by Jenna Ryan
“Maybe I don’t know. Maybe I do and I just don’t want to say.”
He slowed his retreat for that taunt. Torbel caught it and pounced with a swiftness that left Lenny gasping. His fingers clawed at the hand that was suddenly wrapped like an iron band around his throat.
“Don’t…” he choked, but Torbel ignored him. With a mighty thrust, he slammed Lenny against the brick wall of the storehouse and pinned him there. Eyes glittering, he moved forward until less than six inches separated their faces. “If you’re behind the note, Street, I’ll find out about it. And when I do, you’ll answer to me. You got that, boyo?”
Lenny made a sound like a strangled yes, and Torbel stepped away. He released the man slowly, aware that beneath his timorous surface Lenny Street was seething. He might also have written that note; a show of compliance meant nothing from a man who’d sunk to the level of a sewer rat.
With a sideways motion of his head, Torbel said, “Get out of here, Lenny. And don’t go spreading tales if you want to live in peace.”
Rubbing his sore throat, Lenny stalked wordlessly away. He glowered at Torbel from the corner but kept his mouth firmly shut. Head lowered, he disappeared into the late-afternoon shadows.
That might not have been a smart thing to do, Torbel reflected, shaking out the tense fingers of his right hand. Street had played cons before with fair success, using scams of his own invention on people who should have been bright enough to spot the lie. He’d have to make sure that Lenny was closely watched.
Torbel closed his eyes. He had a job to finish. He also had a beautiful female attorney somewhere in the vicinity who likely resented him as much as Lenny Street did.
Life was hell, he concluded, turning for the rear door. The last thing he needed was another complication. God help him, though, he had one. Her name was Victoria Summers—and chances were good that, one way or another, she’d be the death of him.
Twinkle, twinkle, pretty star,
You know who and what you are,
Up above the law so high,
Ruby knife points in the sky.
Ruby red, like blood when spilled,
The night that Robbie H. was killed.
Keep the twinkling star in sight,
Time now to put this wrong to right.
To those who long have lived the lie,
Time now for justice…Time to die!
Augustus Hollyburn’s hands trembled as he read the note, or rather, the photocopy of a note, delivered to his home anonymously ten minutes ago. Every word burned itself into his brain. Revenge for Robbie’s murder—that’s what it sounded like, because that’s what it was. Justice at last at the hands of a phantom.
The old man let out a long, shaky breath. He must telephone the police, of course. That was proper, and he was, after all, a high-court judge, possibly on the verge of a knighthood. Still, he could cheer in silence for the writer of this note. Too bad he had to turn the photocopy over to the authorities, but he daren’t risk his knighthood over a scrap of evidence that would ultimately do no damage to anyone.
“Chivers.” Flapping the paper at his watchful butler, he pointed at the telephone. “Bring me that, then find out if anyone saw who delivered this note.”
The butler nodded, brought him the phone and departed. The old judge repeated the last two lines as he dialed:
To those who long have lived the lie,
Time now for justice…Time to die!”
A clipped voice answered on the first ring. “Stepney Precinct. Sergeant Faber. How may I help you?”
Taking a deep breath, Augustus Hollyburn began to speak.
Chapter Three
Zoe Hollyburn, former cat burglar, was Robbie’s sister and Augustus’s granddaughter. This had to be the twist to end all twists, Victoria decided as she accompanied her soon-to-beroommate down a series of sooty back alleys to Gooseberries, a pub also owned by the Rag Man, which she had spotted en route to his agency.
Zoe, a tall woman with a mass of fire red hair as riotous as Victoria’s, glanced doubtfully in her direction. “You don’t look overly hardy, Vickie. You sure you’re up to a flat over the pub?”
Victoria had been told numerous times that her features possessed the delicacy of a Renaissance statue. Height notwithstanding, people tended to underestimate her stamina—Zoe included, it appeared.
