Echoes of Mercy: A Novel (28 page)

Empty.

The tube was
empty
.

Caroline slammed the lid on the tube and gave it a toss onto the closest shelf, growling in frustration. Now what? She’d promised to bring the drawings to Noble. If they weren’t in their protective tube, where were they?

The buzzer blared. Oliver trailed the others leaving the break room. Although he’d hoped to see Carrie, perhaps steal a few moments of time to explain his reason for observing her, he was relieved to hear she was getting her thumb treated. He couldn’t help cringing, thinking of how much the thump with the hammer must have hurt. He found no pleasure in having caused her pain, either physically or emotionally. And clearly he’d hurt her or she wouldn’t run from him like a frightened deer.

Cleaning the burned vat had taken the entire first half of his shift—such a mess! But now that he’d finished scraping the hardened raspberry cream from the sides of the vat and the floor, he could move on to less taxing duties. He’d never cared much for mopping, but pushing the mop would seem like child’s play after dealing with the stiff, sticky globs of two-day-old burnt filling. He would remember to heap praise on every cleaning person he encountered from now until his dying day. They deserved it.

As he headed for the closet to gather his mop and bucket, he glimpsed the swirl of a navy-blue skirt darting around the corner ahead. He frowned.
Hadn’t Carrie worn a navy-blue dress tonight? Yes, he’d noticed how the tiny white dots in the fabric stood out more when the white bandage fell across her skirt. But what was she doing on the opposite side of the factory from the infirmary?

He started to follow her, but asking questions would only solidify her opinion that he was an informant. Rather than suspecting the worst, he would assume she had valid reasons for wandering the factory floor during her break.

He reached for the door handle of the janitor’s closet and discovered the door was unlatched. Hadn’t he closed it when he’d left earlier? Of course he had. He’d distinctly heard the click. So someone had been in there. He stepped inside, pulled the string to the light, then swept the shelves with his gaze. His time of serving as janitor had left him very familiar with the room and its contents, and he easily spotted the one thing that was out of place.

Snatching up the tube, he snarled in frustration. He clanked the tube twice on the edge of the shelf, creating a pair of matching dents. He’d tried so hard to convince Father of Carrie’s innocence, wanting to place all suspicion on Hightower’s shoulders instead. If she’d taken the drawings, Father would be incensed. But no more than Oliver was. He couldn’t defend her if she was going to engage in such sneaky shenanigans.

Although on duty, Oliver left the mop and bucket behind and stormed to the crating station. He strode directly behind Carrie, caught her hand mid-swing, and turned her to face him. With the hammer raised, she presented a formidable figure. He pushed the hammer-wielding hand downward and glared into her surprised face.

“Where are they?”

Yanking her hand free, she matched his glower with one of her own. “Where are what?”

He gritted his teeth. He was in no mood to play games. “The blueprints, Carrie. What have you done with them?”

“What have
I
done with them?” Her eyes widened. “You’re accusing me of taking them?”

“Yes, I am. You wanted to see them. You obviously didn’t visit the
infirmary”—he gestured toward her unbandaged thumb—“and everyone else was in the break room. So what other explanation is there?” He leaned in, pinning her with a narrowed gaze. “What did you do with them, Carrie? Tell me now.”

She pressed her injured hand to her chest and gawked at him. “I did nothing with them. They weren’t even there!” Pink flooded her cheeks, deepening to a bold red as awareness seemed to blossom in her expression. “You … You!” She waved the hammer, her eyes narrowing to slits of fury. “Did you hide them in retaliation for me refusing to answer your questions earlier? I expected better of you, Ollie. You promised to show the blueprints to me. Promised! And I trusted you to be a man of your word. But instead you squirreled them away somewhere. Well, once again I’ve been proved the fool, but I will never—”

He shook his head, the meaning of her emotional tirade filtering through his veil of anger. “
I
didn’t squirrel away those blueprints. How could I when you took them?”

“I didn’t take them!” She nearly shrieked the statement.

The other craters stopped their work to stare. The night foreman, Alden, bustled around the corner and charged over to Oliver and Carrie. Hands on hips, he bounced a furious frown over the two of them. “What’s goin’ on here?”

Carrie stepped to the far side of the crate, her arms folded tightly over her chest and the hammer clutched tightly in her fist. “Nothing.”

Oliver added, “Just a misunderstanding.”

Several tense seconds ticked by while Alden stared first at Carrie and then at Oliver. Finally he bobbed his head. “All right. I’ll let it go. But from now on save your catfights ’til after quittin’ time. Both of you have jobs to do, an’ unless you want a write-up, I suggest you get to them.”

“Yes, sir.”

Oliver and Carrie spoke simultaneously, both through clenched teeth. Alden strode away, barking at the other craters to pay attention to their own work.

Oliver sucked in a mighty breath and expelled it in a huge whoosh. “We aren’t finished with this conversation, Carrie.”

