The Hopechest Bride (6 page)

“Are you all right?” Martha asked as she and Meredith exited the car in front of an imposing pair of doors cut into the dark brick building and stepped under the overhang, out of the worst of the weather.

“Yes, I'm fine,” Meredith said as Joe went to her, gripped her hand tightly in his.

“Maybe so,” he said, trying for some sort of gallows humor perhaps, “but I'd still like to put a name tag on you, just so these guys remember who you are—and who you aren't.”

“They were very kind to me in the short time I was here, before I went to Mississippi,” Meredith said quietly. “I can only hope they're being as kind to Patsy.”

Meredith need not have worried, for once inside the large foyer they were greeted by a young doctor who immediately took her and Martha upstairs to the infirmary. “I've bent a few rules here, Mrs. Colton, but this is a pretty extraordinary case. Dr. Wilkes? It's nice to meet you. According to everything I've read in the newspapers—and I admit to following this story with great interest—you were a major factor in returning Mrs. Colton to her family.”

“Thank you,” Martha said, her sharp brown eyes seeing the institution for what it was, a prison with few amenities for the criminally insane. The paint on the walls was dull, the windows all barred, and the general atmosphere was as gray and chilly as this November day. “It looks like you have the same budget woes as we do in Mississippi, Doctor,” she said as an attendant unlocked the last of a set of three secured doors leading to the infirmary.

“Budget cuts are the bane of my life,” the doctor agreed with a wry smile. “Still, we do what we can. Do you mind? I have to stay with you, as does Dave, our attendant.”

Meredith stepped through the doorway without answering, and the doctor, Dave and Martha followed her. The room they entered was long and narrow, with equally narrow beds lining both walls. Surprisingly, other than the last one on the left, the beds were empty. But in that last bed lay Patsy Portman, her head turned away from the doorway, her wrists and
ankles in cloth restraints, her left wrist heavily bandaged.

“Go slow,” Martha warned Meredith, taking her arm for a moment. “Just say hello, and see where Patsy wants to go from there.”

Martha followed close behind Meredith, then stopped some ten feet from the bed as Patsy turned toward them, the fire in her eyes looking like Hollywood special effects. Martha felt a shiver trace icy fingers down her spine as she looked into the face of Patsy Portman—a face stripped bare by insanity, turned ugly even in its patrician beauty.

“Well, well, well, look who's here,” Patsy said, her grin grotesque, drool running from one corner of her mouth. Antipsychotic drugs, Martha decided. They often had side effects that included drooling, twitching, and sometimes even a blank expression that could appear almost masklike. Patsy wore that mask now, but it didn't expand to include those hot, searching eyes.

“Patsy,” Meredith said, reaching out a hand, then drawing it back. “Are you…are you all right?”

Patsy's grin widened. “Oh, yeah, I'm great. This afternoon we're having a pool party. Last night it was a first-run movie in the assembly room, and tomorrow we're having Queen Elizabeth to tea. Am I all right? God, Meredith, you were always such an
idiot!
”

The doctor stepped forward, but Martha held out an arm, silently motioning for him to stay where he was, say nothing.

“Yes, you always were the smart one, weren't you, Patsy?” Meredith said, her tone surprising Martha, because it sounded so much like her own professional tone. She guessed that Meredith hadn't been in therapy for five long years without learning a few tricks of the trade. “Always prettier, too, Patsy. Everyone said so.”

Patsy's smile turned Cheshire-like, and the woman actually looked as if she were about to preen, to purr. “And everyone was right, too,” she crowed, even going so far as to toss a come-hither wink at Dave, the strapping attendant. Then, just as suddenly as that mood had hit, it disappeared, to be replaced by Patsy's trembling bottom lip, and even a tear. “Merry, you've got to help me. You're the only one who can help me.”

“That's why I'm here, Patsy. I was told you needed my help.” Meredith looked to Martha, who nodded, and then she stepped closer to the bed. “We're taking care of Joe, Jr. and Teddy, Patsy. We always will.”

“I know. I could hate you more if you weren't so damned
good.
But it isn't enough. I'm never going to get out of here, Merry. Not this time. So you have to help me. Before my mind goes, before these damn drugs they're forcing on me make me forget. You have to find my Jewel.”

“Your— What do you mean, Patsy?”

“Jewel! Not a what. A
who.
My daughter, Merry. The one that bastard Ellis Mayfair stole from me. That was my only mistake, you know,” she went on,
the cunning look back in her eyes. “I shouldn't have killed him until he told me where he'd taken her. I've looked, Merry. I've spent a fortune, looking for her. She's out there, I know it.”

