Kitabı oku: «Reckless»
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Excerpt
Dear Reader
Title Page
About the Author
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Copyright
Wyn regained her senses first
“We can’t do this. Must forget it ever happened,” she insisted, her breathing still labored.
“Forget it? The bloody hell I can forget it.” Garrett took one long stride and reached for her.
Wyn slipped away. “We have to,” she said. “Have to make sure it never happens again.”
“Wyn!”
She evaded him, taking running steps back into the glow of lantern light. She turned as she pulled open the hatch, looking back at him over her shoulder, sorrow and regret clear in her eyes. “It can’t,” she said. “It can’t.”
Before he could stop her or ask for an explanation, Wyn was gone, slipping through the hatch, headed back to the safety of the stateroom she shared with her widowed friend, leaving him alone with the increasing whine of the wind and the echo of longing he’d heard in her voice….
Dear Reader,
This month, we are very pleased to be able to introduce Silhouette Yours Truly and Special Edition author Beth Henderson to our readers with her first historical for Harlequin, Reckless, the story of a young woman, accused of being a jewel thief, who is rescued by a mysterious baron intent on clearing her name. The Literary Times calls Beth Henderson’s writing “fresh and creative,” and we hope you’ll agree.
Rae Muir, whose first book, The Pearl Stallion, made Affaire de Coeur’s Top Ten List for 1996, is back with All But the Queen of Hearts, a lively Western set in Nevada Territory with an unsinkable heroine whose determination and skill in the kitchen finally win the heart of her reluctant hero. Also keep an eye out for Laurie Grant’s new Western, Lawman, the fast-paced sequel to her 1996 release. Devil’s Dare, about a lonely lawman who rediscovers love in the arms of his childhood sweetheart.
And for those of you who enjoy the Regency era, Taylor Ryan’s The Essential Wife is the delightful story of a dashing nobleman who suddenly finds himself in love with the penniless heiress whom he has arranged to marry out of pity.
We hope you’ll look for all four of these wonderful books, wherever Harlequin Historicals are sold.
Sincerely,
Tracy Farren
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to:
Harlequin Reader Service
U.S. 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
Reckless
Beth Henderson
www.millsandboon.co.uk
BETH HENDERSON
began writing when she was in the seventh grade and ran out of Nancy Drew books to read. It took another couple of decades, and a lot of distractions and pro-crastination, before her first book appeared in print.
That happened in May of 1990, and since that time she has written romantic-suspense, historical, young adult and contemporary romance under a variety of names for a variety of publishers.
Although a native of Ohio, Beth spent twenty years in the West, living in Tucson, Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada. During that time she sampled a number of professions and has been a copywriter and traffic director in radio, done print display advertising and been a retail department manager. Now returned to her hometown, she is thrilled to be a full-time writer and loves to hear from readers. Her address is P.O. Box 262, Englewood, Ohio 45322, U.S.A.
To my aunts, Catherine Hemme Ocskasy and Marjorie Daniels Schemmel
Prologue
San Francisco, 1879
With the heavy brocade drapes drawn, only a sliver of moonlight entered the room. It was enough to catch the gleam of cut stones and to silver the rich setting as the necklace dangled from the dark-gloved hand.
The thief smiled, a small, self-satisfied curving of the lips, and admired the piece. The diamonds were as clear as water and nicely matched. They had been hoarded away in a vault at the bank for years, nearly forgotten by the family, before Oswin Hartleby had remembered them. His first wife had been a rarity in San Francisco society for she hadn’t cared for ostentation. But Hartleby’s second and much younger bride liked to flaunt his wealth. To please her, he’d spent a fortune having the diamonds made up in a glittering necklace and matching earrings: The gold for the setting had come from his own mines.
Nearly played out mines.
Of course, no one had known that until life with a wife forty years his junior had been the death of old Hartleby. There were some who claimed that, married to the coldly beautiful Hildegarde Keyes, Oswin’s last years had been joyless. It was the young widow who wasn’t smiling now. Hartleby’s will had been read the day before and the news had sped about town, running rampant through the parlors. Oswin Hartleby had left few bequests and astonishingly high debts.
Old fool, the thief thought in derision, then grinned widely in amusement. Poor Hildy. Having lost her husband, she was about to lose her precious diamonds, as well. If not to a thief in the night, or hungry debtors, then to her prickly middle-aged stepchildren who felt the exquisite set should remain in their care.
The stones shimmered in the thin ray of moonlight. The necklace was a gaudy trinket in many ways. It reeked of new money, lacking the taste that came with inherited wealth.
It was much admired in San Francisco.
If, by some chance, the widow didn’t weep for it, there were a good many other covetous women in the city who would.
The necklace dropped into a dark bag with a slight tinkle of sound and was joined by the matching earrings. There was little else of interest in the jewelry box to add to the cache. Although they’d been married nearly five years, Hildy had received promises from Oswin rather than more baubles. The thief closed the lid quietly and walked silently to the window. More moonlight spilled into the room, outlining the dark-clothed form as the drapes were parted. If there had been another in the room they would have seen a figure of average height but little else. A silk mask covered the lower section of the thief’s face, a cloth cap disguised both the color and length of the robber’s hair. A shapeless sack coat and baggy trousers hid any trace of build. To all intents and purposes it had been a shadow that had retrieved the diamonds from the wall safe in Hartleby’s house.
If any of the sleeping residents heard a sound in the master suite, they put it down to Oswin Hartleby’s ghost Now that he was gone, his young widow had moved her personal belongings to a more cheerful room down the hall.
The thief moved quickly, letting the drapes fall closed, returning the room to its peaceful slumber. Outside the night grew attentive to a shadow’s needs. Tendrils of fog stretched from the sea to shroud the moon. When the veil was complete, the thief slid from hiding, hastening to take Hartleby’s diamonds to their new home.
Chapter One
The slap echoed in the parlor.
A lone beam of sunlight shone through the bow window, falling on the intense young couple who stood frozen in the center of the room. It burnished the pale flaxen locks of the woman, and brought a brighter sheen to the rose fabric of her afternoon gown and the multilayered train that spilled away from it across the fading patterns in the Oriental rug. The man’s dark-suited back was turned away from the day, his expression temporarily masked by shadows and the tawny, rather rakish side whiskers that framed his lean cheeks.
The woman was the first to recall her lines, words she had heard other women speak, words she had never thought to utter, especially to this man.
