The Kidnapper's Accomplice (Glass and Steele Book 10)

by C. J. Archer

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked.

  “Back to London,” Mr. Bunn said. “The long way, on account of—"

  Amelia hissed at him and he pressed his lips together.

  “Are you taking me to your workshop?” I asked. With the police watching it, they wouldn’t get in undetected, even with disguises.

  I was considering whether to tell them or not when Mr. Bunn said, “I have another facility where I’ve temporarily stored some leather I set aside for you.”

  “Stop talking!” Amelia growled at him.

  “Why? Who’s she going to tell?” Mr. Bunn looked around. “No one’s following us. She came alone.”

  “If you believe that then you’re a fool.”

  “I came to Brighton alone,” I said. “It’s not a lie.”

  This part of the station was busy with people desperate to return to London, but unable to catch a direct train on the main line. They had to go via Hastings too. It would be easier for the fugitives to disappear among the crowd, but also easier for me to escape.

  I did not want to escape, however. I was resolved to do as Mr. Bunn wanted to stop Amelia following through on her threat. It’s what would happen afterward that worried me.

  “She won’t stop with your leather,” I told Mr. Bunn. “She has admitted as much.”

  Amelia hissed at me at me to be quiet.

  “What will you do with me after I use my magic on his leather?” I pressed.

  “I want to let you go,” he said, somewhat weakly. It was finally dawning on him that he’d been duped by his accomplice. Her aims didn’t align with his.

  “Amelia?” I prompted.

  She grabbed my arm and hustled me forward.

  “Are you going to keep me prisoner? Are you going to force me to infuse my extension spell into every London magician’s magic? Will you stop at London?”

  “That’s enough talking,” she snapped.

  Mr. Bunn turned to me. “Amelia and I discussed this and agreed—”

  “I never agreed.”

  “You did!”

  “I said what I said to shut you up.” She gritted her teeth and shoved me. “Get moving. The train will be leaving soon.”

  I managed to wrench myself free and rounded on her. “You’re going to keep me prisoner,” I said flatly.

  Mr. Bunn shook his head. “Of course not. We’ll release you as soon as you’ve finished with my leather.”

  “Are you sure she’ll release me?” I asked without taking my gaze off her.

  Amelia’s lips whitened and her nostrils flared. “Get moving or I will detonate that bomb.”

  The engine of the waiting train hissed and a cloud of steam billowed around it. The whistle blew.

  “Move,” Amelia said.

  “But Amelia,” Mr. Bunn whined. “We can’t keep her forever. That’s kidnap!”

  “This is kidnap.”

  “But keeping her indefinitely is far more serious. Once she uses her magic on my leather, we’ll release her and nothing will happen,” he said with conviction. “We go back to the way things were, with no one harmed and our point made. But if you keep her prisoner, her husband will harass me at my workshop. The police will arrest me for conspiring with you. It’s all right for you. You can keep hiding. You don’t have a business to run. I do. I can’t do this forever. It was only meant to be temporary.”

  Her eyes flashed. She bared her teeth at him. “Get on that train with her now or I will detonate the bomb. Do you understand?”

  Mr. Bunn turned white. He’d finally admitted to himself that Amelia never intended to stop with his leather. She’d tricked him, used him. If she succeeded with her plan to keep me prisoner, his life was effectively over. His plans for his future, his business, would come to nothing. Worse, he would be arrested and go to prison for a long time.

  “I said get on that train.” She bit off every word through her clenched jaw.

  She might have been small, but she was fierce. Mr. Bunn all but cowered beneath her cold glare. He nodded quickly and withdrew three tickets from his coat pocket and held one out to me.

  With the train about to depart, passengers surged toward the doors while onlookers gathered to farewell them. The crowd nearby suddenly parted and spat out two figures. They were on us before I could draw a breath.

  “Do not move,” Matt snarled as he grabbed Mr. Bunn by the arm.

  “And you, don’t speak,” Willie said to Amelia. She parted her coat a little to reveal her gun. “You start that spell and I’ll shoot you.”

