Intimate Strangers (Eclipse Heat Book 2) (30 page)

The two clerks looked mystified. One yelled, “Mr. Pauley. We need you.”

Pauley heard the fracas and opened his door. “What’s going on?”

By that time Doyle had already pulled the blinds down, put up the closed sign and locked the door. “Your assets are frozen.”

Pauley’s gaze centered on the man giving the orders. “You have no authority to do this,” he said angrily.

Doyle flashed his badge and drawled, “The State of Texas does. Bank examiner will be here soon. ’Til then, I told your clerks to go home and the bank’s closed.”

Pauley said, “I don’t care who you are, you can’t take over a bank like this.” He went into his office and headed toward the back exit. “When our investors hear about this—”

Lucy interrupted him, “I’m an investor and I’m in complete agreement with this.”

Ambrose laid the package of money on the office desk. “We’ve got a deposit for Lucy McKenna’s account.”

Pauley said with disgust, “What is this, some kind of new ploy to access your deceased wife’s money?” The banker looked at the oilskin-wrapped package that lay before him.

He sat down and pulled out a small, sharp knife to slit open the bundled cash. Ambrose stopped him. “That your mark on the oilcloth?” He pointed at the seal on the outside of the package.

Pauley looked at him then at the lawmen behind him before saying grudgingly, “Yes.” All business, he sliced open the bundle and immediately thumbed through the bills, checking to see if it was indeed the long-lost money.

Pauley stopped counting and said, “Well, you have Lucy’s missing money.” Then he shrugged indifferently and began stacking it into piles. “I’ll add this to her estate. It proves nothing other than—”

“You can get your story ready in a jail cell, Pauley,” Doyle interrupted him. “There’s questions about your participation in the deaths of Alexander McKenna and Lucy Quince.”

“What?”

Ambrose enjoyed seeing the flush of fear wipe the arrogance from the bastard’s face.

Pauley stuttered, “I know nothing about McKenna other than he fell off his horse and died, and she’s standing right there.”

When he pointed angrily at Lucy, Hiram pounced. “Glad we got that cleared up. I thought you’d finally recognize her.”

Ambrose wanted to bash Pauley’s head in. “You bastard, would you really have let me swing?” Ambrose recognized it as a stupid question as soon as he asked. Hell, yes, Pauley had wanted him hung.

The banker defended himself grimly. “I thought Lucy had finally come to her senses and left your sorry ass behind or you’d killed her, you sonovabitch. Either way, I guarded her funds.”

The two men bristled at each other until Lucy stepped forward. “Stephen, I see you’ve taken to wearing linen shirts.”

Quincy’s belly coiled in rage. She was back to calling the asshole Stephen and admiring his shirts?

Pauley must have seen Lucy as a friend among foe, because he beamed ingratiatingly at her. “Yes, I’ve found a tailor in Wichita Falls who is superb. He actually keeps abreast of the fashions in Boston. We’ll have to get together at the tea shop and… ”

Lucy leaned over the desk and fingered the material of the shirt. “It’s very thoughtful of you to invite me,” she murmured.

Ambrose was ready either to throw up or to leave when she stepped back before he could explode and said briskly, “I trust you purchased them with your own money and not mine.” Turning to Quincy she asked, “When is that bank examiner arriving?”

Beads of sweat popped out on Pauley’s brow when Ambrose delivered the bad news. “Should be here by afternoon. Hiram, you satisfied this is Lucy’s money?” He held up the bundled greenbacks for inspection.

Hiram said, “Yep. Can’t deposit it because the accounts are froze. Guess you’ll have to take it with you. Pauley, you can wait in a jail cell ’til the examiner comes along. That right, Logan?”

The Texas Ranger agreed and walked Pauley toward the front door while the two clerks watched.

“Wire the investors,” the banker told them.

Doyle said, “You’ll be sharing a cell in the state prison if Pauley is convicted of fraud. If he conspired to commit murder, well, maybe you did too. I’d go home and keep my mouth shut if I were you, and not be sending any wires.”