“I’ll manage,” she said politely. She followed that with a frank “You remind me of someone.” And not Robbie, either, she thought, because she’d seen pictures of him during the trial. He had curly brown hair, big, puppy-dog brown eyes and narrow features. Zoe had striking blue-green eyes and freckles. She was pretty and surprisingly sophisticated, but far from narrow featured. She looked like…
“That woman at the precinct house,” Victoria exclaimed suddenly. She laid a forestalling hand on Zoe’s arm. “Inspector Fox called her Clover.”
Zoe halted, glanced at the hand on her arm, then across at Victoria’s suspicious face. “You get around, don’t you? Clover’s my sister, my twin, actually.”
“Your twin sister’s a cop and you’re a cat burglar?” Victoria was stunned. “How did that happen?”
Zoe’s laugh had the same melodious sound as her West London accent. “Don’t kid yourself, Victoria. It happens more often than you think. My mother’s cousin was a vicar, righteous down to the tips of his toes. My mother never set foot in a church after she married my father for fear she might burst into flames, or whatever other judgment God might see fit to lay upon her for her sins.”
What could she say? Victoria’s hand fell away. “I see.”
“No, you don’t, but then you didn’t know Sophie.” Zoe started walking again, picking her way over sprawled dogs and ducking under laden clotheslines. “She was a tramp, and I’m being kind. Not that you’ll ever get Clover or old Goggy to admit it. They thought—well, let’s just say they insisted she was pure as the driven snow. They weren’t alone. Sophie was a consummate actress. And she knew the art of discretion.”
Victoria dodged a low-hanging planter crammed with colorful snapdragons. “How do you know she wasn’t?” An indelicate question, but straight talk was preferable to conversations couched in euphemisms. Victoria had inherited that belief from her da and Prudie. Her mother found such candor horrifying.
Evidently Zoe had no problem with bluntness, for she laughed again. “Because unlike other members of my family, I’m not an ostrich.” She stopped before a small door and pushed. “They’re always burying their heads for the sake of…I don’t know what.”
“Pride, maybe?” Victoria suggested.
Wedging her hip and shoulder hard against the plank door, Zoe made a gesture of possibility. “With Augustus, though, it’s more a question of control. He refuses to acknowledge my existence, has done for years, but not until he’d tried everything in his power to dominate me. What he can’t dominate, he simply hates and, trust me, that hatred is strong.”
The door creaked open under protest. “Come on, then,” she invited with a wicked grin, “if you’re still determined.” She pointed into the black void. “We have to climb, and it’s a closed staircase. I hope you’re not claustrophobic.”
She was, actually, but since there seemed no way to avoid this, Victoria gritted her teeth and ducked under the low frame.
With the door shut and not so much as a thread of light to guide her, she almost panicked. Fortunately Zoe gave her no opportunity to do so. “Up,” she ordered, and pushed her firmly forward. “It’s only ten stairs. So what did you think of Torbel?”
Truthfully she was trying not to. Victoria counted steps. Six, seven, eight…“I thought he’d be older. He looks like he’s had a hard life.”
“You noticed the scar.”
“Your grandfather and sister might be ostriches, but I’m not. How did he get it?”
“I don’t know. We don’t ask, and he wouldn’t tell us if we did. A private man is our Torbel. He leads, we follow—it works. Simple as that.”
Victoria doubted it was anywhere near that simple, but she let the subject slide in favor of giving the door she’d bumped into at the top of the stairs a determined shove.
It opened into a surprisingly broad hallway, poorly lit but complete with hand-woven rugs and a picture of the current monarch. Rough laughter and music that sounded a bit like drunk Herman’s Hermits drifted upward from the pub.
“Surprised?” Zoe asked over her shoulder.
“A little,” Victoria admitted. “I’m more surprised that you’d work for the Rag Man after all that’s happened. I don’t suppose you want to talk about that.”
“Maybe later.” Zoe led the way to the only other visible door. “Do you like Sherlock Holmes?”
The abrupt change of topic had Victoria mystified, but only until Zoe ushered her across the threshold. Then she understood.
