Chapter Fourteen Mr. Caleb Graham
In which a bride finds a stranger's name on every letter in the house
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They were late reaching Washington — the Special had been held on a siding overnight for a string of higher-priority expresses, and the boisterous convention crowd that had kept the whole car awake past midnight made up for it by sleeping straight through most of the morning.
Three times Graham made the walk forward through the cars to check on her, and three times found the curtains still drawn, and went back to his cramped seat in the day coach without disturbing her rest.
It was not until the white curve of the Capitol dome and the pale needle of the Washington Monument rose soft against the morning sky — looking, he thought, faintly like some illustration from a storybook of a city not quite of this earth — that he finally found her awake, standing in the aisle while the porter folded the berth away.
Beneath the wide brim of her purple hat, its plumes trembling faintly with the train's motion, she lifted her eyes to him with an expression caught somewhere between gladness and fear, and something in Graham's chest turned over entirely at the sight of it.
This is what it would be, he thought, with a fierce and hopeless longing, to have the right to chase every trace of fear from that face, for the whole rest of my life.
There was no real chance to speak — the whole car had erupted into the ordinary chaos of arrival, suitcases and lost umbrellas and loud, cheerful complaints about the delay — and they could only exchange a smile in place of good morning before being swept out through the station in the crowd.
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Small things, sometimes, decide the whole shape of a life.
That very morning, two of Halifax's men had been posted at the Washington station with careful, deadly purpose — to intercept the government man who'd stolen back the stolen cipher, and see to it, by whatever means necessary, that he never lived to testify against the operation that had lost it.
They knew, from a wire the evening before, that their quarry was coming in from Pittsburgh.
But they had also confirmed, quite thoroughly, that the overnight Special carried nothing but delegates bound for some fraternal convention — no possible way their man could be aboard it.
Confident in that assurance, they'd spent the Special's arrival window over a leisurely breakfast at the diner across the street, emerging just in time to meet the next scheduled Pittsburgh train instead — and stepped out the door just as Graham, having settled Calie into a waiting cab, was climbing in himself.
Had the cab been parked twenty feet in either direction, they'd never have seen him at all. As it was, they had a clean, unobstructed view, and being professionals at exactly this kind of work, they recognized him instantly.
Graham caught the flash of their pointing arms in the cab's rear window as it pulled away, and understood, with a cold certainty, that the chase was very far from over.
His mind split at once between two competing urgencies — the message, and the girl. Should he drive straight to the Director's home and deliver the cipher immediately? Or see Calie safely settled first, and risk the delay?
Don't let anything hinder you. Make it a matter of life and death.
The old refrain rang through him with fresh, sharpened meaning now.
And yet — a matter of life and death was exactly the reason he could not, would not, drag an innocent woman directly into the path of it.
If death was coming for him today, he would not have it find her standing beside him.
He'd already told the driver his own apartment, and given him urgent instructions to hurry — there was no safe way now to redirect without risking exactly the kind of hesitation a gun could exploit.
His enemies stood on ground thick with allies of their own; not a single friend of his knew yet that he'd even returned to the city.
From here to wherever this ended, it would be a straight race.
Calie, watching the passing streets with quiet, dawning recognition, noticed nothing of the tension in his face, nothing of how closely he tracked their speed.
If only the driver would turn off at the next corner — and then, mercifully, he did, ducking onto a quieter side street simply to avoid the main avenue's traffic, with no idea at all what relief that small choice bought them.
The ride felt endless to Graham and pleasantly short to Calie, who recognized, with real delight, that this was not strange Chicago after all, but Washington — a city she knew and loved.
"Oh, why didn't you tell me?" she said, smiling at him properly for the first time that morning. "It's Washington. Dear old Washington."
He managed, with real effort, to answer her smile naturally. "I'm glad you like it here."
She seemed to sense, without being told, that real conversation would have to wait for someplace quieter, and asked nothing further — only watched the city pass, and watched him too, when she thought he wasn't looking, comparing him against her memory of Gregory Hostetler and finding, again and again, nothing that matched.
