Smythe looked at his watch. “We don’t have time for this. We need to be ready by sunrise.” He looked at the guard holding Verity. “Take the girl upstairs and find out what she knows. Have a couple of the boys search the grounds for her cousin. They’re probably both spies.”
Kitty ducked back as the guard hauled Verity’s body upstairs. The conspirators remained below, but Kitty heard them head for the kitchen door, to depart the house and carry out their horrible plan. What was she to do?
Hide. Call for help.
Kitty gathered her resolve and ran for Lowell’s office—and the telephone inside it.
Chapter 22
Kitty closed the office door carefully to avoid making any noise. She would be found eventually, so time was of the essence. She grabbed the phone and rang up the contact number Mr. Pryce had given her. Her hands were trembling so much she had to dial the number several times to get it right.
“Come on, come on,” she whispered into the ringing phone, hearing the desperation in her own voice.
After what felt like an hour, someone picked up on the other end of the line. “Hello?” It was an older woman whose voice Kitty recognized—one of the agents managing the phone exchange the Orchestra used.
Kitty hesitated. Her mind was going wild with terrible thoughts. If the Old Man was in on the conspiracy, who else might be compromised? Was the exchange safe?
Stop that, Kitty! she scolded herself. Caution was one thing, but paranoia wasn’t going to do her or anyone else any good.
“Hello?” the agent repeated.
“Yes!” Kitty answered, too loudly. She lowered her voice and tried again. “Hello, this is Kate Greenwood. I need to speak to my Aunt Mildred. It’s urgent.”
“Just a moment, Miss Greenwood. I’ll see if I can find her.”
The agent went away and Kitty was left with stifling silence. She leaned against the desk, holding the phone to her ear and tapping her foot anxiously. Every part of her was trying to scream, except that each part wanted to scream different things and her brain wasn’t even sure about itself.
Should she hide? Should she run? Should she do her job and stay on the line? Why were the curtains such an ugly shade of mustard? Why did rich people have so many paintings in their houses? How much noise would the window make if she broke it to escape? Should she photograph the contents of the safe while she was waiting?
That last idea sounded like a good one, so she got up to do it, but the phone cord wasn’t long enough, and she ended up turning back and forth automatically, shifting her attention between the safe and the phone. The terror and stress had almost paralyzed her thinking, leaving her to act on momentary impulses that had no follow-through. The broken record was spinning so fast, she feared it might burst right out of her skull.
Get your head together, Kitty!
Suddenly, there was a click on the other end of the line and she heard Mrs. Singh’s voice.
“Kate? It’s Aunt Mildred. What is it?”
“Mrs. Singh!” Kitty exclaimed. In her panic, she lost all sense of code names and secrecy, and her Canadian accent started to slip.
There was a pause, and then Mrs. Singh asked cautiously, “Is this line secure?”
“I—I think so. It don’t matter! They’ve got Verity!”
“What?” Mrs. Singh roared.
“They’ve kidnapped Verity an’ I dunno what to do!”
“Who has?”
Head together. Head together. Head together.
Kitty took three deep breaths and felt some measure of the tension bleed out of her. The frantic feelings were still there, clustered inside her brain, but her muscles relaxed a little and she could think better. She had to be clear. She couldn’t waste time panicking.
“Lowell and Smythe are workin’ together along with a man named James MacIntyre. They’re plannin’ to do somethin’ ’orrible tomorrow. I don’t know what, but they just left the ’ouse an’—”
“And they have Verity?” Mrs. Singh asked. There was worry in her voice, even though she was trying to hide it.
“She let ’em catch ’er so I could get away and warn you,” Kitty said. “An’ that’s not all. You need to warn Mr. Pryce about the Old Man!”
“What?” Mrs. Singh sounded truly bewildered. “What about the Old Man?”
Kitty tried to get the words out, but at first it was just a jumble. Finally, she managed to exclaim, “’E’s part of the conspiracy! ‘E’s the fourth member!”
There was a pause. “No,” Mrs. Singh murmured, the worry in her voice growing worse. “No, that is not possible.”
