Sighing in defeat, Lilly picked up a piece of the peach, sprinkled some sugar on a slice of buttered bread, and folded it around the fruit. The McShane siblings looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “It’s very good,” she told them, taking a bite of her sweet.
She felt a dribble of juice dripping from the corner of her mouth and licked it up. “There’s something I don’t understand.”
“What’s that?” her partner asked, but he seemed distracted, staring at her mouth.
“If they don’t have any evidence connecting Monty to Nora’s death, and if Monty and Nora spent as much time together as everyone claims, why does everyone think he’s the one who killed her?”
Erin sat there for a moment and then looked from one partner to the other. “I might know the answer to that.”
“Listen and learn,” Cade said, taking a swig of his coffee.
“When a man can’t perform in bed, he can become very disturbed. Not only is it infuriating, it’s embarrassing, and he feels less a man. If it’s something that’s been going on for a while, it’s possible that with some sort of twisted reasoning, he could reach a point where he refuses to believe it’s his fault and—”
“—starts blaming the women,” Lilly said, interrupting Erin’s hypothesis.
Erin nodded. “Yes. What do you think, Cade?”
“It sounds logical. A man could build up a lot of rage over time, and if he’s slow, as the grocer said, it’s very possible that he’s incapable of understanding the subtleties of the man-woman relationship. Which is why I want to be nearby tonight. Who knows if he’ll try to haul you off to the bushes and see if he gets a different result than he has before.”
“Or he might be luring you there for Eli Wilkins to nab and take somewhere else,” Erin suggested.
“Well, aren’t the two of you little Sally Sunshines?” Lilly quipped, though her heart was beating fast just thinking about the scenarios they’d suggested.
“Cade’s right, Lilly. Illogical people are unpredictable. It’s better to have a plan and not need it than to go into a situation unprepared.”
The siblings exchanged a look that Lilly couldn’t begin to identify. “I understand,” she said. “I bow to your superior knowledge and experience.”
“Well, that’s a first,” Cade said, popping a slice of peach into his mouth. He looked at his sister. “Are you willing to try to weasel information from Wilkins?”
“Fine. He only has one thing on his mind, but I can handle him.”
“How are you going to keep putting him off, when he knows . . .” Lilly couldn’t say what was in her mind.
“When he knows what I do for a living?”
Lilly nodded.
“It’s an art, and Anne Boleyn was the master.”
“Anne Boleyn?”
“You know? Henry VIII’s Anne?”
Lilly nodded, wondering what the second wife of the scandalous British monarch had to do with handling Elijah Wilkins.
“The story is that smart Anne kept Henry dangling for years, and when he married her, he lost interest in no time. There’s something exciting about the sparring and the waiting, I think,” Erin said.
Thinking back to the verbal banter she and Cade had shared, Lilly tended to agree. The intimate back-and-forth was stimulating.
“Don’t worry about me,” Erin said. “I can handle Eli Wilkins.”
CHAPTER 14
True to his word, Cade dressed after breakfast and announced that he was headed outside the Acre to the local equivalent of the Oriental Saloon to see if he could round up some poker players.
Much to Lilly’s chagrin, Elijah Wilkins sent word that he would stop by to pick up Erin to take her to lunch. Lilly was beginning to doubt Erin’s sanity. Or at least her common sense, and told her as much while Erin was preparing for her engagement.
“Why is it you’re so worried about me and not yourself?” Lilly demanded. “We can’t prove it yet, but we’re almost certain Wilkins is the one who’s really behind Nora’s murder. He’s dangerous, Erin, and you’re putting yourself at risk every time you go off with him.”
“D’ya think I don’t know that?” she said, twisting her ebony hair up into an elaborate knot atop her head. “But then, that’s a chance I have to take for Cade.”
What did she mean by that? “For Cade? Why? The two of you don’t even seem to like each other.”
Erin turned to face Lilly with tortured eyes. “You couldn’t be more wrong. I love my brother dearly, and I owe him.”
