"I don't understand."
"I telegraphed William Pinkerton last night after supper, and I received a reply from him around midnight. He said that if I planned to resign, I had to do so in person. He wouldn't accept anything else." Unable to sit still any longer, Lee rolled out of bed and, barefooted and shirtless, began to pace the width of the room. "So I'm returning to Chicago."
"You can't resign from the Agency."
"I can't do anything else," Lee reminded her. "It's not as if Tabitha left me with a lot of choices. If I want to keep Maddy, I must resign from the Agency."
"Within ninety days of Tabitha's death," Mary reminded him. "She's only been dead eleven days. You still have almost three months before you have to make a decision."
"I've already made the decision. And I would like to be able to give the Agency as much time as possible to find a replacement for me. They'll need every moment to brief a new operative on the status of my cases."
"What about the status of your cases? What about Tessa and David? What about the promise you made to them? What will happen to their case if you resign now? Who will replace you on that case? Who will continue the search for Lily Catherine if you don't?"
"I'll find someone," Lee said. "I promise you that. I'll find a good man to continue the search."
"But you won't be there to make sure he's good enough, or works hard enough—that he leaves no stone unturned."
Lee raked his fingers through his hair in exasperation. "Dammit, Mary, do you think I want to leave the Agency this way? It's been my life. I'm thirty-three years old. Do you think I look forward to starting over in a new career?"
"No, I don't," she said softly. "I think you're trying very hard to do the right thing by Tabitha and by Maddy. But if you resign from the Agency before you locate Lily Catherine, you'll be trading one child for another."
"The search for Lily Catherine will go on," he promised again. "I'll find someone to continue it and I'll get William Pinkerton's word on it. Besides, I told Tessa when she asked me to search that finding Lily would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. I've been looking for the past four months and I've come up with more questions than answers."
"Then you're prepared to jeopardize your long-standing friendship with my brother and with Tessa?"
Lee leveled his gray-eyed stare at Mary. "They'll understand."
Mary nodded. "David might, but not Tessa. She'll never understand why you chose to honor some other woman's promise and not the one you made to her."
"Hell, Mary! Who are we talking about here? You or Tessa? How many times do I have to explain that Tabitha Gray was my partner?"
"Tessa's brother was your partner as well. You made a promise to him, too. You promised to look after his sister."
Lee stopped. "Actually, I promised to marry her," he reminded Mary with an ironic little laugh. "Fortunately, Tessa had the good sense to turn me down and marry someone who loved her."
"Unlike me." Mary's voice was a barely audible whisper, but Lee heard her.
"I didn't mean it that way."
"But you don't deny it."
Lee couldn't take his eyes off his wife. Suddenly, he understood just how much Tabitha had asked of him. If he abandoned the search for Lily Catherine, Tessa would never forgive him, but more importantly, Mary would never forgive him. He could live with Tessa's disappointment if it meant keeping Madeline, but Lee realized he would never be able to live with the knowledge of having failed Mary. "Suppose I use the time I have left to look for Lily Catherine. Suppose I hold my resignation until the last possible moment and still am unable to find Lily; are you willing to risk losing Madeline"—he glanced down at the dark-haired, blue-eyed moppet busily wiping her sticky hands on the sheets—"if it comes to that? Are you willing to lose Maddy and Lily Catherine?"
Mary shook her head.
Lee barely managed to contain his explosion as his frustration mounted. There was simply no pleasing the woman. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. "Dammit, Mary, what do you expect me to do?"
Mary smiled serenely at her husband. "I expect you to find Lily for David and Tessa and resign from the Pinkerton Agency before the time limit expires so we don't run the risk of losing Madeline."
"You expect a miracle," Lee told her.
Mary got up from her chair, then bent and lifted Madeline from the center of Lee's bed and headed toward the water closet. "Yes," she said, "1 guess I do." She turned back to fix her gaze on Lee. "But then, I believe in miracles."
"Believing that miracles exist doesn't guarantee you'll get one when you need it," Lee warned.
"Then I'll just believe in you." Mary smiled sweetly. "And trust that you'll be able to create the miracle I need."
* * *