“Ah Miss Sweeney,” Kearney said upon spotting me, “come, let me show you your office and introduce you to the staff. You will start tomorrow at nine.”

I stared at him in surprise. “Tomorrow?” I asked.

“I see no point in waiting, Miss Sweeney,” he said and left.

I hadn’t expected to begin work right away. My priority was Lily. I hurried out onto the street. It was then I realized I had no plan for how I was going to search. I stood trying to conjure up the images of Lily I had been seeing in my mind. Perhaps some details would give me a clue. But nothing came. I went back into the hotel to find Kearney.

“What’s being done in the search for Lily?” My tone betrayed my impatience.

He sighed. “We’ve done everything we can think of, Miss Sweeney. The hotel has been searched from top to bottom, room by room. I’ve sent men out to every establishment here in town, but no one remembers seeing her. It’s as if she disappeared into thin air.”

“But there must be something else we can do. Did you check out at the oil fields, or on the edge of town where I’ve seen children playing among the shacks?”

He stiffened. I had obviously pressed him too far. “I can assure you, Miss Sweeney, there is nowhere you can think of that we haven’t already searched.” He turned to go, then added, “Francine tells me the child was drawing pictures of a ranch with your name scrawled on them,” he said. “Many of us believe she ran away to find you.”

I struggled to hold my temper. He was as much as blaming me for Lily’s disappearance. In the past I would have been filled with guilt, but I was not going to let it consume me this time.

“Hans and his men have searched every inch of the ranch,” I said. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Kearney.”

With that, I turned away and hurried down the street. Eventually, I slowed my pace and began to question various shopkeepers and passersby, and even some rough-looking men leaning against the wall of a saloon. No one had seen her. By the time I reached the end of the street, a gnawing feeling welled up in me. What if my intuition was wrong? What if we never found her?

Nora

Nora

I had no choice but to do what Kearney and Sullivan wanted. Up until now I would have been delighted at the challenge of stealing the biggest lease of all from under Aidan O’Hanlon’s nose. But now that my conscience had caught up with me, the whole project had turned sour.