Beyond All Dreams (26 page)

The hallway of the fifth floor was covered by burgundy carpet, its walls lit by electric sconces. As Luke moved to unlock the door to his home, he smelled something odd. Something burning.

He hurried inside. “Philip, have you got a fire going?” He hurried into the parlor to see Philip sitting before the modest tile-lined fireplace.

“The fireplace isn't built for a blaze that big,” Luke said. “What's gotten into you?”

Philip kept staring at the fire, the light casting shadows onto the planes of his face. “Those men must have really loved Uncle Jason,” he said wistfully. “One of them threw a beaver-skin coat into the bonfire.”

“They were drunk.” Only a boy who'd never worked for a dollar would think destroying a perfectly good coat was an admirable sign of affection. Then he stilled, his eyes fixed on the base of the fire, widening in shock. Fueling the fire was the unmistakable spine of a book.

“What are you burning?” he demanded. He strode to the fireplace, squatting down to see better. The remnants of at least three books lay blackened and curling in the flames. One of them was Philip's algebra book.

He pivoted to glare at the boy, who refused to answer.

“Your schoolbooks? You're burning the schoolbooks I paid good money for?”

“I wanted to have my own bonfire for Uncle Jason,” Philip said. “Besides, I hate school. I want to go back to Maine and live with Uncle Gabriel. I want to be a painter, and Uncle Gabriel can show me how.”

Luke shot to his feet, so angry he couldn't tolerate looking at the boy who spit on every advantage that had been given him. Gabriel had already left for the mountains to pursue whatever stupid impulse had taken his fancy this month. He wouldn't return until the next payment from the mines was due. Coming home for that quarterly handout was the limit of Gabe's ability to support himself.

Luke barged into Philip's bedroom and grabbed a fistful of his paintbrushes, then stormed back into the parlor. Without thinking, he threw the paintbrushes on top of the ruined schoolbooks, the flames burning brighter as they consumed the turpentine and linseed oil coating the bristles.

“Why stop at the books? Are those paintbrushes a fitting sacrifice for your drunken uncle?” he shouted. Black smoke sputtered from the flames, and the acrid scent of turpentine filled the room.

But Luke remembered the stench of hickory-smoked bacon.

He stepped back, bracing a hand against the wall. He was no better than his father. He was a brutal bully who'd found the one thing this boy loved more than anything and destroyed it before his eyes. He turned his horrified expression to Philip, whose face had gone white.

Luke reached a hand out. “I'm sorry . . .”

Philip scooted back, falling onto his backside and staring at him with the wide-eyed look of a cornered dog. Luke sensed that if he reached out again, Philip would bite his hand.

He backed away, breathing heavily and withdrawing to the far side of the room. “I'm sorry,” he said again. “I'll buy you new paintbrushes.” He retreated until the back of his knees bumped into the sofa and he collapsed onto it, never breaking eye contact with Philip. “I'm sorry. We'll talk about this, and what we can do—”

Philip stood and dashed to his bedroom, slamming the door so loud that the glass in the window frames rattled.

Luke bowed his head. What was happening to him? For so long he'd been toeing the line and restraining these base impulses, and now the worst side of him was snarling and clawing to the surface. He'd even sounded like his father, the tenor of his voice cracking when he yelled. Shame washed over him as the fire continued to snap and sputter.

He didn't even have the excuse that he'd been drinking—just the bottomless shame that he was as vicious as his father had been. He swallowed back the volatile emotions, stuffing them deep inside, where they would die from lack of oxygen if he just didn't think about it. Ignoring his darker side had always worked in the past, and he'd make it work again.

S
omething's going on,” Gertrude said as she walked into the map room, two other female librarians behind her. “Mr. Young has called a meeting for all the librarians in the great hall. He has an announcement.”

It was the first day following the holidays. Workmen were already taking down the Christmas tree and it was still a half hour until the library opened. In the past, Mr. Spofford had allowed the greenery to stay throughout January, but this was a new administration. A more formal and less friendly one.

“Did he say what the meeting is about?” Anna asked.

Gertrude shook her head, but her face was white with anxiety, and the other women didn't look any happier. Mr. Young was indeed a cold fish, no doubt about it, more businessman than booklover like Mr. Spofford. He was so busy on Capitol Hill, he was rarely in the building. But everyone knew he had spies out to watch the operations of the new library, biding his time until he could put his own stamp on everything.

“He's going to fire us,” one of the women said in a shaky whisper. “He's probably figured out that women have always been on probationary status and can't wait to get rid of us.”

