Chapter 27
Impeccable Timing
“Who does she think she is saying no to me, the fucking queen of England?” Quentin muttered as he burst through the swinging saloon doors in a rage.
They slammed against the wall, knocking several louvers loose, but he didn’t care, nor about the grimy barroom with its week-old beer stench.
Living in that dilapidated shack should have humbled her, but she remained haughty, condescending, and insulting.
“She dared to call me a bitch,” he said, seething.
He needed a drink to cool his outrage, but when he reached the bar, there was no one to serve him. The bartenders had walked out days ago.
“I do it myself,” he muttered as he stalked around the bar. “Like everything else around here.”
When he saw the empty shelves, he let loose a string of curses and cleared the dirty glasses on the top of the bar with a sweep of his arm. He glanced around the filthy room with its broken furniture and stained fabric-covered walls. How had it gotten this bad so quickly?
It was only a saloon with an upstairs brothel, but it had a certain sophistication when he first saw it.
Now, its grandeur was gone, and they weren’t even open for business.
Without work or pay, the staff had gradually left, but not before consuming every crumb of food and, obviously, helping themselves to the liquor.
Two whores had stayed, but only because they were past their prime and no other whorehouse would have them.
The bitch was right; it would take money to reopen, not to mention time and effort. And without Fenton or Miss Charlotte, who seemed to be part of the attraction, it may never get back to what it was.
He could sell. The building would bring in some money, but the real prize he was after was the fortune Fenton had amassed.
That’s why he’d come here, not to be a whiskey-and-flesh peddler in a barely civilized railroad town, and he wasn’t about to let a disrespectful light skirt snatch it out of his hands.
He’d already met with the bank manager, but there was no budging him—even claim his right to it as next of kin.
“We have rules we must follow, Mr. Sneed,” Quentin mimicked.
He’d considered stealing it. Not him, specifically—he was the brains, not the muscle—but the outlaws he employed to carry out his plans.
Upon seeing armed guards at every exit, with the manager and tellers also carrying guns, he’d quickly changed his plans.
He had no love for his men, but their survival was essential for the delivery of his money.
To his immense frustration, the fate of Fenton’s fortune—a sum he craved—ultimately hinged on the judge, leaving him feeling powerless. He didn’t trust Simpson not to give the saloon and money to the bawd outright and leave him with nothing.
He couldn’t let that happen. If she was out of the picture, permanently, he would inherit it all. When that day came, he’d be on the next train out of this dusty, backwater town. And it couldn’t come soon enough.
Quentin plodded methodically up the stairs, retrieved what he needed from his room, formerly Fenton’s, then approached the Boone brothers as they played poker around a table cluttered with cards and glasses.
Between them sat the last bottle of whiskey, a meager inch remaining.
Cleve and Silas were the only two left, as the other four became bored and moved on.
He dropped a bag in the center of the table. It landed with a distinctive clink.
“That’s twenty twenty-dollar gold pieces. I don’t care what you do to the bitch, but when you leave, I don’t want her breathing.”
Cleve, one of the ugliest and most ornery bastards he had ever encountered, dumped the coins into his hand and counted. While he was putting them back, one at a time, he said, “This is fine for me, but there are two of us.”
“That’s $800!” Quentin objected. “She’s small. One of you can handle her.”
“If that’s true, you’ll have no problem doing it yourself,” Cleve replied, dropping the gold back onto the table. Calmly, he proceeded to deal the next hand.
“How am I supposed to find another killer for hire? Ask a random stranger on Sixth Street for a recommendation?”
“Not my problem,” Cleve drawled, then leaned to the side and hocked a stream of tobacco toward a brass spittoon, falling well short.
“Oh, all right,” he relented, reaching into his coat pocket for his bargaining money. He tossed a second bag of gold coins onto the table in front of Silas.
Skinny, with a disturbing lazy eye, he wasn’t too bright, a follower, not a leader, who took all his cues from Cleve. He looked inside the bag but didn’t count the coins—Quentin wondered if he was capable—then tucked it into his tattered, faded vest.
“Who are we killing?” he asked, until now having ignored the conversation going on around him.
“Charlotte, the Red Eye’s former madam,” Quentin ground out, the words tight and bitter between his clenched teeth, barely keeping himself from calling one man disgusting and the other an idiot.
