“What I’ve always wanted, you stupid girl. Your money.” He lifted his jacket to reveal a pistol in a holster. “Be quiet and you won’t get hurt. If your rich daddy gives me what I want, I’ll let you go. You can marry sad little Phillip and live happily ever after.”
“Where do you think we’re going in this weather?”
That seemed to give him pause. “Someplace to hide you. I need to think.”
He dragged me toward the back door. I prayed silently. Please, God, take care of Fiona. Don’t let her follow us. Wait for Phillip, Fiona. He’ll know what to do. With her keen musician hearing, she would have heard the entire conversation. I imagined her in the office frightened, likely hiding under the desk. She would be afraid for me but wouldn’t know what to do. What if she decided to chase after us? No. Stay put. Tell Phillip what you learned. It was better for her to be a quiet witness than confront this crazed man with a gun. I had an idea then. She needed to know Walter had a gun.
“I’m not afraid of your gun,” I shouted.
“You should be.”
He tossed me out into the cold. I didn’t realize until the door shut behind me that I had no coat or hat. The snowstorm was in full force. I’d freeze in these temperatures without outerwear. I hoped he had a warm, dry place in which to keep me captive.
Phillip
I knew the moment I pulled around to the back of the library that something was wrong. Fiona was squatting near the back steps with her arms wrapped around her middle. The light that hung over the door illuminated her pale face as she lifted her gaze to the horses and me. “Phillip, Phillip, help.” She rose to her feet and ran toward me.
I jumped from the sleigh. She stumbled into me, shaking and sobbing. I took hold of her shoulders. “What’s happened?” Hard, cold dread settled in my stomach. “Is it Josephine?”
“Yes, he took her. A man. He was here and he took her.”
“Who took her?”
“Walter. Walter Green.”
“Fiona, what are you saying? Walter’s dead.”
The words spewed from her in a heated rush. Words I would never have expected. Words that terrified me. “No, he’s alive. He ran away from the war to Switzerland, but now he’s come for Jo. He said he’d lost his memory but it came back and that’s when he decided to find her again. When Jo said she didn’t want him anymore, he started yelling and I think he might have hit her because she cried out and now he’s taken off with her. He has a gun, Phillip.”
“Where did they go?” I fought against a rising panic. Stay calm, I ordered myself. This is like the war. I must go to the place in my mind where my thoughts are disengaged from my actions. Be a soldier. Do what needs to be done. “Tell me everything you remember.” The snow fell in hard pellets, and the wind pushed into us. Josephine had said there were many different kinds of snow. This was the bad kind. A layer had settled on Fiona’s hat and coat.
“I didn’t see where they went. They were already gone when I came out from the back. But there are tracks.” She pointed to two sets of footprints, quickly being covered with fresh snow. I could see them only as far as the light from the porch allowed.
“They’re on foot?” I asked, as if it weren’t obvious. Where did he think they could get on foot? I released Fiona and we both followed the tracks as far as they went. They disappeared at the street, hidden in the slush made from sleigh blades and wagon wheels.
“What does he want?” I asked, more to myself than Fiona. “Why would he come here after all this time?” Where had he been the past few years? How had he managed to fake his death? All these questions tumbled into my mind and out again to be replaced with the cold reality. He’d taken Jo, and I didn’t know where.
“Money.” Fiona said this matter-of-factly. “That’s why he’s really here. He wants Papa to give him money.”
I silently cursed. Of course
that’s what he wanted. He’d not come for Jo out of some insane love but to save himself. My mind quickly worked out his motivations. I knew what he wanted and how he would have approached the situation. If he had indeed had amnesia, which I doubted, he would have quickly come to the conclusion that he needed money and that it was time to put his plan into action. But what had gone wrong that he came here?
This would have been his last choice because of the location. He saw himself as a fancy man about town. A city dweller. However, the other women were probably already married. I remembered addresses from the eastern states on their envelopes. He would have chosen the easiest route first. If those women had rejected him for whatever reason, he would have had no choice but to come out here and try with Josephine. But he’d found her unwilling to fall for his lies now that she knew the truth. Once he’d discovered that, out of desperation, he would have gone to his final move. Kidnap her for ransom. Would he hurt her if he didn’t get what he wanted? We’d both killed during the war. Would he see it as the same? A battle for a way of life?
“Phillip, what do we do?” Fiona asked as she wiped under her eyes with the tips of her gloved fingers.
“I’ve got to find them.” They couldn’t have gotten far. Emerson Pass was a small place. Given my reasoning, however, the best thing to do might be to return home and wait for his request. Again, he would do what was easiest.
“Fiona, do you know how to get into your father’s office? I want to call home and tell them to come join us in the search.”
She nodded. “Yes, we all have a key in case we ever get stuck in town during a blizzard. We can go now. It’s faster than driving back home.”
We ran back to the sleigh. Willie and Oz whinnied upon our return, as if they, too, knew the urgency of the situation.
The office was only a few blocks away. Both Fiona and I searched right and left as we drove down the main street of town, hoping for a hint of where he’d taken her. We passed the boardinghouse. “Do you think he would be staying there?” I asked. “Maybe he took her there.”
“They would know Jo there,” Fiona said. “They’d know something wasn’t right if she was there with a stranger.”