What You Said to Me Read online

  “We’ll try again another day,” Nolan said. “Take your time, Jillian. We probably still have at least thirty minutes.”

  The blanch of boredom that trundled through Tisha’s face said she didn’t intend to be at the Duffy residence in thirty minutes. Jillian certainly wouldn’t argue the point.

  Humming, Nolan picked his way through the cluttered dining room and into the kitchen.

  “Okay,” Jillian said, “maybe we should have a look at my project.”

  “We could just do it tomorrow.”

  The thought was tempting.

  “If I explain a few things now,” Jillian said, “maybe we can hit the ground running in the morning.”

  “Morning?”

  “Will that work for you?”

  “Well, I guess I don’t want to wreck my whole day hanging out here.”

  Yep, this was going to work out just swell.

  “It doesn’t have to be first thing,” Jillian said. “Nine o’clock would be fine. You’d be finished by lunchtime.”

  “Yeah, we could try that.”

  Tisha’s response hardly sounded like a commitment.

  “In here.” Jillian gestured toward the dining room. “How much did my dad say about the work?”

  “Not much. Just piles of papers.”

  Jillian suspected Nolan had said more than that and Tisha hadn’t been listening because she’d been looking at her phone.

  “Well, there are piles, as you can see,” Jillian said.

  “So, alphabetizing or something?”

  “It’s more complicated than that. The files have to do with children who were stolen from their parents anywhere from the early 1930s to the late 1950s. They were adopted by other families who thought they were paying large fees to legitimate adoption agencies. The truth only came out a few months ago.”

  Tisha glanced at Jillian, slightly puzzled, but her hand was on the back of her hip, where her phone had been buzzing intermittently the whole time Jillian was speaking.

  Jillian plowed ahead. “I’m a genealogist. I trace family lines and help people put the pieces together. My client has hired me to see if it’s possible to trace accurate information about the real identity of any of these children and find relatives in the families they were taken from. Make sense?”

  “I guess. It looks like a lot of papers.” Tisha’s phone started buzzing again.

  “It is. But these children were stolen, so it’s important. What happened was criminal.”

  Tisha was texting. Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap.

  Pause.

  Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap.

  “Anyway,” Jillian said.

  “Yeah?”

  “So far I’ve been trying to look at the documents and decide which ones are the best leads, the ones most likely to yield information we could actually do something with. At some point I’ll scan as much as I can so I can work electronically the way I usually do, but some of the documents may be too fragile. There’s always photographing. In any event, for now there is a lot of basic sorting to do, and we have to be careful not to mix up anything or tear anything.”

  We. Jillian could hardly believe she was using that word with an uninterested teenager she’d never spoken to before tonight. There were so many opportunities for error. How could she be sure she could trust Tisha?

  She couldn’t.

  “I’ve developed a system for the documents,” Jillian said. “Color-coded file folders to represent different stages of the project. I’ll explain more tomorrow.”

  “I’m not going to know what to do with all these papers,” Tisha said.

  “I’ll try to make it as clear as I can,” Jillian said. “But I think you’ll be able to help with making file labels easily enough. I also bought some boxes made to hold file folders, and you can put those together. Eventually everything will be stored on shelves in a spare bedroom upstairs, but I don’t have the shelves yet.”

  “Yeah.” Tisha looked around. “How many kids?”

  “I haven’t actually counted. I guess you could help with that. Some have folders, but some were only listed in record books we found in the bottom of a file cabinet. In the hundreds, which is why things seem a bit out of hand.”

  “You could say that again.”

  “It’s not actually out of hand,” Jillian said. “It just seems like it. I know where everything is while I’m getting organized, but apparently my father would like the dining room back sometime before Christmas. He can be so picky.”

  Jillian attempted a smile, but Tisha didn’t respond. Still gripping her phone, the girl was surveying the dining room. Dismay pulsed through her features with every blink.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks.” Jillian straightened one pile.

  “So you keep saying.”

  “Does nine o’clock sound good for a regular time?”

  “Can we be flexible about that?”

  “Do you have conflicts?”

