Wren moved away in a heartbeat, easing back by several steps, until she leaned in to the sideboard against the wall.
Connor stumbled past Irina, breaking into the dining room with quick-footed steps. “Sorry, Matthews. We’ve got a problem that can’t wait.”
Elliot wanted to wring his partner’s neck for the intrusion. He’d come so close to making progress with Wren. But after the moment had shattered, a cold formality moved in to occupy the space between them. He wouldn’t be able to draw her out again—at least not right away.
Wren kept her gaze from connecting with his, the only evidence of emotion in the tight grip she’d fused to the edge of the wooden buffet cabinet behind her.
“What is it, Connor?”
“Amberley. I’ve been tailing that dame all over Boston. To date, she’s had the most boring social schedule a lug can imagine. I’ve been to dress shops, parlors, even something that looked like a big fashion fling. I thought it was all fluff.” He tipped his hat back off his forehead. “Until this afternoon, that is, when she began checking over her shoulder everywhere she went.”
“And this is something you couldn’t telephone about?”
“No good,” Wren interjected. “I had my phone disconnected. We’ve had too many calls from the press and I grew tired of hanging up the line.”
“This all happened too fast to get to a telephone box anyways. I had to chase that dame down. She didn’t know I was there, but she quickened those heel-wearing feet of hers and doubled back down a side street. And I caught up just as she slipped into a back room at the Union Oyster House.” He raised his eyebrows, like that information just leveled the playing field. “You heard me right. Not exactly a five-star clambake, is it? They may boast of the best oysters on the East Coast, but that’s still not enough to attract an upscale broad like her.”
Wren kept her head turned away during their exchange, her focus lost in the landscape beyond the back windows. She flitted a glance over to Irina, then took a bold step forward, inserting herself into the center of the conversation again. “What was she doing there?”
“Meeting a trench coat in a back room.” He glanced from Wren back to Elliot. “And before you ask, I didn’t get a look at his face. All I could see from the shadows was a hat and dark hair. Could have been anybody. But he scared her well enough, that’s certain. I’ve been watching that girl for weeks, and she’s got a smile for every gent she passes on the street. Except this one. She wouldn’t touch any food and didn’t crack a smile once. And he disappeared out the back before I could get anything more from it all. But I’ll tell you this—whoever that trench coat is lit a fire under her shoes.”
Elliot exchanged glances with Wren, trying to read her thoughts.
They seemed to mirror his own: Maybe Amberley wasn’t behind the hired car after all. What if she was just as entangled in the same web of something they all were? It looked as if a new thread of intrigue had just been added to the case, and he wasn’t the least bit convinced Wren could stay out of the thick of it now.
She stood on silently, looking part incensed, part curious over the turn of events—a dangerous combination if he was going to get her to stay put in any safe spot for more than five minutes.
“Where is she now?” Elliot ran a hand through his hair.
“I caught her at her house. Trying to look discreet as she loaded a mass of pink hatboxes in the back of her car.”
“She’s skipping town.” Elliot began gathering up their things. “We’ll have to stop her.”
He grabbed his jacket and hat from their perch on a dining chair nearby, intent on running out to catch up to Amberley before someone else did.
“Not anymore, boss.” Connor shook his head. “I just arrested her.”
“What?” Elliot shouted.
“Good,” Wren chimed in at the same time.
Elliot sent her a look that questioned her assessment of the situation. Still, the timing couldn’t have been worse.
“Honestly. Don’t look at me like that. Innocent people don’t run, Elliot. There has to be something you can hold her for, even if it’s just questioning about what happened to us last night. This could be our chance to find out who she’s running from and why. I’d say Agent Finnegan here did you a service by bringing her in.”
“It’s not that easy, Wren. If it was, I’d have done it already. But we’re not ready to question her. We simply don’t know enough to get her to talk.”
“But if someone is watching her, then they’ll know we’ve been tailing her too,” Connor added. “And if they think she’s likely to tell us anything, they’ll go after her. Then we’ll know for certain whether she’s involved. And you forget—we do have something to hold her, at least for now.”
“The punch . . .” Wren looked to Elliot, her eyes seeming to question whether she was right.
Connor nodded. “The spiked punch at her party.”
“So now that we brought her in on some piddly charge—which we can’t prove, by the way—you want to use her as bait? Do you have any idea the kind of lawyers this woman is likely to have on retainer?” Elliot slipped his hands in his pockets, sending Connor a look of displeasure.
Elliot was a stickler for traditional methods of criminal investigation. Dangling a socialite in front of an unknown threat wouldn’t ensure they didn’t end up with blood on their hands. He was certain Amberley Dover wouldn’t like the emerging plan much either.
“Not bait exactly. But she’s in a Bureau office. At the very least, we’ll have her in a place where she doesn’t feel as much of a big shot. She’s likely to negotiate if she thinks she could save her own skin.”
“Then it’s simple. We’ve got to get to her first.” Wren leaned forward to Victor Peale’s folder on the table and flipped the cover open. “You have one death certificate already. We almost had another last night. And if we don’t do this now, we could make it one more.” She tilted her head ever so slightly.