  “We surrender,” Mr. Bunn said quickly.

  Amelia merely smiled that slick smile of hers. “Are you really going to shoot me here in broad daylight?”

  Willie’s smile matched Amelia’s. “Start speaking the spell and find out.”

  Amelia didn’t flinch. “I don’t think you will. You don’t want to kill me.”

  “You might want to be real sure about that before you speak.”

  Amelia’s smile widened as she took a step forward, closing the gap between them. She and Willie looked so much alike, with their small stature, their straight spines and out-thrust chins. It was like watching two feral cats sizing each other up before a territorial battle.

  Amelia took another step closer until she was toe to toe with Willie. That’s when I remembered the blade.

  “She has a knife!” I cried.

  Willie danced out of the way just as Amelia swiped. The steel flashed and struck Willie’s hand. She dropped the gun and Amelia kicked it onto the tracks near the engine. Willie removed her glove with a wince. Her hand bled from a cut across her knuckles.

  Amelia’s smile turned victorious.

  “Willie, get back,” Matt warned.

  He didn’t know Willie well if he thought she’d back down from a fight. She might be unarmed now, but in her mind, she could beat Amelia.

  Turning belief into reality was another matter entirely, however.

  Amelia’s fingers adjusted their grip on the knife. “You were supposed to come quietly.” It took me a moment to realize she was speaking to me.

  Before I could respond, strange words dripped from her lips. The detonation spell!

  “No!” I cried. “Stop! I’m going to do what you want! I’m coming with you.”

  Amelia did not stop speaking. Nor did she stop moving toward Willie. She backed her up against a wall and raised the blade. Then she struck.

  Chapter 16

  I operated on a deep, overwhelming instinct and threw the watch at Amelia. It hit her hand, hard. Her recitation faltered and she dropped the knife. It clattered onto the platform and a passerby kicked it as he ran to catch the train.

  Amelia and Willie stared at one another, neither advancing nor retreating. Willie’s hands balled into fists at her sides and Amelia drew in a measured breath. People rushed around them and steam from the engine rolled toward them, but it was as if they were inside a bubble where nothing could reach them. They were in a world of their own.

  The whistle blew.

  The bubble burst.

  Amelia backed away and began her chant again. Willie cursed and charged after her, but Amelia turned, still chanting, and ran.

  She ran right into Mr. Bunn’s hand, clutching the discarded knife.

  Matt caught Amelia as she fell and removed the knife from Mr. Bunn’s grip. He offered no resistance. He simply stared at the figure of his co-conspirator and started to cry.

  “She was going to do it,” he whispered through his tears. “She was going to kill people with her bombs.”

  I thought he wasn’t addressing anyone in particular but then saw uniformed police circling and a man in a great coat directing them. He introduced himself as the local inspector but I instantly forgot his name. I found my brain was too addled to focus on any one thing.

  “Your watch, India,” Fabian said quietly. I looked up into his eyes as he held out my watch by its chain. There was concern in them, but something deeper too. Pride o
r wonder, perhaps. “You controlled its flight perfectly.”

  “I’ve had a lot of practice lately.”

  He touched my elbow. “It is over. You were very brave.”

  I released a long, pent-up breath and glanced at Amelia’s body. I felt nothing for her. No sense of remorse or responsibility for how events played out. She’d paid the ultimate price, but she’d known the consequences of her actions. Her death had been inevitable from the moment we knew she could detonate bombs with a spell and was willing to use that magic to get what she wanted. She was too dangerous to be free. Even her mother had known it, deep down.

  “Where’s the bomb?” Matt’s barked question roused me from my stupor. He addressed Mr. Bunn who hadn’t moved. Amelia still lay slumped at his feet where Matt had laid her.

  “Bombs,” I said. “There’s more than one.”

