by Tamara Allen
“You won’t.”
“But if we do—”
“You brought me here. You’re sending me home. If you have to spend the whole day reading every word of that book, you’re going to. If we need to spend the night in the damned museum to get it done, so be it. That’s the plan and there’s no Plan B.” Double-knotting my laces, I got up, strapped on my gun, and pulled my jacket on over it. “Are you ready to go?”
He sighed. “Do you mind if we have a bite of breakfast?”
“You sure Kathleen will feed a disreputable slob like me?” I picked up the comb on the dresser and ran it through my hair.
“I don’t know that I could say for certain.”
I tossed down the comb. “I’m sure there’s a restaurant or two out there that won’t turn me away.”
“Even though you can’t pay the bill?”
He seemed to enjoy trying to provoke me. I could provoke right back with the best of them. “Maybe, since you’re the one who brought me here, you could pay it with the cash you scammed off Mrs. Hastings last night.”
The corners of his mouth turned up in what seemed embarrassment. “Derry told you. He tends to make more of it than it is.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. You know, I’ve arrested con men like you. You’re just about one of the lowest forms of life around. Taking money out of the pockets of grieving people—damn, I don’t know how you live with that. Looks like you’ve even managed to con Derry.”
The flash of pain in his eyes caught me off guard. Usually when I hauled someone in, I didn’t bother to lecture them. They knew they’d broken the law and they knew they were going to be paying the consequences. Railing at them seemed superfluous. But there were one or two types who brought out my dad in me, and con artists were one of them, especially cons who took advantage of people who were already hurting. When I did give them hell, I invariably got a whole pathetic spectrum of attitude, from assertions of innocence to a revolting righteousness that I had no appreciation for the special power God had bestowed on them.
But this was a new one. Genuine pain, as if I’d actually hurt the sorry bastard. “I suppose now you’re going to tell me you were trying to reassure Derry that his wife was waiting for him somewhere just around the corner.”
Ezra’s lips parted, then he swallowed whatever he was going to say and turned away. “We’ll leave after breakfast.”
I let him go, doubting I’d done anything to prick his conscience and make him give up the scam. I’d never met a reformed con artist. Once it was in their blood, it was there to stay. And there was not much else I could do. I couldn’t arrest him or drag him to the future to spend a little time in the can. I sighed in disgust and scooped up my useless cell phone. I was ready to blow this place.
I made my way down to the kitchen, to find Ezra and I weren’t the only ones already out of bed. Henry was at the table, along with a bespectacled man he introduced as Dr. Silas Gilbride. Dr. Gilbride greeted me with the weary pronouncement that there were three new babies in the world as of two-fifteen this morning, then pushed himself out of his chair and left his half-eaten breakfast to apparently head up to bed. Three babies too many, I guessed. I looked around to see what was for breakfast. The ham was back on the table, along with a pitcher of milk, thick slices of lightly toasted bread, and some of the cinnamon rolls from last night. I started with the bread and butter, wondering if there was any coffee to be had.
Derry joined us and Ezra followed shortly, but he didn’t seem to have much of an appetite. Maybe I’d gotten to him after all. If he’d suckered everyone in the house into believing he communed with the dead, he was one persuasive son of a bitch; but he couldn’t keep them on a string forever. It might be a naïve era, but these men weren’t stupid, nor was Kathleen. Maybe I could put the first glimmer of doubt in their minds. “By the way. How did it go last night with Mrs. Hastings? Reach out and touch anyone?”
If Ezra had had a mouthful of food, he’d have choked on it. He fixed wide eyes on me with a silent plea, but I had no intention of letting him keep up the charade. “Bet you got paid all the same, didn’t you?”
The clatter of a fork against a plate drew my attention across the table. Everyone sat silent and uneasy, but my revelation didn’t produce an explosion from Henry. Nothing more than a faint flush on his cheekbones gave away his wrath.
Ezra shot me a reproachful look and tried to repair the damage. “She asked for me, Henry. I could hardly leave her down there in tears.”
“I thought we’d reached an understanding.” Henry pushed his chair back and rose. “Apparently not.”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“You could have held your tongue—”
“He was standing right in front of me, for God’s sake,” Ezra interrupted, rising. “She just wanted a word. You aren’t being fair.”
“If you continue to go on this way, we shall neither of us be credible in this field. I have a reputation to protect. I will not have it brought down by a—” He stifled whatever he’d been about to say and the red in his cheeks heightened, though he was suddenly avoiding Ezra’s stare.
“Go ahead,” Ezra told him in a flat tone. “You’ve been thinking it from the start.”
The rivalry evidently wasn’t rancorous enough to push Henry into saying whatever he’d been thinking. Too damned bad, because I was really curious to hear it. Henry drew in a long measured breath and stalked out of the kitchen. Ezra sat, picked up his fork, poked at the food on the plate, then put the fork down.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
“We believe you,” Derry said quietly.
