The Gambler (13 page)

"All right." Raven let his muscles relax. "We'll assume you're telling the truth. How did she die?"

"She'd hit her head. On a rock."

"So she was unconscious?"

"When we found her, yes. But when we carried her into the shade she woke up."

"And then you killed her."

"You're crazy." Charm's voice was very steady now, her chin slightly raised, the dark, gleaming mass of her hair flowing over one sturdy shoulder. "Why would I kill her?"

"Because she was a very rich woman, Miss Fergusson. How much money did she have on her?"

Charm pursed her lips. "Two dollars and two bits."

"And you—"

"Yes," she snapped. "I took it. It was in her bag. As was the Bible."

"Which you also took."

"What Bible?" Clancy asked.

"I could have you incarcerated for theft. You know that?" Raven asked coldly, but Charm only tossed her head and laughed, causing her emerald eyes to flash and her hair to dance like glistening waves in the early-morning sun.

"For stealing two and a half dollars and a Bible from a dead woman? Go ahead and try."

"The devil take it!" Raven said, but there was no emotion in his tone as he turned away from her. "Where's the Bible now?" he asked, pivoting rapidly back.

"I lost it."

"Lost it?" Raven said. Barely raising his voice, he let his left brow drift low and his tone go gravelly.

For a moment he actually thought he saw tears in her eyes. She clenched her fists, managing to look terrified and defiant all at once. Damned if she wasn't a better liar than both he
and
Clancy. Another disconcerting thought.

"How the devil did you lose it?"

"What Bible?" Clancy asked again.

"It's none of your blasted business, Bodine," Raven said without turning. "Where did you lose it?"

"It was in my reticule when you attacked me."

Raven tensed his jaw but didn't swear. "In Deadwood?"

"It's hard to remember. You've attacked me so many places."

"Was it in Deadwood?" Raven asked with barely contained impatience.

"What do you care?" she asked, sounding frustrated and wonderfully close to hysteria.

"Charm," he said, his tone warning.

"Yes. It was in Deadwood."

Raven took a deep breath and stared at her with cold steadiness as he nodded toward the north. "You can go."

She moved her lips and raised one shoulder, which was nearly bare and tantalizingly smooth. "Just like that?"

"Yes," he said, and turned to stride away.

"Don't that beat all," Clancy said, half to himself. "Already dead." He shrugged and with an amazed shake of his head turned to follow Raven with his eyes. "You're not gonna make her walk back all alone, Joseph."

"I'm not?"

"Where are your manners, boy? It's miles to New Eden. She needs an escort."

"Then you take her," Raven said, not stopping.

"Where are
you
going?" Clancy asked, but Raven didn't answer and soon disappeared into the woods.

"He's crazy," Charm said softly, stunned and breathless and barely able to hope it was all over.

"Yeh." Clancy nodded. "Crazy like a fox. By the way, honey, where
did
you lose that Bible?"

Charm scowled at him. "Why?"

Clancy grinned, nodding toward the woods where Raven had disappeared. "Want to make him suffer for what he's put you through?"

She nodded, feeling strangely numb.

"Then tell me where you lost the Bible."

"The livery in Deadwood," she murmured. She had no more strength to think of lies, but apparently it didn't matter, for already Clancy was on his horse. In a moment he was gone, spurring toward the north.

“They're both crazy," she said, watching him go.

"You're even better than I thought."

Charm caught her breath audibly and turned quickly toward the sound of Raven's voice. He stood not far away with his fist curled about the reins of the gelding behind him. He'd removed his jacket and vest. The top two buttons of his white shirt were open, and his sleeves were rolled up, revealing the broad-boned expanse of his dark-skinned wrists.

"He left." There was numb surprise in her tone.

Raven smiled. "He went to look for the Bible."

She shook her head, baffled. The movement felt stiff.

"Your Bible," Raven repeated. He didn't approach her, not yet. "He plans to collect the reward for information about you... Chantilly."

The nightmare continued. Charm tried to take a step back, but her feet were still bound. She toppled toward the log behind her. But Raven was there in an instant, steadying her with his hands until she found her balance and shrugged out of his grip.

