Gabriel's Fate Read online

  Gabriel didn’t care how skeptical he was as long as he answered his questions. “Yes. She might have asked about taking a pet on the train.”

  “A pet, eh? Cat or dog?”

  What difference did that make? Keeping his impatience in check with difficulty, Gabriel said, “Dog.”

  “Dog.” The man closed his eyes, tipped his head back and, Gabriel presumed, thought about it. When he began shaking his head, Gabriel knew what his answer would be before he said it. “Nope. Can’t say I recall such a group.”

  If there was one thing Gabriel didn’t need added to the mix of misery and pain roiling around inside him, it was discouragement. He was feeling mighty discouraged anyhow when he got in line before the fourth and last ticket window. Hell, for all he knew, the Madrigals had fled in the middle of the night. Maybe the shifts in the train station changed at some weird hour of the morning. Maybe none of these ticket men had been here when the Madrigals had bought tickets.

  Maybe the Madrigals hadn’t left.

  Lord above, he’d never find them.

  But he couldn’t allow himself to think like that. Wherever Ivo Hardwick had gone, the Madrigals were sure to follow. What was that man’s name that Sophie used to keep tabs on Hardwick? Huffman, was it? Or Huffy?

  “Hell, it doesn’t matter,” he muttered. A stout woman standing in line in front of him, dressed in crisp black, turned her bonneted head to frown at him. He wanted to tell her to mind her own business. Instead, he tipped his hat, smiled, and said, “Sorry, ma’am.” God forbid he should sully her respectable ears with such a word as hell.

  She sniffed and turned away from him again. Gabriel heaved a sigh. This line was moving even more slowly than the other three had. His nerves jumped, and he had the unreasonable sensation that the longer he dallied here in Los Angeles, the less likely he was ever to find Sophie. Or to find her in time.

  He had to get to Hardwick before she did. He didn’t give a hang about her any longer, but he had a job to do. He’d be damned if he’d allow one woman’s crazy insistence on personal revenge to thwart him. He wished he believed he didn’t care about her any longer.

  “Damn her,” he muttered, then braced himself for the tout woman’s disapproval.

  Before she could get her tightly whale-boned torso to complete its rotation so that she could give him a glare, Gabriel spotted somebody in the crowd. His heart nearly jumped out of his chest. Bounding out of the line, he ran over to where he’s spotted his quarry, shouting at the top of his lungs. “Dmitri! Dmitri, wait up!”

  For a moment, Gabriel feared his fevered brain had conjured the little Russian out of whole cloth and a crowd of unwary Los Angelenos. He saw nothing but normal-sized men and women who had, moments earlier, been milling about. They were all now turning to stare at him, probably thinking he was some kind of lunatic.

  But then, reminding Gabriel of his father’s description of the Red Sea parting for Moses and the Israelites, the crowd separated. It disgorged a little man in overalls and a cloth cap, who looked for all the world like a peasant who ought to be hoeing in an Eastern European turnip field. Gabriel could have wept for joy.

  He grabbed Dmitri’s shoulder, startling the poor man into a yell of fright. “Dmitri! God damn, I’m glad to see you!”

  Dmitri clearly did not share Gabriel’s joy. He looked, in fact, fairly glum. “Das vedanya,” he muttered.

  Gabriel didn’t care about Dmitri’s mood. “Listen, Dmitri, you’ve got to tell me where Miss Sophie and Miss Juniper went. They’re in danger, and I’ve got to help them.” So what if he lied? Actually, it wasn’t much of a lie. If Sophie achieved her aim, she’d assuredly be arrested for murder. If that wasn’t danger, Gabriel didn’t know what was.

  Dmitri’s head shook stubbornly. “Miss Sophie, she don’t want you to find her.”

  “I know she doesn’t, dammit. But if you care about her, you’ll tell me.”

  Gabriel could see that his comment hadn’t made a dent in Dmitri’s restraint. He kept shaking his head, unmoved. Lord, he had to think of some argument that might sway the man. Clearly, the loyal and trustworthy Dmitri thought he was right in doing Sophie’s bidding. Gabriel knew he was wrong. Dead wrong.

  “Listen,” he said, feeling frantic, “you’ve helped her before in this scheme of hers to kill Hardwick, haven’t you?”