“It is!” Kitty insisted. “I’ve seen ’em with me own eyes! I ’ave photos, honest!”
“Oh, no . . .” Mrs. Singh’s voice trailed off.
“Missis?” Kitty asked.
“Pryce went to meet the Old Man this afternoon,” Mrs. Singh said. “He hasn’t come back. Bloody . . .” Suddenly, Mrs. Singh’s tone became very calm. Kitty could tell it was meant to calm her in turn. “Where are you?”
“I’m in Lowell’s ’ouse.”
“Get out of there now. Hide.”
“I can’t leave Verity!” Kitty insisted.
“And I can’t let them take both of you,” Mrs. Singh replied. “Get out of the house and hide. I’m coming to get you.”
Even though she was on the phone, Kitty shook her head like Mrs. Singh could see it. “It’s not safe, missis! There’s men ’ere with guns! I dunno ’ow many.”
Mrs. Singh’s tone was purposeful, and as hard as iron. “Watch them try to stop me.”
Mrs. Singh’s determination ought to have made Kitty feel safer, but it only made her panic grow worse as she remembered how far from London they were. “But we’re two hours away!”
“I’ll see you in forty-five minutes,” Mrs. Singh said. “Get someplace safe and wait for me.”
The phone clicked as Mrs. Singh hung up and the line went dead.
Get to hiding. Wait. They were easy instructions. Kitty could follow them. Clear instructions. A set sequence. She could do that.
The door to the office opened.
“What the bloody—” exclaimed the man who stood in the doorway. He was one of Lowell’s guards. There was a pistol in a holster on his belt, but he hadn’t drawn it. “Christ, another one of you.”
The panic came back with a vengeance. Kitty backed away, only to find herself pinned against the desk. The guard advanced into the room, one hand outstretched to grab Kitty.
“You’re comin’ with me, girl,” the guard said. “Don’t run. Don’t make this hard for me, or I’ll shoot you. Understand?”
Kitty didn’t respond. Her mouth moved, but she couldn’t make words. The world turned hazy as her mind tried to find some way to process both the fear welling up inside her and the countless overwhelming details surrounding her. It was too much to absorb. The two waves of information crashed together and exploded behind her eyes.
“No!” Kitty shrieked. “No! No! No! No!”
It was too much to think about anything now. It was like when she had been taken by Ivan. Her body just reacted of its own accord. Everything was too bright, too loud, too much. It needed to stop.
Without realizing what she was doing, Kitty smashed her forehead into the guard’s face. The man grunted in pain.
“You broke my nose, you little—” he exclaimed. He was silenced as Kitty’s forehead struck him a second time, and then a third.
The guard shoved Kitty away from him and clutched his mouth and nose. Kitty stumbled and fell against the corner of the desk. Her side hurt from the impact, but it was hard to pay attention to the pain. It was just one of too many pieces of information assaulting her brain. The pain, the noise, the fear, the blood on the guard’s face, even the lingering stench of tobacco and cologne permeating the office, all just mixed together as part of the haze. Everything was horrible and loud, and Kitty couldn’t think through all the noise.
There was a sudden burst of pa
in across Kitty’s face—shocking enough to break through the haze. Kitty swayed dizzily from the impact and touched her cheek. What had just happened?
Her answer was the guard’s hand, which swung at her a second time. Terror spiked inside of Kitty’s chest, but with that came a fresh burst of adrenaline. Kitty ducked away and scrambled to the other side of the desk. The guard growled at her and made another swipe with his hand. It seemed he was disoriented from his own injuries and couldn’t decide whether to hit Kitty or grab for her.
Ultimately, it wouldn’t matter. The man had probably a hundred pounds on Kitty, and close to a foot in height too. If this remained a struggle of blows, Kitty was going to lose.
Focus, Kitty! Focus! Remember your training!
