Christie And The Hellcat Part 48

Zee shook her head. "Sooner I deal with Younger, sooner we can go back to Benson."

"I'd like that too," said Christie, meaning it. "This town doesn't feel like home any more." The remark obviously pleased Zee though 312 she didn't comment on it.

"Be back as soon as I can, darlin'."

"Are you sure I can't come with you?"

"Best not."

"I know, I know. I'm as popular with the Youngers as horse dung on Fred's high-heeled shoes."

"Such language!" Zee grinned. "You've been spending too much time with Angie's girls. At least this piece of dung," she indicated herself, "has information that'll guarantee her a hearing."

"You'll be careful?"

Zee raised Christie's hand to her mouth and pressed her lips to it.

"Ain't I always?"

GIF.

The doorbell tinkled and Christie looked up from the bolt of serge she was straightening. Milligan was standing in the doorway.

"Just checking you're all right, Miss Hayes."

"I'm fine." She blinked at him. "What time is it?"

"Eleven o'clock."

Where had the time gone? And why hadn't Zee returned yet?

He advanced further into the store. "I just took a walk past Younger's place. No sign of a disturbance."

What was Zee doing in thereplaying checkers? "I suppose that's a good thing."

He nodded. "Well. Since you're all right." He tipped his hat. "I'll be on my way."

"Thanks, Marshal. It was kind of you to look in on me."

When he'd gone, Christie tried to picture Zee talking to the wealthy mill owner in the libraryFred had once told her his father had read none of the books on his shelves; he purchased them by the yard. A setting like that would make Zee feel ill at ease. She thought about that for a bit then corrected herself. No. Zee would feel at home anywhere. It was Christie herself who would feel ill at ease.

When Fred was still on his best behavior and trying to impress Christie, she had visited the Younger mansion several times. It wasn't a home, more a gloomy museum. Four times as large as the house she had shared with Blue, its numerous rooms were stuffed with high quality furniture from San Francisco. Every surface boasted 313.

crystal vases and fragile ornaments (Caroline Younger referred to them as objets d'art) which had been s.h.i.+pped over from Europe.

Christie was always terrified she would break something.

It wasn't just her own feelings of inadequacy, she realized with hindsight, it was the supercilious way in which Fred's family treated her. Once, she asked if she might play their grand piano (hers was a little upright instrument, whose timbre couldn't compare), but his mother had flat out refused. Caroline Younger gave no reason, but Christie suspected she thought her future daughter-in-law's indelicate touch would force the instrument to go too quickly out of tune.

She ground her teeth as she remembered the countless humilia-tions, the nagging. Fred, his sn.o.bbish sister Julia, his mother . . .

everyone except his father, always in the library discussing matters of business, kept offering her unwanted pieces of advice.

"You should wear something more fas.h.i.+onable, Christie. Here, have a look at the latest G.o.dey's Lady's Book." "Your hair style is sadly behind the times, Miss Hayes. Why not try wearing a hairpiece?

It would make all the difference." "It's best not to use such a common expression when referring to that, my dear. We always say . . ."

"Christie, you are standing like a milkmaid. Stand up straight and try to look more refined."

If she was so beneath them, why on earth had Fred asked her to marry him in the first place?

Because he intended to mold me into something else.

It was a minor revelation and one that made her appreciate Zee all the more. Fred's family had never accepted her for who she was.

Right from the start, Zee had.

Chapter 13.

Zee halted at the end of the drive and stared. Christie hadn't warned her that Alexander Younger (or his architect) was an aficiona-do of the Gothic Revival style sweeping the West. Arched windows and doorways and a steeply gabled roof might suit a church, but on a residential house in an Arizona mining town they looked ridiculous.

It was surely no coincidence that Younger had built his house here in the wealthy part of Contention, as far from his silver mill as possible. No choking dust, no rumbling day and night from the huge presses grinding the ore, could be allowed to disturb his rest.

She continued up the drive. At one window a lace curtain twitched. Someone's home.

Zee mounted the step up to the front porch and reached for the bra.s.s knocker. Before she could grasp it, the solid oak door opened.

"May I help you?" The mousy young woman was wearing a black and white maid's uniform.

Zee took off her hat. "Mr. Younger, please. Mr. Alexander Younger. He at home?"

"Who is at the door, Nellie?" The voice was m.u.f.fled but familiar.

The maid turned her head and spoke to someone in the hall. "A visitor for Mr. Younger, sir."

"I'll take care of it," said the voice.

Nellie's brows drew together, but she stood aside. A dapper little man with a Vand.y.k.e beard took her place.

"What the devil do you want?" asked Fred.

"With you? Nothing. With your father? Reckon that's between him and me."