The clerks quaked under the authority of the Texas Ranger and Ambrose figured the mysterious investors weren’t going to learn a damned thing before the examiner arrived.

He and Lucy walked out of the bank carrying more money than Ambrose expected to earn in his lifetime and he groaned, knowing it was only a tiny portion of her wealth.

As if reading his thoughts, she squeezed his arm and asked, “Sorry you married a rich Boston debutante?”

“Nope.” He grinned. “Got any complaints about having a husband with more land than good sense?”

She ducked under his arm, hugged his waist and said, “None.”

Ambrose sent a wagon to bring in Roberta and the kids since she was a proven nurse. After the doctor had done what he could, he said Comfort had two broken ribs, a cracked pelvis and a broken wrist besides the bruises covering her flesh from the beating she’d been given.

On hearing the news that Bailey was dead, Comfort groaned, “Thank God.”

Ambrose nodded in understanding when Hamilton stayed with Comfort and said he wouldn’t be riding with them to the Circle Five.

The bank examiner arrived, cloistering himself inside the bank with armed guards outside. Pauley cooled his heels in the Eclipse jail shouting threats at Hiram Potter, who manned the sheriff’s office until a replacement could be found.

* * * * *

Lucy waited with dread for the next stage of retribution to begin. Because the crime of rustling covered a larger jurisdiction, spreading as far away as Wichita, where related crimes had been committed, Sheriff Potter had also wired Sheriff Jackson and invited him to participate in the arrest.

It was the next morning before Jackson, rode in from Wichita. Shortly after, a posse of Texas Rangers joined the rest of the lawmen. Hiram made certain all the Quince riders were deputized.

Sheriff Jackson looked at Lucy and frowned. Then he said to Ambrose, “Quince, this isn’t a barn dance we’re attending. Your wife needs to stay in town.”

Ambrose shook his head. “Nope, she’s earned her spot and she’s coming along.” He offered no other explanation and Lucy relaxed.

Disgruntled but resigned, Jackson fell in with the caravan of riders heading toward the Circle Five. They made no attempt to surprise those on the ranch.

It seemed certain that someone from town had already ridden out to tell of the fates of Sheriff Bailey and the bank president. Few drovers remained and among those who’d stayed, resistance melted away when the lawmen rode fifty strong through the gates.

Lucy rode Sheba to the willow in the yard and waited there when the Rangers surrounded the house and ordered Slocum and Howard to come out with their hands up. They didn’t. Instead they began shooting out the front window.

It was a terrible mistake. Fifty guns drilled bullet holes in the front of the house. Within five minutes after the posse opened fire, a white cloth appeared out one of the broken windows.

When all firing ceased, Iris Howard crept through the door, crying and waving the white shirt. She stuttered in shock, “I-I told them to give themselves up but they wouldn’t listen. Both of them are dead. Clayton was leaving out the back and my nephew shot him. Peter was killed by your bullets. I don’t understand. Why did you attack us? Why did Peter shoot my husband?”

She looked old and frightened as she faced the posse. Hard-faced men watched her with guns drawn.

Doyle dismounted and went into the house with Ambrose. When they came back in a few moments, they carried both bodies.

Lucy walked her horse over to where Iris stood. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Howard,” she said and turned away, starting back for the Double-Q. Ambrose fell in beside her and they rode for home, silence laying heavy between them.

She wasn’t sure what came next. Her quest, if that is what one called it, was over. The men who had wronged her and threatened the Double-Q were dead. She had reclaimed her memories, good and bad, even the ones when Ambrose Quince and she had been adversaries in a dying marriage.

”I would like to have questioned them,” Lucy said.

Ambrose agreed grimly, “Yep. I’d feel better right now if Pete Slocum had confessed. I wanted to kill that sonovabitch with my bare hands.”

Lucy shuddered and nodded. Settling deeper in the saddle, she reached across to touch his thigh as he rode close beside her. “I love you, Quincy,” she told him.

He answered, “I love you too, Lucy.”

She blinked at him, not sure she’d heard him right.

He covered her hand on his leg and smiled at her. “I plan on saying the words a lot from now on.”

