"I'd like a window, ma'am. I can't stand it with no windows," the young man muttered. His cap was pulled low, and he barely made eye contact. The young these days.
"That's extra," she said.
"And a room to myself."
Mrs. Kettle laughed. Her late husband had told her over and again that she sounded like a braying donkey. She had brayed the entire time she'd bashed in his cheating skull with her club. That was why she kept pigs in the basement. Useful animals, for all sorts of things.
"Livin' large, are ya?"
The young man dipped his head. Well, maybe he was only shy. She liked them shy.
"For a room with a window, it'll be twenty-five cents a night."
"Clean bedding, too, if you have it."
"Aren't you high-class." She sidled closer, and toyed with the young man's lapel. "Is there anything else you might fancy?"
The young man looked her in the eye, surprised. He had piercing eyes. The kind of grayish-silver eyes and cheekbones that made her want to keep him. She'd give him her best room, and if he couldn't pay… Well, there were other ways a fine-looking man might earn his keep.
Mrs. Kettle scratched at the flea bites on her arm as she climbed the stairwell. She ignored the sagging planks and creaking stairs, and the mold climbing up the walls with her. She didn't mind it. Men still paid for rooms at her boardinghouse, and she wasn't about to put a penny back into the rookery.
She opened the door. "Will this do?"
The young man stepped inside. He ignored the bed and small chest, and went straight for the window, twitching the curtain aside. His Levis hugged his backside. It was a lovely view.
"It'll do, ma'am."
A clink of coins dropped into her palm. She was almost disappointed.
✥
Cards fluttered, a whisper of wings in the dark. Only a stream of silver light pierced the threadbare curtain. "Can you see anything?" Isobel whispered.
"I have the eyes of a cat," Riot replied.
"A half-blind one."
"My spectacles are firmly in place."
"That's good. It'll ensure you don't mistake the landlady for me."
"Doubtful," he said dryly.
"And here I thought it was only young women who were eyed up and down like slabs of meat for the taking."
Riot clucked his tongue. "It may come as a surprise to you, but women do have desires, the same as men."
"You shock me, Atticus."
The cards in his hand seemed to chuckle. "Someone has to."
"I don't think women are quite the same." Her gaze drifted to his lap.
"Different anatomy to be sure," he conceded. "Unlike men, the most sensitive sexual organ in a woman's body resides between her ears, not her legs."
Isobel's mind spun in all different directions. Her neck flushed with heat, and she found herself unable to formulate a response beyond straddling him and silencing him with her lips. Before thought gave way to action, she forced herself to focus. And that meant not looking at the man.
Keeping to the side, Isobel peeked through the dingy window. The street below was quiet, with saloon lights flickering in the fog. It wasn't thick tonight, but formed a hazy dream that made cobblestones shift. She squinted at a void between two buildings—the lane where she had been arrested. Impenetrable.
"Fire," she said.
Riot's cards shot from his hands, sending all fifty-two flying into the dark. She heard a muttered oath, and tried to hold back a laugh.
He cleared his throat. "What was that?"
"We could start a small, controlled fire in the alleyway." Keeping an eye on the saloon, she crouched to help pick up his cards.
"And draw every fire brigade in the city."
"Precisely."
"I don't think we'd be able to slip into the saloon with the fire brigade swarming the building." He had read her mind. As usual.
"We might be able to steal a coat and hat…"
"After we knock out a fireman?"
"That's a splendid idea."
Riot shifted. The light touched the wire of his silver spectacles. She could feel his eyes on her.
"You think it's a bad plan," she stated.
"I think it's a complicated plan. We're here to observe, not send some innocent fireman off to the receiving hospital."
"Monty has been watching the saloon for the past few days. He's seen nothing of interest."
"I thought you didn't put much stock in his observational skills?"
"I don't. I suspect he's been sleeping most of the time." She had intended to do more than observe tonight, but Riot had insisted on coming along. Small wonder, considering her last visit there.