"I'm not Chantilly." The words sounded as if they had come from someone else.

His eyes held hers, deep and dark before shifting to the ground. "Here. Let me get rid of that rope."

She failed to kick him when he bent to untie her bonds. A moment later, she regretted her negligence, though he looked surprisingly harmless when he straightened again to watch her.

"My name's not Chantilly," she said again. The lack of food and sleep and sane companionship was beginning to wear on her own lucidness. She stared at him. Was he crazy, or was she?

"You must be tired. Please," he said, motioning to the log behind her, "sit down."

His new deference toward her didn't improve her sense of stability. He hadn't tackled her for several hours now, and she was uncertain how to respond, so she sat with a plop, feeling dazed and silly.

"I'd like to apologize for my behavior," he said. Dropping the gelding's reins, he paced a few strides. "I didn't know."

She considered asking what he didn't know, but in a moment he stopped pacing to look at her again, and he spoke again without being asked.

"I'm an inquiring agent."

He was a nut case.

"I find missing persons. For pay."

Charm had heard this all before, just before Jude had popped him on the head with a bottle, but she waited, listening nevertheless.

"Several months ago I saw an advertisement in a Missouri publication. It offered a reward for the return of a young woman, someone named Chantilly Grady."

Charm opened her mouth. Now seemed a likely time for another denial, but he lifted his hand, quieting her.

"Please, just hear me out. It's important, to your future as well as mine. This woman, Chantilly, it was suspected she would be found with a gambler." He nodded once and paced again. "And gambling, it's a sort of... habit of mine."

He turned and looked at her. In the morning sun, his hair was blue-black, his expression intense. Surprisingly so for a man who had been so carefully devoid of showing emotion; he seemed incredibly open now. Or was it an act? A ploy to force her to react a certain way?

"Do you understand me so far?" he asked.

Yes, she understood him. He was, beyond a question of a doubt, insane, and she had to escape. Soon. "You like to gamble," she said.

"Well, no." He paused, running his fingers through his hair. "I don't
like
to gamble. But I need... I just do. I gamble, and so I thought this job might be a perfect way to make an income while still keeping me close to the gaming tables. I contacted the person who had placed the advertisement." He paused, watching her closely again as if he feared she might dart from the log and flee into the surrounding woods. "Her name was Eloise Medina."

Charm didn't move. They'd been through all this before. She was no longer shocked by his delusions. "Strange, isn't it, that the woman would have the same name as my mother. But..." She forced a smile, hoping to keep him calm. "There may be dozens of women with the same name."

He looked for a moment as if he would object, but then continued on. "This Eloise Medina, she's a very wealthy woman, the only remaining child to the family fortune. But she'd had a sister..." He paused, watching her as if waiting for a response. "Her name was Caroline."

Charm kept her gaze on his face and her expression carefully bland, but the name Caroline tripped in her mind, momentarily stalling her thoughts.

"Does the name mean anything to you?"

"No." She smiled again, though the effort took its toll. "Should it?"

"She was the one in the portrait I showed you. Eloise's elder sister. When she was fifteen she met a man named Randall Grady. He was a gambler. A handsome man, I was told. Dashing. She became enamored of him, but her mother, Sophie, the old matriarch, refused to let them marry. So Caroline decided to run away with him. Eloise found out and tried to convince her not to go, but Caroline was determined. All she left with were the clothes on her back... and the small white Bible Eloise begged her to take."

Despite her best efforts, Charm could feel her strength drain. "It was my mother's," she said faintly. "Jude told me so." Her voice sounded very weak, and she hated herself for it.

"It
was
your mother's," Raven said softly. "It was Caroline Medina's."

For just a moment, for just one fantastic instant, she believed. "But why would Jude tell me her name was—"

"He's not your father."

Charm felt her jaw drop, felt her gut clench and her world tilt.

