12
Fish on a Hook
three days earlier
“You have to get into the water before I can teach you to swim.” Isobel regarded the man on shore. He stood well away from the rickety dock.
“It looks like rain,” Atticus Riot said.
“You don’t have your spectacles on. You can’t see the sky.” It did look like rain and the bleak gray was keeping the local children away from the swimming pond in the East Bay. With no one present save Riot, she could hardly offend anyone with a male bathing suit on her feminine form.
“The water is freezing,” he argued.
She snorted. And lazily kicked the water. Her elbows were resting on the dock, while her legs floated in the pond. “It’s warmer than the air.” She could tell he wasn’t affected by the temperature, because she was busy admiring the way he filled out his bathing suit.
When he did not budge, she scooped up a handful of water and splashed it at him.
“That’s hardly going to lure me closer, Bel.”
“Likely not, but it’s entertaining. If you’re terrified to get near me in a bathing suit, you could take lessons at the Sutro Baths. And they have a hot water pool.”
Riot walked slowly forward, as if approaching a wild animal. Eyeing her warily, he carefully sat on the edge of the dock. His thigh brushed her elbow. The scattering of his dark hair was warm, and the brief touch like a static charge to her skin.
“I refuse to have a rope put under my arms, so some young man can reel me around like a fish,” Riot said.
“Well, hell, there goes my next plan.”
“You’re not a young man.” Closer now, he could see her clearer. His gaze dipped down to where her breasts and nipples pressed against wet fabric, and back up to her eyes. “And you’re lying. You are cold.”
“So observant. Are all ‘tells’ so pointedly obvious?”
“Considering the men with whom I’ve gambled, I’m eternally grateful they aren’t.”
The edge of her lip quirked, as she lifted up on her elbows and stretched towards him. “We really should just get on with this, Riot.”
“You could teach me chess until summer comes around.”
“I wasn’t referring to your swimming lessons.”
Riot looked at her, long and hard. Her flippant remark took on weight until every fiber of her body felt charged with electricity. It was thrilling, and terrifying, and like a spooked animal she took flight. With a flash of teeth, she slipped into the water, floating backwards across the rippling pond. The water cooled her skin and slowed her heart. As she did a neat backstroke across the pond, she could feel his eyes on her.
Riot was perplexing, and she couldn’t account for it. She glanced towards the dock, and stifled a smile as he dipped a foot in the water and grimaced. Riot quickly withdrew the foot. After she had completed a circuit of the pond, she returned to the dock, propping her elbows on the wood.
“You’re the strangest man I know,” she mused.
“Why is that?”
“Most men wouldn’t hesitate to accept an invitation from an amiable woman.”
“I’m not most men.”
“So I’ve noticed.” She left the question of why sitting between them. They had dined twice together since she’d agreed to work for Ravenwood Agency. Conversation had come as naturally as breathing, and silences came like the beat of a heart. But he had not managed to catch her off-guard, and as he had said in her mausoleum, he was indeed a patient man.
Riot looked down at her with a quiet thoughtfulness. “I have a parable in mind, but I’m fairly sure you’ll seethe at the comparison.”
“Does it involve a man and a fish?” she asked.
“Why, yes. It does indeed.” There was genuine surprise in his voice.
“You’d best keep your tongue still. I’m no fish.”
“To a starving man, a fish is his whole life.”
“Are you starving, Riot?”
“I didn’t know I was, until I met you.”
“Why don’t you catch your fish, then?” she asked. “You can’t keep her on the line forever.”
There was a playful light in her eyes, but when Riot spoke his voice was grave and honest. “I’m afraid I’ll spook her, and she’ll disappear under the sea.”
Isobel lifted herself up, leaning in close, until her lips were within inches of his own. “Then dive in and join her.” Her eyes flashed in challenge, as she dropped back into the water.
“Right.” He took a breath, braced himself, and pushed off the edge of the dock. Cold water shocked his body, and he came up with a gasping oath. As fast as he had hopped in the water, he gripped the dock and pulled himself out.