I checked a sigh. It was tough to get through to people who needed to believe this kind of thing was real. They might catch on eventually that they were being taken advantage of by two men they called friend, but I wasn’t going to persuade them it was a con, not in the little time I had left here. They didn’t know me or trust me the way they trusted Ezra. What had led to the argument between Ezra and Henry, I didn’t know, but I suspected Ezra was the flashier one in their cons and Henry didn’t like it. Ezra’s charm no doubt drew more clients. People liked a good show.
I left the table and wandered into what Ezra had called Kathleen’s sitting room. It was more cluttered than Derry’s bedroom, and that was saying something. The sofa with its high back and arms bore up under more than half a dozen fringed and embroidered pillows. It looked like the most comfortable seat in the house, and I didn’t see why I couldn’t have slept there as conveniently as Derry’s room.
The far door creaked and Hannah backed into the room, lugging a metal bucket full of coal. I’d worked at a young age too, but damn, the poor kid looked like she needed a break.
I got up to give her a hand. At the sight of me, she tried to swing back through the door with the heavy bucket. I caught the handle and eased it from her grip. “Hannah, right? I didn’t get a chance to say hello last night.” I held out my free hand and she stared at it, then at me, pretty thoroughly terrified. I gave her shoulder a pat. “It’s okay. Just helping you out a little. It looked pretty heavy.” And it was. She was stronger than she seemed, if she carried buckets of coal every day. “Where do you dump it?”
She blinked and remembered to breathe. “In there, sir. You’d best let me.”
“I’ve got it.” I poured some of the coal into the bin by the fireplace. “Why don’t you sit down for a minute? You look beat.”
“Sit? In here? No, sir. Please, may I have it back?” She held out grubby hands for the bucket.
It wasn’t as heavy, but I still hated to hand it back over if she was headed upstairs with it. “You had some breakfast?”
“Yes, sir,” she whispered, hands still extended.
I reluctantly gave her the bucket. “Take it easy, all right? It’s okay to take a breather now and then. Sit down and rest,” I added in case I was being a little too twenty-first century for her to comprehend.
“Yes, sir.” She backed out, closing th
e door, and I heard her going off as fast as she could. I was making a hell of an impression on everyone—not that I cared so much, one way or another. If they’d snagged Leonard instead, he might’ve handled it all with a little more grace, but there was no way I’d fit in and I wasn’t going to be here long enough to worry about it.
“Quite the gentleman.” Ezra had witnessed the whole thing. A smile played on his lips as he lit gracefully onto the nest of sofa pillows and leaned sideways to pluck a white carnation from the vase. As he inserted it neatly into his lapel, he stole a look at me, genial despite the fact that I’d gotten him into trouble with Henry. I had the sudden suspicion he was trying to get on my good side. It probably threw him for a loop to find there was someone he couldn’t win over. Con artists were like that.
But I wasn’t biting. “Any chance we’re going to get to the museum before it closes for the day?”
He smoothed his lapels. “We’ll be off as soon as everyone’s come down. A game of chess?”
“I don’t think so.” I slid into a chair at the fireplace and propped my feet on the ottoman. “How much of a chance do I stand against a renowned psychic?”
If the remark offended, he didn’t show it. “I promise not to cheat.”
“I’m in no frame of mind to lose my pocket change to a nineteenth century chess hustler. My money wouldn’t do you any good, anyway. You couldn’t use it to the pay the rent.”
He sobered, staring at me with a weirdly wistful air. “You really think that’s what I do, then? Cheat people out of their earnings?”
“Well, let’s ask Mrs. Hastings, shall we, Ez, old fellow? What did she get for the money she put in your pocket?”
“I did not take money from Lucinda Hastings.” His mouth twitched downward, eyes darkening to a twilight blue. “And it’s Ezra, if you don’t mind. Ezra Glacenbie, if you’ve a notion to summon a constable and have me clapped in irons.”
Well, what do you know. The boss was right. There wasn’t anyone alive or dead I couldn’t provoke into a display of temper. I gave Ezra a black-humored grin. “I would, but unfortunately I need you if I’m going to get back home.”
“Is everyone in the future as narrow-minded as you, Mr. Nash?” The brief flash of temper faded and the wistfulness returned. “Have we really taken such an enormous step backward after so much progress?”
Narrow-minded. If there was one thing I wasn’t…. “You want to play it that way? Okay. I’ll give you a fair shot. Let’s see the psychic in action.” I leaned back and, elbows on the armrests, interlaced my fingers. “Go on. Tell my fortune or whatever the hell it is you do.”
“If you’re looking for proof—”
“I’m looking for evidence that you aren’t lying through your teeth to your buddies and that you didn’t con Mrs. Hastings out of her pension with some comforting little tale about how her husband is waiting for her on the other side. Think you can manage to convince me?”
“I think you have already fairly convinced yourself in the other direction.” Ezra appeared to be thinking it over, nonetheless. I’d seen that look before. Sizing up his mark. “I don’t tell fortunes. Nor do the spirits, for that matter, unless they think it’s something vital you should know.”