  With his eyes thinned almost to slits, Dmitri nodded.

  “You must have figured out by this time that her plan is crazy. She’s carrying it to impossible lengths. Why, she almost got you killed in Tucson.”

  “She don’t mean to.”

  Loyalty, trustworthiness, and flat stupidity, Gabriel thought viciously. “She might not have meant to, but she did it. You’d be just as dead if I hadn’t intervened as if she had meant to.”

  Dmitri shrugged.

  “Dammit, if you don’t care about yourself, think about her, then. She’s crazy to think she’ll be able to do it and not get caught.”

  “She don’t care about getting caught.”

  Aw, hell. Gabriel shook him hard. “Dmitri, think! It will kill Miss Juniper to have Sophie locked up in prison for murder. Think what it will do to the family business. Even hiring a lawyer will drain the family’s resources.” Actually, he had no idea what the family’s resources were, but he knew how much lawyers cost.

  Dmitri seemed to waver. Gabriel pressed his advantage.

  “I know Hardwick is a bad man. Hell, I’m after him, too, because he shot a man in Abilene. He’s at least an irresponsible swine, and at most a total loose screw and an agent of Lucifer. He needs to be locked up. Maybe he needs to be put to death, but it’s the law that has to do it. If Sophie does it, they’ll lock her up.”

  “He killed Joshua.”

  Pain squeezed a sigh out of Gabriel. “I know he did. And I don’t blame Miss Sophie—or Miss Juniper or you or anyone else in the world—for wanting Hardwick to pay for that.”

  “Ya.”

  “Dammit, Dmitri, she’s going about it all wrong! She’s only going to ruin her own life.”

  Dmitri shrugged, as if to let Gabriel know that Sophie’s life was, to all intents and purposes, already ruined. Frustrated and furious, Gabriel thrust his fingers through his hair, dislodging his hat. He bent, swept it up off the dirty station floor, and slapped it against his thigh.

  “Listen, Sophie’s a young woman, and her life isn’t over yet. I’m sure she thinks it is. And I’m sure she’ll mourn the loss of her son forever, but what she’s doing isn’t honoring Joshua’s life or avenging his death. It’s making a stupid sacrifice for nothing. She might do any number of things to make Joshua’s short life mean something. Instead, she’s got her mind set on something that’s only going to cause everyone involved terrible grief. What happened to Joshua was a senseless tragedy. Hardwick is a diabolical ass. Sophie’s working on becoming no better than he is. Can’t you see that?”

  He’d begun shouting without being aware of it. When Dmitri glanced around and Gabriel did, too, he saw that several people were eyeing him as if, while they might have only suspected it before, they were now convinced he’d lost his sanity. In a harsh whisper, he went on. “Please tell me where she went, Dmitri. You’ll be doing her a favor if you do.”

  Dmitri stood like a stone. For a little guy, he harbored monumental resolution in his body. Juniper would probably have told Gabriel it was because he was a Russian. Gabriel didn’t know about that, but he was very nearly at his wits’ end with the man. He was on the verge of lifting Dmitri up and shaking the teeth out of his head when at last he spoke.

  “I don’t know . . .”

  Afraid he might actually damage him in his present state of near-frenzy, Gabriel turned around, gritted his teeth, stamped his foot, didn’t yell—which showed monumental self-control—slammed his hat against his thigh again, sucked in a huge breath, swiveled again, and said, “I do. If you don’t help me, I can’t help Sophie.”

  For a full minute, Dmitri thought and Gabrie
l stewed. His insides were twisted up like a skein of yarn, his blood raced, his heart battered against his rib cage like a Gatling gun, and his head had begun to ache. He was pretty sure that either he or Dmitri was destined not to survive this encounter. If Dmitri refused to help him, Gabriel wasn’t sure he could keep from heaving him in front of a train. If Dmitri didn’t give him some kind of answer damned soon, Gabriel himself was going to suffer an apoplectic stroke and die right here in the train station.

  “I help you.”

  The tension left Gabriel so fast, he staggered backwards. As quick as spit he straightened. “Thank God. Where’d she go, Dmitri?”

  “San Francisco.”

  “Ah. Do you know where she’s stopping there?”

  The little Russian nodded. “I go with you.” He held up a ticket. “Train leave at noon.”

