Revenge and the Wild(57)

Alistair put the key in the door of the Fairfields’ rooms. With a click, they were in.

“Let’s make this fast,” Westie said.

The Fairfields’ rooms were the best she’d seen at any inn, even compared to the ones she’d stayed in during her travels in the valley. There was the one big room for the family to spend time in together and three attached sleeping rooms. The linens were soft green satin. On top of each bed was a fluffy quilt.

While Alistair busied himself in the main room, Westie wandered into the sleeping rooms. One of the rooms was for the married couple. It looked like Cain and James shared another, judging by the different-sized starched and pressed clothes draped over wood hangers in the wardrobe. The last room belonged to Olive; clothes were strewn across the floor along with an army of dolls.

“Found them,” Alistair called from the main room.

Westie left Olive’s room to join Alistair. He stood in front of an open cabinet. Westie saw the glow of the gold bars on Alistair’s mask before she saw the gold itself. It was there for the taking, almost too easy.

“How’d you know it would be here and not in the bank?” Alistair asked.

Westie was certain the Fairfields hadn’t always been the city dwellers they claimed to be.

“Country folk don’t trust banks.”

She knew from her time in Kansas with her parents that people like that preferred to keep their treasures close.

She stared at the gold awhile before reaching out and touching a smooth, gleaming bar.

“Looks heavy,” she said. “You think we ought to grab another satchel from one of the rooms?”

She looked up when Alistair didn’t answer and found his head cocked, ear to the wind.

“Did you hear that?” he said.

“Hear what?”

They stood together in silence.

Westie heard it then. Voices.

“Shit,” she said.

Alistair shut the cabinet door. Westie’s heart felt like a stampede in her chest.

The voices grew louder.

“We need to run,” Alistair said.

They piled beside the door, listening. The voices sounded as though they were still downstairs. If the two of them were swift, they might be able to make a good go of an escape. Westie cracked the door just enough to peek out. She saw the top of a hat by the stairs, a green suede hat with peacock feathers and beads, an expensive hat. A hat so hideous it could only be fashionable in the big city. A hat only Lavina Fairfield would wear.

Westie shut the door, her mind racing.

“They’re too close. If we run, she might see us. We have to hide,” Westie said.

Alistair wasn’t one to dawdle when it came to tricky situations. He grabbed her by the machine and yanked her toward Olive’s room. It made the most sense. If the Fairfields came home and they were caught, they could snatch the little girl up and use her for leverage. Of course, their lives would be ruined for it, but there was no time to think about that.

“Wait!” she said. “The key.”

Alistair stayed in Olive’s room while Westie went back for the key. When she opened the door to grab it, she heard Olive’s voice. She chanced a look and was relieved to see it was only mother and child coming up the stairs, too busy conversing to see Westie at the door. They must have forgotten something, she thought. She grabbed the key, went back inside, and closed and locked the door behind her. All she could see when she got to Olive’s room were the whites of Alistair’s eyes in the shadows beneath the bed.

“Hurry,” he said. She bent to see him better but stopped when she heard a crunch. She slowly moved her boot to find the crushed head of a porcelain doll beneath it. “Leave it. There’s a small country of dolls lying around. She won’t notice one.”

Westie saw a red cape slung across one of the bedposts, grabbed it, and tossed it on the floor to hide the evidence before shimmying under the bed. She was thankful to be wearing men’s clothes, for she never would’ve fit in the cramped space had she been wearing full skirts. She tried to move farther back, but there was a box blocking her way.

“It’s on my bedpost, Mommy,” Olive shouted to her mother from the doorway of her room. “I’ll only be a moment.”

Under her breath, Olive mumbled curses too grown-up for a girl her age, just quiet enough so her mother couldn’t hear.

The only thing Westie had seen on Olive’s bedpost was the cape. . . .

She was struck with a sinking, hollow feeling. They had come back for the cape, and it wouldn’t be on Olive’s bed where she’d left it.

Olive bent to pick it up off the floor. Her hand froze, hovering just over the material. Westie wondered if the girl had heard the whir of Alistair’s machine as he breathed. He too seemed to share her thoughts, for he held his breath as soon as the girl bent.

Though Olive’s face was blocked by the mattress, Westie knew by her pause that Olive was curious about the fallen garment. The girl lifted it up, exposing the broken doll beneath.

Westie was sure Olive would look under the bed and they would be caught. She gripped handfuls of hair from the bearskins that covered the floor and held on.

Olive didn’t look under the bed. Instead, she put her little boot to the head of a doll beside its broken mate and stomped down until it shattered. She did it to another doll and another after that until she was laughing and dancing.