The flat was Baker Street to a T, right down to the overflowing bookshelves, the rolltop desk and dining table, the deep, comfy chairs and the ugly fringe swag lamp near the window. The floor was badly scarred oak, strewn with area rugs. Movie posters adorning the paneled walls explained the similar collection in the Rag Man’s storehouse. Plants, both hanging and potted, filled every available corner and ledge, and the open shades revealed an area of London rich in history and teeming with life. Teeming with street vendors, too, Victoria realized with rising delight.
Zoe joined her at the window. “You’re not offended, I hope. They’re just people making a living.”
She might be a reformed cat burglar, but she was lousy at reading people. “I should go and get my things,” Victoria said absently, her eyes devouring the market scene below. Her da would adore this.
“The commute’s going to be a pain for you,” Zoe said. “You sure you want to do this? I don’t mean to push you out the door, but life’s not cushy in the East End.”
“I’ll manage,” Victoria countered evenly. She was getting heartily sick of people making assumptions based on her clothes and professional bearing—although to be fair, what else could they base their ideas on? They didn’t know about her da or Prudie, or even her mother, who lived like a hippie yet maintained a bank balance few Gypsies could ever hope to boast.
Zoe must have misread her long silence, because she chuckled and, tossing her red hair, started for the small kitchen. “I can’t imagine what Torbel was thinking. I’ll make us a pot of tea, and you can tell me all about your note—and ask me again why, when he was convicted as an accessory to my brother’s death, I would work at his agency. It’ll take your mind off your surroundings.”
Victoria swatted at her unbound hair with a faintly exasperated hand. While she thought she might come to like Zoe in time, she resented her current condescending attitude.
“Sugar?” Zoe called out. “Oh, hell, I’ve lost my watch.”
Immediately contrite, Victoria uncurled the fingers of her right hand and regarded the ticking object in her palm. Prudie would be proud of her. Well, reproachful first, but proud after that.
Zoe poked her head out of the kitchen. “Have you seen it?”
Victoria hesitated, then let it slide to the carpet. She didn’t have it in her to mock a possible new friend. “No,” she lied straight-faced. “I’m afraid I haven’t.”
TORBEL DIDN’T TRUST HER. She could tell by the way he watched her all the way from Stepney to her flat near Tower Bridge.
He drove fast but well, and refused outright to let her bring her Toyota Celica back.
“There’s nowhere safe to park it,” he told her, halting his black Nissan Pathfinder near the curb.
Victoria undid her seat belt. “I’ll take my chances, Torbel. I need my car. I can’t afford taxis every day for God knows how long.”
A warning rumble of thunder had her glancing at the blackened sky. Clouds had been massing over the dome of St. Paul’s for the past two hours, ever since she’d arrived at Zoe’s flat. Her new roommate had just finished locating her watch on the floor by the window when Oswyn had appeared with the news that Keiran was tied up and so Torbel would accompany her to her apartment.
It had sounded dangerously like a summons to Victoria; however, for the sake of peace and a swift resolution to her problem, she’d finished her tea and returned to the storehouse with Oswyn.
Rain began to fall in big, fat drops as she and Torbel started up the short walk to her flat, which was really the upper third of a quaint eighteenth-century townhouse.
“Cherry trees and Georgian architecture,” Torbel remarked in disgust. “You Sloanies are all the same.”
Victoria stopped. “I’m not a Sloanie. I’m an Amer—” At his elevated brow, she sighed. “American. It isn’t the same thing.”
“Mmm, I thought I detected a mixed accent.” Reaching around her, he pushed the door open. “What part of America?”
“Florida mostly. And a little Connecticut.” He slanted her an unfathomable look but offered no comment. Damn, but he was standing too close, and he was too sexy by far. Victoria’s breath tightened in her chest as his forearm brushed her bare upper arm.
She controlled another sigh. You’d think she was a sexstarved adolescent the way her body reacted to him. If she planned to spend any time at all with this man, she would need to summon up her most rigorous self-control and wear it like a coat of mail.
