Page 141 of The Widow and the Wanted

“Where’s Lula?” Boone asks.

Goldie’s mouth tightens then she looks to me, as if expecting my explanation. Some of the irritation leaves her face. Not all. Enough.

“She hasn’t returned?”

“How the hell should I know?” Boone snaps. “You’re the one sent her out there like a worm on a damn fishin’ line. She wouldn’t even be out there if you’d have just handed over your ledgers.”

Goldie looks to me again. “Is he addled, or is this a voluntary condition? I try not to strike at a man’s natural limitations.”

That is when the last of my restraint slips its leash. “He has made no error.”

My words come from deep in my chest, and Goldie’s brows lift, her expression falling into that droll cast I have begun to tire of. As if the entire world is some ridiculous play for her amusement.

“It is you who seems determined to spin illusions and demand we all deny the evidence of our own eyes and ears,” I continue. “You can protect yourself, your ledgers, your reputation, and whatever throne you have built from secrets and men’s appetites, but you do not get to climb up on a cross while doing so.”

Her expression hardens.

Good.

“You made a choice,” I continue, taking one step forward. “And that choice put the things you value most in order. Money. Power. Influence. Perhaps fear. I do not know, and I find I no longer care. But Lula is missing, and I have grown tired of being expected to admire the cleverness of the arrangement that lost her.”

Goldie’s fingers curl around the edge of the desk, her attention briefly falling to the pistol on my hip. Boone goes very still beside me.

“Now,” I say, “you will tell us what we need to know to find her, or I will take this office apart board by board and ledger by ledger until there is not a secret left in this house with a roof over it.”

I let the silence sit. The piano from downstairs grows sluggish, then comes to an abrupt stop. For the first time since I have known her, Goldie does not answer at once.

The music starts again, lively and brash, carrying up through the floor. Boone’s breathing is harsh beside me. Mine is worse, though I keep my hands still.

Goldie looks from me to Boone, then back again. Whatever she sees there strips the mockery from her face.

“Well,” she says softly. “There you are.”

That is when the room changes. Boone feels it too. I see his shoulders draw back, all that anger bracing itself around a new confidence.

Goldie looks toward the door. “Pearl.”

Pearl appears behind us. “Ma’am?”

“Did Lula come through the back?”

“No, ma’am.”

“The washroom?”

“No.”

“My room?”

“No, ma’am.”

Boone’s voice drops to nothing. “You mean to tell me you don’t know where she is and you ain’t even thought to check before now?”

Goldie’s eyes cut back to him. My heart gives one hard, sickening beat.

Boone laughs once, a broken little sound with no humor in it. “Jesus Christ.”

Goldie comes around the desk. “Hold.”