Into the Whirlwind (23 page)

There was a rumble of agreement from the men who stood in a half circle around her. What had she ever done to deserve such a blessing? Declan was watching her, his face firm in determination. And that was when Mollie figured out why he looked so different. Standing tall and confident, his demons were nowhere to be seen. He had accomplished a mighty deed, and she would be forever in his debt.

She stepped forward to embrace him. “Declan McNabb, you have saved the day.”

16

Z
ack’s lungs were bursting and the muscles in his legs ached from the two miles he’d sprinted from the train depot. After almost forty-eight hours of constant travel, he had finally arrived in Chicago and wasted no time sprinting to the church. He vaulted up the steps and into the ruined nave. It was empty inside except for an old man picking through the rubble.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

The man stood.
“Ich spreche kein Englisch,”
he said.

Zack didn’t speak German, and apparently this man didn’t speak English. He took a few steps farther into the crumbling church. The tents were gone. There was no sign of the water barrel or the braziers. Mollie’s scorched paisley scarf, lying tattered and abandoned on the ground, was the only sign she had ever been there.

The last two days had been the most frustrating of his life. Legal wrangling in Philadelphia had taken longer than expected, delaying his arrival in New York. By the time he got Mollie’s telegram, it had been sitting at that New York hotel counter for five days.
Frank killed
, it said. If it had been an accident or natural causes, Mollie would not have used the word
killed
. Throughout the eight-hundred-mile journey, those two words
had haunted him. What happened? Had she been hurt too? Even as he stood in the church like a helpless idiot, Mollie could be in a hospital or out on the street.

Zack dragged a hand through his hair, scanning the church. He poked through the rubble, looking for any sign of where she might have gone. That was when he saw the dark stain on the floor. A cold fist of anxiety gripped his stomach.

He tried the German man again. “What happened?” he asked. He pointed to the bloodstain on the floor. “Frank Spencer? What happened?”

The German pointed to a trio of people across the street sitting beside the burned-out post office. Zack bounded toward them. This group of Germans spoke English, and Zack listened in horror as they told him of the raid and the beating of a blind man until he was dead. As the details poured forth, Zack’s mind reeled. He should never have allowed Mollie to stay there. He should have thrown her over his shoulder and carried her home that first day after the fire. Zack had never gotten on well with Frank, but he was the closest thing to a family Mollie had left, and Zack cursed himself for his failure to be there when she’d needed him.

The brewery was the next logical place to look. He was halfway down the street before he remembered something. Sprinting back to the church, he scooped up Mollie’s discarded scarf and shoved it into his pocket.

It took him thirty minutes to get across town to the brewery district. He vaulted up the stairs and through the narrow opening into the brewery attic. Relief washed through him at the sight of two dozen people filling the space. Mollie was sitting before one of the tall worktables with a large piece of drafting paper before her. A blond man he had never seen before was sitting beside her.

She was alive. She was healthy. The wave of relief crashing through him was so powerful he swayed and leaned against the frame of the doorway. Exhaustion settled over him like a heavy wool blanket, but his eyes dilated as he drank in the sight of her. “Mollie.”

When she glanced up, her face tightened. “Hello, Zack.” Her voice was calm. Cold. Then, unbelievably, she sidled closer to the blond man and turned her attention back to the document spread out before her.

He pushed away from the doorway and stepped farther into the workshop. “I came as soon as I got your telegram. Are you okay?”

Her shoulders sagged and she turned away from him, bracing an elbow on the worktable and sinking her head into her hand. His heart turned over and he moved to her side. “Let’s go outside, and you can tell me how you are doing.”

She still hadn’t moved. Everyone in the workshop had frozen, staring at him like he was a bomb about to explode. He glanced around. Most of the faces were familiar, but there were several men he’d never seen before. He could understand Mollie being upset by his delay getting there, but there was no need for her and everyone else in the room to treat him like a leper.

“Mollie?” He placed his hand on her shoulder, willing her to look at him. “Mollie, let’s go someplace where we can talk,” he said gently.

Her entire body stiffened. “I’ve got work to do,” she mumbled. Was it his imagination or did she inch a little closer to the blond man beside her?

Zack grasped her elbow and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Mollie, get your backside off that stool and come outside with me. I’ll buy you a pretzel, and you can tan my hide for being late.”

Mollie sprang down from the stool and marched to the door, still refusing to look at him. At least she was acknowledging he had a pulse. She snatched a cloak off a coat-tree and left the room, her trim little form hustling down the stairs. The cloak looked new, which was a good thing . . . he was sick of seeing her dressed in rags. The sound of his boots echoed on the narrow wooden stairway as he followed her downstairs and out the door.

“Is that a new cloak?” he asked as the cool November air surrounded him.

She turned to face him. “Do you have my money?”

He was taken aback. The bank in Philadelphia had released the funds to Hartman, so Zack was now able to pay Mollie for the deed, but he was certain there was more to her anger than a delayed payment. If any of his business associates had spoken to him in that tone, he’d have suggested taking it into the back alley and settling things the old-fashioned way. Instead, he drew a calming breath. Whatever had happened to Mollie in the past week had been horrible. Her dearest friend had been killed, and she was bound to be staggering under the weight of grief. He set his hands on her shoulders.

“Mollie, tell me what happened. I haven’t slept in two days.”

