Chapter 28 Heist
HEIST
It started, as many of my worst ideas do, with perfect posture and a total lack of a backup plan.
The three of us—Lessie, the future tycoon; Major, the bounty hunter; and myself—pulled off what can only be described as a minor miracle of logistics.
Step one: I marched into the VIP cabin like I belonged there. Which, to be fair, I did. In spirit. I muttered something about my “uncle’s urgent dietary needs” and fluttered a handkerchief.
Step two: Major, playing the role of bored staff and also, bafflingly, my “porter escort,” lingered near the refreshment tables. Ushering foods out while I covered with over-the-top banter with patrons. So far, no one blinked an eye.
Step three: Lessie Mae waited at the rear of the train with a knife and spoon. Mon Dieu, that woman could do more with old bread than Jesus had done with loaves and fishes.
Together, we liberated no fewer than seventeen sandwiches, two wheels of cheese, and a decorative bowl of pickled things no one had touched since Arkansas.
We wrapped them in linens stolen from under a pyramid of teacups and slipped out just before a steward asked me for my card. I handed him the name of an entirely invented person. “Mrs. Adelaide F. Van Dorsen,” I said, spelling it slowly. “You’ll be hearing from my mother.”
That seemed to scare the fire out of the poor boy.
We were getting away with it! Later that evening, as the sun fell over the Mississippi in a buttery collapse, the colored car feasted. Lessie, radiant, laid out her bounty with a small flourish. She had added mustard and cured salami. I don’t know how. I didn’t ask.
And that really should have been the end of it.
But then the conductor caught Lessie swiping sugar—and all hell broke loose.
Apparently, sugar theft is the number one criminal threat to the American railroad industry.
Which felt like a bit of drama on the conductor’s part.
Regardless, he came upon her red-handed—or rather, sticky-fingered—palming lumps of cane sugar from the refreshment table.
She froze, of course. Guilty. Mid-pocket.
The cubes glinted in the light like criminal diamonds.
This was a test of my umbrage. I was up for it. I straightened my shoulders, squared my hat, and marched up to the conductor with the full, brittle force of righteous indignation.
“Unhand m-my—” I stammered. “My maid. Just who do you think you are?”
It came out weaker than intended. More breathless than commanding. I was going for “imperious dowager,” but I landed somewhere closer to “unwell niece.”
The conductor turned to look me over.
Not at me. Over me. A slow sweep from hat to hem to my full lips and the soft roundness of my nose. I suddenly wished I had a lace veil.
He’s going to know, I thought.
His eyes narrowed.
“Ma’am,” he said, “we’ve had reports of missing cold cuts, and I now see this… woman, pawing at the sugar service.”
I looked at Lessie. Then at her pockets. Lord, there were no fewer than fifty sugar cubes stuffed into her skirt. She looked like she was smuggling marbles.
“I require quite a bit of sugar,” I said, voice trembling slightly. “For my tea.”
“Quite a bit?” he asked, eyebrows raised.
“Quite,” I said, planting my feet like that might stop me from sinking into the floor.
He didn’t blink.
I know what you’re thinking. This is it. This is the moment—the scandal that made me the subject of every parlor whisper from Denver to Durango. Stealing sandwiches? How provincial.
Reader, no.
This was not the scandal. This was merely… the appetizer.
“May I see your ticket?”
“Ah.”
I reached delicately into my handbag and pulled out the other woman’s ticket—the one I had borrowed… repurposed… stolen, depending on how you interpret minor crimes. My heart was now pounding SOS in Morse code.
He studied it.
“Yes. You,” he said slowly. “This makes sense now. Your father did say you might try to flee.”
“I— What?”
“Nice try,” he said, plucking the sugar cubes from Lessie’s person. “You’re not going anywhere.
“I want you and your two Negro escorts back in your cabin. You’re not leaving this train until Denver.”
So there it was.
Not arrested. Just… sent back to my parlor cabin?
Like we were misbehaving children. All three of us.
Me, Lessie, and Major. The bed was large enough for Lessie and me, but surely we wouldn’t be expected to sleep with Major in the room.
And as the door clicked shut behind us, Lessie sank onto the chaise, pulled a sugar cube from her shoe, and popped it into her mouth.
“Worth it,” she said through a grin.
Major just looked at me, amused as ever, then picked up a deck of cards.
And that is how we ended up under lock and lace in the finest cabin on the train—with nothing to do, nowhere to go, and far too much man in the room for me to sleep.