“No kidding? Everything regarding my life would be pretty vital, in my opinion.”
“Of that, I have no doubt.”
I wouldn’t have guessed Victorians were such smart-asses. Then again, I’d never met any until now. “So what do the spirits tell you about me?” I inquired with all the open-mindedness I could muster, which basically translated into no discernable sarcasm.
“They don’t.”
“They don’t?” It wasn’t what I expected. “What’s that supposed to mean? No one’s around? Or they just don’t want to play?” Or maybe it was just that one Ezra Glacenbie was too intimidated by the Fed from the future to expose the tricks of his trade.
“They’re here. They’re always here,” he added and let out a soft breath. “But no, they’re not talking. They just seem to be….”
“What?”
“Laughing.” His eyes brightened as if he found whatever they were laughing at just as funny. But after one look at me, he hastily shook his head. “Don’t mistake me. It is purely with affection.” He cocked his head, pondering. “I think.”
“Yeah? So who are ‘they’?” This was where I nailed the smug little bastard.
He never even hesitated. “Archibald Nash and James Sullivan.”
Chapter 4
I had to give him credit. He was bold as brass, to go through my wallet for information he knew he might need later on. He couldn’t have while I was changing clothes; I’d have caught him. He must have done it in the middle of the night. He’d seen the old photograph of me and my folks, and had read Aunt Jean’s faded handwriting on the back. From behind my credit cards, he’d fished out Sully’s old Bureau ID, and from there he’d hazarded that both men were old enough to have passed on. At least by Victorian standards of old.
“Searching someone’s belongings for personal information is the oldest trick in the book, Ezra. You’ll have to do a whole lot better than that to prove your case, and you know what? You’re not going to.”
The others gathered in the front hallway. Derry, in the middle of pulling on a coat, peered around the door and motioned that they were ready to leave. Ezra waited until he’d gone back out before responding.
“Not that you have any reason to believe me, but I did not go through your belongings, Mr. Nash.” As I pushed out of the chair, he looked up at me. “I do realize I have no way of proving that or anything else to you. At least not before you’ve gone back home.”
“Your instincts are dead-on there. And since I can’t arrest you, let’s just leave it at that.” I zipped up my jacket and headed to the hall.
As soon as Henry and Ezra went out, Derry slipped to my side. “Not that it’s my business, Morgan, but I’ve not seen two more glum countenances since the tax collector last called. You’re not finding Ezra a kindred soul, I take it?”
“Let’s just say we have inescapable differences of opinion. What’s with the snack?”
His heavy brows lifted questioningly, then he glanced down at the basket in his hand. “Ah. The hamper. Kathleen packed it for your journey home.” A guilty smile touched his lips. “She believes you’re setting sail and I couldn’t tell her otherwise.”
“But they’d serve meals on the ship, wouldn’t they?” I asked, thinking back to a late night movie set on a steamship. “Pretty good meals, with champagne and all?”
“In first class, yes. But Kathleen thought the meals in third inadequate. She did not wish you to go hungry.”
I would have imagined Kathleen was just glad to be rid of me. My surprise must have showed because Derry nodded wryly. “You think she’s a hard woman, my sister.”
“She is a tough cookie.”
“A tough cookie,” he echoed thoughtfully and, as I looked at him, grinned from ear to ear. “You’ve a way with words. But you mustn’t mind Kathleen. She’s always been independent-minded, as our mother was. Lord knows I’d have been lost without her.”
“Ezra told me. I was sorry to hear about your wife.”
As we left the house, he eased a watch much like Ezra’s out of his vest pocket and opened it to show me a photograph of a small, slim woman with thick coils of dark hair and a warm friendly demeanor, like Derry’s. “My Ailis,” he murmured. “Too good for this world.”
No wonder he wanted to believe everything Ezra told him. “She looks like a sweetheart. I’m sorry, Derry.”
He returned the watch to his pocket. “Kathleen has been my saving grace. She took me in hand, until I found the flavor in life again. And Ezra’s coming along was a comfort too.”
“He says that he talked to your wife after….”
“He did.”
Derry’s sigh was wistful. He picked up his step as we walked down the sidewalk, trailing Ezra and Henry to t
he corner where the bus had dropped us off yesterday. I was reluctant now to burst Derry’s bubble. He needed it afloat. But I had some lingering curiosity I couldn’t shake. “Henry doesn’t seem to have the same faith in Ezra,” I said, choosing my words with care. “In fact, he seems to resent that Ezra’s in the same profession.” If you could call it that.
“The Lord gave Ezra a gift, Mr. Nash. And it seems He gave it to Henry in lesser measure. Mind you, Ezra doesn’t see it in that light. Truth be told, it troubles him.”
“Yeah? How can you be sure Ezra’s just not a little more accurate with his guesses than Henry is?”
“Ezra would fair be reading my mind to be so accurate.”
“Or doing some thorough research, maybe.”