“How dare you,” Winona Abbot rasped. Her hand stung sharply, a physical reflection of the blow Deegan Galloway had dealt her ego.
“I love you,” he answered simply. “I made a mistake and…”
“A mistake!” Wyn swung away from him. Crossing the room, she snapped open the pocket doors. Moments ago they had turned the front parlor of her family’s Nob Hill mansion into a private haven for lovers. Now that same sanctuary felt like a prison that confined Deegan and her in each other’s company.
“You don’t understand, Wyn,” he said.
She wheeled back to face him, the rich fabric of her train whirling with the motion. “Oh, I understand only too well. It was never me you cared about, Deegan. It was my dowry. After all,” she snapped, her usually soft tone harsh with sarcasm, “there is so much a man can accomplish with a quarter of a million dollars.”
He stood his ground on center stage, the imprint of her hand still clear on his face. “With you it was never the money, Wyn. Never.”
If he meant to pacify her with the compliment, the effort was a failure. Her deep green eyes, dark lashed and mysteriously foreign against her fair coloring, flashed with indignation. The delicate curve of her chin tilted upward in a challenge. “So you admit it You are a fortune hunter.”
Deegan drew a deep breath, the air hissing through his clenched teeth. “I wish to God I knew who told you about Leonore Cronin.”
There was a part of her that wished she had never learned of his perfidy, as well. But she had, from Leonore’s own lips. “Did you think she and I didn’t travel in the same circles, Deegan?”
“I thought,” he said, “that you would understand when I did the girl a kindness…”
Wyn’s brows rose at the inappropriateness of the term.
Deegan plowed on as if he hadn’t noticed, “…and danced attendance on her last night. She looked so miserable sitting with the chaperons along the wall. I merely asked her to dance.”
“I see. And was it then or on a previous occasion that you poured honeyed love words in her shell-like ears?”
She noticed Deegan had the grace to look embarrassed at hearing his own words thrown back in his face. How many times had he praised her own beauty using the trite phrase? How many times had she fallen happily into his arms, her maidenly reserve melted by his murmured praises of her charms?
At twenty-five, Wyn had thought she knew the wiles of men well enough not to make herself a fool over one of them. She had been wrong.
Wyn turned her back on Deegan, unwilling any longer to gaze on his handsome features. She had believed she loved him and yet had never been sure of him, never trusted him. That being so, the pain of his deception should not be this sharp. Wyn rested her brow against the highly polished molding around the door. “Oh, Deegan,” she whispered in anguish, “tell me true. Was this gallant behavior begun before or after you discovered Leonore’s father made his fortune in Nevada silver? Did you know she is his sole heir?”
When he didn’t answer immediately, her heart broke a little more.
“Wyn…” Deegan took a step toward her, his hand touched her shoulder.
“Don’t.” She didn’t want him to lie to her anymore, wouldn’t tempt him to do so for the sake of a relationship that, for her, no longer existed. Wyn straightened her shoulders, gathered her courage. “I think it would be best if you left.”
Deegan’s hand fell away. “You aren’t being fair to me, Wyn,” he said quietly. “I love you. You love me. I would think you’d be pleased that I played Galahad for your little friend.”
Played Galahad. Is that what he called the hours he’d spent with Leonore? According to the desolate girl, he had called on her with flowers, had whispered tender words, had squired her on rides through the park, had in every instance shown that he was courting her. In Leonore’s eyes Deegan had done everything except formally ask for her hand. Earlier that day when they had both chanced to visit the same home, Leonore had burst into tears when Wyn was teased about her own relationship with Deegan Galloway. Flinging the accusation that Wyn had set out to steal her fianc#233;, Leonore had run from the room, leaving an embarrassed silence behind her.
“Please, Wyn. Forgive me,” Deegan pleaded softly.
How could a woman forgive unfaithfulness? It was the ultimate insult and Deegan had compounded it by being unfaithful to two women at once.
Surreptitiously Wyn regarded him, her gaze dispassionate. Once she had thought his brown eyes to be beautiful, an almost feminine feature in his otherwise masculine face. But now there was a desperation in them when they met hers. Rather than eliciting tenderness and compassion, the emotion hardened Wyn’s heart. Leonore had looked that way before fleeing earlier that day. Wyn would never forget that moment, or the man who had caused the younger woman such pain and disillusionment.
“I think you’d better go, Deegan,” Wyn said.
Long after he’d collected his hat and stormed out of the house, Wyn continued standing at the front window, staring out unseeing over the city, remembering.
They had met at a ball, introduced by her elder brother. Wyn had thought the men were business associates. She certainly saw Deegan at all the Nob Hill parties. She had begun to look forward to his attendance on her, to his tenderly whispered compliments, to his growingly insistent kisses.
She had been so close to succumbing to Deegan’s wishes. He had wanted her. Her, not her dowry, even if she had flung that accusation at him. Compared to the fortune Leonore Cronin would inherit, the sum settled on herself appeared minuscule. Fool that she was, she had thought he cared for her. His protestations of love had been many, always followed by kisses guaranteed to undermine a maiden’s resolve. As she weakened, Deegan grew bolder until she had begun to crave the stolen minutes, the clandestine caresses, with the passion of an opium eater. Wyn grew flushed at the memory of the time they had spent together, longing for what she would no longer have and embarrassed that she had so forgotten herself in sampling those forbidden delights.
The future of which she had dreamed would no longer become a reality, for with Deegan went her last hope. While her friends had found mates and married, she was still alone, a spinster, on the shelf, overlooked or forgotten when it came to love.
The truth was difficult to admit. She was an acclaimed beauty, an heiress. With those lures to attract a mate, why had she not been able to find a man who drew her?
Even Deegan, handsome and charming as he was, hadn’t managed to do that. She had been tempted…only tempted.
The sun slipped into the western seas unnoticed. The sky grew dusky and lamps came to life in the nearby homes and along the sloping streets. Unseen, a maid came to attend to the gas jets in the hall, only to creep silently away from the parlor rather than disturb Wyn. It was only when the front door swung shut and impatient male footsteps sounded in the entryway that Wyn came out of her reverie.
“What the devil are you doing in the dark?” a man’s voice demanded.
Wyn turned from the window at the first bark of her older brother’s voice. “Oh, hello, Pierce. Back already?”