"Patience, Bel."
Isobel made a frustrated sound. She wanted to act. Not conduct a study in patience. "I don't like where this trail is pointing. You had the same thought as me in Hospital Cove."
"I did," he agreed.
"It's no coincidence that Lincoln Howe's calling cards were in Andrew Ross' pocket."
"We need to gather as much information as possible. Otherwise the extent of this… conspiracy might never be uncovered."
"Then you do think it's a conspiracy?"
"I think Parker Gray and his lackeys are definitely up to more than simple scams. I just don't know what pieces belong to which puzzle."
Isobel blew out a breath. It was true. The whole mess was a web of clues. In the end, she deferred to his experience. Her rash action the other night certainly hadn't helped their investigation.
Isobel handed over the cards she'd collected, and he returned to his chair. Moonlight illuminated his hands. She watched him square the deck, and caress its edges. He was counting cards with a brush of his fingertips.
"You can sleep," he offered softly. "I'll wake you if anyone appears."
Isobel glanced at the narrow bed, and shuddered. Clean sheets or no, the red bites she'd seen trailing up the landlady's arm were enough to deter her.
"If Punt doesn't make an appearance, I'll have to continue my nightly surveillance of the brick building."
"I'll keep your side of the bed warm while you're gone."
Isobel crossed her arms. He had turned the tables on her subtle threat.
Riot tucked his cards away. Glancing at his hand, he carefully began unwinding the bandages protecting his broken fingers. "Given the newspaper article, I wouldn't advise the Falcon's Club for surveillance. Parker Gray knows you as Mr. Morgan, and now as Miss Bonnie."
She sighed. "It may have been one of Alex's trained dogs sniffing around the wharves," she reminded. Still, her options along Ocean Beach were limited, and she didn't much like the idea of spending a long night on the dunes. The bruising on her stomach from her first encounter with Parker Gray was only just beginning to fade.
"Have you considered moving the Lady to a different wharf?" he asked.
"Unless I move her to the East Bay, that only buys us time."
Riot didn't say a word.
Bristling at his silence, she found herself on the defensive. "I don't like having enemies I can't see. I'd rather draw them out."
"You mean you don't like waiting," he said calmly.
"There is that."
He flexed his right hand, and grimaced.
"How are they?" she asked softly.
"Stiff, mostly. I don't want to lose my range of motion."
"It hasn't been very long." She knelt and took his hand, gently probing his fingers. "At least they're not cracking when you move them anymore."
"Will you be accompanying me tomorrow?"
"I'm overdue at the Call. For the sake of appearances, I should write that article on The Plight of the Vagrant." She sighed. "Maybe we're overreacting—seeing more in the shadows than what's there."
"Not when someone was asking after you at the docks."
"Our 'average man' may have been a reporter," she mused. "I'll ask at the newspaper." Isobel studied his face in the moonlight. "You were quiet during dinner."
&nb
sp; "Aren't I always?"
"This was a different sort of quiet."
Riot tucked the bandages into a pocket. "I was enjoying the conversation."
Isobel waited for more. He glanced down at their intertwined hands. Deep in thought, his thumb caressed her wrist in a gentle circle.
"Happiness," he finally whispered. "I'm not used to it, Bel. And it worries me."
"It's fragile."
"It's terrifying." He squeezed her hand. "But I intend to hold onto it."
"At the very least we'll put up a good fight." She bent forward and kissed his knuckles. "What do you think of Ravenwood's journals?"
"I think, even after twenty years, I barely knew the man."
"Do we ever really know someone?"
"I know you." His eyes held her own, and she felt the truth of his words in her bones.
A knot twisted in her chest. Isobel had never much cared for stories of doomed lovers. In her arrogance, she had always seen a simple way out—one where the lovers could have triumphed. She was not so confidant now.
Riot stared through the crack between curtains. "You're positive you didn't hear a sound before smoke filled the alleyway?"