“Guilty conscience?”

“Yes!” he bellowed. “I never should have let you stay in that church so long! I wish I’d thrown you over my shoulder and dragged you to my house that first night.” He tried to wrap his arms around her, but a stiff arm kept him at bay. The expression in her eyes was even worse. “For pity’s sake, talk to me. Scream at me, hit me . . . just quit glaring like that.”

There was no softening of her attitude, only a voice dripping with disdain. “Do you have my money? That is really the only thing I want from you.”

He was so tired he could barely stand upright, but he still
wrestled with the temptation to shake her until that stony expression vanished. He shoved his hands into his pockets and forced his voice to be calm. “I just walked away from the most urgent business of my entire career because I got a telegram from you begging me to come home. I’ve been traveling nonstop for eight hundred miles to see you.”

“Eight hundred? Funny you should mention that number. I have eight hundred reasons to be angry at you.”

He locked glares with her. She couldn’t be referring to what he thought. The details of Hartman’s insurance policy were private information, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t well known to certain people in the city. Why would Mollie have even known anything about it? Against all odds, Zack succeeded in getting the East Coast insurance companies to pay exactly what they owed, and now Mollie was tossing that number around like it was something he was supposed to be ashamed of?

“The bank has your funds,” he said in the businesslike voice he knew she despised. “Meet me at the First Continental Bank tomorrow at noon, and I’ll get the funds signed over to you.” There was no softening of her glare, no acknowledgment that he had just put his entire career in jeopardy on her behalf.

He stepped forward, blocking her retreat by grasping her arm and leaning close to growl quietly, “And try to act nicer than an angry troll with fleas.” He straightened and left the brewery without a backward glance.

Colonel Richard Lowe was a civil engineer and operated one of the most successful railroad development companies in America. Could she have asked for a more qualified man to rebuild her factory on East Street? He was unfailingly polite and efficient. After the blowup with Zack yesterday, Colonel Lowe
was a balm to her spirit. Good manners, a pleasant demeanor, and no bombs that would detonate on a street corner while he shouted insults at her.

Colonel Lowe’s wife had died three years earlier, and they’d had no children. Mollie was selfishly grateful he had no family obligations to pull him away from Chicago. The plans he’d sketched for the factory would require a skilled engineer to steer them through to completion.

As they stood on the ruined acre on East Street, Colonel Lowe’s competent eyes surveyed the land, noting the uneven tilt of the ground beneath the crumbled bricks that still littered the plot. “Did you have drainage problems in the past?” he asked.

Mollie nodded. “My father knew about the problem when he built. That was why we could not risk adding a basement. The builder said it would flood.”

“I gather your builder knew nothing about modern drainage. It is a simple enough matter to install a French drain that will funnel the water toward the southern edge of the property, where it will do no damage. You will have a fine basement in your new building.”

Mollie sucked in a hopeful breath. With more storage, she’d be able to free up valuable floor space for expanded operations. “Can you really do that? Build a drain on top of everything else you hope to accomplish?”

Colonel Lowe braced a boot atop the rubble of the foundation. “Miss Knox, I was first in my class at West Point. I built railroads in the Dakota territories and bridges for the state of Illinois. During the war, I supervised detonations and built fortifications using only army surplus. I was shot in the arm at the Battle of Winston Cliff but still led the defenses for three days.” He winked at her. “I think I can manage a French drain.”

From a man with less charm, it would have sounded like a
boast, but this was Colonel Lowe, and everything he said made Mollie feel marvelous. From the moment he’d arrived in Chicago, he had been slaying one dragon after another for her. His small platoon of soldiers had already carted three wagonloads of rubble from her land. He’d stationed other men at the train depot to purchase bricks the moment they were offloaded from the railcar. In the hours she sat beside him at the worktable in the brewery attic, he sketched endless designs for her new building. It would be bigger than before and would have room for Dr. Buchanan’s dental office and at least one other rental property tucked onto the back.

Colonel Lowe rose when she walked into the room and spoke in soothing, cultured tones. When Zack got angry, his voice took on the rough ethnic edge of the docks. Everything about Colonel Lowe was a relief after the tumult of Zack Kazmarek.

She fiddled with her father’s watch, seeking reassurance by pressing her thumb into the dented cover. She would have to meet with Zack in an hour to finalize the sale of her land on Columbus Street. She would rather grasp a snake by the neck and pry the two thousand dollars out of its jaws, but that wasn’t an option.

The lobby of the bank was lined with alder wood and topped with coffered ceilings. Zack hadn’t known rich people decorated their ceilings until he had started consorting with Louis Hartman, but now he rarely walked into a bank where the ceilings weren’t as lavishly decorated as the floors. Thick oriental rugs beneath his boots absorbed all sound, making the lobby of the bank seem as cloistered as a library. Bank clerks spoke in hushed tones, sitting behind desks illuminated with glass-shaded lamps. The atmosphere of dignified competence saturated every square inch of the bank.

Unlike the indignation roiling through Zack, which was as raw and primitive as his marauding Eastern European ancestors. What had gotten into that woman? Had there ever been a more mercenary, mistrustful woman than Mollie Knox? He wasn’t sure what had sent her into a royal sulk yesterday, but he had a hunch. She hadn’t pulled the number eight hundred out of thin air, which meant someone in this city had been filling her suspicious little brain with claptrap.