  “I might. I never know.”

  “Well, some days I have appointments or errands too, so I suppose we can be flexible,” Jillian said. How busy could a fifteen-year-old in trouble be? “Maybe we can set the schedule a day or two in advance so we can both plan.”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “But nine o’clock tomorrow?”

  “Okay. Fine.”

  “Do you live far?” Buried in Jillian’s mind was the notion that Tisha’s family lived across Eastbridge, on the other side of Cutter Creek, the small river that ran through Canyon Mines. The homes there were modest, some even tiny. The one Jillian shared with her father, which had once been two mirrored homes sharing a wall that was later removed, must have seemed lavish to the girl.

  “It’s okay,” Tisha said. “I have my bike.”

  “All right, then.” Jillian mustered another smile. “I’ll see you out and look forward to the morning.” See you out? Why was she talking like an English butler?

  “Yeah.”

  If Nolan had not already made the hiring decision, Tisha Crowder would not be in the running—for a nonexistent vacancy.

  Jillian closed the heavy front door behind the departing guest and padded toward the kitchen.

  “Nolan Duffy, what have you gotten me into?”

  “A chance to help.” Nolan looked up from the bowl of arugula. “Don’t you recognize the opportunity?”

  “I recognize that she needs help more than I do,” Jillian said. “Why didn’t you talk to me before signing me up for this?”

  Nolan tossed the greens and popped a plum tomato into his mouth.

  “You were afraid I’d say no,” Jillian said.

  “The risk crossed my mind. Mostly I forgot. The afternoon got away from me—the same reason I never read your text about dinner. I’m sorry, Silly Jilly.”

  Jillian eased into a stool at the breakfast bar. “You must be working even harder than I realized.”

  “I got a call from the caseworker asking if I could squeeze in a meeting this afternoon.” Nolan whisked the salad dressing. “I had to think on the spot and tell her something. I was sitting there in her office with Tisha—whose mother dropped her off for a court-mandated meeting and didn’t even come in, so I’ll have to have a word with her first thing tomorrow—and I had to give her some proposed description to put on her form. It had to be something that demonstrated I could give reasonable assurance I had this under control. We can finalize it in a few days.”

  “So you told Tisha to show up here.”

  “Then I dashed off to that befuddling mediation, and I was practically home before I remembered I’d never called you.”

  “I can understand why you want to help her, but I’m having trouble seeing how this is going to work.”

  “Please try, Jilly. You do need the help.”

  “That is a matter of opinion.”

  “I won’t leave you stranded. My name and reputation are on the paperwork. I promise we’re in this together.”

  “I’m not like you,
Dad. You make friends with everybody. I tend to step in it and make a mess.”

  “You chronically undersell yourself on that question. And you need the help.”

  “You keep saying that! Even if I thought I needed help, Tisha doesn’t want to help.”

  “Well, she has to. I’m working at home tomorrow, so I’ll be here when she arrives to remind her.”

  “In the most affable way.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m hungry.” Jillian slid off the stool and went to a cupboard for plates. “Get my creation out of the oven, will you?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Denver, Colorado

  Wednesday, June 28, 1893

  If his black fountain pen stained another white dress shirt cuff, Clifford Brandt would have no credible excuse to offer Georgina. Her patience over twenty-two years of marriage with his inability to be more careful with ink and clothing was saintly. Left-handedness put shirtsleeves at particular risk if he neglected to don a sleeve garter or roll up the cuff before working on Mr. Tabor’s books during the daytime hours or writing in his journal at home, and his wrist moved over freshly scrawled lettering not yet dried.

  “Papa?”

  Clifford looked up from the desk in the smallest room in his home northeast of downtown Denver to see his eldest daughter standing in the doorframe. With a wife and three daughters, whose wardrobes alone seemed to take up more space than he could comprehend, Clifford was content with a modest space on the ground floor where he could occasionally withdraw.

  “Good morning, Missouri.” Clifford found pleasure in speaking her full given name these days. He and Georgina had always called her Missy and perhaps always would sentimentally, but she was twenty-one now, a woman—and named for the state he hailed from. Sometimes, after all these years, Clifford liked to hear that name spoken as well.