Startled by the sudden shift in conversation, she slapped her maudlin thoughts to the side and focused on that night—to fear and chaos.
"There was a hiss," she said suddenly. "A steady hiss."
Riot considered her words. "Have you heard of Robert Yale?" he asked after a time.
Isobel shook her head. "A friend of yours?"
"A bit before my time. He was an inventor who modified fireworks. He came up with a way to create smoke. It's a common enough tool in theatrical productions."
"Why would a vagrant have a firecracker that creates smoke?"
"Distraction," he answered. "Why did you think him a vagrant?"
"It was more of an impression—a bundle of rags." Isobel narrowed her eyes at the alleyway. She wished she had a smoking firecracker. "We could try the side door with your lock picks."
"We could."
"But you won't."
"Have you been practicing?"
She took her hand away, and stood to lean against the wall. "Here and there. Not as much as I'd like. I've mostly been deciphering Ravenwood's journals, or trying to. Have you thought of any books he favored?"
"Favored is a strong word where he's concerned."
She crossed her arms, and waited.
Riot ticked off a list on his fingertips. "Grey's Anatomy, On the Origin of the Species, the Old Testament, The Odyssey, and Frankenstein. Or as he preferred, The Modern Prometheus."
"The Old Testament? Really?"
"Yes, he thought it a fine study of the futility of mankind."
Isobel chuckled. "He was a whimsical fellow."
Riot cocked his head. "I don't think I've ever heard 'Ravenwood' and 'whimsical' used in the same sentence."
"I'm being perfectly serious. I'm beginning to like the man."
"Careful, Bel. I'll think you mad and commit you to Bright Waters Asylum."
"We're not married," she reminded.
"Yet."
"Aren't you cocksure of yourself?"
"Only optimistic. It's a failing of mine."
"Hmm." She leveled her gaze at him. He didn't even have the decency to look ashamed of himself. "You were a puzzle to him."
Even in the dimness, she could see his surprise.
"I think that highly unlikely," he said.
"Didn't you read my notes?"
"I did."
"He wrote about you all the time. It's clear as day."
Riot stared at her, at a loss.
"I laughed myself breathless when I read his account of how you met."
Riot groaned, and she flashed a grin. Now he was uncomfortable. She rather liked it. "That man nearly got me killed."
"Sounds like you nearly shot him, then and there."
"I had a mind to." He thought back to that day. To a simpler time, when he'd been young and cocky, with no worries aside from where to place his next wager. "I was surprised to read that."
"Ravenwood loved you—in his own way."
"The way a biologist loves the frog he's about to dissect."
"That's a bit harsh."
"As much as a snake can love?" he tried again.
"You know, some people say that about me—that I'm cold-blooded, without a heart."
"You're definitely not cold."
"I managed to deceive one man already."
"I'd know it." His words were a deep kind of purr that made heat travel up her throat. He would know. As surely as he knew how many cards were in his desk with a caress of fingertips.
"Perhaps." She casually leaned against the wall; the night air seeping through the window cooled her skin. The street below was quiet. Empty.
"That's odd," she murmured.
"What is?"
Isobel drew her brows together in thought. "We've been here half the night and there hasn't been a single patrolman. But they came readily enough the night I was arrested. I assumed they had been walking their regular beat."
Riot stood. "Let's try that door."
✥
Isobel scurried over rooftops. It felt good to move, to act. She hopped over a gap between buildings, and dropped to a flat roof. She paused to glance over its edge. Riot strolled along a planked sidewalk. With rough cap, coat, and carrying his walking stick over a shoulder, he looked like any other hoodlum headed towards the delights of the Barbary Coast. He disappeared around a corner.
She followed. When rooftops gave out, she climbed down the nearest drain pipe, and came at the narrow lane from the shadows. The street was empty. Silent. Isobel slipped into the alleyway. Crouching in the garbage-strewn lane, she listened to rats gnawing on their meals.