The guard swung at Kitty again, and again she ducked away from the blow. She gritted her teeth and clawed her way through the fog in her brain. The next time the man grabbed for her, she dashed to one side of the desk. He countered, and she went the other way. Her mind was still turning in circles, but now it was searching for a way out. She needed something she could use to even out the disparity between them. An advantage that didn’t depend on size or strength.
A lucky swipe caught Kitty in the shoulder and the guard grabbed her. Kitty struggled to get free, but she was hauled directly over the desk and thrown to the floor. She looked up and saw the guard reach for his pistol.
“Right, I warned you . . .” he said.
Kitty remembered Mrs. Singh’s advice from so many weeks ago. She fell onto her back to get better leverage and snapped her foot up into the man’s groin, putting as much force behind the kick as she could manage. The guard’s eyes bulged and he gurgled in agony. He looked like he was going to be sick. For the moment, the pistol was forgotten.
Kitty scrambled to her feet as the guard spat and snarled at her. He was incoherent now, but not overcome. He grabbed for her with his bare hands, clawing like an animal. The pain made it hard for him to think. Kitty could work with that. She kicked at him again, but this time she missed his groin and her foot struck his leg. As Kitty tried to pull back for a third kick, the guard grabbed her foot and yanked hard. Kitty toppled backward onto the floor.
The guard was on top of her now. Kitty struggled to get up, but the man was huge and heavy. He shoved her against the carpet. Spittle and blood leaked from his mouth and his eyes were bloodshot. Kitty clawed at his face with her nails, drawing more blood. The guard screamed and grabbed Kitty’s wrist, pinning it to the floor. His other hand encircled her throat and began to squeeze hard.
The world around them turned empty. Kitty had never been strangled before. It was strange and terrifying. Her lungs began to burn, and she heard blood pounding in her ears. Everything else became distant and quiet. She struggled, but it was no good. She just wasn’t strong enough.
In each of her thundering heartbeats, Kitty heard Mrs. Singh’s voice.
Get your hands on a weapon. A rock, a pipe, anything.
The floor was littered with items from the top of the desk. Kitty had one free hand, so she was going to use it. She felt around blindly, searching for anything that she could to defend herself. A pen, maybe, or a pencil. She could stab with those. Her hand brushed against some ink and paper, but no pen. Nothing useful, and the world around her was growing more and more hollow as her lungs continued to burn.
Her fingers closed around something round and solid. A paperweight. As good as a rock.
Kitty looked her attacker dead in the eyes and smashed the paperweight into the side of his head. The man shudder from the impact and his eyes got wider with confusion. But still, his hand stayed firm around Kitty’s throat.
Kitty hit him a second time and the guard collapsed into a senseless pile. Kitty yanked his hand away from her neck and gasped for air. She lay there for a few moments, just remembering what it was like to breathe.
Get up. You have to get up. More people will come because of the noise.
Kitty wriggled out from underneath the unconscious guard and grabbed the top of the desk, using it to haul herself upright. Her head swam and she knew that she was swaying like a reed in the wind. It took several more gasping breaths to steady herself, and nothing could stop the pounding of her heart.
She had almost died.
Get out of the house. Go to the window. Get out of the house. Go to the window. Get out of the house.
The command repeated over and over inside her mind. Kitty stumbled to the window and shoved it open. She thought of the camera and turned back.
There were voices and footsteps in the hallway. Men were coming.
She saw the camera on the floor, among the mess. The lens looked broken, but the case was intact. The film might still be recoverable. Kitty grabbed the camera and, without really thinking about what she was doing, dove out the window. It was a drop of a couple of feet, and the landing was painful since she wasn’t properly prepared for it. Still, nothing was broken.
Kitty crawled along the side of the house, trying to stay below the sightline from the ground-floor windows. Any minute now, the men would arrive in Lowell’s office, see the open window, and know she had gone outside. She had to get away before they spotted her. She would run across the grounds to the car. Then she could drive—she’d never driven a car, but she knew enough now from spending time in the garage with Tommy. She could manage . . .
Where would she drive to? To the seaside hotel to get their luggage? As if that mattered anymore. It was all ordinary, expendable stuff, and their cover was already blown. Should she drive back to the Orchestra? Hope that she met Mrs. Singh along the way?