  The inspector snapped his fingers in front of Bunn’s face. Mr. Bunn suddenly blinked as if he’d awoken from a sleep. He rattled off three locations, all in Brighton. The inspector clicked his fingers and a bespectacled man I hadn’t noticed standing nearby carrying what appeared to be a medical bag, came forward. Mr. Bunn repeated the addresses and the man nodded once and left, accompanied by two constables and a sergeant. He must be the bomb expert.

  Matt joined me and planted a warm kiss on my temple. “Are you all right?” he murmured.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You have the cut from earlier.” He indicated my forehead. “It should be seen to before we head home.”

  I nodded, grateful that he was taking charge. I felt numb, like I wasn’t really present but merely observing the scene from afar. Passengers came and went without getting too close, thanks to the circle of police surrounding us. Fabian had moved off to one side, and Mr. Bunn was being questioned by the inspector. I was vaguely aware of Willie peering onto the tracks where the train had been moments ago.

  I was very aware of Matt, however, and gratefully leaned into him. My rock. My anchor.

  He put his arm around me. “We’ll stay overnight in a hotel and go home tomorrow.”

  “Make sure to wire the Yard and tell Brockwell to get word to Cyclops and Duke. One of them must stay in the house with Aunt Letitia. She prefers not to be alone of an evening, and having one of them there will mean she won’t worry about us.”

  “I will.”

  “If we have time in the morning, I’d like to buy her a gift. I won’t have another opportunity to shop without her this close to Christmas. She’ll insist on coming with me to do her own gift buying.”

  “We’ll go shopping in the morning and catch a midday train to Hastings if the direct line isn’t cleared by then. We’ll be home by late afternoon.”

  The numbness started to wear off as he talked. With it came an awareness of the cold. I rubbed my arms and shivered.

  Matt removed his coat and placed it around my shoulders. He called Willie’s name. She called back, but it wasn’t until I saw a station guard crouch down at the spot where I’d last seen her that I realized she was on the track. The guard assisted her back onto the platform and proceeded to berate her and point aggressively at the signs ordering passengers not to walk across the tracks.

  She strode off mid-lecture. “I’m ready to go,” she said, patting her coat over the bulge at her waist band.

  Two constables marched past with Mr. Bunn between them.

  “Mrs. Glass,” he began and they stopped. He did not go on, however. He looked somewhat stunned; numb, as I had been. I suspected he was overwhelmed by events too. Probably more so.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Bunn,” I said.

  He blinked owlishly, his blue eyes brimming with tears. He looked so young and innocent. The determined, eager businessman I’d first met was nowhere in sight. “I don’t know how this happened. I never meant for it to end this way. It somehow spiraled out of control.” He looked down at Amelia’s body. “Ever since I met her, I’ve felt my life was no longer my own. I was merely a pawn in her game. I was expendable.”

  “She was not a good person,” I said.

  His chin wobbled. “I wish I’d realized that earlier.”

  The constables marched the sorry figure away.

  “What will happen to him?” I asked the inspector.

  “He’ll serve time but his crimes aren’t hanging offences.” He nodded at Amelia’s body, now being placed on a stretcher. “He can argue he killed her in self-defense and that she manipulated him into agreeing to her kidnapping scheme.” He shrugged. “Ordinarily, I’d ask you for statements now, but Detective Inspector Brockwell has said he will speak with you all upon your return. It’s not the usual procedure but Scotland Yard always get their way.” This last he muttered through a clenched jaw.

  We followed him out of the station and caught a hackney cab to the Grand Hotel where we’d stayed on our honeymoon. I still felt a little shocked by the day’s events, but by the time we sat down to dinner in the hotel’s dining room, I was feeling a little more like myself.

  The fine wine and food helped. I was starving. My stomach reminded me I hadn’t eaten since breakfast with a loud growl of appreciation as the soup course was served. As much as I wanted to be alone with Matt, it was nice to have Willie’s lively chatter to keep from becoming too melancholy.

  “I reckon I’ll take a walk on the pier tomorrow morning while you’re shopping,” she said. “What about you, Fabian? Want to come with me?”

  “Thank you for the offer, but I will decline,” he said. “I have gifts to buy too.”

  “Are you returning to France for Christmas?” I asked.