He tossed aside his hat and fumbled for a match in the pocket of his coal black frock coat. “Already? I stayed at the shipping office an hour later just trying to catch up on various matters. I’ve got a train to catch tomorrow, if you recall.”
The match scraped to life. A moment later the room was filled with the soft glow of light. Pierce adjusted the gas jet on the wall then dropped full length onto the plump cushions of the sofa. “Don’t you know it’s damn cold in here, Wyn?”
“Is it? I hadn’t noticed.”
He glanced at her, a frown of concern drawing his dark brown brows together over his straight patrician nose. “Not coming down with something, are you, Ace?”
Wyn shrugged. “Do you want a fire?”
“Lord, yes. But first, tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing. I’ve just been thinking.” Wyn gathered her narrow skirts and sank companionably to the floor near him. “Do you still need financing for the new ship?”
Pierce pushed off one shoe then the other. The sound of each falling was hollow against the tongue-and-groove wood flooring. “Let’s just say the bank is anxious. They’d like a payment since we’re running behind schedule on building the Nereid. Are you going to light a fire, or do I have to do it?”
“I’ll do it. Have you got another lucifer?” He fumbled in his pocket again and passed her a match. Wyn leaned forward on her knees to light the fire. It had been laid on the hearth earlier by a maid in anticipation of the damp San Francisco evening. “Just how much does the bank want?”
“More than I feel comfortable discussing,” Pierce admitted. Although he had become titular head of the Shire Shipping Line in the past year, Wyn knew her brother had moments when he doubted his ability to run the family business.
The flame caught the tinder and ate greedily along the underside of a log. Wyn sat back on her heels and leaned one arm along the sofa cushions where her brother lay stretched out. “On my last birthday, you and Pop arranged for me to have some money of my own,” she said.
“Your dowry, Ace. Besides, you’ll need it to reel Galloway in.”
“Mr. Galloway has proven to be a cad,” Wyn said tightly.
Pierce sucked in air between his teeth. “Worse than me, huh?”
“Infinitely worse than you.”
He shook his head sadly. “Damn, and I thought I held the record. I guess you found out about the mouse.”
“Leonore Cronin? Yes, I did. Do you mean to tell me, you knew he was courting her and didn’t tell me?”
Pierce snorted. “La Cronin didn’t have a chance against you, Ace. And so I told anyone willing to give me odds on the outcome.”
Wyn sighed. “If you had a wager on it, I can understand why you didn’t drop a hint. What was my standing in this particular race?”
“Hell, you were the favorite, of Galloway and of the betting books.”
“Thank you for the kind compliment, brother dear,” Wyn murmured, her spirits beginning to return. Having the matter reduced to the level of a sporting event put things in a different perspective, making it appear ridiculous for her to continue railing against fate.
“I’m sorry I lost you your wager.”
Pierce sighed deeply. “You know I’ve always been a rotten gambler. Let’s hope I’m a better businessman.”
Wyn smiled warmly at him. “You are, much to the astonishment of the business community. Tell me truthfully, Pierce. Is the Nereid bankrupting you?”
“Truthfully? Nearly. That’s why I’m leaving for Boston tomorrow to oversee the final construction. It means changing my schedule. I won’t be able to sail on her maiden-voyage as planned. However, a personal appearance on my part now should soothe the bankers. Our Shire cousins are careful administrators in the Eastern office, but they don’t see the Nereid as a necessary expansion of our business.”
“The Shire Line has always carried passengers,” Wyn said. She held her palms toward the fire, suddenly aware of how cool the room had become. “And each year we’ve ordered larger ships to be built.”
“Maybe it’s just me,” Pierce said. When Wyn made a discouraging noise, he laughed. “Okay, it’s the expense. We’ve never gone in for steamships before, and the Nereid is more than just that. She’s a luxury liner, designed specifically for passenger business rather than shipping.”
Wyn stared into the fire and came to a decision. “Pierce, I want you to take my money. All of it.”
He sat up abruptly. “Hell, no!” His stockinged feet hit the floor with an emphatic thud. “I do have my pride, Wyn. Pop and I worked it all out when I decided to take over the Shire office. Rather than divide the company up into shares, I bought each of my siblings out. That money is yours, Ace. It belongs solely to you and your future husband.”
“I’m not going to have a future husband.” Wyn took his hands in hers and gazed up into her brother’s concerned face. “Don’t you see? This is the perfect solution. I do believe in your plans for the Nereid.” At his doubtful expression, she squeezed his hands. “All right, it’s you I believe in, Pierce, in your dreams for the line. I want to invest my money back into it. Think of it as a loan. You can pay me interest, dividends, whatever you want to call it.”
He wasn’t convinced. “And if indeed I do bankrupt the company with this scheme? You’ll lose it all, Ace.”
“Then you can take care of me for the rest of my life,” she assured him brightly. “I’m not worried. The point is, you need to pay the bank something on account and I want to tie my dowry up so that it is no longer a lure for fortune hunters.”
Pierce still looked doubtful. “You haven’t thought this through, Wyn. I know it sounds good to you at the moment. Hell, it sounds like a godsend to me and you know I’m a proven cad who’ll leave you high and dry like I did…”
Wyn pressed a hand to his lips, silencing the grim reminder of the girl he’d nearly wed.
“You won’t let me down, Pierce. I know you won’t. I can’t say the same about any other man and since I can’t, the best thing to do is never marry.”
He removed her hand from where it sealed his mouth. “Don’t gammon me, Wyn. You’re a beautiful woman. There’ll be lots of men who want you whether you’ve got a dowry handy or not.”
A smile crept to her lips. “Are you going to take my money?”
“Hell, yes, I’m going to take it. I’m not that noble. But I’ll do so on one condition only. Since I can’t be there, you’ve got to be the family representative aboard the Nereid for her maiden voyage,” Pierce insisted.
Wyn cocked her head to one side. “Can I take Hildy with me?”
Pierce’s brows rose in mock surprise. “The far-from-sedate Widow Hartleby?”
“She’s on the verge of a decline,” Wyn divulged.
Pierce’s mobile brows snapped together over the bridge of his nose. “Probably more so over the loss of her diamonds than over old Hartleby’s demise. However, since you can’t exactly travel alone—”
“You prude,” she accused.
“Where my sister is concerned? Damn right, woman. I suppose Hildy is a better solution than hiring a companion.