“And you named her Jewel?” Meredith asked, stepping even closer, placing her hand in her sister's. “But that was so long ago, Patsy. If whoever you hired couldn't find her in all this time—”

Patsy's knuckles turned white as she gripped Meredith's hand, so that Dave stepped forward, ready to assist. “Idiots! I hired idiots! You and Joe have more money than God, Merry. You can find her. You
have
to find her. I'll give you a month, Merry. A month, or next time I'll slice deeper. I mean it, Merry, I'll slice clear through to the bone.” Her lips drew back over her teeth. “You slice lengthwise, Meredith,
down
the arm to open the artery, not across the wrist. I know how. I know how, and I'll do it. These idiots can't stop me.”

Dave pried Patsy's fingers loose and Martha turned Meredith by touching her shoulders, then led her out of the room.

“Does she mean it, Martha?” Meredith asked as they rode the elevator back to the lobby. “Will she really kill herself next time?”

“It doesn't matter what I believe, Meredith,” Martha told her quietly. “It's what you believe, and what you can live with.”

Meredith gave an abrupt shake of her head. “We're
going to find her, Martha. We're going to find Patsy's daughter. I don't know how, but we're going to do it. We have to!”

E
mily had pulled her rain poncho from her backpack when the wind picked up, even though the sound of the thin plastic, slapped hard by that wind, always set Molly to dancing, her ears flicking as she objected to the strange noise.

She pulled up the hood overtop her Stetson as the wind got worse, coming at her from the rear, nearly pushing her forward in the saddle. The sky was getting darker, too soon to be losing the light, and as she neared her hill—her private hill—the branches of the trees around her whipped in the air. The long grass was bent nearly sideways, and one small, dead branch had come flying past her, heavily catching her on the left shoulder.

Then the rain came. Slashing, stinging, cold as hell. The sky lit with lightning, boomed with thunder, and a near waterfall kept running off the brim of her Stetson, then blowing into her eyes. She could barely see, barely navigate, and she put most of her faith in Molly's surefooted judgment and the mare's memory of their destination.

For the last one hundred or more yards of the way, Emily had to dismount, lead Molly uphill through the scrub and rocks, beneath the blowing trees. But the cave was up there, large enough for both her and Molly, dark and damp, but blessedly dry and out of the wind and rain.

She slipped off her backpack and grabbed the flashlight from the outside ring that held it at the ready, the strong light cutting through the teeming rain as she searched out the well-hidden mouth of the cave.

There. There it was. The opening was nearly obscured by the growth of grass, and almost blocked by a freshly fallen limb. “Damn,” Emily muttered, wondering how she'd get Molly over that branch and into the cave.

She braced the flashlight against a small rock, aiming the light toward the cave entrance. “Where's a good forklift when you need one?” she asked herself, already reaching for the coiled rope on her saddle, planning to tie one end around the branch, the other around Molly's saddle horn. She might not be able to move the heavy limb, but Molly could.

Emily's fingers were stiff inside her leather gloves,
icy cold and clumsy as she tried to tie the rope around the heaviest part of the limb. Then the sky lit, bright as noon, and the heavens broke in two with a crack of thunder that shook the hillside.

“Molly, no!”

Emily dropped the length of rope and ran toward her mount, who was already badly spooked, her eyes rolling in her head. Before Emily could reach her, there was another blinding flash of light, another clap of thunder, and Molly reared, wheeled and took off down the hillside.

Emily watched the mare run off, taking with her the sleeping bag, the food, the water, and even the backpack Emily had shrugged out of, hanging it around the saddle horn by one strap. The flashlight had also come to grief, and lay smashed where Molly's hoof had crushed it. Gone, everything was gone, either broken or heading back down the hill on Molly's back, and Emily was very much alone on the hillside with nothing but the clothes she stood up in and the stupid length of rope.

The rain, which had already been falling in earnest, doubled in intensity so that, Emily knew, a sheep standing out in such a downpour, and stupid enough to look up, would drown—or so she'd been told. Emily did lift her head to take one look at the black sky, but quickly lowered it again. She was dumb to be out here, but she wasn't as dumb as a sheep!

Clawing her way, Emily half stepped, half crawled over the sharp branches of the limb, and left the rain
behind her as she all but fell onto the floor of the cave.