  “I’m staying here so we can continue our experiments.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. I really ought to tell him I had no intention of creating any more spells. But not yet. The discussion could wait for a more suitable time. I avoided his gaze for the rest of the soup course, however.

  The conversation inevitably returned to what had transpired earlier. Willie was relieved to have got her gun back while Fabian continued to praise my accuracy when directing my watch’s flight.

  “Did you picture it hitting her hand in your mind?” he asked. “Or did it fly of its own accord?”

  “Not its own accord,” I said. “It only does that when my life is in danger. I had to direct it to save Willie.”

  Willie pointed her knife at me. “You know I was going to dodge out of the way of her knife at the last second, right?”

  “Right,” Matt said wryly.

  “I was! I wasn’t going to let that woman get the better of me. If Bunn hadn’t killed her, I’d have done it myself.”

  “How? You had no weapon at that point.”

  “I’d have thought of something.”

  “I have a question for you, Glass,” Fabian said. “How did Bunn get free of you on the platform? You had captured him, yes?”

  Matt helped himself to more potatoes from the platter. “He just did.”

  “Did you let him go on purpose, knowing he would attack Amelia?”

  Matt picked up his knife and fork. “I can’t know what’s in someone’s mind.”

  “But you suspected.”

  Matt said nothing.

  Fabian opened his mouth to say more, but Willie cut in. “It doesn’t matter how it happened, it just matters that it did. And good thing, too. Everything works out for the best this way—Bunn gets the blame, and since he was already going to prison, it doesn’t matter that he has one more charge against his name. Jasper will be relieved he doesn’t have to talk to his superiors and try to get us off the hook for causing her death.”

  “He will have to tell them Amelia was a magician,” Matt said. “The police already know she could detonate bombs without a timing device.”

  “He could just tell them she made a new kind of device,” Willie said. “He doesn’t have to mention magic.”

  Matt liked that idea and raised his glass in salute to it.

  Willie picked up her wine glass too and called for a
toast. “To an eventful day full of surprises, and to the first humans in flight.”

  We all frowned at her. “You’re forgetting ballooning,” I said.

  “Ballooning ain’t flying. It’s floating. India, you made the carpet go fast.” She grinned. “One thing’s for sure—flying makes you feel alive.”

  “Until you fall to your death.”

  “When the artless find a way to make proper flying machines, I’ll be the first in line to buy a ticket.”

  “And I’ll continue to use vehicles that travel on land or water. I don’t care if it takes longer, at least I know I’ll be more likely to reach my destination in one piece.”

  “You’re so dull, India.”

  “And you are mad, Willie.”

  She grinned again. “You ain’t going to get an argument about that from me.”

  We arrived back at Park Street the following afternoon with packages from our gift buying expedition. Aunt Letitia was not happy to be left out, and we had a devil of a time convincing her we’d gone to Brighton for the investigation and simply done some shopping as an afterthought. She finally stopped complaining when Catherine arrived. She was a pleasant diversion after the trials of the last few days.

  “How is the shop coming along?” I asked.

  “Wonderfully,” she said. “My brother is enjoying it immensely. He loves the freedom of working for himself.”

  “Instead of for your father?”

  “It’s not so much my father as our older brother. Orwell feels as though Ronnie has gone into competition against him out of spite. He thinks Ronnie resents not being the eldest son.”

  “Ronnie has an entrepreneurial spirit,” Cyclops added. “I doubt he would have liked working for someone else, especially a family member.”

  “Very true,” Catherine said, bestowing a smile on him that made him dip his head shyly.

  “Have your family come to terms with your relationship yet?” I asked.

  They glanced at one another. “Not yet,” Catherine said on a sigh. “Ronnie is very supportive, of course. Father is coming around too. It’s my mother and Orwell who are the problem. He’s stirring her up, telling her all sorts of ridiculous things which are feeding into her ignorance.” She smiled but it was forced. “But she’ll come around and Orwell can take a long walk off a short pier for all I care. He’s not my guardian.”