Bicycle Built for Two (42 page)

“Now, Miss Kate, that’s not—”

“It is, too, true, and you know it!”

Her cheeks had taken on a pure-fury crimson
flush. To Alex, she was the most beautiful, desirable woman in the
world. Since he was pretty sure the sergeant didn’t agree with him,
he felt it would be prudent to interfere before Kate got arrested
for annoying an officer of the law. “It’s all right, Kate. The
sergeant was only asking a few questions.”

She whirled around again and faced him, her
chest heaving and her body trembling. “Are you sure, Alex? Because
I won’t allow you to suffer for my father’s sake. Or mine. Darn it,
you’ve been so good to us. They can’t possibly believe you killed
him for no reason, can they?”

“Actually, I didn’t kill him at all. It was
an accident.”

“Oh.” She appeared disappointed for no more
than an instant. “Well, then, it’s even more ridiculous that
they’re holding you in this filthy hole! They aren’t going to try
to pin a murder charge on you when it was an accident, are
they?”

“Of course not,” Sergeant Maguire muttered.
When Kate gave him a withering scowl, he spoke no more.

Alex said, “I don’t know how they could.
There were too many witnesses to what really happened.”

“Even if there weren’t witnesses,” Kate said
firmly, sending another glower at the sergeant, “they couldn’t
actually believe it. Herbert Finney was an animal.”

Mary Jo pressed a hand over her mouth. Her
eyes were bulging in shock and disbelief. Alex patted her on the
shoulder, but spoke to Kate. “But if anybody’d had that much sense,
you wouldn’t be here, Kate.” He grinned, hoping he wouldn’t further
rile her, but unable to help himself.

“As if that mattered,” Kate grumbled. With
lowering brows, she spoke again to the sergeant. “So, are you
planning to keep Mr. English here all night, or are you going to
pin a medal on him and let him go?”

Sergeant Maguire sighed heavily. “He can
leave, I guess.” Turning to Alex, he said, “Will you be staying at
the Congress Hotel, Mr. English?”

“Yes.”

“If we have any more questions, we’ll be in
touch with you there.”

“Good enough.”

“You’ll have to sign a written statement.”
The sergeant looked as if he didn’t approve of having the subject
of his inquiries leave before he told him he could go, but didn’t
quite dare protest.

Alex wondered if it was his good reputation
or Kate’s hellish disposition that had swayed the sergeant. He
thought he knew. “That’s fine.” He experienced a twist of cynicism.
If he were a poor man, the sergeant would doubtless have used force
to detain him. Policemen didn’t dare beat up on rich men.

Alex remained polite in spite of everything.
Breeding showed, he told himself. “Thank you, Sergeant.”

Still overtly unhappy about losing control,
Sergeant Maguire said stiffly, “This is most irregular, sir. Under
the circumstances, however . . .” He guided a look of
disapprobation to Alex’s sister and Kate’s brothers.

“I can’t tell you any more than I’ve already
told you, Sergeant. Mr. Finney went backwards out of the window
after I punched him. He tried to hit me first. End of story.”

“Hmmm,” said Sergeant Maguire, and said no
more.

He probably didn’t dare, which added one
more bit of unfairness to the pile of them Alex had gathered since
he’d first met Kate. If Alex were poor, he’d have been charged with
manslaughter, at least, by this time, even if the charges had to be
dropped later.

But Alex could think about the unfairness of
life all he wanted later. Right now, there were more important
things to attend to, the primary one being to explain himself to
Kate and her brothers. He knew the Finney children detested their
father. It seemed vital to Alex, perhaps for that very reason, that
they know exactly what had happened in that dismal little room over
the dismal little butcher’s shop.

While he couldn’t even imagine having a
father like Kate’s, and would have loathed him if he’d been so
unfortunate, he also knew that the death of a parent must be a blow
no matter what. That being the case, he took Kate by one arm and
his sister by the other, and nodded at the Finney boys. “Let’s get
out of here. We need to talk.” Sending a significant glance his
sister’s way, he added, “Without any nosy Parkers listening
in.”

“I’m not a nosy Parker!” Mary Jo cried,
stung.

“Right. But I’m dropping you off at your
room anyway. I guess we can hold a conference in my room or in the
hotel restaurant.”