“We don't know that yet,” Gertrude said, though it was obvious by the grim set of her jaw and clenched fists that she thought so as well.

The male librarians looked just as concerned as they filtered into the great hall, their footsteps echoing off the cold marble. It seemed as if everyone was intimidated by the new director.

At last Mr. Young appeared, looking dapper in his starched collar and formal vest. He strode to the front of the group.

“I know you are all eager to return to your duties after the long Christmas holiday, so I'll make this brief,” he said. “It has come to my attention that there is heavy sentiment regarding the previous library director, who has the esteem of almost everyone on Capitol Hill. Not wishing to stand in the way of people's long-standing affection for Mr. Spofford, I have made the decision to offer him the role of chief assistant librarian. His duties will evolve according to his own interests.”

Murmurs of astonishment swept through the assembled librarians.

“An office has been designated for Mr. Spofford on the third floor. He will be rejoining our ranks immediately. Thank you. You are all dismissed.”

Anna smiled. It seemed perhaps even the chilly Mr. Young recognized the injustice done to Mr. Spofford and was wise enough to welcome him back into the fold. It made her feel proud that her government had the decency to correct a wrong that had been done to a loyal employee.

Later in the day, Mr. Spofford visited every office in the building. “I understand you had something to do with organizing the grand send-off on my final day,” Mr. Spofford said, standing in the doorway of the map room. Wearing a tweed coat and no tie, he looked like a college professor.

Anna set down her pencil. “All I did was spread the word.
Everyone wanted to be there. Tell me, what exactly does a chief assistant librarian do?”

“Be on hand to help the new director, if he so chooses. Mr. Young is a political appointment and has never worked in a library before.” Mr. Spofford's eyes twinkled. “It was an astute move on Mr. Young's part to buy a little goodwill on Capitol Hill. Mostly my job will be to settle in and finally take the time to work on the books I've always wanted to write.”

After the older librarian left, Anna settled in to work on cataloging a new batch of maps just sent in from the Indian territories, but a corner of her mind kept drifting to Mr. Spofford's plans to start writing. Was she going to be old and gray before she ever dared write the story about the cartographers?

“Pssst . . . Miss O'Brien!”

Anna looked up to see Jack Wilkerson grinning at her from the open doorway. Jack was the most rambunctious of all the congressional pages, always underfoot to cause a little mischief in the library. It was unusual for him to try being quiet, so she appreciated his shouted whisper, even as the two people studying in the map room pretended to ignore the boy.

“What can I do for you, Jack?”

The boy flung himself into the chair beside Anna's desk, leaning forward to whisper in a conspiratorial voice, “Did you know if you hide in the electrical closet on the first floor, you can hear everything they say in the director's office? There's an open air vent, and you can hear plain as day.”

“You were eavesdropping on the library director?” Really, this was too much, even for Jack.

“A couple of fancy officers from the navy came to see him, so I scooted into the closet to listen in. They were talking about you, Miss O'Brien.”

“Me? Who was talking about me?”

“The new library director and the navy officers. You should have seen their uniforms, Miss O'Brien. They had those fancy epaulets and buttons that looked like real gold.”

“Never mind what they were wearing. What did they say?”

“The naval officer wanted to know if you had any legitimate reason to be looking into the Yukon Territory.”

Anna's mouth went dry. She clenched the arms of her chair, dreading the next words out of Jack's mouth.

“Mr. Young said he couldn't imagine any reason you'd be dealing with the Yukon. You know how he insists on reviewing all the requests that get funneled to the librarians. He asked the men to wait while he reviewed his records, and I overheard the two navy men talking to each other. One of them said he was heading back to the Capitol to send a telegram to someone in the Yukon to be on the lookout for you.”

Her breath came fast now, and she was feeling light-headed. “Then what did they say?”

“Nothing. Mr. Young came back with a list of the research questions you've been working on for the past month and confirmed you have no reason to be looking into the Yukon. That was the end of the meeting. I ran right over to tell you about it. Isn't this exciting?”

Jack's voice was rising again. Anna urged him to speak quietly, then glanced nervously at the two men sitting at the nearby tables. They appeared harmless enough, but if the navy was spying on her, they wouldn't use someone in uniform. They'd pick someone plain-looking, like that elderly gentleman supposedly searching through property records.

She braced her forehead on her hand. She was either the most irrational, paranoid person on the planet, or the navy was spying on her closely enough to know about her interest in the Yukon.
Why were they sending telegrams to the Yukon? To warn the Zanettis? To harm them?