  Thank God, thank God, thank God. For the fifth time that day, Gabriel got into a line in front of a ticket window in the Los Angeles train station. Dmitri stood beside him, stolid, composed, and absolutely Russian.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Emerald Huffy met their train, a circumstance for which Sophie blessed Dmitri. She’d not have been able to maintain this pursuit if Dmitri weren’t so efficient.

  “There’s that man again.” Juniper frowned out through the window as the train pulled into the station.

  Juniper had rejoined Sophie an hour or so after she’d stormed away from her, but there remained a good deal of restraint between them. Sophie thought Juniper might apologize to her, but she didn’t. It didn’t occur to Sophie to apologize to Juniper.

  “I see him,” she said noncommittally.

  “I suppose there’s no talking to you out of this idiotic plan of yours.”

  Jerked out of her contemplation of Emerald Huffy’s uninspiring countenance by the coldness of Juniper’s tone, Sophie turned and saw that Juniper’s expression matched the ice in her voice. All at once she wondered if she was doing the right thing. Had she become obsessed with something that was, at most, a very bad idea?

  She shook her head hard, dislodging the errant thought. Of course, she wasn’t wrong. It was her duty, as the mother of her precious little Joshua, to rid the world of Ivo Hardwick. I na voice as frigid as Juniper’s, she said, “I suppose there isn’t.”

  “Fine.” Juniper snatched up her handbag and headed for the exit door.

  Sophie stared after her for a moment before, with a feeling of doom weighting her every movement, she carefully settled Tybalt into his blanket-lined wicker basket, picked the basket up, and headed toward the exit herself. She hoped Dmitri would arrive on an early train. Her heart, already hurting, quailed at the notion of wandering the streets of San Francisco all by herself.

  Huffy gave her a salute as she stepped off the train. Since Dmitri had remained in Los Angeles—to tidy up the mess Sophie had made by their abrupt departure, according to Juniper—the Madrigal ladies had to fetch their own baggage. Sophie saw Juniper head for the platform at the end of the car, where the porter would sling their bags, but she herself headed for Huffy. First things first.

  Oh, sweet heaven, was she being a single-minded lunatic about this whole thing? Was she wrong?

  She silently screamed at herself to stop second-guessing herself. She’d set her course long ago. The death of Ivo Hardwick had become the only thing she lived for; without her plan for revenge, her life held no meaning. Before she could question the depressing nature of such a purpose to life, she called out, “Mr. Huffy!”

  He walked slowly in her direction. He was the most careful and methodical man Sophie had ever met. As a rule, Sophie found such attributes in a person tedious in the extreme; in Huffy, she applauded them. He was excellent at pursuit. She didn’t need him for scintillating conversation. For that, she’d had Gabriel Caine—until she’d deceived him.

  Stop it!

  Impatience gnawed at her, and she asked a question before Huffy had reached her. “Do you know where he’s staying?”

  Huffy, unimpressed and unmoved by Sophie’s impatience, waited until he stood before her before he answered. Then he only nodded.

  Accustomed by this time to Huffy’s ways, Sophie withdrew a small notebook and a pencil from her handbag. “All right. I’ll take the address, if you please.”

  Huffy gave it to her. Sophie peered at the notebook, frowning. “Washington? Near Brennan Place? Isn’t that in Chinatown?” The Madrigals had played venues in San Francisco many times and Sophie was familiar with the city and many of its streets.

  Another nod answered her. Huffy didn’t waste words. A body might think they were precious, the way he hoarded them.

  She looked up at him, still frowning. “Where are you staying?”

  “A little place near there. Fellow name of Wong Ching. On Grant.”

  “Yes. I know it. I may have to call upon you to accompany me if Dmitri hasn’t arrived by this evening.”

  Huffy shrugged. “That ain’t what you paid me to do.”

  Irked by the man’s too-literal—by her lights—understanding of his job, Sophie snapped, “I’ll pay you more.”

  Huffy squinted, frowning in his own right. “Don’t rightly know as I care to do that, ma’am. Not here in San Francisco. The law’s tighter here than it is in Tucson. Don’t fancy gettin’ arrested as accessory to murder. I ain’t eager to spend no time at the city’s expense.”

  She slammed her notebook shut. “Very well. If Dmitri hasn’t arrived by the time I set out, I shall go alone.”