She dug in her apron pocket and withdrew a tack. “Unless you intend to tell me why you hid those blueprints from me, I have nothing more to say to you.” She bent forward and added another slat to the top of her crate, her lips set in a grim line.

Oliver threw his hands in the air, fighting the urge to grab her shoulders and shake some sense into her. Stubborn, headstrong, infuriating woman! He’d get no satisfaction from her now, and Alden was probably lurking around the corner to see if his orders would be followed. Oliver had no choice but to return to work. But he wasn’t finished pursuing the topic of the blueprints. And Carrie had better be ready to give an explanation as soon as the shift-change buzzer sounded. He wouldn’t accept anything less than the truth from her.

“The two of them were goin’ at it worse than a pair o’ prizefighters. Thought maybe she was going to bounce her hammer off the side of his head.”

Gordon pinched his chin, contemplating the meaning behind Alden’s statement. The foreman waited, fully expecting payment for divulging another snippet of information. But until Gordon understood the significance of the fight between Ollie Moore and Carrie Lang, he wouldn’t give even a penny reward.

He caught Alden by the sleeve and pulled him away from the flow of workers entering for the morning shift. On the lower level the third-shift workers were gathering their belongings to leave, Moore and Lang among them. He wished Alden had stayed downstairs, listening for any further exchange, before hightailing to report to Gordon.

Gordon snorted, being deliberately derisive. “So they had a fight. You’ve broken up skirmishes between workers before. Why is this one different?”

Alden’s brows pulled down. He scratched his head. “It’s different ’cause you told me to keep my eye on those two. Before, they’d always seemed to be in cahoots, heads together whisperin’. But this time they were goin’ at it—pure, spittin’ mad.”

Gordon ducked his head to hide his smile. Sounded as though the lovebirds were choosing to fly their separate ways. That suited Gordon fine. He didn’t encourage friendships among the workers. Friends tended to confide in each other, to join forces. And if they ganged together, it’d be harder for him to stay in control. So this falling out could only be a good thing.

He lifted his head and forced a nonchalant shrug. “But you don’t know what had them all worked up?”

“Somethin’ about blueprints.”

Gordon sucked in a sharp breath, nearly swallowing his tongue. “Did you say blueprints?” Cold air whisked through the open doors, but sweat broke out on Gordon’s forehead.

Alden shrugged. “Sounded like it to me. But I didn’t hear the whole argument. Only caught the tail end of it.”

The only blueprints of which Gordon was aware were the ones for the elevator. After Bratcher’s unfortunate—or fortunate, depending on one’s viewpoint—plunge, he’d hidden the elevator drawings in the secret compartment of his desk. He’d felt the need to hide everything concerning the elevator and Bratcher’s fall. Why would Moore or Lang be interested in those blueprints unless his initial suppositions about Lang were correct and she was seeking information about Bratcher?

Beads of sweat dribbled down his forehead and stung his eyes. He swiped the moisture away with the back of his hand and forced a weak laugh. “You must have heard wrong. Blueprints? Why would a crater and a janitor be fighting over blueprints?” He clapped Alden on the shoulder, his hand trembling. “I think you need some sleep, my friend. So go home. And take a rag to the inside of your ears before coming back to work tonight.”

Alden scowled, but he skulked off with his hands in his pockets.

Gordon hurried up to his office and set his typewriter on the desk. He rolled a crisp sheet of paper onto the platen, composing the letter in his mind. He set his fingers on the keys and began to tap.

Oliver trailed Carrie. He hadn’t called out to her. He suspected she’d only ignore him. And he didn’t want to talk to her in the open, where other workers might overhear. They’d caused enough furor during the night, attracting Alden’s attention. Rumors would start flying if he wasn’t careful. The last thing he needed was the workers watching him more closely.

So instead of heading to his own apartment to sleep—his aching head yearned for sleep—he followed Carrie toward her boarding hotel. He’d catch up just before she stepped inside, and they’d get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding the missing blueprints. He knew he didn’t have them. And the more he’d thought about her strong reaction to his accusation, he wanted to believe she didn’t have them, either. The residual effects of his concussion made it difficult to think rationally, but if they could set aside their irritation with each other and combine their thinking, surely they’d find a likely reason for the canister in his closet to be empty.

Steam rose from the grates alongside the cobblestone road, swirling around her skirts as she bustled past. Her heels click-clicked against the stones, intrusive in the quiet of early morning. With only a sliver of sunlight hovering on the horizon, the sky wore its morning coat of pinks and yellows, the colors reminiscent of the deep blush in Carrie’s cheeks and the gentle highlights in her red-brown hair. Odd how the most unlikely things held connections to Carrie. This woman fascinated him beyond anyone he’d known before. But she also frustrated him. He preferred being fascinated, so he could only hope their conversation would dispel the negative emotions she’d stirred with her belligerence.