Time Passage: A Time Travel Novel, page 12
When he looked at me, the blue-gray warmed in his pupils and his face became lively with anticipation. “Miss Adams, while you were ill, I did some thinking about… well, about certain aspects of your arriving here as you did.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Earlier, over breakfast, I’d formed a partial plan. It was time to go, but not to San Francisco. It occurred to me that if I caught a train east, heading back to New York, there was a slight possibility I might pass through that same train tunnel and the same strange, electric current that had somehow jolted me to 1880.
It was a long-shot, for sure, but I had a weird feeling that if I put myself back on that train, something might happen. Was it a crazy thought? Yep. But I was here, wasn’t I? And that was crazy.
And if nothing happened, the idea of returning to New York, even in 1880, appealed to me more than traveling to San Francisco. How I’d survive and make a living, I had no idea, but I was a survivor. I’d figure it out.
John Gannon pulled me back from my thoughts. “Miss Adams, I’m a direct man, a man of few words, once my mind is made up.”
He cleared his throat, slid his saucer and coffee cup aside, and folded his hands on the table.
“Would you consider staying at the Gannon Mansion for a time? Perhaps for a month? Perhaps until after Christmas and the New Year? Now, before you give me your answer, I would like to add that the ballroom hasn’t been used for some time and I believe that a Christmas ball, here at the house, would be welcomed and well-attended by most of Denver society. Not all will attend, of course, but those I have business with will come, and the society that delights in such Christmas events will also attend. They will come, if for no other reason than for the lavish banquet, the festivities, the dancing… for giving the ladies the opportunity to wear their best ball gowns and, let’s face it, they will come for curiosity’s sake. I would be honored if you would remain here as my guest and attend the ball. You will, of course, be fitted for a new gown and jewels for the occasion and, if there is anything else you wish, if it is within my power, it will be granted.”
My first reaction was to say, No, thank you. I’m getting the hell out of here. But I counted to ten, and I took a drink of coffee, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold my mannequin smile. And then I thought it was best to stall, to gain more time. I needed to think.
“Mr. Gannon… You have been so generous and kind. I don’t know what to say.”
“I hope you’ll say that you’ll stay and attend the Christmas ball.”
I held the smile, but it was hurting my face. “It’s just that it is so sudden. May I think about it?”
“But of course you may think about it, Miss Adams. I see I have caught you off guard. By all means, take as much time as you need.”
I had no intention of staying, but I needed to build my case as to why I was leaving. There were many things left unsaid, and I didn’t know if that’s the way people communicated in 1880, or if it was particular to Mr. Gannon, while he was evaluating and investigating me.
It was also a strain to match the mode of speech of the 1880s, so formal, with few contractions and no modern slang. I’d practiced in my room before the vanity mirror, but my voice still seemed pitched too high, and my words contrived.
Staring out into the snowy day, I decided to begin my case as to why I shouldn’t stay until Christmas.
I said, “Mr. Gannon, perhaps I should not speak about it, but I am here under false pretenses. I mean, we both know I am not the woman you were expecting. Second, aren’t people talking, I mean… aren’t they? I don’t really know the right word, but aren’t they upset? Don’t they disapprove of me being here, since I’m single and because, by some strange chance, I resemble your wife? I have seen surprised expressions from the house servants, as well as from people I met in Denver. People must be talking, and it makes me uncomfortable.”
I didn’t look at him, so I couldn’t read Mr. Gannon’s expression.
He surprised me, quick with his answer. “Miss Adams, I don’t give a good blacksmith’s damn about what people think. That’s the first thing. Second, since we are speaking rather frankly, I will do so in kind. I know that Gladys Frome insulted you in the telegraph office. I heard about the entire unpleasant incident from Carl, one of the telegraph operators. So now, you must think I’m a murderer and that I killed my wife.”
His blunt words yanked my head right, to face him. His face betrayed nothing, but his eyes held a gleaming, steely grit.