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At his building, Graham paid the driver with quick, tense hands and hurried Calie into the shelter of the lobby. An elevator stood conveniently open, and moments later they were safely inside his own apartment, the door shut behind them.
He settled her into a large leather chair, crossed at once to ring for the building's steward, and moved straight to the telephone with a hurried "Excuse me — this can't wait.
" Calie sat taking in the room with growing wonder — the easy, lived-in comfort of it, the obvious familiarity with which he'd found his own key, his own door, his own elevator, after supposedly ten years away.
This was no hotel. This was someone's actual home, and he moved through it like a man who'd never left.
His voice at the phone caught her attention next.
"This is Graham.... Is Mr. Osborne in?...
He hasn't left for the office yet? Good — may I speak with him?
... Sir, it's Graham. Just got in, everything's safe so far.
Shall I bring it to the house, or the office?
... The house — understood, I'm on my way.
One more thing — I'm fairly certain Hale and Burke spotted me at the station....
Yes, sir. I'll take precautions. On my way now. "
A knock sounded at the door as he hung up.
"Come in, Henry."
A tall, courteous older man entered, bowing first to Graham and then, with open warmth, to Calie.
"Mighty glad to see you home safe, sir," he said, before Graham cut in with quick instructions — a menu brought up for the lady, breakfast served in this room, any further requests to be honored as her own.
He did not introduce her as his wife. Calie, caught up in the strange urgency of his manner, didn't notice the omission at all.
Henry disappeared to carry out his orders, and Graham was already back at the phone. "Garage — this is the Harris Apartments. I need a closed car and Thomas at the rear door, immediately.... Yes, the rear, and fast as it'll go.... It's official business. Hurry them along. Thank you."
He turned and caught the fear plainly rising in her face.
"What's happened?" she asked. "Is something wrong?"
He came to her at once and took her hands gently in his.
"Nothing you need worry over," he said, as steadily as he could manage. "Only some urgent business I have to see to. I can't explain it yet — I promise I will, the moment I'm back. Will you trust me a little longer?"
"I'll try," she said, lips trembling, eyes bright with unshed tears, and Graham felt, once again, the fierce and impossible urge to bend down and kiss the worry from her face. He held himself back, as he always did.
"There's nothing tragic in it," he said gently. "Only something I can't afford to lose by waiting. It matters a great deal to me. I'll explain everything the moment I'm back."
"Go, then," she said, gesturing him toward the door as though she could hurry him to safety through sheer force of will, though she was burning with unanswered questions. Something in his bearing made trusting him feel like the only sensible choice left to her.
He very nearly took her hands to his lips in that instant, and stopped himself only by main force, turning instead toward the bedroom, where she heard a drawer open and glimpsed, through the doorway, the dull gleam of metal in his hand before he tucked it away, his back carefully turned.
She knew almost nothing of firearms — her mother had always been nervous of them, her brother had never kept one in the house — but instinct told her plainly enough what she'd just seen, and a nameless dread rose in her chest that she said nothing about.
Had she known he already carried one loaded revolver and was now taking a second, her fear would have been very much worse.
"Don't worry," he called, already moving for the door. "Henry will see to anything you need. I won't be long."
The door closed. She heard his footsteps recede, the elevator slide shut, and, a moment later, a car pulling away below.
The rear door. Why the rear door, unless he meant not to be seen leaving?
She crossed the apartment without quite deciding to, through the bedroom and into the small bathroom beyond, where a stained-glass window offered one clear pane of amber glass.
She pressed her eye to it in time to see a dark, closed car pulling away from the building below.
He was gone. Where, she had no way of knowing.
She drifted back to the leather chair, pressed her fingertips to her temples, and tried to reason her way through the tangle.
He was engaged in something dangerous — that much seemed certain, given the caution in that first phone call, the promise of precaution that had turned out to mean a hidden gun.
And if harm came to him out there, she might never even know it.