  “Are you writing in your journal?” Missouri smoothed her skirt as she entered the room. “You don’t usually do that in the morning.”

  Clifford blew on the ink and then dabbed at the last word he’d written to test its dryness. Satisfied, he closed the journal.

  “I may not have time to write for a few days,” he said. “I have to make a trip.”

  “To the mines?”

  He nodded.

  “My mine? The Missouri Rise?”

  Clifford nodded again as he placed the brown leather journal on a shelf between the journal that had preceded his current volume and a thick dictionary. Missy had been a lifelong early riser, so how to name the mine for her had been no puzzle.

  “May I come?”

  “Not this time, Missy.”

  “Please, Papa.”

  “It’s not the right trip.”

  She stepped toward the desk. “I read the newspaper, Papa. Mama may have her head in the sand, but I don’t.”

  Clifford motioned for her to close the door, and she did.

  “I know what’s at stake,” Missouri said. “Silver has been at risk ever since President Cleveland was elected and promised to end the Sherman Silver Purchase Act.”

  “It’s more than that,” Clifford said. “The international markets are falling apart too. India—the news has not been good for a long time. The price is down to seventy-three cents an ounce.”

  Missouri paled. “That’s a dime less than two days ago.”

  “And a quarter less than a few months ago. We don’t know where the bottom will be.”

  Missouri leaned against the closed door. “You’re going up there to close the Missouri Rise.”

  “And the Decorah Runner and the Fidelity Wink.” His other two daughters had mines named for them also—their first names and nicknames from their youngest years. Decorah had begged to race him through the house daily until Georgina put her foot down about encouraging a bad habit, and Fidelity still hadn’t mastered winking only one eye but had amused him to no end trying. “And several for Mr. Tabor. His others are getting word to close as well. Nobody in the state will be mining silver anytime soon. There’s no profit in it anymore.”

  Her charcoal eyes widened.

  “You’re strong,” Clifford said. “I can tell you. We cannot afford to operate another day. We’ve been losing money hand over fist for weeks as it is. But don’t tell Corah or Lity yet.”

  “And Mama?”

  “I’ll have to figure that out when I get back. For now she thinks I’m going to do inspections as I usually do.” Clifford’s three mines were small, his own modest investments made by carefully saving from wages paid by Mr. Tabor over the years. After sinking money into men, equipment, and dynamite, they’d finally begun to produce ore he could take to market.

  And then the winds of the market shifted. Clifford didn’t know if they would ever be worth anything again. And Horace Tabor? He was heavily invested in silver mining all over the state. Despite his lavish lifestyle, he was overextended. Once the debt collectors came—Clifford shook off the thought.

  He hadn’t told Georgina, and he didn’t tell Missouri now, that Mr. Tabor hadn’t paid his salary in weeks, not since every mine in the state began bleeding faster than the wounds could be stanched.

  “I could still change clothes and ride up with you, Papa,” Missouri said. “You know I’m good on a horse.”

  “As fine as any man I know.” Clifford capped his fountain pen and stowed it in his desk drawer. “But not this time.”

  “Will you stay in Canyon Mines?”

  He nodded. The thirty-year-old town served as a focal point for many mines in the area. It was a reliable channel for supplies, a town where married miners could send their children to school, and a place where ore could be assayed to determine the strength of a vein before investing too heavily in the wrong place. Nearby narrow-gauge railroad tracks ensured cars of ore could get down to Denver for markets and supplies up to town to keep shops well stocked.

  Missouri’s eyes clouded even as her face held its composure.

  “I know you want to see him,” Clifford said softly.

  “What will he do?”

  “I don’t know. There will be many men in his position. But he has you.”

  “Will that be enough?”

  “One day at a time, Missy. Right now that’s all we can do.”