So dark. She had to crawl, feel her way, until at last her fingers touched the plastic container holding her camp stove. Her handy-dandy automatic fire starter was in her backpack, but she was sure she'd left a box of kitchen matches in the container. Please God, let her have matches.

Teeth chattering, fingers stiff with cold, she flipped open the lid of the container, grateful she'd not seen the use of putting a lock on plastic, which could be cut open by anyone who really, really wanted to see what was inside. Not that
she
could have cut it open, because her knife was in her backpack and her backpack was heading downhill on Molly, but then being grateful for small favors was, it seemed, going to be all she had right now.

It took minutes, felt like hours, for Emily to pull out the small camp stove, rummage in the bottom of the container and find the box of kitchen matches that would light the propane in the portable tank. Once it was lit, she could use the flame to ignite some small bits of dry shrub, then light the wood fire she always left ready to go before she broke camp.

She might be hungry, she might be on foot, stranded until the storm was past her, but at least she could be dry and warm.

 

So much for Josh's tracking skills. The woman was gone, lost in the artificial night and rain so fierce that
his vision was limited to only a few feet in front of him.

He should have followed her more closely, shortened the gap between them before she turned her horse into that thick stand of trees at the base of the hill. But he hadn't, and now she was gone, out of sight, and he was slowly drowning as he sat his horse, wondering where to go next, what to do.

And then he heard it. Off to his right. A noise. A crashing. The sound of an animal in pain.

He guided his horse toward the noise, now a screaming that sickened him in his gut. His own mount tossed its head, absorbing the panic of that raw scream, and Josh had to fight to keep his seat as he relentlessly moved toward something he didn't want to see.

Dismounting, he firmly tied his mount's reins to a stout branch and proceeded on foot, toward the barely discernible shape of a fully-loaded horse down and flailing.

The woman. Where was the woman? Where was Emily Colton?

Don't let her be under the horse.

Josh circled the mare, gingerly reaching for the dragging reins, all the while talking, trying to soothe the panicked mass of bone and muscle and razor-sharp hooves. All the while, he scanned the scene as best he could, looking for Emily Colton, not finding her.

He dragged his full attention to the horse. All four
legs were flailing, and obviously not broken. That was one small favor. In fact, it would appear that the horse was more frightened than injured, and that the heavy load on its back was giving it most of its trouble—rather like a turtle flipped onto its shell and powerless to right itself.

But more than the weight was holding the mare down. Sure enough, there was a backpack dangling from the saddle horn, the second strap caught up in a branch that now bent all the way to the ground.

“They make these things stronger every year, almost stronger than steel. Must be those new space-age materials I keep reading about. Yeah, well, snared like a rabbit in a trap, weren't you, girl?” Josh said, removing the backpack from the saddle horn, then giving Molly a solid
whomp
on her hindquarters so that she struggled to her feet. The mare would have run off again, but Josh had a firm hand on the reins, and a basically gentle saddle horse was no match against his skills. Within moments, Molly was standing quite still, looking rather embarrassed that she had caused such a fuss.

“Where's your lady, girl?” Josh asked the horse, stroking the mare's white-blazed face. “Where did you leave her?”

Maybe Dr. Dolittle could talk to the animals, and there was that book about a guy who whispered to horses, but Josh knew he'd pretty much struck out when Molly dipped her head and began chewing on
some damp grass close against the base of a nearby tree.

He'd have to find Emily Colton on his own, and dragging two horses with him while he was at it, because only an idiot would try to move, mounted, through these dense trees.

The woman was more trouble than she was worth, and seemingly born to get into trouble, into scrapes she needed to be bailed out of by some dumb sucker who believed it his duty to help damsels in distress. That was how Toby had gotten involved with Emily Colton, and now here he was, next in line to audition for the role of knight errant.

Man, talk about having a bad feeling about something; Josh sensed danger in this whole, mixed-up situation. Danger to Emily Colton, who was out in the middle of nowhere without her horse or supplies, and danger to himself, who for some ungodly reason actually felt worried about her.

Josh returned to his own mount, untied him and led him back to Molly, then looked uphill as if some sort of divine intervention would show him where Emily and Molly had parted company. Was the woman lying hurt somewhere? Broken leg? Broken neck?

And then he saw it. Through the dark and the lashing rain, he saw it: smoke.

Lifting his head, he sniffed the air like a hound ready to go on point. Yes, definitely wood smoke. Yet it was raining, all the wood from here to the Pacific was wet, too wet to burn. How the hell…?

