“Send it exactly.”
“Yes, sir.”
The operator’s hand shook.
Maribel saw it. Elias did too.
They left the office without speaking.
Halfway down the boardwalk, Elias said, “Creed will know by supper.”
“He already knows.”
Across the street, a black carriage stood outside the bank.
A man in a cream suit stepped from it.
Silas Creed had aged well, which angered Maribel more than it should have. His hair was silver at the temples. His beard was trimmed close. He wore gloves despite the heat and carried a cane he did not need. Men tipped hats to him. Women smiled. A child waved.
Creed saw Maribel.
For a moment, his face was blank.
Then he smiled.
“Miss Ward,” he called, crossing the street as if greeting an old friend. “Redemption Crossing grows more surprising by the hour.”
Maribel felt Elias shift beside her.
“Mr. Creed.”
Creed’s eyes moved to the marshal. “And Marshal Rook. Rumor said you met unfortunate weather.”
“Rumor’s disappointed,” Elias said.
“How fortunate for us all.”
Creed’s smile remained pleasant. Only his eyes were dead.
He turned back to Maribel. “I trust you have found honest work.”
“I’m trying.”
“At the Grand Meridian, I hear.” He leaned lightly on his cane. “Ambition is admirable when it remembers its station.”
Maribel’s fingers curled.
Elias said, “Careful.”
Creed glanced at him. “Advice, Marshal?”
“A habit.”
The street seemed quieter now. People watched from doorways, pretending not to.
Creed lowered his voice just enough.
“Your father caused this town great pain, Miss Ward. Some names are not easily welcomed back into respectable rooms.”
Maribel stepped closer.
“My father’s name will outlive yours.”
Creed’s smile thinned.
“That would require more than kitchen courage.”
“It’s a good thing I brought more.”
For the first time, something like anger flickered behind his eyes.
Elias saw it and smiled faintly.
Creed tipped his hat.
“Enjoy your trial meal.”
He walked away.
Maribel did not move until the carriage rolled off.
Then her knees nearly failed.
Elias caught her elbow.
“I’m standing,” she snapped.
“I noticed.”
“Then stop holding me like I’m fainting.”
“You were leaning like a church in a windstorm.”
She pulled free, but not as sharply as she meant to.
That night, neither slept much.
Maribel planned her menu at the small table in Elias’s room while he lay propped against pillows, revolver within reach. She had bought beef marrow, carrots, pearl onions, mushrooms, cream, apples, molasses, and a precious bundle of fresh thyme. From her own stores she added coffee, cinnamon, chile, smoked salt, and a jar of peach preserves her father used to make every summer.
“What are you cooking?” Elias asked.
“Memory.”
“That on the menu?”
“It will be.”
At dawn, Mrs. Hattie Bell brought coffee and information.
“Creed’s men asking after you,” she said.
Maribel looked up. “Which men?”
“The sort with clean boots and dirty consciences.”
Elias reached for his coat.
Hattie pointed at him. “You stay in that bed unless you plan to bleed on my floorboards.”
“I’m a federal marshal.”
“You’re a fevered man in rented sheets. I fear only one of those things.”
Maribel smiled into her cup.
By noon, she entered the Grand Meridian kitchen.
The head assistant, a narrow man named Mr. Pike, looked at her hands and not her face.
“Your station is there,” he said, pointing to the worst table, farthest from the main stove.
Maribel set down her knife roll.
“That stove runs cold.”
Pike blinked. “Excuse me?”
“The left oven door doesn’t seal. Your soup range burns too high. Your knives are dull. Your flour bin has weevils in the bottom third. And someone stored onions beside apples.”
The kitchen fell silent.
Pike’s mouth opened.
An older dishwasher near the sink began to laugh.
Maribel tied on a clean apron.
“I will need the center table, the right oven, two sharp knives if anyone owns such a thing, and nobody touching my sauce unless they want to explain their final words to God.”
No one moved.
Then a gray-haired woman peeling potatoes said, “Give her the center table.”
Pike turned on her. “Mrs. Quinn—”
“She’s right about the onions.”
Maribel looked at the woman.
Mrs. Quinn winked.
At two o’clock, Alton Greaves entered the private dining room with five guests: Silas Creed, the mayor, a railroad investor and his wife, Judge Vale, and Reverend Thorne.
Elias stood near the rear wall, pale but upright. Maribel had argued against it. He had argued back. They had both lost to the reality that a marshal with evidence was safer in public than alone in a boarding house.
Silas Creed smiled when he saw him.
Maribel saw Elias’s hand tighten at his side.
The first course went out.
Roasted marrow broth with thyme, charred onion, and a spoonful of dark coffee reduction.
The dining room quieted after the first taste.