“She’s nearly a pauper,” Wyn said.
“I’ll arrange her passage, but that’s it,” Pierce insisted.
Wyn surged to her feet and, plumping down on the sofa next to him, hugged her brother fiercely. “It’s a deal. You are the best of relatives no matter what the others say.”
Pierce’s frown darkened even more. “And what exactly does the rest of our family say, my dear Winona?”
The bellboy caught the coin, his eyes widening in surprise as he recognized the denomination, and responded by giving the man who’d tossed it a snappy salute.
Amused by the youth’s enthusiasm, Garrett Blackhawk smiled as he pocketed the telegram the lad had presented and closed the door of his suite at the Palace Hotel.
The boy was his second welcome interruption of the evening. The visitor sprawled in the comfortable chair by the fireplace had been the first, delaying Garrett’s dressing for the dinner party he wished to avoid. The delivery had delayed Deegan Galloway’s pitch.
“Forgive the intrusion, Dig. You were saying that you’re persona non grata in Frisco?” Garrett asked, drop-ping with careless elegance into another chair, his right leg thrown loosely over the padded arm. He was in his shirtsleeves, evening trousers donned, starched shirtfront and collar in place, tie still dangling loosely around his neck. Although the clock on the mantelpiece was a constant reminder that he was late, Garrett made no attempt to rush his unexpected guest. Instead he reached for the cigarette papers and bag of tobacco on the table at his side and began rolling a smoke.
Deegan sighed deeply and buried his nose in a snifter of brandy before answering. “I was merely hedging my bets, Garrett. There’s no way around it. I’ve got to marry a woman with money or seek employment. Either one will have to be done in another city. Between them, those two women will make it impossible for me to succeed here.”
Blackhawk deftly sealed the edge of his cigarette and soon had obscured his face behind a screen of smoke. He’d heard it said that he fit his name well. Some insisted that, like a hawk, there was a predatory gleam in the obsidian shadows of his eyes, and a hunter’s alertness in the tall, tapered frame of his body. His hair was sable in color, luxuriant in texture, and frequently tousled. Although born an English gentleman, of late his skin had been warmed to a primitive bronze by the sun of three continents. The craggy lines of his face could have belonged to a Spaniard, a Bedouin or a Mayan, and, at one time or another during his travels, Garrett had found it prudent to assume the identity of each in turn. He was careful in his choice of companions, allowing very few to know him well. Deegan Galloway was one of the specially chosen permitted to see the man beneath the mask.
Garrett drew deeply on his cigarette, savoring the taste of tobacco on his tongue, enjoying the slight euphoria of the smoke in his lungs. “You have my abject sympathy,” he assured Galloway.
“Sure and it isn’t enough,” Deegan drawled in an exaggerated brogue, then abandoned the affectation, returning to his normal speaking voice. “I came begging a grubstake as you very well know.”
Blackhawk reached for his own glass of brandy, adding the lush body of the wine to the tally of sensory delights he planned to sample over the course of the evening. His current company was pleasant, and the brisk dampness of the San Francisco air reminded him sharply and depressingly of home. It was one of the reasons he was anxious to leave the city. Business kept him a temporary captive.
A hardwood fire burned on the hearth, efficiently warming the hotel room. It reminded him of nights before the huge fireplaces at Hawk’s Run in Shropshire, only there the heat would have been supplied by locally mined coal. The estate might well be as distant as the moon for all the thought he’d given it over the past two years.
“If you want a position that will take you far away, you’re welcome to become my secretary and take up residence at the Run,” Garrett offered. “It would be a favor that would enable me to stay blissfully distant from the place.”
Deegan chuckled. “Trying to turn me into an Irish peasant? You forget I’m an American, born and bred. My da was the potato eater. Although your largess is appreciated, I’ll stay on this side of the Atlantic. A monetary handout will be more than sufficient, my friend.”
Garrett grinned in response to Galloway’s request. “At least you know your limits. I notice you didn’t ask for a loan.”
“Lord, no.” Deegan swished the brandy in his glass, watching the liquid swirl. “You’d never get it back, and well you know it, old chap.”
Garrett took another soothing draw on his cigarette. Rolling his own had become a habit, one picked up out of necessity during his travels. It made him feel self-sufficient, perhaps a ridiculous affectation, but one he had no intention of giving up. “Did you love her?”
“Who?”
He’d known Deegan long enough to recognize when his friend was evading something. ‘’Whichever. You said there were two women.”
Deegan tossed off the last of his brandy. “Devilish greedy bastard, aren’t I? Most men would be content with winning one heiress.” He reached for the brandy decanter on the table between them. “What makes you think I loved them?”
“Not them, just one,” Garrett clarified. “Do I need more than the fact that you rarely drink?”
On the point of refilling his goblet, Deegan halted. Garrett blew a series of smoke rings while his friend struggled silently within himself.
Deegan set the decanter down and pushed his empty glass away. “It’s the situation, not the woman. Besides.” he insisted lightly, “you know I love money more than I could ever love any woman.”
It was interesting how a man could lie to himself, Garrett mused as he drew on his cigarette. Interesting how he could believe the lie. “Tell me about her anyway, Dig,” he urged.
Deegan slumped deep into the cushions of his chair, stretched his legs out and grinned. “Not believin’ me, are ye, laddie,” he said. “The lady’s not for me. Knew it the moment I set eyes on her. She’s so beautiful, so graceful.” The artificial lilt dropped from Deegan’s voice, replaced by a quality that could only be described, Garrett felt, as dreamy. “It was like seeing an angel to watch her dance,” Deegan continued. “She glides, my friend. Glides. And when a man waltzes with her it’s akin to floating right in the clouds.”
Garrett smiled faintly. “Sounds to me as if Cupid’s sunk his arrow deep.” He drew a final lungful of smoke and leaned forward to toss the butt of his cigarette into the fire.
“Hmm,” Deegan murmured thoughtfully. “Doubtful, my lad. How could I be when she deserves someone like you?”
Caught exhaling the smoke, Garrett choked. “Bloody hell, Dig,” he gasped when he could breathe once more. “You don’t have to kill me to get into my wallet.”
“My point exactly. I get by on my wits…”
“Such as they are,” Garrett grumbled, uneasy at the turn the conversation had taken.