“Explain, Erin,” Lilly begged. “As his partner, I need to understand why he says and does the things he does. It would make things much easier. I know he ran amuck after his wife was killed. What happened to her? Why do you owe him? Why is there so much enmity between the two of you? He’s no prude. Even though your . . . way of life disappoints and angers him, he just doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would let it keep him from someone he loved.”
Erin stared at Lilly as she spoke her piece and then turned and leaned closer to the mirror, touching her finger to the tip of her tongue and then smoothing it over a dark eyebrow. “You’re with him every day. Why are you asking me?” she said. “Ask him.”
“I did. Some of it. He said your story wasn’t his to tell.”
Erin straightened and turned from the mottled mirror. Almost absently, she rubbed at the scar on the inside of her wrist. Though her words were soft, her eyes were filled with pain. And defiance. “He doesn’t know my story.”
Lilly wasn’t certain how to respond to that, so she said nothing. After a while, Erin turned back to the mirror and gripped the edge of the dressing table tightly. The expression in her eyes was almost reminiscent.
“He thinks I took up the life because Ma needed the help after Josep was killed, and I could make more prostituting myself than working at any of the factories.”
Their reflected gazes met. “That wasn’t the reason at all.” She released her hold on the dresser’s edge and turned toward Lilly. It was almost as if Erin wanted to make certain Lilly understood everything she was about to say. “I did it because I thought it was all I was fit for.”
“I don’t understa—”
“It was Josep,” Erin said bluntly.
The three words told Lilly everything. “Josep . . . defiled you?”
“Every chance he got.” Erin turned back to the mirror and held on to the table once more, almost, Lilly thought, as if Erin needed the support. Instead of looking at herself, she looked down at her white-knuckled grip. “He was gross and flabby and stank of cheap cigars, stale beer . . . and unwashed man.” Her head moved back and forth, as if to negate the memories. “Dear sweet heaven, I despised that man. Him, and what he did, and myself.”
Then she gave a shaky laugh, straightened, and looked directly at Lilly. Her eyes were glassy with tears. Lilly suspected she hadn’t cried in years.
“I don’t know why I told you that. I’ve never told anyone, and I hardly know you.”
“No one?”
Erin shook her head.
“Not even Cade?”
“Especially not Cade. He never asked. By then, the nuns had him on the straight and narrow, and he was busy being the good son. Mr. Righteous. Main provider. Judge and jury.”
Lilly’s heart smarted with regret. She’d been guilty of that, too. Oh, the ways we hurt others because of wounded feelings and pride and self-righteousness!
“And even after so many years, he’s never asked why and never gotten over it?” she ventured.
“There was a time he might have.”
“What happened?”
“Glenna was killed, and it was all my fault.”
* * *
After her stunning announcement, Erin had said she had nothing else to tell and needed to finish getting ready for her lunch with a man who was, at the very least, peddling human beings for money, and at the worst, a killer.
Knowing Cade would never tell her the details of his w
ife’s death and wishing she could persuade Erin to confide more, Lilly had left the room, wondering how her new friend managed to push aside her fears and worries and go off with some man she really didn’t know. Wondering if it was because she had a death wish.
Lilly shuddered at the insanity of even thinking such a thing, but as she went downstairs to clean up the breakfast dishes, she remembered Nora’s saying in her letter that some of the women sought out death, feeling it was a better choice than what they had in life. It was a hard concept to accept, but then, Lilly had never dealt with anything like what they had suffered.
Almost as if her thoughts had brought her around, Lilly heard a knock at the back door and found Bonnie standing there.
“Bonnie! I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Hello, Lilly.” Bonnie glanced over her shoulder, and Lilly stepped aside for her to enter. “Come in.”
“Is Miss O’Toole here?”
Lilly’s mind raced. She needed some answers, and Bonnie was the only person she knew well enough to question. If the previous night was any indication, any conversation would be difficult, if not impossible, while Bonnie was working. Having her here, away from everyone, might be the only chance to start a conversation that could lead to Nora.