“Miss Adams, I do not fit into society, so I am an outcast, at least to some. And, yes, I knew when I contacted the Rose Daisy Agency for a mail-order bride, many more society ladies would—shall I say it politely? I knew I would be further ostracized. I did not think they would stoop so low as to call me a murderer, but it doesn’t surprise me. The world strikes you hard where it can strike you, and then you must fight back.”
I considered his words, his strong, square face, and his rigid posture. I couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth or not, so I gambled and decided to come out with it, to see how he responded.
I inhaled a quick breath. “Did you kill your wife, Mr. Gannon?”
He blinked. Once. Twice. Three times, and then he stared at me long and hard, just as I’d done to him earlier, the Fancy Lynn stare. “Yes, Miss Adams. Yes, I did kill my wife.”
CHAPTER 23
It was kind of funny the way my conversation with John Gannon ended. That is, if you have a twisted sense of humor. After he’d stunned me by declaring that he had killed his wife, he rose, tugged on his vest and stared over my head at the far wall.
“Miss Adams, you did not send a telegram to your friend in San Francisco. Perhaps you don’t have a friend in San Francisco or perhaps your friend, so called, is one and the same, the true Miss Rosamond Adams, and you are both playing at a game, with me as the fool? Perhaps you are after my wealth, and all that it offers, after all. Well, I must say, you are clever. So, I think you are not who you say you are. I think you are not even Cynthia Downing. Frankly, I don’t know who you are.”
Before I could speak, not that I could find any words, he continued, and, as he spoke, I grew cold to my bones.
“And since we are being frank, I will play your little game, Miss Adams. Despite your many mysteries, I am considering you to be my wife, so you may well achieve the wealth and status you seem to crave. Meanwhile, I have asked Marshal Vance to find out who you truly are and where you came from. The marshal is a skillful man at his job. As per his own instructions, he thought it best if you remained here until his investigation has been completed. If you are truly in some sort of trouble, Miss Adams, I can help, and I will help. But, if you continue to lie to me, and if you are out to swindle me in some female way, I will break you, just as I will break that trollop who broke her contract and ran off with her lout of a gambler to San Francisco.”
Mr. Gannon offered a courtly bow. “Good day, Miss Adams. We had a candid conversation, and I am pleased about it. I must say, I admire your clever, bold courage and your plain-spoken manner. I do believe we could make a good match, and I assure you, you would not regret being my wife in any aspect. You will have wealth, position, and a virile partner, who will satisfy your every whim and wish.”
He stood with his hands at his sides, looking at me with stern appraisal. “I do not think we are much alike, Miss Adams, but I believe we will be compatible in our differences.”
With that, he turned and exited, no doubt pleased that I was too shocked to speak.
Back in my room, I paced. My head was empty, my stomach in knots, and my heart kicking hard against my ribs. Gannon had trapped me, and I hadn’t seen it coming! Well, I’d been sick, hadn’t I, or was that just a lame excuse? In any case, it had given Gannon plenty of time to go to Denver to check me out and, of course, he was the kind of man who would check me out. If I hadn’t been sick, I definitely would have been on a train heading East, and, by now, maybe I’d be in New York, starting a new life.
Maybe I would have re-entered that time portal, or time tunnel, or whatever it was, burst through it and returned to my own time. Would that have been a good thing? Only if I’d managed to return to the twenty-first century, before I’d accidentally killed Clifton Prince.
I didn’t want to think about why, or how could this happen, or what caused this. What good would it do? I’d always taken action. I’d never thought of myself as a victim, and I wasn’t about to be a victim now. So what were my options?
I sagged down onto the loveseat, seeking answers and possibilities. My mother used to say, “Just when you think you’re done for, if you give yourself a good kick in the ass, something will move, even if it’s just your own ass.”
Taking stock, I had to admit my options were limited. I couldn’t call Uber to take me to the train station. If I stole a horse, I didn’t know how to saddle it, and I couldn’t ride. And, anyway, weren’t these people good at tracking things? Animals and bad guys? They’d find me in a heartbeat, before I could gallop off to the train station, wherever that was. And, if they didn’t find me in the snow and cold wind, I’d freeze to death.
