Revenge and the Wild(59)

“Alley said no one would believe the kin of a wealthy heir could be cannibals. Without James’s gold, the Fairfields are nothing, the kin of no one important.”

Nigel put his elbows on the table and held his head in his hands.

Westie’s eyes were wide and desperate as she continued. “I had to do something, Nigel. They’ve killed Isabelle. Things have changed. How long do you suppose a little bitty meal like her will last an entire family? We need to stop them now before it’s too late.”

Nigel raised his head and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. “I agree that something needs to be done about the Fairfields. One can’t argue with the evidence laid out before me,” he said with a string of nods, “but I do wish you had come to me first. Delicate matters such as these take time and planning. I can’t mention that the two of you found the earrings in the Fairfields’ belongings without implicating you in a crime. And I can’t use the stolen gold to purchase machine parts until after the Fairfields are convicted and hanged.”

Westie felt a grin coming on. “You don’t need to worry about that. We’ll tell the sheriff that Alistair—not me, for obvious reasons—saw Olive wearing the earrings and followed her into the woods to wherever she goes off to play. We’ll say he took them from her. The sheriff trusts Alistair—he’ll believe him over the girl. The sheriff will have the Fairfields strung up in no time. He likes himself a hanging as much as the rest of the ghouls in this town. Then after, when the machine is finished and you’ve made your fortune, you can pay back James’s inheritance with interest.”

Nigel sat back and wiped his weary eyes. “That’s it? That’s the best the two of you could come up with?”

Westie folded her arms over her chest. “Not all of us can be geniuses, but it sounds pretty good to me—doesn’t it to you?” she said to Alistair.

Alistair looked at Westie, his eyes showing nothing of his emotion, then back at Nigel. He shrugged.

Nigel groaned. He placed the stolen contents back in Westie’s satchel. “We need to deal with this, but let’s take a little time to come up with a better plan.”

Westie and Alistair glanced at each other, concern sculpting identical lines around their eyes.

“What?” Nigel said, glancing between them. “What is that look about?”

Westie filled her lungs and winced. “Thing is, Alley already sent a telegraph bird to the sheriff saying we were on our way with evidence against the Fairfields concerning Isabelle’s death.”

Nigel rolled his head back between his shoulders. “Bloody hell.”

He looked ready to launch. Westie wanted to slink out of the room, for if Nigel were to explode, she knew the devastation would land on her.

Nigel stood with much effort, his knees popping. He collected himself and smoothed the wrinkles from his shirt. “Give me an hour, then meet me at the jail. Perhaps I can salvage this dreadful plan of yours. Lucky for us the sheriff likes to shoot first and ask questions later.”

Westie and Alistair left the mansion an hour later as directed. When they reached the jail, Nigel and the sheriff were waiting for them under the eaves.

The sheriff watched Westie approach like a horse eyeing a snake in the road.

“I reckon you had something to do with all this cannibal business,” he said to her in his gruff way. “I thought I told you to stay out of it.”

Westie put her hand to her chest as if to say, Me?

“This wasn’t Westie’s doing,” Alistair said.

The sheriff shook his head. “Well,” he said, cocking his hip and hooking his thumbs in his belt loops, “we best get on if we’re to do this before the sun goes down.”

Westie’s heart gave a happy leap. “You’re arresting the Fairfields now?” she said with more enthusiasm than she’d meant to convey.

“No, ma’am, we’re off to see the mayor.”

“The mayor . . . but why?”

The sheriff spit into the lake of chaw juice gathered around the silver tips of his pointed boots. “The mayor’s the law in these parts. He outranks me.”

Westie felt her bodice dig into her ribs, crushing her lungs. “He’s friends with the Fairfields. He’ll defend them. It’s not fair.”

He pinched one eye closed, glaring against the sun behind her. “Darlin’, if you wanted fair, you come to the wrong town.”

Westie and Alistair rode with Nigel in his carriage. Nigel’s lips were sealed together, knuckles white.

“Convincing the mayor will not be easy. He won’t be pleased to learn his guests have been deceiving him right under his nose, in his county,” he said.

Westie hung her head. “If I’d known the mayor would have the last say, I’d never have done what I did.”

Nigel slumped forward. “Nothing we can do about that now. Let’s just hope for the best. Things may work out in our favor.”

They reached the little office space tucked between clusters of shops. The mayor wasn’t in Rogue City often, but when he was, he liked a place of his own to exert his authority.

They stepped inside the room. There were antlers and stuffed animal heads on the wall, trophies of his kills. The place smelled like food and body odor. It was no wonder he was a lifelong bachelor, Westie thought. It would’ve taken a special kind of desperate woman to marry a man like Ben Chambers.