Lilly knew keeping their identities a secret was essential, but things would be much easier if she could just start asking questions, the way she’d done in Vandalia.
Her decision made, she said, “She is, but she has a luncheon date.”
Bonnie looked surprised. “Oh, I won’t trouble her then. I’ll come back another time.”
Lilly reached out and placed a hand on Bonnie’s arm. “No, that’s all right. She should be ready in a bit. I’m sure she’ll have time to speak with you before Mr. Wilkins gets here.”
Color fled Bonnie’s face. “Elijah Wilkins?”
“Yes,” Lilly said innocently. “Is something the matter?”
Bonnie looked as if she might bolt at any second, but then she relaxed. “Eli Wilkins is trouble with a capital T.”
“Really?” Lilly said, feigning surprise. “How so? He’s been very helpful in answering Erin’s questions about reopening this place.” She gave a little laugh. “And believe me, Erin can handle herself when it comes to unpredictable men.”
“Oh, he knows all the answers, but you be sure and tell her that she shouldn’t trust anything he says. Nothing.”
“Really?” Lilly smiled. “He’s so fascinating in a rough, manly sort of way. I think she’s enjoying his company.”
“He’s fascinating, all right,” Bonnie said. “And he uses his looks and his charm to lure women into the life.”
“What do you mean, he lures women? I’ve never heard of such a thing.” Barely able to hide her excitement, Lilly took hold of Bonnie’s arm and pulled her toward the table where Lilly and the McShanes had had their breakfast. “Sit and tell me all about it. There’s coffee left from breakfast. I just warmed it up. Would you like some?”
“Well . . . yes. That would be nice. Thank you.” Bonnie took a seat at the table, and, in a few moments, she and Lilly were sitting across from each other, their hands around their cups. “I don’t mean to be nosy,” Lilly said, “but what do you mean Wilkins lures women? He told Erin he could get whatever she wanted for her clients. Is he talking about a certain kind of woman? What?”
“Maybe. But it doesn’t have to be a woman,” Bonnie stated flatly. “Whatever your heart desires. Man, woman, child. Any size, any nationality.”
Lilly sucked in a shocked breath.
“You’re in the business. You know there are some ritzy ladies who like a night out on the town now and again, and the good madams find out about their wildest fantasies, and Eli gets what they want.”
“I have seen a few of those,” Lilly lied.
“Velvet had a Chinese woman a year or so back, because one of her regulars said he’d heard they were obedient. She didn’t speak much English, so she couldn’t talk to the other girls. Everyone felt sorry for her and tried to help however they could, but she was so determined to get away that Eli started giving her morphine.”
“Morphine?” Lilly tensed. She’d known the life was bad, but every day she learned more and more about just how bad. “What did Rosalie say?”
“I imagine she’s the one who told him to do it. It’s not unusual,” Bonnie said. “A lot of the girls use it because it’s the only way they can survive.”
Lilly pressed her lips together to stop their trembling. She could not imagine living in a drug-induced fog just to be able to tolerate your life. “That’s . . . terrible.”
Bonnie gave a nod. “Needless to say, she didn’t last long. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen.”
“Sixteen! But she was just a child. What happened?”
“One afternoon, we were sitting out on the balcony, and she climbed over the rail and tried to fly.”
The image that filled Lilly’s mind was sickening. She visualized a petite, dark-haired girl with her arms outstretched, leaping over the railing. Imagined she heard the appalling thud as the body hit the unyielding Texas ground. Pictured a broken body lying sprawled in the street, and a trickle of blood oozing from her mouth and soaking into the grit beneath her.
“Didn’t anyone try to stop her?” she said when she found her voice at last.
Bonnie shook her head. “We didn’t see her. It was almost dark, and the rest of us had gone inside to finish getting ready. Kim stayed behind. She could barely function, she was so full of morphine, but she managed to throw herself over the railing somehow.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Oh, there are plenty of tales.”