  Clifford kissed his daughter’s cheek and went to find his wife to bid her as cheerful a farewell as he could manage. The day had adequate light remaining to get to the Missouri Rise, do what he had to do, and bunk in for the night in Canyon Mines. He let Georgina pack one of his saddlebags with food for the journey, as she always did. The pit in his stomach likely would not allow him to partake of her provisions, and Canyon Mines offered hearty fare at reasonable prices, but to decline Georgina’s offer would only have made her fret, and his sweet Georgina found too much to fuss over as it was. She’d brooded over this property when they first considered it. The house was large, the yard longer than most in the vicinity, the stable out of place in a neighborhood built for access to streetcars or cabs. Yet she had liked the idea of a carriage, and they would grow into feeling at home in the house. So they’d bought it, and they kept horses that were temperate enough to pull the carriage but also take a saddle when called upon.

  Through the years, after Horace Tabor discovered Clifford Brandt working one of his mines, made him a manager, and assigned him progressive responsibility in Denver, Clifford had enjoyed the inspection tours between bookkeeping duties and hiring decisions. He could have taken a train to Canyon Mines, but once there he preferred to have his own horse to travel between the various locations he visited. The hours spent on his mare winding into the mountains, eyes bursting at the expanse of forest before him and sky above him, soothed whatever worried him. If only Georgina would let the mountains speak to her the way they did to him, she might find balm for her anxiety, at least in the moment.

  He reached the Missouri Rise, some miles west of Canyon Mines, before the crew was finished with their ten-hour shift. With the first vein of silver that paid off,
Clifford had gone straight home from selling the load of milled ore and handed Georgina a wad of bills to use to redecorate the front rooms of the house. This had given her great pleasure, and while choosing fabrics and designs generated some fretfulness, the final result made her proud. It made him proud too to see her happy. She had done well. Every guest to their home complimented her tasteful choices.

  Outside the mine, beside the pile of rocks that had been blasted out of the mountain, one firing of dynamite at a time, and hefted away from the tunnel’s entrance, Loren Wade swung his pickax into the ground and raised a hand to wave at Clifford. “This is unexpected.”

  Clifford swung off his horse. “I thought about sending a telegram that I was coming but decided just to come.” He could have sent a telegram ordering immediate cessation of work, but he owed the men some face-to-face explanation.

  “I’m glad you did.” Loren beckoned him toward the mine’s entrance. “Come on down.”

  Clifford pulled his watch from his vest pocket to glance at it. “Won’t the men be coming up soon?” All unmarried—Clifford couldn’t afford to pay men who had to support a family, and men couldn’t feed children on speculation—the small crew of four bunked in a nearby boardinghouse. “I don’t want them to miss their supper.”

  “We have time. Mrs. Mitchell knows not to set her table by our quitting hour.” Loren’s expression turned quizzical. “Aren’t you here to inspect? Advise? I think you’ll like what you see.”

  Clifford hesitated. What was the point of giving them false hope with an inspection of the vein they’d been working since his last visit? On the other hand, if the silver market didn’t recover, he might never have reason to descend a mine he owned again.

  In an oversuit to protect his good traveling clothes and armed with a hat and candle, Clifford followed the younger man down the ladder, remembering for a moment the way he used to scramble down in the manner Loren did now, mindless of how the rungs trembled beneath them, growing colder and damper with each yard deeper into the darkness. His spine tingled with crawling doubt as the shaft narrowed. Descending a hundred feet or more into pitch blackness was not natural, yet the thrill tantalized. The riches of Mother Earth were here, waiting to glitter in sunlight like newborns blinking in the first light of day. A drift ninety feet west had not yielded as much as they’d hoped two years ago, but another, shorter, in the other direction had done far better before it backstopped. Then they’d dropped down to create a second level. Many of the larger mines had four, five, or even six levels. Men descended in cages, not ladders, to work in teams around the clock, and mules that went down turned blind because they never again saw the sun as they labored moving cars through the tunnels. Horace Tabor could offer those more efficient conditions in large mines that churned out tons of ore daily, while Clifford still relied on his crew to push and leverage even the heaviest of work. Once the crew filled cars with ore, a hired team of mules dragged the cars to tracks to put them on a path to Denver. For all this Clifford needed strong, hardworking men.