Something Borrowed (Borrowed Brides 3)

"What are you going to do now that I've told you?" she asked.

"I'm going to go get Lily Catherine if you'll tell me where she is—which orphanage she's in."

"She's not in an orphanage. She never was. Lily Catherine has been living with James Sarrazin's mother in a row house in Philadelphia since the day of her birth. Mr. Sarrazin arranged everything. That's one of the reasons he felt he could blackmail us."

"But David Alexander thought…"

"The story about the orphanage was a ruse my husband told Mr. Alexander to discourage him from trying to find the little girl."

Lee took a sheaf of papers out of his suit pocket. "This is a legal document drawn up by David Alexander stating that you agree to relinquish all claim to the child known as Lily Catherine Alexander."

"I don't think that will be necessary," Cassandra Millen said softly.

"David asked me to have you sign it."

She nodded, then stood up, drew herself up to her full height, took the papers from Lee, walked over to her writing desk and opened the lid. She retrieved a pen from inside the desk, then signed her name to the papers with a flourish. She handed the papers back to Lee. "What now? What are you going to do to me? What about the possibility of a senate investigation?"

"I don't know, Mrs. Millen. That's up to your late husband's colleagues."

"Can't you make sure the Senate doesn't start probing into Warner's business? Can't you use your influence?"

"I don't have any influence, Mrs. Millen. I'm just a detective." Lee turned to leave. Cassandra Millen followed him out of the room, down the hall, through the foyer to the front door.

"If a senate committee should investigate, and if you're called to testify, what will you tell the committee about the senator's role in all this? What about our good name and our reputation? What will you tell them about me?"

"I don't think there is anything I could tell the good people of Washington about you and the senator that they don't already know," Lee said. "But if I'm called to testify, Mrs. Millen, I'll tell the truth. The pure, unadulterated truth about this whole sordid affair." Lee tipped his hat to her and turned away. He made it down five steps before she spoke.

"I was afraid you'd say that."

Something in her tone of voice warned him. Lee turned back to face her. The glow of the porch lamps beside the front door glinted off the silver gun barrel.

Seconds later, he felt a burning pain in his side as Cassandra Millen shot him. Lee pressed a hand to his side and staggered backward down the last step. Closing his eyes against the pain, he flinched at the sound of another shot and waited for more pain. It never came.

Lee opened his eyes.

Cassandra Millen lay dead on the porch with the gun still clutched in her hand.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-One

"Lee!" Willis jumped out of the carriage at the sound of the shot and ran the half block to the Millen house. He found Lee lying on the bottom step.

Mrs. Millen was lying on the stoop. The butler stood in the open doorway. "She's dead, sir," he said as Willis started toward the senator's wife.

Willis turned back to Lee and half-lifted him from the step. "Christ," Willis muttered beneath his breath as he felt Lee's warm blood seeping through the layers of his clothing. Willis pressed his ear to Lee's chest, then breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the steady thump of his heart. He tore open Lee's jacket, waistcoat, and shirt, trying to locate and gauge the severity of Lee's wound. "You were just supposed to talk to her. What happened?"

Lee opened his eyes and gritted his teeth against the pain. "She shot me."

Willis glanced over his shoulder at the butler, silently asking for confirmation.

Powell nodded his head. "It happened just as Mr. Gordon said. Madame shot him, then turned the gun on herself."

Lee sucked in a breath as he tried to look down at the wound. "How bad is it?"

"I can't tell," Willis answered. "You're bleeding like a stuck pig. We've got to get you to a hospital."

"No hospital," Lee said. He had seen enough army hospitals during the war to have a permanent loathing of the stench and suffering of the surgeon's workplace. "Take me to the hotel." He struggled to get to his feet.