“Like the dove found nailed to the outhouse wall?”
“Yeah. Like Dottie.”
They were silent for long moments, each lost in thought, none of them pleasant.
Bonnie stared down into her coffee. When she spoke, her voice was small, hollow sounding. “It’s funny, you know, how it stops bothering you after a while.”
Lilly’s head came up in surprise, like a deer that hears something in the woods. Was it possible that Bonnie and the others suffered the same things she feared? “What do you mean?”
“The first time something like that happened, I couldn’t eat for days, but then it happened again and again, and the shock starts to diminish each time.” She gave a sorrowful laugh. “It’s so commonplace now that all us old-timers have started picking out which of the new ones will destroy themselves. We even place bets on how long it will take them to get a belly full.”
Seeing the horror on Lilly’s face, Bonnie smiled. A sorrowful, remorseful smile. “Believe it or not, I used to have a good heart.”
“I believe you still have a good heart.”
“Thank you for that. What about you?” she asked Lilly. “Did you or Miss O’Toole ever consider murdering yourself?”
Lilly thought about the scars on Erin’s wrists that she kept covered with gloves when she went out in public. “No!” she said. “I’d never ever consider something like that. But,” she added truthfully, recalling her conversation with Cade, “I have felt that hardness you were talking about creeping into my soul. I know it’s a sort of self-preservation tactic, but I don’t like it.”
“No.” Bonnie brightened. “Do you remember me telling you that you were different somehow? And that I liked you?”
“Yes.”
“At the time, I thought you reminded me of someone, but I didn’t know who. Now I remember.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. There was this woman who was here just two or three months. The two of you look nothing alike, but there’s something about you that reminds me of her. A sort of inner strength.”
Inner strength? Lilly was aware that she was often considered hardheaded and stubborn. “Inner strength” sounded much nicer.
“Nora was a tough little thing,” Bonnie said.
Expecting she would need to work the conversation to her f
riend in some roundabout way, the shock of hearing Nora’s name spoken so casually caught Lilly off guard. “Was?” she asked in a low voice.
“Yes. She’s gone now, too, but she went fighting all the way.” Bonnie laughed. The notion seemed to please Bonnie no end. “She gave them merry hell before they finally got her.”
“She sounds . . . interesting,” Lilly said. “If she gave Velvet trouble I’d like to hear about it. Let me warm up our coffee, and then you can tell me about her.”
With the cups refilled, Lilly settled in, ready to hear what had happened to her friend. “Tell me about this Nora.”
Bonnie’s eyes reflected her memories. “She was tiny and had frizzy blond hair and was feisty and smart. So smart . . .” Her voice trailed away. “She was one of the ones Eli lured here with his mail-order bride con. From what I’ve seen, there are a lot of women looking for a place to start over.”
“A woman alone doesn’t have too many choices, but it doesn’t appeal to me,” Lilly mused.
“Me either. I want to look at a man square in the eye so I can gauge for myself if he’s lying or not.”
Unfortunately, that wasn’t always a good measuring stick, Lilly thought, remembering her own circumstances.
“Nora tried to escape after Eli sold her to Velvet. Running is common with newcomers. When he found her, she got a beating to teach her a lesson. As thrashings go, it could have been a lot worse. Just something to teach a dove a lesson. The madams don’t want to hurt us so badly we can’t work. Velvet is no exception.”
“She’s all heart, isn’t she?”
Bonnie gave a short bark of laughter. “That’s Velvet, all right.” Bonnie took a swallow of her coffee. “Nora had no choice but to do as she was told, but she never gave up. She started trying to get the girls to leave. She told them they were the victims, that Jesus loved them, and that it was wrong for men to take advantage of them. She convinced a bunch of them that there was something better out there if they’d just walk away and go someplace to start over. Somehow, she managed to find out where Eli stashed some of the kids and she saw to it that they got out of town.”
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