“But you, my friend,” Deegan insisted with a wry grin, “have the magic touch. You seem to make money by merely thinking about it Little did I know when I rescued you from that strumpet in Sonora…”
Garrett got to his feet with languorous grace. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here and listen to your insults,” he said, leaning toward the mirror that hung over the mantelpiece and turning his attention to the involved process of fixing his tie. “You rescued me? That isn’t how I re-member the event. If memory serves, there was a lynch mob after you when you barged into my bedroom.”
“All in your perception, my friend. As I was saying…”
“And loving the sound of your own voice,” Garrett dded under his breath. It had been a decidedly nasty hock to have Deegan turn the conversation on him. If here was something he didn’t need in his life right now t was a beauty with ethereal habits. That kind of woman welonged to the life he abhorred, the life that would claim him once more in the distant future.
Gliding and floating. Garrett fumed silently as he looped the narrow band of black silk into a crisp bow. Deegan may claim he wasn’t in love with the woman, but he wouldn’t convince anyone else with talk like that.
Deegan was listing the physical attributes of his goddess now. Garrett wished he hadn’t drawn the man out. If only he’d turned Dig away earlier instead of welcoming him as a savior. If only he’d made a stir when the telegram had arrived, the whole mess would have—
Telegram.
“You remember where I put that blasted wire?” Garrett demanded, interrupting Deegan in midsentence. Something about hair of spun gold.
“In your pocket,” Deegan supplied. “Now her eyes are…
Garrett stopped listening again. “Why do I have such cursedly abominable taste in friends?” he asked.
“You mean me,” Deegan said, far from insulted. “It’s your money, laddie. It attracts rogues like myself.”
“Meaning if I had my wits about me, I’d stop finding ways to make more of it,” Blackhawk growled. The paper he’d received from the bellboy was creased from his own careless handling. Absently Garrett smoothed it out. “You might be interested in this, Dig. I’ve been waiting to hear from a man in Cheyenne. I’m thinking of investing in a cattle ranch in Wyoming Territory.”
“Spare me,” Deegan pleaded. He reached for the cigarette materials and was soon tapping tobacco along the length of the small square of paper in his hand. “No doubt a week from now you’ll be camped in some forsaken spot staring deeply into a complacent cow’s brown eyes. Cattle.” He signed in resignation. “Who would ever have believed a civilized Englishman would prefer the face of a longhorn to that of a beautiful woman?”
“I don’t,” Garrett said, at last opening his message. “Beautiful women always rank ahead of a cow, although the cow will give me less trouble.” He scanned the telegram quickly, then read it again more slowly before crumpling it in his hand.
“The bloody hell.” Barely audible, the words were rough to the ear. Garrett followed them with a few well chosen curses from three other languages. The crushed telegram shot into the fireplace, caught flame among the coals and was soon reduced to curling black ash.
Deegan halted in the act of lighting his cigarette. “Trouble?”
Garrett’s jaw was stiff with suppressed fury. The future had galloped in on fleeter hooves than he had expected. Mentally he called himself every kind of fool. Had he really believed the burdens he’d carried for so long would remain at bay even for a few more months?
Well, he’d had two years of hard-won freedom. They would have to suffice him a lifetime. A cold, bleak lifetime.
It took a moment for Deegan’s quiet question to register. Garrett remained standing, staring down at the hearth, at the smouldering black remains of the telegram. “My father is dead.”
Silence stretched between them, and the sounds of the hotel around them seemed to magnify. Garrett was conscious of the rattle of a wheeled trolley cart in the hallway, of the sound of running water through the plumbing, the footfalls of a guest in the room above. Outside on the street, a man yelled an obscenity at another driver, wheels rumbled, a horse whinnied.
“Your father. I’m sorry,” Deegan said.
“Not half as sorry as I,” Garrett noted wearily. “It means I have to go back, take on the responsibility of being head of the family.”
More importantly, he knew, it meant facing the accusations again. Dear Lord, it was more than any man should be pressed to endure.
Garrett forced a wan smile. “Why don’t you return at one tomorrow, Dig? I’ll arrange something with my bank for you, but I don’t think I’ll be a very companionable bloke tonight.”
The facade of the carefree adventurer was no longer present on Deegan’s face. “If there’s anything I can do, you have only to ask,” he said. “I’m not quite as shallow as I’m made out to be. I stand by my friends when they need me, Garrett.”
“I know, Dig. I know.”
Chapter Two
Although the day had been sun filled, around midnight the damp chill turned into a cold rivulet of rain that coursed down the back of Garrett’s neck. He had been walking the city streets ever since Deegan left. It had taken but a moment to scribble his regrets to his host of the evening, sending a bellboy off with the message. He hadn’t bothered changing clothes, but had shrugged on, over his evening attire, the long vaquero’s duster he’d worn in Mexico, and added a battered, broad-brimmed slouch hat. His outward appearance blending with a thousand other men in San Francisco, Garrett trudged through the muddy streets, his mind far from his surroundings.
It had taken his solicitors in London months to find him. If he hadn’t become interested in the cattle ranch and contacted them, the firm of Hafner, Horrigan and Long would still be searching. He’d been carefully avoiding them for a long time, but now the ever-restless trace of his journey was at an end. Of necessity he would be in touch with the solicitors frequently, his travel plans limited by the thin binding lines of the telegraph that linked him to their office.
Garrett worked his way along Kearny Street, his footsteps aimless. According to the wire, his father had died six months ago. What had he been doing the day Stewart Blackhawk was interned in the family crypt? Garrett wondered. Had he been in South America yet, in the Amazon jungles? Or had he reached Mexico at that time? The memory of one carefree day was gone, no longer a time that he could pinpoint to a particular event or place.
Six months. The delay in reaching him served as a reprieve, no matter how short. Various business interests would supply the excuses he needed to delay a month, two at the most, then he would have to shoulder his responsibilities at Hawk’s Run once more.
He’d tried so hard to outrun them, to distance himself from both the good and the bad. And the whispers.
The rain was more mist than storm, making it a match to his mood. It dampened the streets as much as the wire had dampened his spirits. Coach lamps created glowing fingers of light on the glistening pavement and highlighted where puddles had begun to form in the depressions. The drizzle discouraged even the braver souls from walking the streets. Those men who did scurried for shelter quickly, heading into the warm, brightly lit doorways of various saloons and private gambling clubs, and the more dimly lit and even warmer parlors of the bordellos. A more perfect night for grieving was difficult to envision. If, that is, he could grieve for the man he suspected had not been his father.