“That’s cold as hell!”
Isobel started laughing so hard she feared she’d drown.
Isobel was not laughing now. She had closed her eyes. Only for a moment, or so she thought. Now she was cold and tired. And still tied up. She wanted to go back to that pond, to that day, and that man.
Terror had long burned away, leaving determination. And boredom. Struggling with bonds required patience—a quality that she lacked in spades. But there wasn’t much else to do, and while her body struggled, her mind roamed. Captivity left her alone with her own thoughts, and her mind kept churning over the few facts she had gleaned. Who was the girl her captors had asked about? How was the dying man Sinclair found connected? Where was that man? Why were these men roaming the dunes? And why did they think she was involved? The main question being—involved in what?
There was a flood of questions with no answers.
“Data, data, data,” she muttered under her breath. “I can’t make bricks without clay.” She felt her favorite detective’s frustration. But Sherlock Holmes was never captured and trussed up like a pig. And if he had been, he likely would have escaped hours ago. Surely Atticus Riot had never been so soundly beaten. But then Isobel doubted that the fictional detective or the real one had ever shot a man at point blank range in the chest, and had him keep coming.
Isobel frowned under her hood. Considering Ravenwood’s murder by the tongs, maybe Riot had. Her captors spoke Cantonese. Had she stumbled on some tong affair? According to rumor and newspapers, the highbinders wore body armor of some sort. But what would they be doing at Ocean Beach? Their activities were usually limited to Chinatown.
Isobel growled with frustration. Captivity was irritating. Clenching her teeth, she gathered her failing strength, and applied herself to escape. As she wrestled her way onto her side, she puzzled over the reaction that Riot’s name had evoked in her captors. If she were to put a name to it, she would call it fear. But if they were tong members, why would they fear Atticus Riot? Hatchet men had chopped off his partner’s head, and nearly killed Riot in the process.
“Forget the clay,” she rasped. “I don’t even know what a brick is yet.”
Riot had not elaborated on the murder; he had avoided the details. But then neither had she asked.
How little she knew of the man. And how she ached to find out more. But Isobel couldn’t even assure herself that she wouldn’t bolt like the figurative fish he feared. He had a right to be cautious. The last thing on earth she wanted to do was hurt Atticus Riot. And her dying would certainly do that.
On her knees now, with her arms wrenched behind her back, she felt triumphant. She was upright. Again. This was not the first time in the previous hours (days?) that she had struggled to this position.
Isobel leaned carefully to the side. It hurt her bruised stomach, and she swayed like a strand of grass in the wind, trying to control her descent with abused muscles, until she felt the tip of the rod catch on the dirt.
Taking a breath, she flexed every aching muscle in her body. All she needed to do was loosen one strand, and the rest would follow. That was her hope, at any rate.
She rested there for a time, catching her breath, letting her weight be supported by the rod behind her elbows. It was uncomfortable, but so was lying
on her stomach.
Bracing herself, Isobel tensed, and with abdominal muscles feeling like tenderized meat, threw all her weight to the side. The action jammed the end of the rod into the dirt. It caught for a moment, slipped, and Isobel fell forward, landing on her stomach, and then her chin. She bit back a groan, and lay panting against the coarse sack over her head.
As children, she and Lotario had tried to follow their older brothers everywhere. Merrik and Vicilia were particularly plagued. And in their efforts to keep the twins at home, the brothers had taken to tying them up whenever they were ready to sneak out. As a result, Lotario and Isobel had learned to escape almost everything. Eventually.
Isobel wrestled herself onto her knees once again. Her bladder was near to bursting, and if this attempt failed, she was not keen on lying in her own urine.
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,” she muttered.
This time Isobel lifted off with her knees, performing a little hop, before throwing herself to the side. The rod gave, and she hit the dirt hard, head and shoulder banging against the ground. Dazed, she rolled onto her back, and nearly shouted with joy. The rod between her back and elbows had been pushed from the ropes.
