Page 30 of Head Room (Caught Dead in Wyoming #15)

“Elizabeth Margaret Danniher.” The woman’s voice on the other end of the phone didn’t ask, it declared my identity.

“Yes. Is this . . . Kit?”

My answer was far wimpier than her greeting, but that matched our realities, too. The woman is fierce. Maybe she had to be to carve out a career as a midlist author in earlier decades of traditional publishing and now in independent publishing.

“Of course. Got your email. How are you?”

It had to be past midnight at her Outer Banks home.

Tamantha was in bed in the first-floor bedroom that had become hers. I was watching the news on my bedroom TV.

“I’m fine.” Before I could consider, I overrode that blandness with the truth. “Better than fine. I’m getting married soon to a man even you wouldn’t intimidate and who has a daughter you would respect and vice versa.”

“Hah!” she snorted in brief appreciation. “I knew you’d dumped that corporate type. Glad to hear you’ve found a good one now. And with a worthy daughter.”

“They’re the best,” I said simply. “And work is . . . different. Rough patches to get to this point, and new challenges now. As a matter of fact, I’ve been involved in investigating a number of deaths — murders — out here, along with colleagues. We’ve developed something of a reputation.”

“Have you?” There was a note in that response that flicked at my spidey senses, but before I could pursue it, she added, “We’ll have to catch up about that sometime, but I don’t suppose that’s why you called.”

“No, it’s not. Though it does involve another investigation.”

I hit the high points of Colonel Crawford’s assignment and how the manuscript of a historical romance figured into it.

“You think there might be clues in the manuscript,” she said at the end.

“Think? No. Hope desperately? Yes. Count on? No. I know this is a long shot and—”

“Send it to me.”

“I didn’t even get to the begging part. And there’s a good chance there’s nothing—”

“No need to beg and I understand it might be no help to you. But that’s part of investigating — at least it is for my fictional characters. Send the manuscript.”

“It’s only partial and—”

“I’ll let you know what I think after I’ve read it.”

“I have another question.” Unusual for me, I stalled between that statement and the question.

“Yes?”

“When I started reading it, I felt . . . guilty. Like I shouldn’t be looking at it.”

“That’s natural. At least for empathetic people, which you are. A book like that is personal.”

And she didn’t even know about Irene only starting to write when she received a fatal diagnosis.

“No need to be guilty, as long as you treat it and the author gently. It’s not a finished product. Don’t criticize it like it is. It’s like a baby chick. You have to handle it gently or you can crush its bones, grind them right up with the downy new feathers. Gotta—”

Okay, that image would keep me from criticizing.

“—go now, someone’s waiting for me.”

“Wait. How are you? How are the Outer Banks? And Sheila? Is she doing well?”

“Outer Banks suit me. Sheila’s well. Like you, she’s having interesting times. Have to go now. Send me that manuscript.”

She clicked off.

Leaving me with spidey senses firing off like rockets about her great-niece.

I watched the end of KWMT’s newscast, got ready for bed myself, then settled in with Irene’s story.

* * * *

The door burst open, the afternoon sun silhouetting Dr. Gilliam’s burly frame against the opening.

“By God, I heard it, but I didn’t believe it. You’re a bunch of heathens, treating a young woman this way!”

“We were discussing what is to be done for her, Dr. Gilliam,” said Captain Reigert.

“Any Christian with a particle of sense would bring her to a doctor,” roared the post surgeon.

Men scrambled to get out of his way as he marched across the room, but Ransom noticed, as he rose more slowly to make room for the doctor, that Maggie Gregson neither looked up nor flinched. Yet he knew she could hear, he’d seen the proof of it.

Standing in front of her, the doctor moderated his roar to a mere rumble.

“We’ll get salve and ointment for those poor hands of yours, that’s one thing that’ll be done for you, my girl, Ernest Gilliam promises you that.”

That produced a guilty shifting of feet among the other men, who apparently hadn’t noticed the battered state of the hands their charge held so still in her lap.

“Now, let me see what we have here.” Gilliam cupped a hand under her chin and raised it. She didn’t resist, but she didn’t aid him, either.

Ransom tried to see around the doctor to get a better look at the face he’d caught only glimpses of through the screen of matted hair.

But Gilliam’s bulk blocked him. “Ah, you’re a child.

A poor mite of a thing. And had a hell of a time of it now, haven’t you?

” The doctor’s large hand tipped the girl’s head and Ransom could see discoloration and swelling under the dirt that spread from the lower part of her right jaw down the side of her neck.

It must have been a hell of a blow to have the swelling still evident when the bruising was fading.

Gilliam released her chin, and her head lowered immediately. But the doctor, apparently, had seen enough.

“One of you bring her to my quarters. Then, Captain, I want a detail to start hauling and heating water for a bath—” He studied her again.

“—Make it enough for two baths, one to get the dirt off and one to get clean. And a couple more men to check at the trader’s to see what he has in the way of clothing that would suit . . . uh, what is her name?”

“Maggie. Maggie Gregson.”

The answer from over his shoulder drew the doctor’s eyes around to Ransom.

“Miss Gregson.”

“Mrs. Gregson,” Ransom said. “She’s widowed.”