Garrett’s legs ate the distance, taking him away from the city proper and into the shadowy lanes that comprised the Barbary Coast. Rain dripped from the bent brim of his hat, dampened the waxed length of his duster, and still he strode on as sure in each step as if he had a particular destination in mind.
His thoughts were thousands of miles away in another land. What were the Salopians saying of him in the local tavern now? he wondered.
Ever since his dark head had made its appearance among the fair-haired residents of Hawk’s Run, there had been rumors concerning his birth. A nursemaid had been dismissed for spreading the tale that he was an elfin child, a substitute left when the brownies stole the true golden-tressed heir. Despite the fact that black-haired ancestors were visibly present among the oldest of the portraits in the family gallery, the levelheaded gentry whispered that he was a bastard, the child Antonia Blackhawk had cuckolded her husband with as his own. Although he’d spent many a rainy afternoon staring at the paintings, Garrett had never recognized his own features among the host of dark ancestral faces.
Matters had not improved as he grew taller and broadened, his form that of a muscled athlete rather than of a fine-boned scholar like his diminutive father. Stewart Blackhawk had been an academician, brilliant when it came to translating ancient Greek poetry, inept and uninterested when it came to running his estate, cooly distant and silent when it came to Garrett’s doubts and questions concerning his birth.
With the family debts mounting, Garrett had left the halls of Cambridge and made his dark features a familiar sight in the meadows of Hawk’s Run. He had worked alongside the tenants for plantings, for harvests. Yet the whispers continued, reviving tales of wizardry that brought fertility back to tired fields.
In the City of London it was no different, for men there jokingly claimed he bewitched weak investments into profitable ventures. It was even said, more seriously, that he had blinded Stewart Blackhawk to the truth, for the man never commented on the validity of his eldest son’s birth, an oversight the grown Garrett recognized as neglect rather than belief. Sometime during his childhood, Garrett had begun believing the rumors himself simply because his father had never eased his son’s mind over his legitimacy.
Members of society read a wealth of mystery and intrigue into Stewart’s silence on the subject as well and whispered all the more. And so, assaulted by suspicion on all sides, Garrett had set out to be exactly what they termed him. He had adopted the qualities of a chameleon, changing with his environment, one moment the mystic who communed with supernatural folk, the next the arrogant upstart who flaunted the Blackhawk name.
He had learned much in playing these parts. He’d discovered he was a natural deceiver, a man who could don the face of an actor, who could adapt to any situation and find something to claim as his own in every outcome.
Or he did most of the time, Garrett admitted silently. In Cairo his so-called powers had been impotent, and Sybil had paid the price for his pride. It had been a tragic and most humbling experience.
He had grown as a result, had learned that he hated what fate had made him. What fate was forcing him to become once more.
He was back to living a lie. The life he had enjoyed as a ragged Bohemian adventurer the past two years had disappeared, leaving in its place a man who of necessity must become the epitome of the unruffled British aristocrat.
In other words, he was going to be a bloody damn hyp-ocrite.
The rivulet inching down his neck grew more uncomfortable. After extended stays in Egypt, along the Equator, and in Sonora, he was used to the unrelenting rays of the sun and had forgotten the chilling trials of a cloud-ridden climate.
Rather than be miserable, Garrett decided in favor of shelter. The saloons of the Barbary Coast were somewhat drier than the streets, although they smelled worse. The company was more rowdy than convivial and the whiskey was vile enough to take paint off a house. It was better than being alone with his thoughts, and being with strangers meant, if he could not check them, at least he could keep those thoughts to himself.
He nearly changed his mind when he entered the nearest door. A combination of scents assaulted him, of which cheap whiskey, cheaper perfume, cigar smoke and sweat were the most recognizable. The whole was overlaid with the taint of mildew.
“Why, hello, handsome,” a woman greeted throatily. She sashayed up to him, hips swinging, breasts bobbing. Her smile was a smear of rouge, and her eyes were fanned with runny streaks of kohl. She posed briefly, one hand propped on a cocked hip. The garish purple of her gown was mirrored in bruised circles beneath her eyes. The smile she gave him was tired, and as falsely brilliant as her brassy-colored hair.
She could easily have been a reflection of his own soul—worn, tawdry and devoid of hope.
“Lookin’ fer a little fun tonight? Somethin’ ta warm yer blood?” she purred.
“A drink, I thought,” Garrett said, making no effort to hide the upper-crust edge of his accent. The need to hit something was strong, and past experience had shown that in a low-class saloon the sound of his accent alone increased the possibility of a brawl.
“A drink, is it?” a man’s voice demanded in a heavy Irish brogue. “Well, squire, ye’ve come to the right place.” A disheveled, extremely wet man launched himself away from the support of the door behind Garrett and staggered forward, making shooing gestures at the woman. “Get along with you, lass. The squire and me’s got business ta discuss.”
Miffed at his interference, the woman turned her shoulder to the newcomer. “Ya’ll remember me, won’t ya, handsome? I’ll be around when this boyo passes out.” She stared hard at the man who stood swaying at Garrett’s side. “He looks like the kind that always does,” she added in disdain before moving toward another prospective customer.
“Cheeky little tart,” the man growled after her retreating form. Beads of water had formed on the rim of his narrow-brimmed bowler. The shoulders of his suit coat were soaked through and the lapels were limply turned up in an effort to keep the rain from further dampening his wilted shirt collar. “Now then, squire. ‘Bout our business.” He pitched to the ide, stumbling over his own feet.
Garrett nearly staggered himself when the Irishman fell against him. “What business might that be?” he asked, steadying the man upright once more. “The return of my wallet and watch, perhaps?”
Rather than take offense at the accusation of theft, the man grinned widely. “Yer’ve been snaffled afore, have ye, squire?”
“By better men than you,” Garrett said. “Shall we adjourn to the bar and see which of us pays for the drinks with my purse?”
The man chuckled. “I like you, squire. ‘Struth. Oh, look will you, I’ve mussed the front of yer lovely coat.” He brushed hastily at Garrett’s duster, removing imaginary soot. “Perhaps I could put yer right of a special little brew. Highly recommend it.”
The barkeep probably did store a “special little brew” behind his counter guaranteed to knock a customer out, Garrett mused. If a man accepted, he would wake up at sea, shanghaied more efficiently than any man who’d ever been impressed by the Royal Navy.
