“No one asked you to be. Hamilton, I wouldn’t try my patience if I were you. Get the cash.”
Owen hurried to obey him, unlocking a small safe behind a picture behind the desk. “You’ll never be able to find him. You aren’t in Dysan’s league. He chews cheap outlaws like you up for breakfast.”
Ty took the thick stack of cash. “Then he’ll get the worst case of indigestion he’s ever had. Now, take off your belt.”
Tynan took the handkerchief from the desk and tied it around Hamilton’s mouth, then wrapped the belt about his hands, using the holed end to suspend him from a hook he drove into the ceiling. “That should keep you for a few hours. The accountant will report to the attorneys handling Lionel’s affairs. I have a feeling that the books you show to them aren’t the same ones that I found. And, too, there’s the small matter of the murder of the Eskridges.”
Owen struggled against the leather that was holding him, his feet barely touching the floor.
“I’m also having Unity take the boy down to Mathison’s until this is cleared up. I thought I was going with her but it doesn’t look like I will be. I sure do hope that somebody comes along soon to let you out of there. You could be in real pain in a couple of hours if they don’t.”
Asher stepped away from the door as Tynan started toward it and, to the blond man’s surprise, Tynan took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door, locking it again when they were on the other side.
“But I thought that—”
“Don’t always believe what you see or hear,” Ty said as he went down the stairs and into the kitchen.
Unity, her face white, her eyes filled with fear, was sitting in the kitchen, Lionel standing beside her.
“I don’t want to go,” Lionel said. “This is my place and I plan to stay here. You cannot make me leave.”
Ty didn’t say a word but took the boy about the waist and carried him outside to where a wagon and two horses waited. “You’ll go and, what’s more, you’ll help Unity. Prescott will go with you and see that you’re safe on the journey. I’m sorry but I can’t go with you.”
Asher touched Ty’s arm. “I want to go with you.”
“Absolutely not. I don’t need someone fighting me and, besides,” he said with contempt, “I need someone who knows which end of a gun to point.”
“May I?” Asher said, nodding toward Ty’s gun.
Ty handed it to him.
Asher took the weapon and, in the flash of an eye, turned and removed a thin tree branch by half inches, using all the bullets in Ty’s gun. He handed the firearm back to Tynan. “There are other reasons I was hired by Mathison to go after his daughter. I’ve handled every gun made today. I can shoot tail feathers off sparrows with a rifle. I may not have the experience you have but I do know how to shoot.”
Tynan very calmly reloaded his gun then looked up at Unity. Lionel was sitting on the wagon seat with his mouth hanging open. “Prescott is going with me. Is there anyone else who can travel with you?”
“I…I don’t know who I can trust anymore,” she said, on the verge of tears. “But my brother lives about ten miles from here. Maybe he can—” She stopped as Ty took a wad of bills from his pocket.
“Hire him. When you get to Mathison, tell him all of it. He may want to send someone back here but leave it up to him. Tell him I’ve gone after his daughter and if I don’t return with her it’ll be because I’m dead—nothing else will stop me. And tell him to worry about her, to worry plenty.” He looked at Lionel. “And if I so much as hear a word of complaint about you, you’ll answer to me. When you get to Mathison’s you can act up all you want. Mathison will take care of you. Now, get out of here.” He slapped a horse on the rump and they were gone.
Ty turned and looked at Asher, shaking his head for a moment. “I hope I haven’t made a mistake. If you have a gun, go get it. I’ll meet you by the stables with two of Hamilton’s best horses.”
Chapter Seventeen
For three days, the men dragged Chris and Pilar across the country. They were fed little, given no privacy, and allowed no rest. At night the men tied the women’s hands, raised them above their heads and fastened the ropes around trees, making it impossible to sleep. Nor were the women allowed to talk to each other. Each morning, they continued to head northeast, the women still bound and now riding together on a horse one of the men had suddenly appeared with—Chris wondered if he’d stolen it.
In spite of her weariness, she tried to keep the direction they were traveling in her head. But on the second day, the men blindfolded her, leaving Pilar to watch the direction, seeing when the horse was about to step into a hole so she could hold Chris into the saddle. Then they removed Chris’s blindfold and covered Pilar’s eyes.
Although the women never talked to each other, they began to depend upon one another for protection. At first Chris was very hostile to Pilar, not wanting her help, resenting her touch, resenting her very presence.
Pilar seemed to understand and left Chris alone—until once Chris nearly fell off the horse and had to grab the other woman to keep steady.
“We’ll fare better if we’re not enemies,” Pilar whispered and was struck across the face by one of the men for daring to speak.
After that, Chris’s hostility began to leave her. What did she have to be angry about anyway? Tynan was the only common bond she had with this woman and he’d made it abundantly clear that he wanted nothing to do with Chris. If Tynan wanted Pilar, then he was free to choose.
It was late on the third night when the men finally stopped the horses and pulled the two exhausted women to the ground, grabbing their wrists and leading them inside the doorway of a dark house that Chris couldn’t see. The men pulled them upstairs and when Pilar’s arm knocked against the bannister, they just jerked her harder.
“We can walk!” Chris said, putting out her hand to steady Pilar.