“Is she then?” The doctor’s gaze sharpened. He cleared his voice. “Well, we’ll see about all that after she’s cared for.” As if he could change the state of her widowhood. “Any questions, Captain?”

“No, sir, but—”

“Good. Then, Fletcher, you bring her along to my office. And — ah, Major Brand, didn’t see you in the dark corner there. You could be of aid if we need sign language. If you don’t mind, sir,” he added with belated and half-hearted attention to military courtesy.

“Not at all.”

“Now, young lady, you get out of that thing.”

She didn’t lift her head or give any other sign of hearing, but one arm immediately crossed over her chest and her other hand grasped the material of her rough buckskin dress tight against her. It was an instinctive and expressive gesture of self-protection.

The doctor stopped in mid-stride, let his hands drop slowly to his side, then half turned back toward the doorway. Ransom caught the look exchanged between the major and the surgeon; they all knew the significance of her action. She clearly had understood the doctor’s words.

She wasn’t talking, but she was listening.

Ransom suspected it wasn’t much of a shock to Major Brand, but the doctor was clearly surprised.

“I thought Captain Reigert’s dispatch . .

. Well . . .” He cleared his throat and glanced back at the woman, who stood motionless in that same defensive pose.

“We’ll get Polly in here. The sergeant’s wife.

She’s a very good sort of woman. But—” He spoke more sternly, yet not unkindly to the still figure.

“—after she helps you get cleaned up, I’m going to examine you. No shilly-shallying.”

He paused a moment, as if expecting an answer that did not come, gave an explosive snort and walked out of the room without a word. He could be heard from the outer room ordering someone named Bailey to go get Polly right away, then to bring hot water.

When Polly arrived, she looked around the room, clicked her tongue, muttered something under her breath, then said, “Gentlemen?”

She was inviting them to leave.

Ransom and Major Brand obeyed as Bailey arrived with hot water. In a moment, he emerged again, opening the door to a vignette of Polly staring down the doctor.

Ransom thought the major’s mouth might have moved under his mustache.

If so, it was neutral when the doctor followed Bailey out, and Polly closed the door behind him.

“Things to check on,” Gillam said as he left the room.

With Brand apparently immersed in the study of the titles of the small pile of books on the doctor’s desk, Ransom spent the slow-passing minutes trying to tell what was going on in the other room.

For the longest time all he caught were wisps of Polly’s voice, more the feel of a murmur than words.

Then what might have been the splash of warmed water.

At least it wasn’t furniture breaking or screams.

That’s what it would have taken to be heard over Dr. Gillam’s return just then.

“Fletcher! What is this I hear?” he roared.

“Sir?”

“You? To marry the girl? Why? You know nothing of her.”

Ransom let the questions and the statement lie. Doing that often left people moving past their own words.

The doctor shook his head at him, but did what Ransom hoped — he moved past and tapped on the inner door. Polly answered, nodded, and stepped back to let the doctor in, allowing no view of Maggie Gregson before the door closed again.

“Doc asked a good question, Fletcher.”

“Sir?”

That all-purpose, blank-expressioned response drew a decidedly sardonic smile from the major.

“Presuming you meant what you said back there — that you’d marry her.”

This time Ransom didn’t pretend not to understand. “I meant it.”

“Then Doc’s question applies — why?”

Ransom held silent. Not so much from thinking it was none of this Yankee major’s concern, as that he didn’t entirely know. In fact, he’d been doing his damnedest not to look at the matter too closely himself. He’d said it, and he’d do it. That was enough.

“You don’t know what you could be getting yourself into. You don’t know what could have happened to her.”

“But you said—”

“I could be wrong.”

Brand let that hang there, and Ransom felt those odd gray eyes on him, digging into his soul. He met the look, but said nothing.

Finally, Brand shrugged. “But even if I’m not wrong, you don’t know how being a captive might’ve affected her. Her mind.”

“You saw — she understands. She had the mind — nerve, too — to make that knife. And I know she wrote that note we found, trying to warn us. Her mind’s fine.”

“She doesn’t speak. What of that?”

“It’s early days yet.”

Brand kept talking as if he hadn’t spoken. “And what of her spirit? You don’t know what happened. You don’t know how badly her captivity damaged whatever you want to call it — her spirit, her soul. That could be dead, or broken in her. God knows, she looks enough like a lost soul.”

Perhaps it was the vehemence from the habitually silent officer, that drew the words from Ransom. Words he hadn’t even acknowledged to himself. “That’s why.”

He regretted them the moment he spoke. What sort of response could he expect from this man — a stranger, a Yankee, and an officer to his private — when he wasn’t sure he understood himself what he meant? Disdain at best, more likely ridicule.

He got silence.

He sustained another of those long looks. Long enough for him to realize that what made those gray eyes so fearsome was they showed as little of what was inside the man as a mirror. Instead, clear and unwavering, they reflected a man back to himself, and what could be more unnerving than that?

A low, muffled, wordless cry — the kind that could be surprised out of someone before they had a chance to bite it back — came from beyond the door, and both men turned to it. Dr. Gillam’s rumble had a soothing tone to it, and the cry was not repeated.

When Ransom looked back at Brand, the major was pulling on his gloves. He said no more, but gave a short nod and walked out without another word, leaving Ransom to wonder if the nod had been one of understanding.

And if it was, what the hell the major understood.