Silas’ thin lips almost disappeared when he pressed them together. “I don’t know about killing a woman. Do we get to play with her first?”
“It’s the pretty redhead you’ve been yammering about for days,” Cleve informed him. “And the man said we can do whatever we want first.”
“Oh, Miss Charlotte.” A slow grin spread across Silas’ angular face. “Don’t mind if I do.”
Quentin was sorry he wouldn’t get to watch, but he’d be busy with an alibi. “Make it look like strangers passing through did it. I don’t want this to come back on me.”
“Do we look like amateurs?” Cleve snapped, his words a little slurred. He upended the bottle of whiskey, draining it in one long gulp. Then he rose and signaled to his brother with the flick of his wrist. “Let’s go visiting.”
Silas licked his lips and eagerly followed.
Once the saloon doors finally stopped swinging, Quentin chuckled like the villain he was. “A drunk who’s mad at the world and a moron who’s randy. Enjoy your evening, Miss Charlotte.”
***
Charlotte grunted, flipped her pillow to the cool side, then settled down again.
Sleep remained elusive. Another storm was brewing, what sounded like a bad one, and she worried about Seth out in it.
Thunder rumbled in the distance and the wind had picked up.
For the past hour, a tree branch scraped against the roof every time it blew.
When a loud crack of thunder and a bright flash of lightning lit up the room, she threw herself onto her back, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
While debating whether to get up and piddle around the cabin or toss and turn until dawn, she heard a thump on the porch. She hurried to the other room in her bare feet, grabbing her shotgun—just in case.
“Seth?” Charlotte called but got only shuffling feet and drunken laughter for an answer.
Definitely not Seth.
With her heart a frantic drumbeat against her ribs, Charlotte cocked both hammers and aimed dead center at the door.
“I’m armed and won’t hesitate to blow a hole through the door and into you. Leave now!”
“Aw, c’mon, Red. We’re just trying to be friendly.”
“Yeah, let us in, and we’ll have a nice cup of tea,” a different voice said, followed by more drunken laughter.
Good heavens, two of them! She’d need perfect aim or time to reload. Her best effort was six out of ten, far from perfect, and the difference between living and dying.
She glanced into her bedroom. Her derringer sat on the nightstand. Did she stay or get it?
The door latch rattled then a shoulder or a boot slammed against it. The new wood and latch held, thank goodness.
“You have until the count of three to leave, or I shoot. One...”
Another bang and the screws in the old frame gave slightly.
“Two…” she called more shrilly, her finger tensing on the trigger.
“Three,” she shouted, at the same time a more forceful bang knocked a screw out. Wishing they had listened, she fired twice, blowing a hole in the door as promised.
Through it, she could see a man lying on the porch.
“Shit, Cleve. The bitch shot me in the leg!”
Cleve! She recognized the name. He was one of the two outlaws who’d searched her room at the Red Eye. When lightning lit up the sky, she also recognized the skinny man who was with him that day. Quentin had sent them!
Suddenly, the door exploded inward with a deafening crash, splintering wood flying everywhere. “Fucking whore!” the other man roared. “You’re gonna be sorry for shooting my brother!”
Charlotte dropped the empty shotgun and ran for her derringer. A fist in her nightgown brought her up short, and he used it to reel her in, the neckline tearing and coming off one shoulder.
She twisted, clawing at his restraining hands and kicking wildly to get free, but he was too strong. With a violent shove that lifted her off her feet, he slammed her against the wall. Her head hit hard, and she saw a flash of white light.
“We were going to see you off with a final fuck, but you don’t deserve it. You deserve to die.” Fingers, like ten steel talons, tightened around her throat, cut off her air, and intensified the white light.
She lashed out, wildly punching and clawing at his face, but his grip only tightened. Distant shouts were unintelligible, fading as black spots swam before her eyes. Another gunshot roared, deafeningly close, causing a buzzing in her ears—or maybe it was just the lack of air.
The hands abruptly vanished, and she gasped, filling her burning lungs. Shaking uncontrollably, her knees gave way, and she fell—not onto the floor but onto Cleve. Blood trickled from a bullet hole in his temple; his vacant eyes stared straight ahead.
A raw scream tore from her throat as she scrambled back. It escalated into a shriek when hands curled under her arms and lifted her.
“Let me go!” she croaked, panic rising at the thought of the brother, or worse, a third attacker.
“Charlotte, darlin’, it’s me.”