  If she had hoped to shame Huffy into accompanying her, she’d misjudged her man. He only gave another shrug—a one-shouldered one this time. She wasn’t even worth two shoulders to him. “Anything else?”

  Upset and angry, Sophie said, “No. I suppose not. Go on. If I need you again, I know where to get in touch with you.”

  He tipped his hat. “Reckon I’ll stay at Wong’s for a couple days before headin’ back to Texas.”

  Sophie thought for a moment. She didn’t like to contemplate failing to complete her business yet again, but she supposed she’d better. Anything might happen, although if she failed tonight, it would be hard on her. “Very well. If I need you again, I should know by tomorrow morning at the latest.”

  Huffy nodded, turned, and walked slowly away from her. Watching him go gave her an unsettled, sick feeling in her middle, so she turned and headed toward the baggage heaped on the platform next to the train she and Juniper had lately exited. Juniper was standing next to her bag, watching her. As she approached her aunt, Sophie felt much as she’d felt when she was a child and had done something naughty.

  Without speaking to each other, the two ladies hailed a cab and had themselves, their luggage, and Tybalt, carried to a small but tidy hotel called the Gladiola on Market Street. The proprietor was a friend of the Madrigals from years back, and specialized in renting rooms to traveling theatrical folks. At least, Sophie thought with unwarranted irascibility, he had her family pegged properly.

  * * * *

  Gabriel was all but gnawing his knuckles by the time the train he and Dmitri were riding neared San Francisco. “You’re sure you know where they’re staying?”

  Dmitri rolled his eyes. He’d answered the question approximately seventy-five times since they’d boarded the train in Los Angeles.

  “All right, all right,” Gabriel said. “I’m sorry. I’m worried, is all.”

  Dmitri didn’t bother to answer, but headed to the baggage compartment, where he picked up both of their bags and brought them to where Gabriel, too edgy to sit, stood fidgeting near the door to their car.

  “Thanks, Dmitri. That’ll save time.”

  Dmitri nodded. He already knew that. Gabriel considered apologizing again, but knew it was useless. Hell, in his present state of nerves, he was useless.

  Gabriel’s bag was pretty light, since he hadn’t bothered to purchase more than one set of duds. There would be time for that after he found and horsewhipped Sophie, and then strapped her to a
bed and hollered at her until her pink and shell-like ears turned red and fell off.

  Sweet Jesus, he had to find her before she killed Hardwick.

  Gabriel had stopped even pretending to tell himself that he didn’t care about Hardwick’s fate except insofar as his own job was concerned. He knew that was a lie, and he couldn’t keep it up after the first flush of his outrage faded.

  He didn’t want Sophie to kill Hardwick because if she did, she’d ruin her life. That’s what he cared about. That’s all he cared about.

  She was a faithless, ruthless, conniving, manipulative jade. And he loved her with every cell in his body. Which just went to show that her be-damned prediction had already come true. His life as he’d known it for thirty-three years—happy go-lucky, carefree, jolly, unencumbered years—had come to a crashing end the moment he’d met Sophie Madrigal. He ought to have had sense enough to run in the opposite direction the moment she walked through that door of the Laredo train station. But he hadn’t. Now he was stuck.

  “Damn her.” He couldn’t count the number of times he’d damned her since yesterday morning, when he’d discovered how she’d tricked him.

  Dmitri glared at him, and he shrugged. “Sorry. Can’t help it.” He cracked his knuckles, kicked the door, and tried to will the train to go faster. He had a feeling that if he and Sophie were to get together and will for something to happen, it would happen. They made magic together.

  Thinking about Sophie and him together depressed him, so he tried to stop and couldn’t.

  “Damn her.”

  Dmitri walked to the other end of the car, where he sat, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared out the window. Gabriel wished he’d been able to control himself better. He needed Dmitri. If Sophie wouldn’t listen to him—and he knew she wouldn’t—maybe she’d listen to Dmitri.

  “Don’t be an ass, Caine,” he advised himself mercilessly. Sophie Madrigal wouldn’t listen to anyone when it came to Ivo Hardwick.

  It was five-thirty in the afternoon when he finally left the train, feeling as though he’d shed a six-thousand-pound burden—only to pick up another one. “Where did you say they’re staying?”