Walter pulled out a pocket watch that was
nowhere near as fine as Alex’s and squinted at it as they exited
the police station. “I don’t suppose there’s a restaurant open in
the entire city of Chicago at the moment. It’s almost three in the
morning.”

“Right. My hotel room it is, then.”

“What about my apartment?”

Alex realized Kate still trembled, as if the
emotions trapped inside her were seething and roiling and trying to
get out. He squeezed her arm. “Do you want to see it? It’s—” He
remembered the blood splattered on the floor and on the wall beside
the window. He’d been thinking a lot about that blood. A shard of
broken window glass must have severed an artery for there to have
been so much of it. He didn’t want Kate to see it. “I think there
will be time to see it tomorrow.”

Walter caught his eye and shook his head.
Alex felt curiously akin to Kate’s older brother in that instant,
and he appreciated Walter for wanting to spare his sister the sight
of her father’s blood. Walter said, “Mrs. Schneider and Mrs.
Brewster are cleaning it up, Kate. Mr. Schneider’s going to hammer
a board over the window until the glazier comes to replace the
glass. You don’t want to see your room now.”

“Right,” said Bill, and shuddered
involuntarily. “It’s—it’s a mess.”

Kate stopped walking
suddenly, pulling Alex up short. “Why?” Her gaze flew between her
brothers and Alex. “Why don’t you want me to see it? I thought he
just threw things around and then went out the window and fell to
the ground. Is there anything else?
Tell
me, darn it!”

Walter looked at her blankly. Bill shuffled
his feet. Mary Jo didn’t know what was going on, and stared at the
knowledgeable parties with fascination. Alex knew it was up to him.
He expelled a gust of breath. “There was some blood, Kate.”

“Blood? Like, a bloody nose or something?”
She gave a shaky laugh. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“It was more than that.”

Kate stared at Alex, demand plain to read in
her blue, blue eyes, and Alex gave up. What the hell. She’d lived
through hell already. What was a little blood? “I think maybe a
piece of glass severed an artery when he hit the window. Might have
been in his throat or his arm or anywhere. I know I didn’t look
hard at the body. But blood sprayed everywhere inside your room.”
There. He’d told her.

Her body went still. Not a tremble shook
her. “I see.” She nodded. “I see.”

Walter kicked at the wall outside the police
station. “It was a mess, Kate. You don’t need to see it. It’s being
taken care of.”

She nodded again. “Was he drunk?”

That was enough for Alex. Roughly, he tugged
her into a walk again. “We’re going to talk all about it as soon as
I get my sister stowed. Until then, let’s just be glad it’s over.
We’re going to have to tell your mother, too, and we’ll talk about
that at the same time.”

“Right.” Kate walked like an automaton to
the carriage Walter and Bill had waiting. It was crowded, but they
all fit. They were as still as statues as the carriage rattled them
back to the Congress Hotel.

# # #

“I don’t know why I can’t sit in,” Mary Jo
grumbled. “I won’t say anything or get in the way.”

“Stop being a pain in the neck,” her fond
brother advised. “You’re going to go to your hotel room and stay
there.”

Kate blessed him for it. She really liked
Mary Jo, sort of, but she didn’t feel like putting up with her
right now. “I’m sure we won’t be long, Mary Jo. I’ll have to borrow
a nightgown, I guess.” She tried to shake off the exhaustion trying
to smother her. In truth, she didn’t care about nightgowns or day
gowns or anything else. She only wanted to sleep.

“Are you ready, Kate?”

Alex’s voice was all solicitude, and it made
Kate want to cry, which was stupid and irrational. She revised her
emotions and decided she actually wanted to scream at herself and
stamp her feet. And then sleep. “Yeah. I’m ready.” She sighed down
to her toes.

“Walter and Bill are waiting for us. I had
them pick up some sandwiches from the kitchen.”

Kate perked up slightly. “You mean
somebody’s still awake in the kitchen at this hour?”

“It’s a brand-new, top-of-the-line hotel,
Kate. They’re there to offer their services for money, and I have
money.”

His sister appeared shocked by this
audacious statement, which she probably took as a boastful one.
Kate knew better by this time and only gave him a wry grin. “Must
be nice.”