“Whiskey,” he said when they reached the bar. “Neat.”
“I’ll have the same as me friend here,” the dripping man declared. While waiting to be served, he leaned back against the scarred bar top, the heel of one shoe hooked companionably on the brass foot rail, and grinned widely on one and all. His clothing created puddles on the floor, the runoff sending out small rills that fed into the spittoon channel beneath the bar rail.
Garrett waited until they’d been served and his damp companion had unabashedly paid for the drinks from the wallet he’d lifted from Garrett’s pocket. “That’s the most atrocious accent I’ve ever heard,” he said.
“It’s dead to rights, my lad,” the other man vowed, his voice pitched low, the brogue abandoned. “Buzzed it from me da himself.”
Garrett studied the smoky glass the bartender had slid before him and the strong liquor within it. He wondered briefly if he’d been smart to follow the western creed of allowing a man his anonymity when it came to the past. Particularly when it came to the man who had become his traveling companion over the past few months. “Why are you following me, Dig?”
Another man pushed next to them and called for a bottle. Deegan shrugged back into character and reached for his own tumbler. “Tis a mortal sin fer a man to be forced to drink alone, squire.” He took a sip of his whiskey and grimaced. “Holy Saint Patrick! But that’s a fine elixir,” he declared hoarsely.
Since Deegan’s eyes had begun to water, Garrett ordered soda water before sampling his own shot.
Deegan toasted the other patron as he moved away from the bar, then turned back to Garrett. “If you had another friend handy I would have left you to your own bloody devices,” Deegan continued in an undertone. “But you don’t. That leaves you a choice. We can make a night of it in this charming little groggery or find a more appropriate setting to get soused. Either way you’re going to tell me what’s bothering you.” He held up a hand, halting any attempt Garrett might make at a rebuttal. “And don’t tell me it’s your dear old da’s demise.”
Garrett stared at the whiskey in his glass, considering his words. It would be so much easier to let Deegan remain nothing more than the companion of his Mexican adventures. With the loss of two heiresses in a single day, and dwindling finances, Galloway had his own problems.
In a corner a man shoved to his feet, angrily upsetting a table over his companions. A woman shrieked as one of the men leapt forward to seek revenge.
Garrett ignored the building melee, no longer in a mood for a fight. “Let’s get out of here,” he suggested. “I warn you, Dig, it’s an ugly tale. Melodrama at its worst.”
Manfully Deegan tossed off the rest of his whiskey. “I’m fortified,” he assured. “And who might the actors be?”
Garrett ducked in a reflexive move as a chair sailed across the room. “The cast includes myself, of course, my brother Ellery, and a beautiful innocent named Sybil Tilbury.”
Deegan signaled the bartender and tossed greenbacks onto the bar. “Two bottles of yer finest rotgut,” he said. ‘The squire’s spinnin’ me a fine tale as he sees me safely home. Were you wishin’ after the return of yer wallet, yer lordship? It seems to be a trifle empty.”
A dazzling parade moved past the window where the shadow crouched, dark clothing blending with the natural shadows in the garden. It was fortunate that the night was damp. It kept the revelers indoors and made observation so much easier.
The women in their jewel-colored gowns were unaware of the threat. The men in their onyx black suits never sensed the danger. They talked, flirted, danced, drank—unaware that another watched.
Gowns of watered silk, bedecked with lace, ruffles, ruching and ribbons, were on display, the carefully draped aprons caught up and drawn back into elaborate cascades that drew attention to a woman’s form. Trains trailed or were held outstretched to whirl with the steps of a dance. The elegant ebony tailcoats of the men moved in sync with the gowns, sailing with the rise and fall of the music, and occasionally a flash dazzled as lamplight caught the glitter of gold or silver threads woven into the pattern of a waistcoat. It was the moving, glowing fabrics that had life, not the people. Yet, at the moment, it was the people who held the watcher’s attention.
The stiffly starched fronts of the shirts held the prey at attention, and the corsets squeezed the soon-to-be bereft into improbable shapes. Weskits and waistlines strained across expanding torsos, clear evidence of the comfortable life-style enjoyed by the guests.
Candles and gas jets fought for prominence, creating pockets of alternating light and dark. The light was sought by women anxious to display a new bauble, a new gown, a new beau. The dark was the habitat of lovers, of stolen moments, of stolen caresses and murmured lies.
The shadow watched them all, carefully noting which of their jewels the ladies wore. The garnets of one guest were nice but could never compare to the bloodred rubies of another. The watery glint of aquamarines flashed by as a gallant swung his partner in an enthusiastic polka. A new debutante paused near the window, the light falling softly on her gently curved neck and the modest necklace of matched pearls that graced it. The possibilities were endless. It was so difficult to make a final choice. So delightful to plot the method by which to reap.
A man glanced out the window, his eyes seeming to meet those of the thief. He started away, looked back, then signaled to one of the waiters, motioning to the window.
The shadow melted away moments before two men with lanterns arrived to comb the garden for intruders. The thief waited just out of sight, enjoying the chase. Fools, that’s what they all were. It was so easy to play this game.
“You see anything?” one of the searchers called out.
“Hell, no. I think Stokes was seeing things. Had a bit too much champagne punch, if you ask me.”
“I don’t know. Claims he saw someone peering in from the bushes.”
“A cat most like.”
The shadow waited. So it had been Elmer Stokes who had raised the alarm. He would pay for that. What bauble had his wife worn? Had it been the jade or the fire opals? Did it matter? The victim had been chosen.
The parlor door barely closed behind Wyn before Hilde-garde Hartleby tossed aside the latest copy of Demorest’s Monthly Magazine and gazed excitedly on the folded newspaper in her guest’s hand.
“Not another robbery!” she breathed, sinking dramatically back onto the sofa, one hand pressed to the string of jet beads that lay against her breast. “What was it this time?”
Wyn tossed her friend the news sheet and reached up to unpin her plumed walking hat. “Don’t you mean who?”she asked.
Hildy refrained from reading the story. “Let’s make it a game,” she urged. “If I know what was taken, I wager I’ll know the who.”
Wyn unbuttoned her light coat and tossed it casually over the back of a chair. Since the pernicious state of Hil-dy’s finances made it impossible to pay wages, she had lost both housekeeper and housemaid. Those friends who came to visit the young widow quickly learned to make themselves at home.
