“If it will help or hurt our mission, I need to know,” he said. Then, more softly, “I’m not one to judge
anyone
.”
He waited, unable to read the looks passing between the two men, but aware they were poignant.
“Warren’s being a lawyer isn’t the only reason Maddox hates him,” Adam said.
“I met him not long after I arrived here. He—” Warren stopped speaking, ran a hand through his hair. Then he looked directly at Caleb. “I’m going to trust you. Adam will tell you it’s not something I do easily. I hope to hell I’m not making the biggest mistake of my life.”
“Whatever you tell me goes no further,” Caleb said. “Not without your permission.”
Warren exhaled heavily and looked at Adam. When that man nodded, he turned his attention back to Caleb.
“All right. Not long after I arrived in Waco, I was introduced to Tyrone Maddox at a social gathering. We…recognized each other. Like recognizing like.”
As if daring Caleb to react, Warren stopped talking. Caleb never considered himself to be the sensitive sort, but he could feel the anxiety radiating off both men. He couldn’t say he blamed them. Warren had, in a roundabout way, just admitted to something that could get him hard jail time just about anywhere man had laws, and Adam…Adam, Caleb realized, harbored feelings for the lawyer that pretty much mirrored the feelings he and Joshua felt for Sarah.
“All right. Go on,” Caleb said.
Warren
closed his eyes just for a moment. When he opened them again, a hardness had come into them. “He wanted us to get together, get to know each other better. But I disliked the man on sight, despite what we had in common. So, I refused. Looking back, I guess I refused a little too harshly.”
“That’s no damn excuse for what he did next,” Adam bit out.
“Not an excuse, no, but maybe a way to …I don’t know, understand it.”
Caleb noted Warren used a different tone of voice when he spoke to Adam. Then the lawyer looked back at Caleb.
“About a week later, I went to the Old Ranch, one of the saloons in town, with a couple of new acquaintances. We ended up staying there into the evening. None of us had a lot to drink. We were too busy arguing points of law to drink very much.”
Warren
smiled, and Caleb could see that part of this memory, at least, was a pleasant one.
“Just as I was making ready to leave,” Warren continued, “I saw Maddox. He came down the stairs. I guess he’d been playing poker in the private room. He didn’t see me, I thought, and I remember feeling relief at that. Anyway, I finished my beer, then left, heading over to the boarding house on Washington where I lived at the time. I passed an alleyway, in the middle of the block. I didn’t see him coming. It seemed as if he came out of nowhere.”
Warren
stopped speaking again, and Caleb understood this time because the memory had moved into difficult territory.
“Maddox punched me in the face, stunned me. He pushed me to the ground, kept hitting me, and told me I was going to be sorry I hadn’t said yes when he asked me nicely the first time. That if I’d said yes, he’d have been gentle, and now he wasn’t going to be gentle. Now I was just going to be his whore. I began to fight back, but he’s bigger and heavier, and he already had me pinned to the ground.”
“That’s when I came around the corner. I’d heard what he said and knew immediately what Maddox planned to do—sick bastard had a hard-on while he was beating Warren—but I acted as if they were simply two drunken men fighting in an alley. Broke it up, told them both to go home and sober up, and sent them on their way with a warning.”
“I haven’t come face to face with Maddox since.” Warren said. “He avoids where I go, and I’ve never returned to that saloon.”
“And you’re willing to take this on? To go and face him, take on this role?” Caleb shook his head. “You’ve got guts, Warren. I’m impressed.”
Warren
seemed to totally relax at that. Adam met Caleb’s gaze.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You don’t have to thank me. We’ve been through a lot together. Life is too short, as I’ve recently had pointed out to me.” Caleb indicated his arm, the sling the major reason he had to stay behind, let Joshua and Warren take on Maddox. Then he smiled. After what these two friends had shared with him, he could be just as honest. “Besides, Joshua and I are the last ones who would ever cast stones, considering how we’re planning to spend the rest of our lives with Sarah. If you find what makes you happy, you have to seize it.”
Adam smiled. “I was wondering,” he said, obviously referring to Sarah.
“You know,” Warren’s words sounded cautious, “maybe Joshua and I can go in there tomorrow as if we’re…together. Maddox would buy that in a heartbeat. The added element might be enough to totally disarm the bastard. It would bring his ego into play, piss him off, maybe just enough to keep him from looking beyond the obvious.”
“That might work. You want me to discuss it with Joshua?” Caleb asked.
Warren
looked down at the ground for a long moment. Then he met Caleb’s gaze again, a decisive light in his eyes.
“No. No, we’ll discuss it, all of us together. Inside.”
Such emotion flowed between Adam and Warren, Caleb felt as if he was in the way. Deciding the two of them deserved some privacy, he nodded.
“Good. I’ll see you inside, then. Take your time.”
* * * *
“A gunslinger and a lawyer. Why am I not surprised? Two of life’s worst vermin.”
Maddox left them waiting in his entrance hall for nearly five minutes. Joshua figured that was long enough for him to dispatch his men to see if anyone else waited beyond sight of the house, if he had a mind to.
The man was dressed in what Joshua considered prissy clothing. No working duds for him. Beneath his fine tailored waistcoat, his cross-draw holster gleamed in all its fancy leather glory. Joshua wondered if Maddox could even shoot straight. The man carried himself like the lord of the manor looking down on a couple of peons.
Then he came down the stairs, his manner disparaging, even as his gaze fixed on Warren, before meeting Joshua’s.
Joshua waited just until Maddox was on the bottom step before lunging forward, picking him up by his lapels, and slamming him hard against the wall.
“My brother is dead, you son of a bitch! You’re lucky I don’t kill you here and now.”
“Joshua.”
Warren
called his name a second time, his tone more pleading than the first. Joshua blinked, then stepped back.