"Clear off." Ignoring the protests from the shocked maid, Fred slammed the door in Zee's face . . . or tried to. She had stuck her 315.

booted foot in the gap. For a short and painful period, he continued to try to force the door closed, then he opened it again.

"Now that ain't what I call hospitable," chided Zee.

"d.a.m.ned if I'm going to let the h.e.l.lcat into my house."

"Your house?" She pressed her palm flat against his chest and pushed him out of her way.

As she stepped into the hall, the maid looked at her with wide eyes. Zee plucked the note she had written earlier from her vest pocket and held it out.

"Be mighty obliged, Nellie, if you'd give this to your employer. It explains the business I'm here to discuss."

"Do no such thing," Fred told the maid. "This person is leaving, or I will have her thrown out."

Zee crossed to a chair and sat down. "Yeah? Just try it." She placed her upturned hat on the little table beside the chair, pulled off her gloves finger by finger, and dropped them into it.

The maid hadn't moved. Her gaze kept flicking between Zee, Fred, and the piece of paper in her fingers.

"Mr. Younger will agree to see me," said Zee, "once he reads my note."

"What is all this commotion?" A voice wafted down from the top of the stairs and all present turned to regard the woman descending.

Her clothes looked expensive and were no doubt up-to-the-minute, and she frowned at Zee's male attire and the tin star pinned to her vest. "And who is this?"

She was too young to be Alexander Younger's wife. Must be his daughter, decided Zee.

"Name's Deputy Brodie. I'm here to see your father."

"Deputy Br The one who stole that pathetic little fiancee of yours, Fred?" Zee bridled at this characterization of Christie but kept her thoughts to herself. "About what, may I ask?"

"As I was just telling your brother, that's between" Zee paused as Fred suddenly noticed that the maid had taken advantage of the distraction to slip away and rushed after her.

"Come back, Nellie. I thought I told you"

While Fred's sister gaped after him, Zee studied the paintings on the wall. Old Masters presumably; worth a few dollars, but far too dark and gloomy for her taste. She preferred landscapes or horses; Christie liked cheerful picturesdogs, children, that kind of thing.

316.

Each to their own. Angie favored imported erotic prints. Zee had always preferred doing to watching; that little book of Christie's had given her a few ideas.

A shadow fell over her, and she looked up to find the sister frowning at her. "Yeah?"

"I think you should leave. Now."

"That's queer. So does your brother. But I'll leave when I've talked to your father."

"He won't talk to you. He knows who you are. What you are. And what you did to Fred, to our family. You are not welcome in this house."

Zee shrugged. "Let him tell me that himself and I'll go."

Somewhere in the interior, a door opened. Footsteps grew louder.

Zee squinted through the gloom. A large, rather overweight man came into sight. Close behind him, gesturing and protesting, came Fred. Zee stood up and reached for her hat.

"Deputy Brodie?"

The new arrival stopped in front of her. Unlike his offspring, Younger senior was an imposing figure. His clothes were of the finest quality, conservatively cut, and he favored old-fas.h.i.+oned whiskers.

His gaze was difficult to fathomhostility and curiosity combined.

"That's me." She held out a hand; he looked at it for a moment then shook it. "Mr. Younger, I presume." A spluttering sound came from his daughter's direction. Zee ignored her.

"You presume correctly. Your note said you have some business to discuss?" She nodded. "Very well. Follow me." He turned back the way he had come.

Fred's face was beet red. "But father, she's the one"

"I know very well who she is." Younger's eyes swiveled and found Zee again. "This way, Deputy." With a smirk at the fuming siblings, Zee followed.

He led her toward a door at the far end of the hall then gestured for her to enter. She found herself in a large room that reeked of tobacco; the shelves lining its walls groaned with leather-covered books. He closed the door behind them, shutting out the sound of heated conversation.

"Sit." Younger took an armchair in front of the unlit fireplace and gestured at the other chair. She took it.

On an adjacent occasional table lay a silver handbell and the note 317.

she had asked Nellie to give him, opened. He rang the bell. The door opened and the maid came in.

"Sir?"

"Some refreshments for our guest, Nellie." His gaze turned to Zee.

"Tea? Coffee? Sherry? Lemonade?"

"Nothing, thanks." She flashed a smile at the maid then at her host. "But don't let me stop you."

"None for me. That will be all." The maid bobbed a curtsey and exited.

Alone once more, they regarded one another. The silence stretched.

Younger was the first to give in. He reached for the note lying on the table, and held it up. "Is this a threat?"

"It's a statement of fact."

His eyes narrowed. "This 'sensitive information' you say you have about my son . . . What makes you think I mind whether it is made public or not?"

"Reckon you're a man who cares about his hard-won reputation."