A figure appeared at the far end. He walked straight into the darkness, but she wasn't concerned. Isobel would know that confident stride anywhere. Clothes most definitely did not make the man where Atticus Riot was concerned. Without a word, he stopped at the only door free of debris. Isobel kept watch as he inserted pick and wrench into the padlock.
A minute passed. Far too long for his skilled hands.
"It's rusted," he whispered.
She swore under her breath.
Riot tucked away his picks, and brought out a flash light. He flipped the switch, and a dim light filled the alleyway. He shined it over the padlock and along the edges of the door. The light made her uneasy. Riot ran a hand along the right edge. Something clicked, and the door swung open. The padlock had been a decoy.
With walking stick in hand, Riot stepped into the dark opening. Isobel quickly followed, but Riot caught the door before she closed it. He studied the interior. Satisfied they'd be able to exit, he closed it softly.
The light in his hand died, plunging them into darkness. She heard a soft oath, and a whack as he slapped the flash light against his palm.
Isobel quickly struck a match, lit the little candle she always carried, and placed it inside her folding lantern. "A sailor relies on the reliable," she whispered.
"Well, I've just mucked up my chances."
Isobel smiled as she held her lantern aloft. She had expected a storage room; instead, stone pushed at the edges of her light, and stairs plunged away into darkness. It was cramped and stifling. She sniffed the air. Wet mold, and a sharp reek of disinfectant.
Using her lantern to illuminate the path ahead, Riot led the way. The stairway quickly gave way to a long cellar. Brick lined the walls, and questionable beams strained under the ceiling.
They walked a circuit of the room. Sturdy shelves climbed the far wall, a long worktable sat in the center of the cellar, and electrical wires ran along the ceiling. A single bulb hung over the table.
Isobel followed the wires to a switch, and flicked it on. She blinked against the bright electric light. Riot moved to a low, reinforced door. A metal rung was attached to the wall beside it. He brushed his fingers over the metal, then lifted
the bar barricading the door, and walked inside.
A cot, washbasin, an empty shelf, and a bucket. A brass grate high on a wall provided ventilation.
Isobel shivered, not from cold, but from the room. She quickly left to explore the larger area. The floor showed signs of recent sweeping. Perfectly round stains marred the worktable, as if someone had set down a mug filled with acid. She sniffed at the stains, and jerked back. A strong chemical odor stung her nostrils.
A gleam caught her eye. She walked to the spot, and crouched. The stone floor was cracked, and a thin glass tube had rolled into the crevice. "Riot?" she called softly.
He was at her side in an instant.
"Do you have one of your envelopes? And gloves?"
He produced both. Since the thin leather gloves fit him, he slipped them on and extracted the tube. She held out the envelope.
"A test tube," he noted before dropping it inside.
"I sincerely doubt someone was brewing beer to escape the liquor tax."
"Whatever was going on here, it appears William Punt has closed shop."
"All because of my blundering investigation."
22
A Lethal Clue
Slowly the puzzle takes shape. Little Pete's assassination created a void of power, and that void was filled by a beast of the shadows. A beast that prefers silent manipulation.
—Z.R. Journal Excerpt
Thursday, March 22, 1900
"DR. KELLOGG?"
Three men looked up from a corpse. The youngest blinked. He had his hands in the abdominal cavity of a naked body that lay on a slab. A bowl provided temporary housing for the cadaver's entrails.
The young man brought out another loop of intestine that slipped its way into the bowl. "What can I do for you?" Dr. Kellogg wore sleeves and apron, all soaked with blood. "I'd shake hands, but…well, you understand, I'm sure."
"Don't let me interrupt."
"Don't faint on us."
"My name is Atticus Riot. I'm with Ravenwood Detective Agency."
"The Atticus Riot?" An older man half turned. His mutton chops extended to form a mustache over his upper lip. Where Kellogg was covered in gore, this man was nearly pristine. A third man stood off to the side with pen and notebook in hand.
Conspiracy of Silence (Ravenwood Mysteries #4) Page 14
