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Chapters (50)
  1. Cover
  2. Half Title Page
  3. Books by Elizabeth Camden
  4. Title Page
  5. Dedication
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. Six
  12. Seven
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Ten
  16. Eleven
  17. Twelve
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. Sixteen
  22. Seventeen
  23. Eighteen
  24. Nineteen
  25. Twenty
  26. Twenty-One
  27. Twenty-Two
  28. Twenty-Three
  29. Twenty-Four
  30. Twenty-Five
  31. Twenty-Six
  32. Twenty-Seven
  33. Twenty-Eight
  34. Twenty-Nine
  35. Thirty
  36. Thirty-One
  37. Thirty-Two
  38. Thirty-Three
  39. Thirty-Four
  40. Thirty-Five
  41. Thirty-Six
  42. Thirty-Seven
  43. Thirty-Eight
  44. Thirty-Nine
  45. Historical Note
  46. Questions for Discussion
  47. In 2021, look for Luke Delacroix’s story in
  48. About the Author
  49. Back Ads
  50. Back Cover

At least he wasn’t staring vacantly into space anymore. He was coming back. The man she loved was emerging from the shell of despondency and engaging in the world again. He’d fallen off a horse and gotten kicked in the face, but he was saddling up again, and it ought to be a relief.

It was a relief. This was the man she’d fallen in love with! How could she resent the fact that he was back, even if it meant that, on his list of priorities, she would fall somewhere below the Milwaukee assignment and the Holland takedown and possibly even a fine lobster dinner. Her mouth twitched at the memory. How long ago that first night on the train seemed.

Some things would never change. There would always be crime and corruption in the world, and Nathaniel would always put it first. He wasn’t wrong to do so, but it still hurt. How foolish she had been to think that her life would magically be different after September 15th. It wasn’t Nathaniel who was going to change. It would have to be her.

Could she do it? Could she tolerate life with a man who never knew where he would be assigned next month or next year? It would take a special kind of person to thrive in that sort of life, and in truth, she didn’t know if that person was her.

Thirty-Five

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Nathaniel began the next morning in the attic of the Treasury Department, gathering up his old files documenting the Kestrel Gang and preparing them for shipment to Milwaukee. He wanted it done this morning, because this afternoon he had been assigned to surveil Captain Holland’s house with Luke Delacroix. He wouldn’t leave for Milwaukee until the end of the week, so he’d been assigned to the Holland investigation for these final few days.

Dust prickled his nose as he pushed another trunk aside. He had to crouch low to avoid the sloping roof as he hunted through decades of old files and discarded furniture. He finally located the last of the trunks from his eleven-month stint in St. Louis and opened it, taking the inventory page from the top and tilting it to catch the dim light from the attic window. A smile tugged as he scanned the list he’d personally compiled four years earlier. He had been so close to catching these guys.

Footsteps sounded as a departmental clerk knocked on the open attic door. “Found what you were looking for, sir?”

“I have,” he said. “These two trunks need to be brought downstairs and earmarked for shipment to Milwaukee.”