Page 4 of Cloaked in Beauty

“I’ll be all right, Mama. I promise.” She swallowed and jutted her chin. “I can be brave.” Her voice wobbled, but Mama didn’t seem to notice.

“You are the bravest girl I ever saw.” She leaned forward and kissed Scarlett’s forehead, the touch so soft and precious that Scarlett wanted to cover the place with her hand to keep the feeling from ever leaving her skin. “I love you, sweet girl, and my love will keep growing even while we’re apart. Never forget that, all right?”

“I won’t.” She’d fold it up in her heart like a secret story that she’d take out and read every day. “I love you, too, Mama.”

Even if I have to hide without you.

1

FIFTEEN YEARS LATER

The Pinkertons trained their detectives to use any and all available resources when it came to procuring information pertinent to their cases, but Philip Carmichael still felt a twinge of guilt about using his fellow agents. Somehow he doubted Wendell and Harper would appreciate his cunning once they realized he’d duped them.

“I never thought you’d be one to chase the great white whale, Carmichael.”

Philip grinned as he propped a hip on the corner of Gregor Wendell’s desk. “I doubt Miss Radcliffe would appreciate your choice of metaphor.”

Wendell chuckled as he leaned back in his chair. “Prob’ly not, but since no one can find the slippery woman, her opinion’s not terribly relevant.”

Stanley Harper stood at the window overlooking Prairie Avenue, idly stroking his thick, dark mustache as he watched passersby go in and out of the Lone Star Hotel across the street. The agency didn’t have official offices in Houston, but Robert and William Pinkerton had arranged for a small space to be available for agents working cases in the area. Wasn’t much to it. Just a narrow second-floor room with two desks and a small filing cabinet in the corner. Bare floors. Bare walls. Nothing to induce a man to linger. Yet it provided a discreet meeting place to discuss Pinkerton business without worrying who might overhear.

“I didn’t think Radcliffe was hiring Pinks this time around.” Harper turned from the window and pinned Philip with a suspicious look. “Something ’bout being fed up with us not getting the job done the last four times. As if he expected us to pull the girl outta thin air with nothing but a name and an outdated description to go on.”

“I’m not fool enough to think I can do any better than what you and Wendell did.” Philip raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture, hoping to mollify Harper’s bruised ego. “The two of you are local legends for tracking down the woman who found that photograph of the missing heiress in her luggage. That move gave us our first break in the case. Thanks to you, we know the girl is somewhere between here and Little Rock, Arkansas. Or at least she was as of three years ago.”

Harper blew out a disgusted breath. “I traveled that rail line and stopped in every stinkin’ town along the way. Questioned every porter I could get my hands on. Took me near to a month, and I still came up empty. Radcliffe was so upset, he refused to reimburse my train fare. Said I could waste my own money on a fruitless endeavor, but he’d not have me wastin’ his. Cheap louse.”

Now they were getting somewhere.

“A man that wealthy cheating his employees out of their due?” Philip wagged his head. “Seems bad for business.”

Wendell scratched at a beard that was starting to gray a bit at his chin. “I ain’t sure the man is as wealthy as he lets on. He’s got all the trappings—fancy house, expensive suits, memberships at all the right clubs—but I’ve heard rumors that it’s his brother’s side of the company that’s keeping Radcliffe Shipping afloat.”

Philip had heard the same rumors. From what he’d been able to gather, Drake and Lowell Radcliffe had started Radcliffe Shipping together some thirty years ago. The two had capitalized on the cotton trade at first, investing in riverboats to travel the Brazos, Colorado, and Trinity Rivers to bring the product to market before shipping it back east out of Galveston. The War between the States brought hard times, but the Radcliffe brothers found a way to continue turning a profit. They were some of the first to invest in local Houston railroads, and by the mid-1870s, Radcliffe Shipping had become one of the richest companies in Texas.

At the height of their success, however, the two brothers had a falling-out and decided to go their separate ways. They divided their individual holdings and investments while each retained half ownership of the parent company. Until Lowell died in 1880. Lowell’s daughter inherited his shares, but since she was a minor, her shares were placed in a trust with her uncle as trustee, giving Drake sole control of Radcliffe Shipping.

Lowell’s wife inherited control of her husband’s subsidiary businesses. Fifty percent of those profits fed into Radcliffe Shipping’s coffers, and those funds were keeping Drake Radcliffe from declaring bankruptcy after a string of failed personal investments had pauperized the man.

Philip leaned forward slightly. “Do you think Drake’s search for his niece has more to do with money than familial obligation?”

Wendell shrugged. “Radcliffe professes to be devastated by the loss of his niece. Talks about how he owes it to his dead brother to keep searching until she is found and her kidnapper brought to justice. Hires a new round of detectives every few years. But I’ve been in the man’s house. Never spotted a single photograph of the girl. None of his brother, either. Has a big portrait of himself over the mantel in the parlor, though.”

Harper strode away from the window, his dark gaze peering at Philip as if he were trying to mine his motives. Philip forced himself to maintain his casual position—hip propped against the desk corner, hands relaxed, breathing even. It was natural for a detective to be suspicious. One wouldn’t be very good at solving cases if he took everything he encountered at face value.

Still, a little deflection might aid the cause. So before Harper started throwing questions at him, Philip threw one of his own.

“What do you think motivates Radcliffe, Harper?”

“Money.” Harper drew to a halt a few steps away from Philip. “He’s gotta have something to gain by her return. My guess is it’s something pretty substantial. It would have to be to offset the thousand-dollar reward he suddenly decided to offer for her return.” Harper tilted his head. “Is that why you decided to take this case, Carmichael? For the reward?”

Philip grinned even as his gut tightened. “I don’t know about you fellas, but I don’t plan to be a Pinkerton forever. A thousand dollars would buy a real pretty piece of land somewhere. Maybe I could finally settle down. Start a family.”

Ever since he’d been hired by the Pinkertons, he’d done his best not to break the ninth commandment. A man of faith shouldn’t follow the path of the Father of Lies, after all. Yet a man didn’t have to lie in order to deceive. Philip had gotten quite adept at weaving vague truths into a camouflage designed to mislead and, therefore, hide his actual intent. He used to take pride in his semantic subterfuge, but he’d grown weary of the constant word-watching and the bruises it left on his conscience.

“I wouldn’t go property shopping just yet,” Harper warned with a scowl. “Radcliffe will likely find an excuse not to pay out, even if you do manage to track the girl down.”

“Appreciate the tip.” And the insight into a man with murky motives.