Maddox, clearly not expecting the attack, had been put off balance.
Good
. Keeping him off balance had been their main intention.
“Perhaps we should go to your office,” Warren suggested. “After all, these are…delicate matters we have to discuss. No sense in any of your employees getting an earful.”
Maddox straightened his shirt, then nodded. “I’ll give you two minutes. And you may as well know, I’ve sent one of my men for Captain Kendall.”
An outright lie. The last man he wants here is Adam
. “Good.” Joshua hissed that between his teeth. He wondered if Maddox had been off balance even before they arrived. Maybe he knew his lover was dead. Perhaps Larson had meant something to him, though from what he’d heard the night before and what he knew of Maddox’s lack of morals, Joshua doubted it.
He didn’t wait for Maddox, just walked into the man’s office until he stood before his desk.
He didn’t let Maddox get fully settled in his chair before he said, “Both of your assassins are dead. The second one killed my brother. I killed him. Mr. Larson died slowly and in great pain, and, he proved very loquacious before he breathed his last.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Joshua caught the flash of pain and counted that news as just one more way of keeping the bastard off balance. “Let me see if I can awaken your memory.” He leaned forward. “You married Sarah Carmichael so that you could kill her and collect her inheritance, a quarter of a million dollars left to her by her maternal grandfather. Your first contracted killers were a band of no accounts called the Morgan gang. They tried to kill your wife twice and failed. They’re all dead, too, of course.”
“Yes, I heard from the Sheriff of Springfield that there allegedly had been some trouble. At which point you and your brother made off with my wife. I’m afraid I have serious doubts about her virtue now.”
Oh, he’s good
. Maddox had recovered quickly, giving the appearance of a man affronted, a man in control. If Joshua didn’t detect just the slightest tremor, he’d be tempted to believe him. He decided his best course would be to ignore the slur against Sarah and push on.
“Then Sheriff MacFarlane sent two telegrams, one to you and one to the woman’s father, signing Caleb’s name to both. One said we would be crossing into Texas at Henrietta, the other Denison.” Joshua leaned forward even more. “Do you want to know what Larson told me just before he died?”
He saw it then, a trace of fear in Maddox’s eyes.
“He told me why you married the bitch and why you wanted her dead. Ten thousand dollars.” He straightened up again, so Maddox would think that was
all
they knew about Larson. Sure enough, there was the relief in the man’s eyes. He believed his deepest secret to still be safe, though how he could with Warren standing here was beyond Joshua. He controlled his thoughts, and donned a smug expression.
“That’s how much I want to kill the woman, or she lives and I go tell what I know to Adam Kendall.”
“You expect me to believe you haven’t already spoken to the man?”
Joshua stepped back, let his gaze track to Warren. Warren returned his look steadily. Joshua counted to five and hoped to hell that exchange looked convincing to Maddox.
“Adam was Caleb’s friend, not mine. He doesn’t even know Caleb’s dead, yet.” Joshua let himself imagine the gut-wrenching pain he’d feel if anything happened to Caleb and knew that pain showed on his face. He turned and looked at Warren again. Then he gave Maddox his full attention. “My brother is dead, and there’s nothing I can do to bring him back. But ten thousand dollars will buy us a fresh start. Ten thousand dollars will take us anywhere we want to go. We can find our place with that kind of money. Build a life.
“You’ve got only a minute to decide what happens next.”
The look Maddox sent Warren was one of loathing. Warren reacted by stepping just a half inch closer to Joshua. When Maddox turned his mocking glare on him, Joshua let him see the very real hatred he felt for the man.
“Where is she now?” Maddox asked.
“We left Denison and headed straight to Warren’s. I…I needed to see him. Sarah was so upset by all that happened, she was nearly hysterical. Right now she’s on Warren’s bed, sound asleep, thanks to the help of a good dose of laudanum.”
Maddox sat back and ran his fingers across the top of his desk. Joshua could read him as easily as he could an open book. He saw the calculation. If he was sitting across a poker table from the man, he would swear a bluff was imminent.
“Fine.”
“Fine, what?” Joshua asked.
“Fine, you’ve got a deal. Ten thousand dollars in return for Sarah Carmichael’s body. Don’t bring her here. Shoot her, then ride into Waco with her. Tell Kendall whatever damn story you want.”
“When and how do we get the money?” Joshua asked.
“I can write you a note on my bank right now,” Maddox said.
“Then cancel it the moment you come in to town? How stupid do you think we are?” Warren asked.
“All right. I’ll ride into Waco today, take out the gold. Meet you wherever you say. But, by damn, it has to be today!” Maddox slowly sat forward, his eagerness plain.
Joshua turned to Warren, one eyebrow raised. Warren nodded.
Joshua turned to face Maddox again. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the expression on Warren’s face. Warren had let his mask fall, and Joshua was willing to let him have his moment of revenge.
“Got you, you filthy bastard,” the lawyer said.
Everything that came next happened so fast, it seemed a blur.
Maddox roared. They’d talked over the night before all the possible reactions Maddox would have when he realized he’d been had, when Joshua and Warren, who’d both been deputized, arrested him. The consensus was that he would explode in anger, then threaten them with exposure as homosexuals, waving his influence and wealth in their faces.
Adam hadn’t been one hundred percent certain that once charged, even with this confession of sorts, that Maddox could be convicted. None of them had been, but they were all willing to take that chance.
Having him charged would serve one very important purpose, in that it would almost guarantee Sarah would be granted an annulment.
None of them expected Maddox to draw his weapon and shoot.
Too late, Joshua thought. Maddox gave in to his pettiness and aimed at the man he hated, not the man who posed the biggest threat. Joshua had only an instant to act. Lunging toward Warren, he knocked that man out of the way and began to fall sideways even as he drew his peacemaker and fired.