The Green Lace Corset, стр. 18

A little while later, her phone pinged with a text. Not him, not now.

Sergio: Hi Bigfoot.

Anne smiled at his nickname for her, his way of teasing about her size 9 shoes.

Anne: Hi.

Sergio: I’m flying in tomorrow. Want to hang out?

What? Just yesterday she’d agreed to see him the next time he came to town.

She wrote: That was fast.

Sergio: I was so happy you said you’d see me that I couldn’t wait.

Her heart tingled. She’d thought being with someone else might take care of her feelings for Sergio, but after last night’s disaster, she wanted him back in her life more than ever. She needed to resist that urge, though.

She lied: I have to work.

Sergio: How about happy hour?

After her behavior last night, she imagined she’d be able to see Sergio without being tempted to jump back into bed with him. Even though they were broken up, would she feel guilty when she saw him?

Anne: Okay.

Sergio: I’ll come by.

Anne: No, no. I’ll meet you somewhere.

Sergio: How about Top of the Mark?

That romantic. He knew the Mark. It had the best sunset views in town. They’d tried to eat there when they were still together, but the line had been too long, and, as usual, Sergio had been hungry and didn’t want to wait. The restaurant didn’t take reservations for dinner, but since tomorrow was a weeknight, it should be easy to get a table.

Anne: Perfecto.

She set her alarm for two hours, turned off her phone, and fell asleep again.

At noon, her alarm woke her. She still felt groggy from her headache and continued to loll in bed. The sky painting on the easel called to her, but she had no energy to create any art. What a waste of a day.

She made coffee, ate a few saltines, took more Advil, and climbed back into bed. Her phone had no messages. All was quiet on the western front.

Scrolling through her photos, she ran across a selfie of her and Barn that she didn’t remember taking. Fortunately, the bar had been dark, and no one could tell who she was, so it wasn’t really evidence of last night’s fiasco. But she deleted it anyway.

She checked out the wanted poster from Ruby’s. The bandit’s name was Clifford Clifton, alias Cliff Clabourn. Was it a print of an authentic poster, or had someone created it just for decor? Was this Clifford a real outlaw?

She pulled up the picture on her laptop and zoomed in on the small print at the bottom of the poster. She typed “Kansas City” and “1885” into Google, and several interesting historical snippets appeared on a website called Missouri Outlaw History.

Southwest City, Missouri

On May 20, 1895, the Bill Doolin Gang attempt to rob the bank but are thwarted. State auditor J. C. Seaborn is killed, and Bill Doolin receives a head wound.

La Grange, Missouri

February 27, 1887: Bank is robbed of $21,000. Melvin E. Baughn, 1836–68, b. Virginia, moved to Missouri

He was a pony express rider, guerrilla raider, jayhawker, horse thief, robber, and killer. Before he was hanged in Kansas, he requested to be buried in Doniphan, Missouri.

A really great guy.

Clay Wilson and Conrad W. Caddigan, July 1, 1884, were caught with gambling implements and bunco material in their possession. They are well known to western detectives as smart confidence men and thieves.

Anne googled “confidence man.”

noun: confidence man; plural noun: confidence men

              1.         old-fashioned term for con man.

That’s hysterical. The opposite of what you’d think it would mean. Howard would have called Barnaby that. Anne kept scrolling through the outlaw information, and a chill traveled up her spine as she read the next entry:

Kansas City, Missouri, September 8, 1885:

BANK ROBBED!

The spirit of Jesse James is still rampant in Missouri. The National Bank was robbed in the old Missouri way today. Shortly after one o’clock, two men wearing slouch hats and kerchiefs over their faces entered the bank, drew revolvers, and pointed them at the two customers, cashier, and guard. The prisoners were told that if they made an outcry, they would be shot dead. Cashier Hunt was marched behind the counter with a pistol at his head and forced to open the safe.

Anne held her breath and kept reading.

One of the thieves tossed $10,000 in a bag and demanded more. The cashier said that was all the cash in the bank. He was then marched back to the other prisoners. The guard pulled out his gun and shot one of the robbers, and the other robber shot the guard, grabbed a female customer, pointed a gun to her chest, and warned the prisoners to stay back or he’d kill her. He then told them to remain in the bank for ten minutes, on pain of death. He let the woman go and ran out the door with the money. The cashier did not wait for the limit of time to expire but gave the alarm as soon as the robber was out of the building. The authorities were too late, as the robber had mounted and left town. A posse was sent out, but so far, the thief has not been captured. The directors of the bank offer a $1,000 reward for him. This is the second robbery that has taken place in the vicinity in the past month.

Oh my God. Could this Clifford be the real robber? She typed in his names and “Kansas City,” but nothing came up. Maybe he got on a train, rode it west, and ended up in an Arizona saloon with a girl in a green corset. Anne laughed at herself as her wild imagination exploded again.