"I found a woman who helped bring you into the world. She remembered it well, despite her..."—he scowled—"despite her affection for whiskey. She'd been working on a steamboat when Chantilly was born there. Said the baby's father was a good-looking man named Randall Grady. He was jovial most of the time, but moody when things weren't going his way. Caroline, the mother, had a hard time with the birth, but she came through all right. I was able to learn about the next five years of Chantilly's life. Found people here and there who had met her, commented on her beauty. Her vivid green eyes." He caught her gaze. "And always she was with her parents. But suddenly she disappeared, and I could find no trace of her family or her. Until now."

Charm had difficulty breathing in the heavy silence.

"Jude lied to you, Charm. I've seen a picture of your father, and Jude's not him."

No. Reality seemed to slap Charm like the splash of a cold rain.
Raven
was the liar. He'd proven it more than once. Jude had warned her that men weren't to be trusted. He'd told her time and again, and yet she'd fallen for the wild fabrications of the first man who came along. But only for a moment. She had to get away.

That was the only clear thought in her mind as she took her first steps toward the horse's dragging reins. He had remained standing, and lifted his head now, watching her approach.

"Chantilly?" Raven said. But she didn't turn toward him. There was empty distance between herself and her ride to freedom and sanity. "Charm?" he said, and in that moment she bolted.

The reins were in her hand, the horse already moving. She took a few running steps, grabbed a hank of mane, and swung her right leg desperately over the horse's bony back. Aided by terror and impetus, she was aboard and thumping the animal's sides before she had a plan formed in her swirling mind.

"Charm!" Raven yelled, but already the animal was running. "Charm!"

She had to get away. Ahead the woods thickened. To her left the meadow sloped downhill, dotted only with scrubby trees. The horse turned on his own accord, avoiding the woods and jolting into a trot. Charm clung with her knees and hands and leaned toward the turn, but suddenly Raven was beside her, grabbing a handful of mane.

"Why would I lie?" He was panting as he lifted his face to hers.

"Because you're Satan's spawn!" she spat, and thumped the horse back into a gallop.

Raven raced along beside, keeping up for several strides before his grip weakened and slipped.

Seeing her chance for freedom, Charm reined away, trying to pivot to the right, but somehow Raven's hands did not completely falter, but tangled in her skirt. She felt the tug and screamed, trying to stay aboard, leaning away from him, but already she was slipping.

"Stop the horse!" he yelled.

"Let go!" she shrieked, tipping sideways.

"Stop the—" he began again just before the weight of her body slammed against him, "horse," he finished with a grunt as his back struck the ground.

The gelding thundered away. Charm knew she had no chance of reaching him before Raven caught her, so she did the only thing she could. She grabbed a broken branch from beside his neck, thrust it up against his throat, and snarled, "I've got a knife. Move and I'll slit you from ear to ear. I swear I will."

"Ahh, for Christ's sake," Raven groaned, still fighting to regain his breath. "Where did you have this one stashed? In your blasted teeth?"

"Quiet!" she growled, pressing her impromptu weapon harder against his jugular. "Now it's my turn for some answers."

"Could I sit up first?"

"You want to die young?"

"Not particularly," he croaked.

"Then stay put and start explaining."

He raised his brows at her. His neck was broad and dark, she noticed, and his chest, where she gripped his shirt in one hand, was hard and wide. "What exactly do you want explained?"

Charm drew a sharp, exasperated breath. "Everything."

He shifted uncomfortably beneath her, managing to get clear of a sharp rock that was lodged beneath his left shoulder. "Could we narrow it down a bit?" he asked. "Just for the sake of my well-being?"

"‘Oh, Lord, how much longer must I wait?'" she asked, quoting biblical verse. "I want to know why you've concocted this whole outrageous scheme," she said, thrusting upward with her stick again.

"What outrageous scheme might that be?" he asked, shifting his gaze toward the weapon just below his eyesight and going very still.

"You think I won't do it?" she asked, certain the stick was out of his view and lightly jabbing him a third time. "You think I won't kill you?"

"I didn't say that," he said, raising one hand as if to soothe her.

"Well, I will." She needed him to believe her threat, for at the moment it was her most potent weapon. "Maybe I
did
kill the Grady girl," she growled, making her voice go low.