AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Tynan pulled the woman to him, hiding her face in his shoulder. “Dysan has a young woman now and he’s holding her captive. Prescott and I plan to get her out so I need all the help I can get. If you could tell me anything that you remember about the place, a way in, the floor plan of the house, whatever you can remember, I’d sure appreciate it.”
Belle moved away from his shoulder. “You don’t deserve my help, not after the way you tore up my place, but I’ll do what I can.” She looked at him in a seductive way. “I’ll do it in memory of that time down in San Antonio. You remember that?”
“Every day of my life,” Ty said, smiling. “I use it to judge everything else by. Prescott, you got any paper? Belle’s going to draw us a plan.”
Ty pushed her off his lap while Asher managed to move his stiffening leg so he could get to his horse. Minutes later, the three of them were hunched over a map Belle was making, and an hour later, the two men were mounting their horses again.
Belle looked up at Tynan. “By the way, Ty, there was some guy through town yesterday lookin’ for you.”
“What’d he look like?”
“Tall, skinny, long red hair. His arm was in a sling and he walked with a limp. Seemed real anxious to see you.”
Tynan leaned down from the horse and kissed her lingeringly. “You tell him you saw me about forty miles south of here.”
She smiled at him. “Maybe. I might consider it if you come back through here and make it up to me about what you did to my saloon.”
“I might do that.” Ty smiled at her, then was off, heading north toward Dysan’s house.
Chapter Nineteen
Pilar was sitting on the floor, leaning against the foot of the bed, and, in spite of her good intentions, she was asleep and didn’t hear anyone in the room until a hand covered her mouth, startling her awake.
“Tynan?” she asked in disbelief. “Is that you?”
“Where’s Chris?” he asked at once.
Pilar sat up straighter. “I don’t know. She’s been gone for hours and I heard the dogs and men yelling but I didn’t hear anything from her. Ty, I’m worried about her.”
Tynan’s face showed what he thought of Chris leaving the room. “How did she get out?”
Pilar started to stand. “We tore the bed sheets into strips and she went down through the window. Ty! You’re injured. Here, sit down.”
“I don’t have time. I have to find her and soon. Leave that alone, it’s not bad, just a couple of dog bites. Why in the hell did you let her go? I don’t expect her to have any sense, but you, Pilar, I expected more from you. I told you to watch her.”
“How was I supposed to stop her? Dysan said that he’d sent out over a hundred men to stop anyone from finding us. You could have been dead for all we knew and then Chris said Dysan wasn’t going to release us since we could identify him.”
“Has he contacted Mathison yet?”
“That’s what’s strange, Ty, I’m not sure Dysan knows who Chris is. He talked about her father committing suicide and about her husband being an embezzler. If he doesn’t know that Chris is wealthy, then why has he taken us?”
“I’ll worry about what’s on the man’s mind later. Right now, I’m more concerned about his guns. Did you see what Chris did when she reached the ground? Did she try leaving the grounds or did she go back into the house? She just loves snooping in people’s private papers.”
“I didn’t see because I was pulling the rope up, but I think she probably had to go into the house because the dogs came around minutes after she touched the ground. She wrapped her shoes in pieces of sheet and rubbed them with some meat fat. She was planning to throw the cloth away when she reached the edge of the forest.”
“Well, it doesn’t look like it worked because she’s nowhere to be seen outside. Now, I want you to listen to me and do exactly what I say. Prescott, the man from Hamilton’s place, will be here in a minute and I want you to let him help you get out of here. He’ll take you over the roof.”
“And where will you be?”
“Searching for Chris.” With that statement, he went to the window and proceeded to climb up a rope toward the roof. Pilar could hear him walking softly overhead and then all was silent.
Tynan gave a signal to Asher who crouched behind a dormer on the tall house, then tied his rope about a far chimney and started down. Thanks to Belle, he knew most of the layout of the house and he was heading now toward Dysan’s office. This would be the room that Chris most likely would want to explore.
The room was dark and there wasn’t a sign of any activity in it—no papers, only a few books, no ledgers with their revealing account numbers, no pretty little blonde snooping through things.
Cautiously, Tynan made his way out the door and into the dark hallway. Listening carefully, he heard voices downstairs, but they didn’t seem particularly upset about anything, as they might be if they’d just found Chris haunting the rooms. With his back to the wall, he began to ease his way down the stairs, stopping constantly to listen to whatever he could hear.
According to Belle, the house was a big one and Ty wasn’t sure where he should begin searching, but the library seemed like a good bet—not because he thought Dysan might have something there but because Chris would want to search a place like that.