It took her twenty minutes—most of them fumbling thanks to Torbel’s ever-watchful gaze—to pack two suitcases and suspend her daily delivery of the Times, another ten to take Rosie to her neighbor downstairs and say goodbye. She heard deepening rumbles of thunder beyond the softly papered walls.
Rain fell in buckets now, streaming down the outer windows. Unfortunately the temperature and humidity remained suffocatingly high.
Torbel prowled like a panther. He reminded her strongly of a Celtic warrior. She didn’t know why, since she’d never seen one, but the description just seemed to fit.
She managed to get out of her clothes in private, exchanging her skirt and silk top for a pair of cream-colored jeans, suede boots and a deep coral cotton tank top. None of it was especially new or expensive, so why, Victoria wondered, did Torbel’s frown deepen when he turned from the living-room window and spied her? More mistrust—or something else? She opted not to dwell on the possibilities.
“Is that the lot?” He indicated the stylish luggage she’d hauled from the bedroom.
“Since you didn’t tell me how long I’ll be away, I thought it best to assume the worst.” Her cool tone gave way to a more uncertain one. “Do you have any idea who it could be, Torbel?”
Hands in the pockets of his black jacket, he made a final survey of the room. “One or two. Nothing concrete.”
“Lenny Street?”
“Maybe.”
“That isn’t very helpful.” A trace of impatience crept in. “What about Zoe’s twin sister or her grandfather?”
Torbel’s chuckle was ironic. “I wouldn’t pin my hopes on Goggy. For one thing, he’s too old and arthritic.”
“He could have hired a legman.”
“He’s up for a knighthood. He wouldn’t allow even hatred to jeopardize his chances.”
“I’d have thought that having a former cat burglar for a granddaughter might have done a fair bit of damage already.”
Torbel reached for her bags. “Feels like bloody bricks in here,” he muttered.
“I brought my weights.”
He stared at her, frowning.
“For keeping in shape, Torbel.” His eyes moved to her sleek arms. “I’m twenty-nine. Prudie says it’s all downhill for muscle tone after twenty-five.”
“Who’s Prudie and what kind of bull has she been feeding you?”
“It isn’t bull,” Victoria shot back. “Prudie’s my great-aunt on my da’s side. She lives in Florida now, and she knows more about the workings of the human body than most doctors.”
“Does she also know how much strain it takes to do in a back?” he inquired, exaggeratedly polite.
> Victoria controlled her irritation, grabbing one of the cases and dragging it out the door. She’d never be able to work with this man. They’d be at each other’s throats in no time.
On the other hand—she cast him a covert glance—being at each other’s throats might be preferable to the alternative.
The house had no lift. It took them several hot, stuffy minutes to navigate the stairwell to the ground floor.
Victoria was soaked to the skin halfway to her car, which was parked ahead of his at the curb. Knowing he would try to dissuade her, she kept well ahead of him.
She was negotiating a soggy patch of grass when she caught a glimpse of something flying through the air. Her peripheral vision was good but not sharp enough to identify the airborne object. Not that it made much difference, since a moment later she was flying, as well.
The impact jarred, blurring her vision. From somewhere beneath her, she heard Torbel swear. The landing had knocked the breath from her lungs and most of the awareness from her brain. What on earth was going on?
One thing she knew—Torbel had tackled her. She was currently sprawled on top of him. His arms about her waist held her fast against his body even as he reversed their positions.
The object that had whizzed past must have triggered the action. Victoria made no attempt to struggle despite her instincts which cautioned that he was too close, and her senses were taking far too much notice of it.
“Torbel…” she whispered.
But he silenced her with a terse “Quiet.” His intent gaze darted into and around the nearby park.
Heart racing, Victoria followed his probing eyes. She saw rain and neatly trimmed trees, grass and shadows.
“Are you all right?” he inquired at length. His eyes continued to comb the surrounding area.
“Fine.” She did want up and away from him quite badly, though. Being this close made her skin tingle.
“Did you see anyone?” he asked.
“No. Can I get up now?” She began to squirm, pushing discreetly on the hands that continued to circle her waist.
He took one last look around. “Yeah. Whoever it was is gone.”