Working quickly, Isobel slipped her bound wrists around her tied ankles, and whimpered as the blood rushed back into her arms. Her fingers were numb, but her hands were in front of her. She yanked the sack from her head.
Removing the bag didn’t improve her view. It was still dark. But light seeped from a crack under the door. Dim, yet bright compared to a bag over the head. As she applied her teeth to the ropes around her wrists, she gazed around the dank room. It was a root cellar; an empty one, or so she thought at first. Before she saw a lump by the far wall.
The strange smell was not rotting potatoes.
Grimacing, she looked away, and focused on her bonds. When the ropes dropped to the ground, blood rushed to her limbs, sending tingling needles racing down her arms and legs. Isobel tried to stand, but she stumbled. Her feet were asleep. She braced herself on a wall, and pulled herself up on the rough stones. Arms and legs trembling, she took turns stomping each foot, trying to restore feeling.
When her feet were more reliable, she picked up the rod. It appeared as if it had served as a broom handle in another life. She used it now as a cane to shuffle over to the door.
There was no handle, no lock. It was likely barred from the outside. Still, she pushed it—one never knew. But the door did not budge. Escape was never so simple.
Isobel pressed an ear against the thick wood. She listened for longer than was necessary, avoiding the inevitable. She was all too conscious of the lump in the corner. Her fingers tightened around the broom handle, as thoughts and strategies flew through her mind, mapping each possible outcome and the probability of survival.
All was silent. Not a peep reached her ears. Steeling herself, she turned towards that lump, and hobbled over to it. Even without the faint light seeping from under the door, she knew what she’d find. The lump was wrapped in a tarp, and the shape was suggestive. She crouched, and the world swayed. Isobel caught herself.
When the walls stopped heaving, she moved the folds aside, knowing what she’d find. A corpse. Once a man; now cold flesh. Rigor mortis was well and set in. He had longish hair and square features, a mustache, and thick sideburns. He had a broad chest, and a stocky build. But the skin looked stretched, like a shrunken skull she’d once seen at a carnival.
With a sigh, she moved to the far corner to relieve the pressure on her bladder, hoping her captors wouldn’t decide to walk in on her. When she was through, she moved back to her cellmate, and crouched by his head. Light from beneath the door offered a view of the gruesome wound to his scalp.
Squinting, she parted the hair, and probed the wound with numb fingers. The gash was long, a groove that bit into his skull. It was deeper towards the crown of his head. This was not a wound caused by a hoof, but by a cleaver-like weapon or a hatchet.
Isobel picked up the mixture of dirt and sand on the ground, and washed her hands. She turned to the man’s pockets. No revolver, but there was a clasp knife, billfold, and a token. She slipped the knife into her own pocket, and opened the billfold.
Isobel blinked. It was full of cash. One hundred dollars to be exact. Whoever these people were, they were not thieves. His calling card was inside as well: Mr. Lincoln Howe.
She looked to her companion. “Now why would they leave all your information in your pockets?” she whispered. He did not answer. What were her captors planning to do with the body?
Isobel slipped one of the calling cards into a pocket, and added the cash as well. It wasn’t as if he needed it any longer. The print on the token was too small to read in the dim light, so she added that to her growing inventory.
Further searching of the body revealed very little, save that his clothes were tailored and his shoes expensive. From a mushroomed ear, crooked nose, and the scarring on his knuckles, she surmised that he was a pugilist.
What would a pugilist be doing on the dunes at night, and why was he killed with a knife—a hatchet or cleaver, she corrected—and then brought here (wherever here might be) along with herself?
Isobel sat back on her hunches, and promptly fell on her backside. Her legs were shaky, and her muscles still cramped. She cursed under her breath, and climbed slowly to her feet. As she paced the perimeter of the cellar, trying to work out the kinks, she swung her broom handle, testing its weight. She could fashion a slungshot out of the rope. She had a knife, too. But the memory of being held down face first in the sand was all too recent. All her struggling had been useless.
