Hard Money Read Free Page B

desk to face Seay. “I won’t put a good face on it, Seay. Some interests in this ore field won’t stop short of murder to kill this tunnel idea. The men I can trust are few. You’ll be one of them. The only thing I can do is pay you well, insure your life and depend on your loyalty. Is that enough?”
    Seay nodded, still looking at the map.

Chapter Two
    Sharon woke at noon and found Sarita, her Spanish maid brought from San Francisco, standing over her.
    â€œHow long have you been here?” Sharon asked.
    â€œTen minutes, miss.”
    â€œWhat time is it?”
    â€œAfter twelve, Miss Sharon.”
    â€œHeavens. And I’m to have lunch with Hugh at twelve-thirty. Is he here?”
    â€œYes, miss.”
    Sharon rose on one elbow and looked around the room. Her clothes were laid out, and everything was in order. Still, the hotel room was depressing, and she lay back on the pillow after dismissing Sarita. Her conversation with her father at four o’clock this morning was still running through her mind. He had finished his business then, had awakened her to say good-by and had talked for more than an hour, sitting here on the edge of her bed. And in that hour she learned many things. She wondered if she was remembering them rightly, or if she had been so sleepy that she had things confused. Hadn’t her father said that he’d hired a new superintendent—this man whom she’d met earlier in the evening—and that he was a professional gambler? Yet this couldn’t be right. Sharon scowled and looked down at the bedspread. Yes, there was a smear of ashes that her father had dropped from his cigar, and the dirty marks of his boots where he had rested them on the edge of the bed, so she knew she hadn’t dreamed it.
    Throwing back the covers, she rose and walked over to her dressing table, picked up her brushes and rang for Sarita.
    It was a little less than an hour later when she appeared in the parlor of their suite. Hugh Mathias was standing there smiling, and she walked over to him and received his kiss on her cheek and then said, “Good morning, darling.”
    Her blue dress gave color to that drab room, even to the neat black broadcloth suit that Hugh was wearing. Another man might have exclaimed over the dress, but Hugh Mathias did not. His frank blue eyes admired it, and Sharon understood and smiled back at him.
    â€œYou’ve been drinking,” she said, pointing a finger at him.
    â€œCustomers. A machinery salesman this time. I’m going to hire a secretary with a castiron stomach to receive my callers.” Hugh grinned down at her. He was tall and wore his clothes with the easy grace of a man used to fine living. He had a mobile, friendly face beneath a smooth cap of neatly groomed blond hair, and he looked as immaculate in his way as Sharon did in hers.
    â€œI’ve ordered. Shall we eat here or downstairs?” he asked her.
    Sharon said, “This is stuffy. Let’s go down.”
    Once in the gilded dining room downstairs, they were shown to a wall table, and Sharon looked around her. Immediately she smiled at this pretence of elegance. In San Francisco, there was a beginning of fine living, and they had tried to ape it here. But the room smelled of cooked food, the waiters were unshaven, and it was easy to track a round dozen of the less well dressed diners across the red plush carpet by the dirt they had left on it. The slovenliness of the frontier still stamped it.
    â€œI’m sorry I was late, Hugh,” Sharon murmured. “Dad came in just before he left, and we talked till all hours of the morning.”
    â€œWas he sober?”
    Sharon looked swiftly at Hugh, but the smile on his face took away the impertinence of his question.
    â€œOf course. Why?”
    â€œI’ve been hearing things.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œLike this new superintendent. Have you heard it, or did he tell you?”
    â€œHe