Alex was firm but gentle when he deposited
his sister in her room. Mary Jo stuck her tongue out at him, but he
only closed the door in her face.

“It is. Now come along with me. I think they
got some tea and coffee, too.”

“Tea,” Kate mused. “I could use a cup of
tea.”

“Good.” He took her arm and tugged. “Then
come with me.”

She did. As Alex had told her, Walter and
Bill awaited them in Alex’s room. She tried to smile at her
brothers, but it was a feeble effort. Billy popped up from the
chair he’d been holding down.

“Come over here, Kate. I’ve got a cup of tea
ready for you, just the way you like it.”

Kate doubted it. She took nothing in her
tea, and Billy always used milk and sugar. She eyed the teacup and
saucer he held out to her. Sure enough, the cup was filled to the
brim with tea laced with milk and, she had no doubt, liberally
dosed with sugar. She was about to protest when Alex thwarted
her.

“I told him to give you sugar and cream,
Kate. Hot sweet tea’s good for shock.”

She felt her shoulders slump as her gaze
went from the teacup to Alex. “You think I’m in shock?”

“If you’re not, you’re inhuman.” Alex didn’t
sound as if he cared a whole lot. He took a cup of coffee from
Walter, who was manning the coffee pot. “Thanks.”

Walter only nodded and gulped from his own
cup. “Sit down and quit fighting, Kate. We all need to talk about
what’s happened and what we need to do now.”

Before she even knew what was happening,
Kate felt tears well up in her eyes. Because she’d slit her wrists
before she’d cry in front of these three men, she swallowed them
and sat with a flounce intended to demonstrate her state of bravado
and indignation. Somehow or other during this performance, she
managed not to spill her tea.

“Exactly,” agreed Alex. “And what I propose
is this. I had expected that Kate and I would marry in a few months
in order to allow for all the folderol usually attendant upon such
ceremonies, but after this night’s work, I think we’d best speed up
the process.”

“What?” Kate cried, all inclination to weep
having vanished.

“Good idea,” said Walter, sounding judicious
and ignoring his sister.

“Right. It would be best to
do it soon,” said his brother, likewise ignoring his sister. “Then
Katie won’t have to worry about where she’ll be living and so
forth, and
we
won’t have to worry about
her
.” Bill turned his head grinned
at his sister in a manner intended to let her know how fun he
thought it was to override her in every particular.

Kate was so offended, she couldn’t even find
words to fling at him.

“Glad we agree,” said Alex complacently. “I
recommend we hold the ceremony at the farm in a couple of weeks.
That way your mother won’t have that tiring trip back to Chicago.
Besides—” hH winked at Kate’s brothers. “—my mother and yours will
have a grand time with the decorations and so forth.”

Walter nodded. “Women love that sort of
thing.”

“Yeah,” said Billy. “They seem to, all
right.”

This was too much for Kate’s independent
soul. She’d been the mainstay of her family for too many years to
put up with having her fate decided by three interfering men in
this outrageous way. She stood up with even more of a flounce than
she’d sat. “Now you all wait just a minute here! I’ll have you know
that I have absolutely no intention of marrying—”

An imperative knock came at Alex’s hotel
room door, cutting Kate off in mid-tirade. All four of the room’s
inhabitants turned abruptly and stared at the door.

Alex moved first. With a jerk, he launched
himself out of his chair and headed to the door. “If that’s my
interfering sister, I’ll—” He flung the door wide and blinked at
the uniformed messenger standing there, holding out a tray upon
which lay a yellow envelope.

“Telegram for Mr. Alex English,” the bellboy
said. Then, taking in Alex’s furious face, he gulped and braced
himself.

But Alex, as Kate might have told the boy
had she been asked, wasn’t one to relieve his anger on innocent
strangers. At once his expression softened, although he still
appeared rather worried. Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew some
coins and exchanged them for the telegram on the boy’s tray.
Relieved, the boy smiled and hot-footed it away from Alex’s
door.

Kate, Walter, and Bill, as if propelled by
the same force of nature, all rose from their seats. Kate’s heart,
which had taken a real beating lately, began hammering out a
funeral dirge. Telegrams always meant bad news.

Turning at the door and shutting it absently
behind him, Alex tore open the envelope and took out the message.
He read it, looked up at his guests, then reread it.