Lucy lifted his bruised knuckles to her lips and planted a kiss there. “You’ve said them every day we’ve been married, Quincy. I was just too stubborn to listen.”

* * * * *

Though Lucy expected to be relieved of her constant fear after Pete Slocum’s band of rustlers had been caught and her attackers had been dealt with, she wasn’t. Every day her world became smaller as inner terror stole more and more of her control. She missed Roberta’s constant chatter now that the other woman had moved into town.

After her first bout of remembering, Lucy was reluctant to go to the barn, telling herself that the dark interior reminded her of the cave. She forgave her own fear, focusing her attentions on more tangible problems.

Stephen Pauley remained incarcerated as the bank examiner counted, calculated and audited all the accounts of money on deposit. At the end of the week, his findings showed that Lucille McKenna’s account had suffered several large withdrawals during her absence. Her return had precipitated an infusion of cash equaling the sum removed plus the additional interest it would have earned.

Pauley claimed that it was a simple bookkeeping error he’d discovered and corrected. His explanations were glib but finally accepted by the auditor. Lucy doubted they were mistakes but nothing existed to prove otherwise
.
The audit also disclosed that he’d been managing private accounts for a consortium of Eastern financiers since 1873. No illegal activities were disclosed and Pauley was released from jail.

Hamilton reported developments as he learned them on his daily visits to Comfort in Eclipse. “Looking pretty grim for the town,” Hamilton announced at breakfast on Tuesday of the second week. “The private accounts are gone and Stephen Pauley is back in the bank president’s chair until further notice. The general consensus is that you’re going to pull your funds, so there was a run on the bank yesterday. So far it’s been the small ranchers who can’t afford to lose the little they have. Comfort withdrew enough to cover a month’s inventory.”

Sitting close enough to Ambrose at the table to bump shoulders occasionally, Lucy sipped her mug of coffee, contemplating the latest crisis. “I guess it’s good we have a strongbox of cash in the office, then.”

Quincy shook his head grimly. “I don’t like it there. We’ll see what the audit shows and make some decisions. Will you get that Double-Q accounting ledger from the office, Lucy? I stuck the bank examiner’s paper in there.”

It was a simple request and Lucy dropped a kiss on his temple before hurrying to fetch the book. But the dark hallway leading back to Quincy’s office was filled with shadows she’d never noticed before. Lucy made it to the stairwell and stopped. Backing away as if monster waited there, she hurried back to the kitchen where Ambrose waited. “I couldn’t locate it,” she told him.

When he came back waving the ledger, he teased her. “You didn’t look very hard, sweetheart. It was right on top of the stack.”

Hamilton redirected the conversation before Quincy noticed her panicked state. “We need the Double-Q money close to home in a place we can trust. Abilene’s too far to ride and tote back a bag full of greenbacks.”

Lucy shuddered remembering her own folly, but said grimly, “As long as Stephen Pauley is involved in any way with the Eclipse Bank, I vote we move the money.”

Ambrose frowned. “You know this goes a lot deeper than just Eclipse and the Double-Q. Those Eastern bankers took their money out quick, but my guess would be that it’s sitting in another Texas bank right now and future investment plans haven’t changed a bit. Having Quince money nearby makes sense but we need to make sure it’s managed with plenty of oversight by locals.”

He sipped his coffee, rubbing his jaw before adding, “Much as I don’t want to do it, I think it’s time we get involved in Eclipse business. Hamilton, since you’re in there every day you need to talk to the Eclipse merchants about establishing a board of directors made up of local citizens we trust. It wouldn’t hurt to have a Quince in on hiring the next bank manager.”

“We need to make sure we’re not vulnerable to an outside attack,” Lucy suggested hesitantly.  “The Double-Q is part of Texas, which means we need to pay attention to the property and banking laws that are being passed in Austin.”

“That’s something it took you to remind us.” Ambrose said wryly. “It’s easy to forget we’re not alone and there’s plenty of other ranchers the Easterners are squeezing right now. Seems like we’ve moved into a new era whether we want to or not. Texas ranchers are going to have to learn to play politics or we won’t have any land left.”