declared he’d find a job in the mining towns in Illinois. Brown hair, brown eyes, medium height, no discernible scars.
He sighed. That description could fit a couple hundred miners in Chestnut alone. He tossed the letter aside, feeling sorry for the frantic mother but not knowing how he could help her.
The door opened, and Paul Stillman stepped inside, stomping snow off his boots. “Afternoon, Jake. Got a minute?”
“Yes, sir. What is it?” Jake’s stomach churned. The look on the banker’s face told him this wasn’t a social call.
Stillman pulled a chair close to the stove and settled his heavyset frame into it. He took his time cleaning his glasses before spearing Jake with a concerned look. “Don’t know how to tell you this, Jake, so I’ll just come right on out and say it. You’re Seamus O’Leary’s sole heir. Besides his personal effects, you own his shares of the Black Gold mine.”
Jake stared at him, the wind nearly knocked out of his chest. “There was no next of kin?”
“None.”
“But why? Seamus knew none of us planned to open the mine back up.”
“Seamus came to see me not long after the mine explosion. He knew his health wasn’t the best, and he asked me to prepare a will and keep it at the bank.”
“So you’ve known all this time?”
Stillman nodded. “He asked me not to say anything until he died. He wasn’t a talkative man, but of all the shareholders, he knew he could count on you to do the right thing. He said when the chips were down, you’d do what needed to be done.”
Jake placed his palms on the paper-strewn desk and leaned back. “Mr. Stillman, I appreciate you telling me all this, but it doesn’t change a thing.”
“Other than the fact that you own 50 percent of the mine now.”
“That’s 50 percent I don’t want or need.”
Chapter Sixteen
Jake patted Miss Nellie on the shoulder and surveyed the damage to the boardinghouse’s café. “Don’t worry, Miss Nellie. Harvey will have everything set to right in no time.”
“But why would someone break in to my café?” She dabbed her eyes with a lacy handkerchief. “We don’t have anything of value.”
“They’re looking for money, food, or anything they can sell for cash.”
Miss Nellie gazed at him with red-rimmed eyes. “If they’re hungry, all they’ve got to do is ask. There wasn’t any need to tear things apart.”
Jake nodded. Miss Nellie would never turn a hungry child away. And neither would the orphanage. Which was why he couldn’t understand why these children wouldn’t go there. Livy insisted they were afraid. Afraid of what? Livy? Mrs. Brooks? Nothing to fear there. Unless he counted the way Livy made his heart pound. And the longer she held him at arm’s length, the worse the feeling got.
“Jake? Are you all right?”
Jake blinked and saw Miss Nellie staring at him, confusion lining her eyes.
“I’m fine. Just thinking.”
“Look at this mess.” Miss Nellie wiped her eyes again, then stuffed her hankie into an apron pocket.
Tables and chairs lay topsy-turvy, scattered across the floor as if an angry bull had rampaged through. Miss Nellie’s prized checkerboard tablecloths dotted the carnage. She trudged across the room, reached down and picked up a tablecloth, shook it out, and started folding it into a small neat square, sniffling as she went.
Jake set the tables and chairs to rights in no time and stepped into the kitchen. He spotted Harvey trying to tilt a corner pie safe upright. “Here, let me help you with that.”
The two righted the cabinet and pushed the furniture into the corner where it had sat as long as Jake could remember. Many a night since he’d started boarding with the Bakers’, he’d raided that pie safe for a piece of Miss Nellie’s chocolate cake or apple pie.
Too bad he hadn’t been around last night. Maybe he would have heard the commotion. Nobody else had. Harvey couldn’t hear spit, and Miss Nellie slept like the dead.
Harvey grabbed a bucket and tossed a pie in. Jake hunkered down and salvaged two loaves of bread wrapped in cheesecloth. “Harvey, do you know what’s missing?”
“Huh?”
Jake raised his voice. “Anything missing?”
“The money from the cash box.”
“The one Miss Nellie kept in the pie safe?”
“Yeah. Been telling her for years not to leave it there. But she wouldn’t listen. Said if somebody needed it more than she did, they were welcome to it.”
“Well, I guess somebody took her at her word.” Jake sat back on his heels, elbows resting on his knees, and