“You must admit, Wyn, there is no one who knows the contents of the jewel boxes of our set better than I do,” Hildy insisted. Her soft brown hair was arranged in playful curls that spilled from a knot at the crown of her head. Despite the deep mourning color of her gown, there was nothing mournful about the flush of excitement in Hildy’s cheeks as she leaned forward in anticipation. “I used to make lists of my favorites and give them to Oswin hoping that he would visit the same jewelers,” she admitted. “If anyone can match the pieces with the person, it’s me.”
“All right,” Wyn agreed, reclaiming the newspaper and settling into the deeply cushioned chair across from her friend. They had played together in the school yard as children, and had attended their first ball arm in arm. Young men had clustered around them both, vying for favors. As inseparable as they had always been, Wyn had still been stunned at the news Hildy had whispered one evening soon after their presentation. She had promised her hand to Oswin Hartleby, a wealthy man nearly forty years her senior. “But, why?” Wyn had demanded. “Because I’m tired of being just comfortable,” Hildy answered. “I want to be rich.” Her wish had been granted, if only for a handful of years.
Wyn scanned the newspaper until she found the story about the most recent theft She had come to visit Hildy nearly every day since her bereavement, making an effort to cheer her friend’s lonely hours. Hildy had always been a social gadfly and the constraints of widowhood had depressed her nearly as much as the loss of the Hartleby fortune.
“Here it is.” Wyn rustled the paper, making a production of refolding it. “The thief walked off with opals,” she announced.
“Hmm.” Hildy tapped a finger against her lips in thought. “Cordelia Earlywine or Olympia Stokes.”
“There’s more.”
“More?” Hildy’s eyes widened with pleasure. They were a deep sapphire blue and surrounded by long, curling lashes.
“Diamond cravat pin, diamond shirt studs.”
Hildy jumped in her seat. “Stokes!” she shouted.
“If it were possible,” Wyn said as she tossed the newspaper aside, “I’d wager on your ability to pinpoint the robber’s victims using nothing more than a description of the missing jewelry.”
“Perhaps there is a future for me with one of those detective agencies,” Hildy suggested. “Do you think Mr. Pinkerton would hire me?”
“Only if you could name the thief as easily as you do the victim,” Wyn answered.
Hildy sighed. “Well, that I can’t do. If I could I’d have my diamonds back.” Petulantly she leaned back into the cushions of the sofa, apparently no longer interested in the robbery now that the latest victim had been identified. “Have you heard from Pierce?”
Wyn stretched her feet out, studying the toes of her shoes where they peeked from beneath the dark green pleats that trimmed the hem of her skirt. Her brother had been in Boston a month and in that time she’d received two letters, both assuring her that her money was being put to excellent use. Earlier that day a telegram had arrived. “He’s on his way back. The liner is nearly finished. We sail in three weeks.”
Hildy bounded back up, squealing with excitement before sobering once more. “Oh, but, Wyn! Whatever shall I wear? I refuse to traipse around in funeral black. Oswin has been dead three months, which is quite long enough to mourn him in my opinion. I have resolved to travel in half-mourning.”
Deciding she would prefer to delay hearing how Hildy intended to finance a new wardrobe, Wyn tried changing the subject. “Did you write to Rachel?”
Three years before, Hildy’s sister had made the coup of the social season by marrying Sir Alston Loftus and moving to his ancestral home in England.
“Oh, Rachel and Lofty will be expecting us,” Hildy assured, casually unconcerned. “I told them in my letter that we’d be on our way before they could reply, but there’s a standing invitation. Now…” She resettled on the couch, her expression changing to one of serious intent as she reached for the magazine she’d abandoned earlier. “I’ve been thinking,” Hildy said, and quickly leafed to the fashion section. “Oswin only left me the use of the house, so I can’t sell it, but his will wasn’t as specific about the furnishings. If I sell off the heavier pieces, I should be able to get at least a decent start on a new wardrobe. Enough to travel with at any rate.”
“What if the Hartlebys object?” Wyn asked.
“I won’t tell them,” Hildy said, dismissing her late husband’s middle-aged offspring. “Will you be using your dressmaker before we leave? What do you think of this pannier overskirt? Too overdone?”
Resigning herself to the planning of her friend’s ward-robe, Wyn moved over next to Hildy on the sofa and was soon discussing the merits of bunting for a lightweight excursion costume.
Pinkerton operative Magnus Finley hung back as his suspect paused at the corner to let a freight wagon rumble by. It wouldn’t do to be discovered. It had taken weeks of intensive field investigation and paperwork to get the case to this point He couldn’t afford to lose it all now through a careless step.
The dray passed, the horses trudging on down the street, hooves dropping in weary thuds. The driver’s face was as long as those of his team, his expression just as dull. He made no effort to hurry the animals but sat hunched forward, his hat pushed to the back of his head, the reins dangling in his hands.
The suspect waited until the wagon was well past before attempting the street. Magnus continued following without crossing. He was fairly sure of the final destination. He’d dogged the same footsteps along this same path for a week now as the suspect spent a good deal of money. The largess manifested appeared to indicate that the jewels had been sold rather successfully.
Which was extremely odd since none of the known fences in the city claimed to be aware of a recent sale.
If the thief had found a buyer, it wasn’t just the Stokes woman’s opals that had changed hands. The Hartleby diamonds were still unaccounted for, as were sets of various other precious and semiprecious gems.
Numerous operatives had been put on the job as one robbery followed another. Clients ranging from weeping widows to blustering businessmen had descended on the Pinkerton office demanding results. The local police had not reclaimed the jewels nor had they indicated progress in learning the thief’s identity. But Finley thought he’d discovered a vital clue. Until he could prove his suspicions, he was playing his cards close to his vest.
The suspect entered the expected doorway, the shop of a valise and trunk maker. Finley settled in the mouth of an adjacent alley. He knew from experience that it would be an hour or more before his quarry left.
The door swung open and closed a little later as a young boy emerged, hastily pulling on a sack coat and donning a cloth cap. He gave a quick glance up and down the roadway before heading toward Market Street.
Finley snapped open his pocket watch and consulted it He began to think about dinner, considering various restaurants where he could eat and still keep one eye on the person he trailed. There had been no deviation in the suspect’s schedule in the seven days Finley had been on the job.
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