She could attack directly… or she could bide her time and use her wits like a good ‘possum. As attractive as the first option was, there were too many unknown variables. How many men were there? Where was she? And even if she managed to get past the men at the door, how many more would she face, and how far would she have to run, to escape them all?
It would have to be wits, then. Isobel stopped, and looked at the discarded rope. All she needed now was to figure out how to get back into her bonds.
13
Catch and Release
The door opened, and Isobel fought down an urge to bolt. She was prone, lying on her stomach, head in a bag, with wrists bound behind her back. Only there was one difference. A quick tug on a strand of rope, and the entire thing would unravel. She hoped her captors wouldn’t notice her adjustments.
Rather than cut a small hole in her hood, she had taken the coarse sack and rubbed the fabric against brick until it thinned. Now she could watch through a gauzy layer as a pair of feet approached. They weren’t covered in boots, but in slippers.
“Scream, and you die,” said a heavily accented voice. The man stepped behind her, and as casually as lifting a sack of potatoes, he wrenched her off the ground and slung her over a shoulder. The pressure on her bruised stomach nearly made her retch. Spots danced in her vision, and she fought against the wave of nausea, squirming in pain on his shoulder.
Two others moved into the room. One wore slippers, the other boots. She heard a grunt, and shuffling. The man carrying her walked out of the room. Her view was limited to a silk tunic, but she could feel his thick queue brush against her shoulder with every step.
Brick steps passed under her line of sight. A narrow hallway, more steps, and finally carpet. It smelled… rich. Flowers and cologne, tobacco and cigar smoke mingled with the moldy sack over her head. But the hallway didn’t last long. Another door opened, and a blast of cold ocean air hit her. And darkness. A fleeting feeling of freedom gripped her, and she bit back an urge to struggle, to tug on the rope that would unravel her bonds, and take her chances here.
Isobel tensed, but before she could give into fear, she was tossed onto a hard wooden surface that groaned. It felt hollow. She heard the stamp of a hoof, the shift of rigging, and felt the floor give as her stiff companion was laid beside her. She was in a wagon bed.
&n
bsp; Through thin fabric, she tried to study her surroundings, but the night was dark and foggy, and she could see next to nothing. The wagon sagged, slippered feet crouched beside her, and a tarp was thrown over her body. The wagon jostled forward.
Isobel began counting, softly to herself, keeping track of turns and curves, of bumps in the road, and committing them to memory. Sooner or later they’d leave the wagon, and she would be marched off to some lonely spot to die. She needed to know her way back.
The wagon slowed, but did not stop. The tarp was ripped away, and a strong hand grabbed her by the hair through the cloth over her head. She could make out a large, thick face, with narrow eyes gleaming in the dark.
“The horse you look for is tied to tree. Your things are in bags,” the voice said. “You leave. You forget. You tell Din Gau—Atticus Riot—nothing, or chun hung will be plastered on all walls with your names. You die; he dies.”
Before the words had fully settled, the ropes behind her back were sliced, and she was tossed from the moving wagon. She hit the hard-packed dirt, bounced once, and rolled far too many feet before she stopped.
She gasped for air, but her lungs would not fill. So she relaxed and waited, and when the shock had finally receded, she sucked in a breath. Isobel wrestled free of her tattered bonds, and yanked loose the rope around her ankles. She tugged the sack off her head, and hopped up, ready to give chase.
But the wagon was already out of sight, its trembling wheels echoing in the night. Isobel spun, searching her surroundings. Trees, a wide dirt road, plants—Golden Gate Park? A horse stood calmly near a tree with its reins tossed over a branch. She buttoned her coat over her gaping shirt, and limped over to him. It was hard to put a color to the horse in the dark, but the stripe down his nose fit a familiar description.
“Wilson?”
The horse’s ears angled forward. She put a hand to his nose, and pressed her forehead gratefully against his. Isobel took a shuddering breath, and briefly considered climbing into the saddle to give chase. But fear (and bruises) shook her body.
Record of Blood Page 9