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Esta shook her head. “It doesn’t sound like him.”
She’d no sooner realized why the voice seemed so familiar when the flap of Pickett’s tent opened and Jack Grew walked out. He had another man with him, the ruddy-faced blond Esta had seen that first day patrolling the show. Neither of them looked happy.
Esta cursed softly. If Jack was visiting Pickett, it meant there was a good chance he knew about the Pharaoh’s Heart. Esta could only hope that if Jack had actually found the dagger, he would look more pleased with himself.
“Can I help you?” a voice said from behind them.
Esta and Maggie turned to find one of the buffalo soldiers standing there with a rifle slung over his shoulder. The older man’s curling hair was graying around the temples of his long face, and he wore his mouth screwed up into a serious scowl.
“No, thank you,” Esta said, pulling an air of confidence around her and wishing she’d thought to change into a skirt. Two women might have seemed less like a threat. “We’re fine.”
“You’re not supposed to be here,” the man said. “This here area’s for performers only. Not for spectators.”
“We were looking for someone,” Maggie said. “A friend of ours.”
His eyes were still suspicious as he turned his attention on Maggie. “Were you, now?”
“My… Uh…” She paused, like she suddenly didn’t know what to call North. “My fiancé,” she said finally. “He’s new here, and I wanted to surprise him. My…” She glanced at Esta. “My brother and I wanted to say a quick hello before the show.”
As lies went, it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, but the man looked at Maggie, letting the silence grow uncomfortable between them. Then his expression shifted. “You don’t by any chance go by the name of Margaret Jane?”
Maggie’s eyes widened, and her cheeks went a little more pink. “My friends call me Maggie,” she said, the words slow and careful.
“You’re Jerry’s girl, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice coming in a rush. “Yes, I am.”
The older man’s expression softened. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” he told Maggie. “He told us all about how pretty you were… and how smart. I’m George.”
Maggie shook the soldier’s outstretched hand, still looking a little shell-shocked by this turn of events, but Esta wasn’t letting her guard down, no matter how friendly this man seemed.
“You don’t by any chance know where we could find Jerry?” Esta asked, getting to the point.
George frowned, his entire expression darkening with something that looked like regret. “I’m afraid he’s gone. They took him ’bout an hour ago.”
“Who took him?” Esta asked as Maggie went deathly still beside her.
“Aldo, the grounds manager, and Clem Curtis himself, along with a couple of other fellas I didn’t recognize,” George told them, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, miss. I hate to be the bearer of bad news. You know, I liked Jerry right from the start. He seemed like a good man.”
“He is,” Maggie whispered. “The best man.”
“That might be,” George said, “but he must have done something awful wrong to have those men acting like they were.”
“He existed,” Esta said darkly, realizing exactly how difficult things had become.
George met her eyes, and she saw by his expression that he understood. After a long pause he gave a small nod, like he’d come to some decision. “Let me show you where they put him.”
THE END OF THE LINE
1904—Denver
North swallowed down the blood that was pooling in his mouth as he tested his front incisor with his tongue. It was loose all right, but maybe if he let it be, it wouldn’t fall out. Clem Curtis’ men had done a number on him before they tied him up and dumped him in one of the supply tents to wait for whoever it was that would be interrogating him next. His left eye was swelling shut already, and from the feel of it, they’d split his lip as well.
As far as North could see, there wasn’t a clear way out of the mess he’d found himself in. No one knew where he was, and he doubted anyone would find him in time. So when he heard voices outside the tent, he thought the knocks to his head had him imagining things. But his chest felt tight with panic when he understood it wasn’t his imagination after all.
No. Maggie can’t be here.
North struggled against the ropes, but Maggie and Esta had already stepped into the tent before he’d managed to do anything but make his wrists raw. Still, even with his fear and panic scooping his heart plum out of his chest, the sight of Maggie standing there, her hair falling from its pins and worry shadowing her face, made North feel like he could finally breathe again. She might have turned him down earlier, but she’d come for him now—and that fact made him both the happiest man who’d ever walked the earth and also unbearably afraid.
