumultuous thoughts in his head.

"Sebastian Jones, as I live and breathe."

Seb turned to see his lawyer Lloyd Sterne striding toward them on the busy sidewalk. His big smile, his wavy brown hair. Dark eyes that didn't seem to be smiling even though his mouth was, but then maybe Seb was just seeing what his suspicions told him to look for.

The time for talking things out with Kat, promising to do better, would have to come later.

"Lloyd." Possibly a man who'd hired a murderer. Kat stepped ahead of Seb, almost like she was moving in to protect him. He caught her hand and drew her back to his side as they walked toward his old friend.

Lloyd reached them, his hand extended. Seb shook the man's hand, but his expression was blank, no smile. Lloyd kept on shaking his hand, then started shaking his head. "You vanished, Sebastian. Deacon called the police and had them break a window to get into your house. Then we found a trail of blood in your laboratory."

"You missed me then?" And his laboratory had been secret. How had they found it?

"Yes, by the great horn spoon, of course we missed you. You were coming in almost weekly with questions about your patents, and you'd end up having dinner with us. Then you just vanished." Lloyd made a dramatic sweeping gesture with both hands, fingers spread wide. The kind of thing a magician might do. "We went by your house, and it was locked up tight. A neighbor told us she hadn't seen you in weeks, so we called the police."

It had taken them weeks to miss him? Well, he spent most of his time alone, doing experiments. Much like he was behaving in Cheyenne. He thought of Kat's desire to find her own life.

"Your house was empty. Nothing." Lloyd's face was very expressive, his eyes wide, all of him in constant motion. This was the same Lloyd. "Including no sign you'd traveled anywhere, though we were sure you would have told us if you were leaving town." Lloyd hesitated. "Let's go to the office. Deacon will want to see you." Deacon Morris, Lloyd's partner in the law firm. "We can talk as we walk. I'm eager for him to see you're back. So, where in the world have you been?"

Seb exchanged looks with Kat. He almost felt like it would be best to have this talk out in public where no one could slit his and Kat's throats behind closed doors and then hide their bodies. No one knew he was back. No one would even consider that something had happened to him now because they'd already accepted the fact that he was gone.

Seb decided to go along, though he wasn't sure if he'd go inside. He had a few blocks to weigh what to do then. He drew Kat close and kept pace with Lloyd. The man was walking fast. Was it to minimize the chances of anyone else Seb knew seeing him?

But then Lloyd was a fast-walking, fast-talking man. If he stood still and was quiet, he tended to bounce.

"We found the address of the laboratory in your house. We didn't know it was your laboratory when we found the bill of sale, only that you'd bought a warehouse."

"You own a warehouse?" Kat asked.

"A small one."

"And a house?"

"My parents' house. The house I grew up in." Just more details he realized he'd never told Kat. Once he'd gotten back into his laboratory, he'd talked mainly about science rather than his past.

"Anyway, we visited your warehouse," Lloyd continued, talking over their exchange, "and there we found a door standing open." He hurried ahead of Seb, stopped, and grabbed Seb by his upper arms. "We were scared to death. We found blood, and the place was a wreck."

"Someone shot me."

Lloyd froze, but he couldn't stay still for long. Shaking Seb, he cried out, "You were shot? Why? By who? How'd you survive?"

Seb was in no mood to trust anyone. "You remember that diner about a block from your office, the one we always went to with the chicken-noodle gravy?"

"Sure, sure. Conway's Diner."

"Well, we're going inside, Kat and I. We'll get a table and wait for you there. Go get Deacon."

"Okay, sure, if you're really hungry."

"We're not really hungry, Lloyd." Seb tore himself free of Lloyd's grip. "Someone tried to kill me."

Lloyd, already overwhelmed it seemed, didn't respond.

"Last spring. That's why I ran. Now this summer, less than a week ago, someone attacked Kat out in Wyoming, and they had her name and mine written in a notebook, along with five hundred dollars. You were one of the only ones I told where exactly we were. So I'm not inclined to trust you. I'm not inclined to let you lead us anywhere. I'm not inclined to shut myself and my wife in a room with either you or Deacon."

Lloyd's mouth went slack as if shocked beyond speech. That didn't last long either. "Well, for heaven's sake, Sebastian. How could you—?"

"In there." Seb cut him off, jabbing a finger at a doorway with the words Conway's Diner painted on one of the place's front windows. The building was red brick with a white-painted door in the center. "We'll wait for you there. Then we'll talk all this out."

"Seb, you can't think..."

"I don't know what to think, but I don't trust you or Deacon Morris. You both had more knowledge of me than anyone else. I'll be interested to find out what you did with my house and my warehouse. I owned them both. Did you sell them and keep the money for yourself?"

Lloyd quit talking but, as expected, kept bouncing. He jiggled his knees, crossed his arms, then uncrossed them. A fidgety man. "I'll get Deke and be right back." He turned and walked at a pace next to running. But it was his usual pace. Nothing suspicious in his behavior so far.

Seb gestured toward the door. Kat came along.

"That was remarkably blunt," she said.

"I apologize. I've got manners, I think. I just didn't bother with them."

Kat went through the door when Seb opened it. "Getting the door for me is good manners. You're doing all right."

The diner was spacious but plain, nothing much fancy about the place. But the food was good, served fast and hot, and there was plenty of it. It was midmorning and not overly busy. Seb and Kat found a table that would seat four, well away from the front windows.

A waiter came up, and Seb said, "We've got two more joining us, but they might be a few minutes getting here." Time enough, he thought, to alert anyone they'd hired that Seb was in town along with his wife, Kat.

"Would you like coffee while you wait?"

"Yes, please." He looked at Kat, who nodded.

"Do you have chicken-noodle gravy?" she asked the waiter.

"We do, served over mashed potatoes with biscuits. It's our specialty."

"Can I order that while we wait?"

"Right away." The waiter turned to Seb.

"The same for me, thanks," he replied, then looked toward the windows and the street beyond, wondering what danger they might have brought on themselves.

Patrick Wadsworth as good as crashed into Thaddeus's office. "I found them."

"Where?"

"Independence, Missouri. I'm told she arrived there from Wyoming just this morning. I'm leaving at sunset. I'll need all day to make plans for while I'm away."

Thaddeus needed that much time, too. "I've got an engine arranged to pull my private train cars. I'll be able to ride on my own schedule. You're welcome to come along."

"Let my people know which station. I'll get my own cars hooked up to your engine and meet you there at sunset." Patrick jerked his chin in agreement and stormed out.

Patrick wanted his mad niece. Thaddeus wanted information from the fool woman. He hoped she wasn't as far gone as Yvette.

Once Thaddeus had recovered enough from his wounds, he'd hired men to scout the countryside. But winter had made the search difficult, and spring was late in coming. They'd been back at it only a few weeks. He had others track down the folks on the wagon train to dig up more clues but heard back nothing but bad news. Apparently, his daughter had vanished into the Idaho wilderness.

Now Katherine Wadsworth had popped up in Independence, Missouri, the place where wagon trains left for the wilderness. That was where Eugenia and Elizabeth had gone, he was sure. Then onward to Idaho, of all ridiculous places. Independence would be the worst kind of backwater town. Thaddeus had been to St. Louis, a thriving big city although miserably hot in the summer. But Independence would be both miserable and small besides.

Rubbing his leg in grim acceptance of what lay ahead, Thaddeus rang for his secretary and began barking orders. Including orders for his valet to pack and for Sykes to get ready to travel.

Time to see just what his man Sykes was made of.