Read Online Dorothy Garlock - [Wyoming Frontier] by Nightrose - Free Book Online

side of his hard mouth.
    “And that’s all he’s been up to?” Justin Rowe demanded of the Pinkerton man.
    “He hasn’t committed a crime, Mr. Rowe, if that’s what you mean.”
    “I’m paying a lot of money for this piddling information,” Justin sneered.
    He pushed the chair back with a force that sent it crashing into the wall behind, got up, and went to the window. He looked down at the carefully tended lawn that sloped to the Hudson River. His wife moved amid the rose bushes. Somehow, seeing the blond hair piled atop her small head kindled the memory of a dark head bending over it, and the dark, savage face of his half brother flashed before his eyes. Justin whirled, with the air of an angry king ready to slice the head from the one who had brought him bad news. The detective’s calm, his utter lack of servility, further infuriated him.
    “I want more! I want something that will completely discredit him!”
    The Pinkerton man got to his feet. “The facts are in the report, Mr. Rowe. Your brother went to Paris, buried his mother, and—”
    “My
half brother
!”
    “And when he returned he bought out the Farworth Mining Company’s holdings in southwest Montana Territory.”
    Justin returned to the desk, pulled the chair back in place and sat down again. He quickly thumbed through the neatly written pages of the report.
    “What’s the mine’s prospects? Is gold there?”
    “I’m not a miner, but what I understand from one who knows—not much.”
    Justin eyed him sharply. “Garrick is a lot of things, but he’s not a fool where money is concerned. He must have found something there worth buying.”
    “There’s the town of Trinity. I’ve heard it’s being abandoned as the gold peters out. I understand it’s not much of a town but for a few hastily constructed buildings and a hole in the mountain. You’ll find everything detailed in the report. The agency’s bill is attached. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have another appointment.”
    Justin stood and looked down at the shorter man, ignoring what he had said about leaving. “Women? Has there been one in particular?”
    “None during the past year and a half. Oh, there were the usual, a woman here, a woman there, but he didn’t see any one of them more than a half-dozen times.”
    “All blond, I suppose,” Justin said, his thin lips twisted in a sneer.
    “On the contrary. All had dark hair,” the detective was pleased to say.
    The Pinkerton man looked into the hard steel blue eyes of the financier and wondered what had caused this man to despise his brother so much that he would go to any means to discredit him. The small, balding detective had not liked this case from the beginning. He was a railroad detective. It went against his grain to investigate a man’s mother to determine if there had been something in her past that would have made her marriage to Justin Rowe’s father illegal and his half brother a bastard. Justin Rowe wished to challenge a will that divided the estate equally between the two men after provisions had been made for the widow. Half of Preston Rowe’s fortune would be more, much more, than most men dreamed of having, yet it seemed this greedy bastard wanted it all.
    “You may go.” The words came abruptly. Justin didn’t even look up at the man who stood before his desk.
    At the rude dismissal, the detective’s face reddened, and a fierce resentment boiled up within him. It would be worth a year’s pay to take the paper from his inside pocket and slam it on the desk. But the time wasn’t right. It contained information that had come to him during the course of the investigation— information Justin Rowe had not asked for, or paid for. The detective swallowed his pride; holding himself proudly erect, he crossed the Persian carpet to the door. The higher they fly the harder they fall, he thought, and let himself out.
    A small but pleasantly rounded woman came into the foyer from a room in the back. She had a