I had no connections whatsoever, and since Gannon discovered I didn’t send that telegram and that Thomas Dayton didn’t escort me inside, who knew what happened to poor Thomas?
He would have been my only hope. I may have been able to convince him to drive me to the train station in the dark of night. But not now. I hoped the big guy was still alive, and that Gannon hadn’t beaten him up with a whip—or shot him.
I pushed up and paced the length of the gorgeous room, darkly amused that I was in the most luxurious jail I’d ever seen, being waited on like a queen and eating delicious food. I was living in a mansion and dressed in stunning clothes, although wearing the bustle dresses made me feel like a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.
The thought of Thanksgiving brought a cold loneliness I’d never experienced. It hurt, and it brought a sinking, hopeless ache that sent me to the windows to stare out at drifting snow flurries. Yes, it was a beautiful jail.
How ironic. I had always wanted to be married to a wealthy man, be waited on hand and foot and have the finest of everything. Well, Cindy, guess what? If you want that wish, you’ve got it.
It was time to face it, at least for now. I was trapped, and two thoughts I’d been pushing away finally clanged in my head like alarms. Marshal Bryce Vance was investigating me, and he’d find nothing. Absolutely nothing, because I didn’t exist in 1880. So what would he think and what would he do?
Second, John Gannon had admitted to me that he’d killed his wife. Was he telling the truth, clearly aware that there was nothing I could do about it, or anybody could do about it? Was he toying with me, purposely trying to scare me by menacingly suggesting that the same thing could happen to me?
I’d been in some deep shit in my life, but nothing, and I mean nothing, like this. I was stuck in time, playing by rules I didn’t understand, in a house controlled by one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the state, maybe even in the country.
Still, I had to come up with a plan. Anything to move the needle on this 1880 game board, even just a little, in my favor.
As I saw it, I had one not-so-good advantage. John Gannon was attracted to me, and I resembled his wife. From his expressions, and from what I’d seen in the depth of his eyes, he had loved her. I’d seen brief seconds of vulnerability and regret when he’d spoken of her, and when he’d viewed her portrait. So, whether he’d killed her or not, I had some power over him and, if I played it just right, I was certain I’d eventually find the opportunity to escape.
And I had another potential advantage, slim as it was. When Marshal Vance gave me the once-over, he’d liked what he’d seen, and I’d seen a lively curiosity in his eyes. Although he’d tried to hide it, I’d felt a crackling electric energy between us that was immediate and obvious. His sensual mouth had opened slightly. His eyes had shined with warm interest. As I said before, being pretty was sometimes good and sometimes not.
Marshal Vance’s investigation would come up empty and that would confound and frustrate him, and hopefully, make me even more mysterious and attractive. I could use that to my advantage if I was clever enough, and if I managed to time it just right.
I was reasonably sure that eventually, Marshal Vance would come to the Gannon Mansion for a visit. His reason? To question me. For survival’s sake, I’d make the most of that visit, and I’d play the oldest card in the romantic triangle deck.
John Gannon would be jealous of me flirting with the marshal. Depending on the type of man Marshal Vance was, perhaps, when the time came, and my life was in danger, he’d be a dashing, heroic cowboy and come to my rescue. In the nick of time, he’d save me from the lethal, jealous and strong hands of John Gannon, just as his fingers tightened around my throat.
Hey, if Gannon killed a woman once, a woman he apparently loved, he would do it again, wouldn’t he?
CHAPTER 24
The next morning, Mrs. Grieve stopped by to tell me that Mr. Gannon was away on business, and he wouldn’t return for two weeks. “But he’ll be here for Thanksgiving. You can be sure of that, Miss Adams. No doubt,” she said, with inflated zeal, as if she’d received the inspired news from the same mountain top where Moses had received the ten commandments.
“He gave me strict instructions that you are not to leave the house for any reason,” she said, with a touch of malicious glee in her voice. “I’m certain you will not give me or Mr. Hopkins any trouble in this matter.”