“Come on, kids, let's check this out,” he said to the horses, urging them forward, one lead in each hand, his shoulders straining as the animals made known their reluctance to climb the hill.

His boots slipping on the wet ground, Josh kept moving forward, moving straight up the hill, seeing the path Molly had made in her panicked descent whenever helpful lightning flashed, momentarily illuminating his way.

The smell of wood smoke got stronger, and Josh's stomach growled as if the smell of a campfire equaled the aroma of meat cooking on a spit hanging over that fire. He was cold, he was wet, his boots weren't made for hill-climbing, and Josh's temper was riding a razor edge as he moved on, sure his shoulders would be pulled from their sockets as the horses reacted to the next crash of thunder.

Lightning flashed, and Josh tensed for the boom that would surely follow, but in that moment of illumination he saw a length of whitish rope lying on the ground, one end tied to the base of a thick, leafy branch.

“What the—?” He stopped, and when the wind whipped around, it sent an even stronger whiff of wood smoke to his nostrils. Squinting, he could swear the smoke was coming from behind the tree limb, coming straight out of the hillside.

A slow smile crept over his face, and he tied Molly to a tree branch, then led his own mount forward. What a woman could start, a man nearly always had
to finish. He tied the loose end of the rope to his horse's saddle horn, and then walked the animal backward, so that the tree limb, heavy with rain, began to slowly inch away from what he was sure would be the mouth of a cave.

 

Emily was feeling pretty proud of herself, even as she worried about Molly. But the storm would be over in the morning, and Molly would either return to the cave on her own, or Emily would find her somewhere on the hillside. She believed that because she needed to believe that, and since she couldn't change anything, she did her best to pretend that everything was all right, would be all right.

Molly wouldn't go back to the ranch on her own, Emily was at least sure of that. No, she'd stick around, waiting for Emily to find her, and then look ashamed as she tried to root in Emily's pocket for a carrot.

Which wouldn't be there, because Emily had already eaten it.

Emily had also stripped herself to the skin, getting out of all her wet clothing once she'd gotten the fire started, laying her clothing on rocks near the fire after she'd wrapped herself in the old wool army blanket she kept in the container.

For the past ten minutes, now that her teeth had stopped chattering, she'd sat on a smooth rock beside the fire, enjoying her dinner. Cans of ravioli, a hand can-opener and her camp stove had transformed the
small cave into a five-star restaurant, even if Emily had barely waited for the ravioli to be warm before hungrily spooning it into her mouth.

She was just raising the spoon to her mouth one last time, to lick it, when the tree branch at the mouth of the cave began to move.

Earthquake?

No, that couldn't be. Everything would be moving if it was an earthquake.

The tree limb kept moving, opening the mouth of the cave to the wind and rain, and letting the wood smoke more naturally find its way out into the night, even as Emily moved more deeply into the cave.

She held the blanket close to her as she looked longingly at her clothing for a second or two, then watched the mouth of the cave, knowing a bear wouldn't have moved the branch, and wondering what could be out there that was as strong, and as dangerous, as a bear.

Why didn't she have her rifle? Why had Molly run off with the thing tucked into a leather scabbard on the saddle? Why had she been so dumb as to come up here, into the hills, in the first place?

Nothing happened for the next few seconds. The branch was gone, and the night was quiet, even the thunder ceasing long enough for Emily to be able to hear her own heart rapidly beating in her ears.

And then she saw a hat, a Stetson. The hat was attached to a tall, black slicker-clad male-type body that walked into the cave on cowboy-booted feet. She
couldn't see the face, but she recognized the boots. Stupid thing, to recognize a pair of boots, but these were a sort of beigy snakeskin, and very distinctive. She even remembered that Toby had told her his brother had won the boots in one of his rodeos.

She felt very naked under the blanket, which she was, but she also was mad. Madder than hell. The man had followed her! There was no other answer, no other explanation.

God, would she have to take the next space shuttle in order to get away from people, away from this one most intimidating person?

“Evenin', ma'am,” Josh Atkins said once he was standing on the other side of the fire, looking straight at her. He pushed the hood of his slicker from his head, then touched the brim of his drenched Stetson as if bidding her good day.

“Go away,” Emily said, wincing as the power of her frantic voice echoed inside the cave. “Just…just go away.”

“Be the gentleman, you mean?” Josh asked, taking another step in her direction. “You're asking the wrong man, Miss Colton, if it's a gentleman you're looking for tonight. Besides, I've got two horses out there, and they need to come inside. It'll be cramped, but we can do it.”