Hope that Verity was still alive by the time Mrs. Singh arrived?
Kitty closed her eyes tightly, fighting tears of pain, fear, and frustration. She couldn’t just run away. Verity was in danger. Who knew what sort of awful things would happen to her when the guards tried to make her talk? If Kitty ran away, any harm that came to Verity would feel like her fault, and she couldn’t live with that.
She looked along the wall of the house and saw that the library window was still dark. No one was inside that room. That was her way back in.
Chapter 23
The library windows were locked, so Kitty broke a pane of glass with the camera. The noise was louder than she had intended, or at least it sounded that way to her. No time to worry about that, though. With her free hand she reached inside to undo the latch. A piece of glass cut the top of her arm as she did so, and she winced. Thankfully, it was a shallow cut and away from the arteries. She wasn’t going to bleed out from it, but it reminded her that she needed to be careful.
Kitty opened the window and crawled inside. She crept to the hallway door and opened it a crack. The noise of tramping boots filled the house. She couldn’t pinpoint how many men there were, but it was several. Enough of them that their movements must’ve covered the sound of the breaking window glass, which was one silver lining.
From the direction of the upstairs landing, she heard a man shouting, “You two! Keep working on the girl. Make sure she talks. The other one’s outside somewhere. Bashed Jenkins’s head in.”
Another voice joined him, and Kitty heard footsteps descending the stairs. “Is she armed?”
“Dunno,” said the first voice. “Left Jenkins’s gun, so I assume not. Take her alive if you can, bring her back for interrogation. If she puts up too much of a fight, do what you have to.”
Kitty bit her lip to keep from making any noise as the men reached the ground floor and walked past the library. She waited until their footsteps receded. Through the library window, she saw electric torch beams waving back and forth out on the lawn. Most of the men were outside searching for her, and Verity was upstairs.
All right, Kitty. You can do this. One, two, three, go!
She stayed where she was, frozen in place. Her feet refused to obey her.
It was the fear. It was paralyzing her. Kitty scowled with all her might, so that she felt the muscles in her cheeks and jaw
straining to make the expression. A small measure of sense came back to her. The haze receded a little. The fear was still there and so was the skipping record, but her hands and feet started to obey her again.
One, two, three, go!
Kitty opened the door and ran for the stairs. She didn’t stop until she reached the landing, where she dropped to her knees and looked down into the foyer. There was nobody behind her. She listened for the sounds of people. Nothing. She was alone.
A muffled scream came from the upstairs hall. It was Verity.
Kitty scurried up the remaining steps and into the hallway. Moving as quietly as she could, she advanced on the noise. The scream quickly stopped, but it was replaced by voices. Straining her ears, Kitty followed them to a guest bedroom near the side of the house.
“What was your mission?” a man said from inside.
“I don’t have a mission!” answered Verity’s voice.
“Stop with the lies, girl. What were you doing snooping on the meeting tonight?”
“I don’t know anything about all of that,” Verity insisted. “My name is Vera Cunningham—”
Her voice died amid a loud smacking noise. Kitty winced at the sound and touched her cheek reflexively.
“I know that name ain’t real,” the man said, “but I don’t care. What I care is that you’re a spy, and you’re going to tell me everything about your mission, or else these pretty little hands of yours won’t be good for much after tonight.”
“Please!” Verity cried. “My name is Vera Cunningham. I’m a thief! I was here to rob the house! I thought it would be empty tonight!”
Her terror sounded real, but even so she was channeling it through another cover, protecting the mission. Kitty was impressed—amazed, in fact. But it wasn’t enough. The lie wouldn’t stop Lowell’s men.
“That’s how it’s gonna be, eh? Get the pliers, Tom.” There was a pause, and Kitty thought she heard chuckling. Then the man spoke again. “This is gonna be fun, girl. You know ‘This Little Piggy,’ do ya?”
The Secret Life of Kitty Granger Page 17