Anna didn't understand much about how telegraph wires worked, but maybe there was a way to trace messages. Or even tap into the wires and learn what had been sent. Neville would know if such technological eavesdropping was possible.

The moment the workday was over, she ran all the way to Neville's boardinghouse. She darted up the front steps and pounded on the door.

There was no answer.

The landlady was usually home, so she kept banging, hoping to leave a message for Neville, but there was still no answer.

She wouldn't put it past Mrs. Norquist to have spotted Anna through the peephole and refuse to answer her knock. For some inexplicable reason, that woman always seemed to hate Anna, but this was too important to let a hostile landlady stand in her way.

She kept pounding. After several minutes, still no answer. It was so odd. This was the second time in a week that Neville wasn't where he was supposed to be. She'd have to wait for him. He was the only person she could trust to answer her question, and quite frankly she was terrified. The navy was spying on her and there could be repercussions for this. Big ones.

She crossed the street to the small park opposite the boardinghouse. The metal bench was cold beneath her skirts, chilling her blood even more. She cupped icy fingers over her mouth, blowing on them.

A lamplighter walked down the sidewalk, using his long pole to light the gas globes until warm circles of light glowed from each lamppost. Most of the passersby on the street were men returning from their workday, but there were a few couples and families too. Wasn't it odd that watching men holding their wives'
hands made her feel so lonely? The women looked warm and content as they walked along in the shelter of a man's embrace. It made her miss Luke Callahan. They'd been good friends, and even though she was the one to shy away from him, at times like these she longed for his company.

Where on earth was Neville? He had been behaving so odd lately, meeting with her less and less, and rarely telling her where he had been.

She stared gloomily at another happy couple as they strolled down the street. It seemed that everyone had a partner in the world but her. Snowflakes began swirling in the air, floating down softly and adding a sense of peace to the scene, but inside she ached with anxiety and loneliness.

Her eyes widened when the couple mounted the front steps of Mrs. Norquist's boardinghouse. It was Neville! She hadn't recognized him because his heavy overcoat disguised his skinny frame, yet there was no mistaking his sandy-blond hair when he removed his cap. She dashed across the street.

“Neville!”

He swiveled around, surprise on his features. “Hello, Anna. What brings you here?”

Mrs. Norquist was with him. The landlady shot Anna a glare and then quickly twisted the key in the doorknob. “Dinner in twenty minutes,” she barked before slipping inside and shutting the door. It was appalling the way Mrs. Norquist treated her boarders like truant children.

Neville didn't seem to mind as he turned to look at her. “Well?” he asked.

“I don't know why you let that battle-ax speak to you like that.”

Neville shoved his hands into his pockets, his face looking flushed with cold. “She's not that bad. If you quit calling her a battle-ax, she might treat you a little better.”

Anna didn't want to waste time arguing over Mrs. Norquist. “I need your advice about telegraph wires.” She explained what Jack had told her about men from the navy sending a message to someone in the Yukon to be on the lookout for her. She desperately needed to know who that message had been sent to, and why. “Is there any way to tap into the wires and figure out what the original message said?”

Neville shook his head. “Telegrams are sent with quick electrical pulses. Once they've been sent, they are gone forever.”

She'd been afraid of that. What was she supposed to do now? She was tired, it looked like the navy was one step ahead of her, and Luke seemed to have lost all interest in her. She was in desperate need of a friend, and Mrs. Norquist's porch was small, cold, and cramped.

“I'm starving,” she said. “Can we go to a café and talk? I really need a friend right now.”

Neville shifted, glancing inside the warmly lit dining room, then back at her. “I can't. Mrs. Norquist is making dinner.”

“Don't tell me you're afraid of her too. Come on. Let's go get something to eat.”

“Anna . . . I can't.”

His gaze shifted away, and his ticks and twitches became so bad that he began bumping into her on the narrow front landing. He was never this twitchy unless really upset over something.

“What's going on?” she asked quietly.

He drew a ragged breath, his eyes painfully serious. “You're not going to like it.”

She wanted to weep. She'd been out of her mind with anxiety for hours, and now her best friend was harboring some horrible secret. “Just tell me.”

He nodded to the park across the street. “Let's head over there.”

She followed him, struggling to keep up with his long-legged strides. Even from beneath his coat, she could see his muscles jerking.

A terrible thought struck. Neville had been to countless doctors over the years and none of them had any explanation for his strange condition. Had it been getting worse and she was too self-absorbed to notice? She couldn't bear it if something happened to Neville. His spasms were so strong, and he looked miserable waiting for her beneath the streetlamp. She'd stand in front of a speeding train to protect Neville, but she was helpless against this disease.