I was grateful Gannon was gone, but his instructions were clear: Keep Miss Adams locked up.
During the following week, I read, did Hatha yoga, thought, and paced. Often, I stood before my bedroom window and watched it snow, and snow, and snow, and sometimes it was a frenzied snow, driven by high, squealing winds. I welcomed that squealing wind, and I talked to it for something to talk to. And sometimes it talked back to me. From the wind, I heard voices, voices from the past.
My mother said, “Cindy, God made you pretty, and you’d better make good use of it, or you could be punished, and it could all be taken away.”
I heard my father say in his hoarse, drunk-slurred voice. “Ain’t no man ever gonna want you for nothing but a play toy, baby doll, because that’s just how we men are. You remember your own daddy’s words, ’cause they are as true as this world is evil.”
From the moaning wind, I heard my sister say, “Not many things scare me, Cindy, not Daddy and his punches, and not even dying. But one of the few things that really does scare me is dying before I get to make a good difference in this world.”
And then the howling wind asked, “What about your sister’s words, Cindy? Have you ever made a good difference in this world?”
It was the quiet that started to get to me. A quiet so loud I could hear every damned bad thought I’d ever had. A quiet that skillfully picked the lock of my mind and released imprisoned memories, forcing me to confront who I’d been, who I was, and how I’d become trapped in a mansion in 1880. Thoughts circled the air above, like hawks looking for prey. Why was I here? Was there a reason? A purpose?
In my restless sleep, Mr. Gannon’s voice often wormed its way into my dreams, his face tight with a threat, his words angry and sharp. “I’ll kill you if I have to, Miss Adams!”
Alice came every day and helped me dress. She cleaned the room and made the bed, but she was stingy with her words. They were mostly “Yes” or “No.”
When I’d tried to engage her in any conversation about Denver, or about her life, or any news about her coworkers, she’d answer pleasantly, and with a pasted-on smile, “I don’t know much about that, Miss Adams,” or “My life is not so interesting, Miss Adams.”
To get out of that room, I ate alone in the dining room, or hung out in the library, hoping someone would come by and want to talk, but no one did. I longed to start a journal, and it would have been the perfect opportunity to document my bizarre and fantastic story, but what if someone found it? Mrs. Grieve or Alice? And then, what if they handed it off to John Gannon? No, I couldn’t write anything down. Not then, anyway. That would come later. Much later.
Tara came to clean out the fireplace and build another fire. She, too, didn’t have much to say, and I finally realized that the servants had been instructed not to talk to me any more than they had to.
I thanked Tara again for her kindness and for nursing me back to health. She was kneeling on the tiled fireplace hearth when she said, “I wanted to help. You were very sick.”
“I hope you didn’t get into any trouble because of it,” I said.
She was silent, keeping her back to me.
I went to my trunk, lifted the lid, grabbed the change purse and opened it, removing two silver dollar coins. I crossed the room to Tara and, standing a few feet away, I said, “Tara, I want to give you something.”
Her head turned, and she looked up. I lowered my open hand, revealing the silver dollars. “I want you to have these. It’s not much, I know, but I want you to have them.”
To my disappointment, Tara turned away from me, lowered her head, and returned to her work.
“Tara… please take them.”
She spoke in a near whisper. “Thank you, Miss Adams, for your kindness, but I cannot accept your gift.”
“Why?”
“They will be found, and Mrs. Grieve will have me dismissed for stealing.”
“But I’ll tell her I gave them to you.”
“It won’t matter, none, Miss Adams. She won’t believe you. I need my job. I’ve got nowhere to go, and no one to go to. I’m on my own.”
She turned again and looked up at me with grateful eyes. “I thank you, Miss Adams, but I can’t take the money, and I wouldn’t take the money anyhow. What I did for you… well, I did it because I wanted to, and not for any other reason or for money. Ain’t we both from New York, like you said, Miss Adams? Well, friends don’t take money when a friend is sick. At least, that’s how I see it.”