“Fine. We’ll hold her as long as we can, but she’s not going to tell us anything.” Elliot watched the shades of indecision cross Wren’s features.
She stared off in the distance, her good hand braced at her chin, momentarily lost in thought. Suddenly, she looked up, triumph alive on her face. “Arrest me.”
Elliot sighed. Ran a hand over his brow. “You’re not helping.”
“I’m serious.” Wren crossed the room to his side and braced a hand at his elbow. “Arrest me. Take me in for questioning, then put me in a room where I can slip in and talk to her. Chances are she’s scared enough now that she’ll spill something useful, if she thinks it will save her neck. And then we’ll come back here and figure this out together. I’m sure Agent Finnegan has somewhere he can keep Amberley safe after you let her go. Right?” She turned to Connor.
“I might know a guy who’s got a place.” He shrugged.
Elliot scoffed. “I’m sure you do have someplace in mind. I guarantee you it’s all you’ve been thinking of.”
“Well, what else could I do? It was either take her in or fit her for a pine box later. She’s not Capone, you know. Regardless of lawyers on her payroll, she won’t have much in the way of protection. I chose the handcuffs as a last resort. Anyway, it’s done now. And seems like Ms. Lockhart here’s got a plan that could actually work. If she can get the information we need, then I can keep Mrs. Moneybags safe so you two can work this mess out in the meantime.”
“If it would get you to do a moment’s worth of work, I’d consider it. But say I actually do agree to this half-baked plan—just what am I supposed to arrest you for, Wren? You said you wanted your kept name out of the papers. This isn’t a good way to accomplish that, especially if you’re innocent of any wrongdoing. I have to trust the men down at the Bureau, but who knows what Amberley will try to pull if she’s backed in a corner? I can’t guarantee your safety if you want to do this. If you ask me, sounds like you could get a repeat performance of last night, and I, for one, don’t thin
k it’s worth it if you get yourself killed.”
“What happened last night?” Connor ping-ponged his glance between them.
No doubt it would shock him to know the truth—Wren had a fresh bullet wound in her arm and Elliot had driven her car through the winding streets of Boston, dodging gunfire until the back bumper looked like Swiss cheese.
A bright smile filled Wren’s face as she whispered, “Wrongdoing . . .”
Connor gave Elliot a clueless look. Irina, too, was quiet, standing behind the group without a readable emotion on her face.
“Wren?” Elliot asked, though he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer.
“I’m a bootlegger.”
Connor’s eyes widened, but he crossed his arms over his chest and lowered his chin, trying to hide a smile. Elliot, however, didn’t find the admission as comical as he did. He eyed Wren, sure he couldn’t have heard her correctly.
He remembered their first conversation in her library, when she’d mentioned how she abhorred drink. But now she wanted him to believe she was embroiled in the illegal manufacture and sale of alcohol?
It was another illusion, and a terribly concocted one at that.
“I’m sorry, but you’re a what?”
“You heard me. A bootlegger.” She looked a little too happy with herself. When he didn’t make any move to accept her admission, she switched over to a fast frown. “It’s true. I share ownership in a theater downtown. The Castleton. I take full responsibility for the hollowed-out legs of the chairs in the VIP rooms. If you send investigators down there, you’ll find they’re full of alcohol.”
With ginger movements to accommodate her wounded shoulder, Wren held her wrists out before him. “So you see, gentlemen, I’ve been running an illegal speakeasy in the back halls of vaudeville. I’m guilty of a crime and I’ve confessed, so now you are obligated to take me in.”
Her jaw tense, Irina stepped forward, her customary approach of melting into the background apparently too much to stand any longer. “No, Wren. Don’t do this for Amberley. You don’t have to do this.”
Wren looked from Irina back to Elliot and Connor, determination stamped on her face. “Yes I do. And I’m not doing it for her. I’m doing this for us. For the case. Because the ways of frauds like Stapleton need to be exposed. And if we can prove he didn’t bring Victor Peale back from the dead, even if we save him in the process, then we still win. The truth will be known and Stapleton’s career will be over. He’ll stop manipulating the public.”
Irina sighed. “What do you need me to do?”
“Everything here at the estate has been taken care of, as of this morning. Just look after yourself. And if Agent Matthews sends a car of agents to watch over the house, you have my permission to allow them to stay.”
Wren turned and locked gazes with Elliot, then slung a glance down to her wrists. Familiar gold charms winked out from the cuffs of her shirt-sleeves. She looked up again, revealing a twinkle in her eyes.
“Go ahead, Agent Matthews. Lock me up. And feel free to toss away the key.”
CHAPTER 13
APRIL 2, 1916
36 BUGLE STREET
SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND
“I won’t be made a fool!”
It was a riotous shout that garnered Wren’s attention the instant she’d stepped through the front door of the Duke of Wellington public house. She peered through the small crowd gathered in a back corner of the establishment, trying to see the cause of the commotion past men in threadbare coats, uniformed soldiers, and sailors counting down the hours before they shipped out to the front.
Glasses thudded against the wood of the bar and spoons clinked porcelain bowls as men ate. Murmurs of conversation in French and Spanish—and bawdy pub talk in English—painted the background with the character Wren had expected of a refreshment room in Southampton’s dock district. It was rampant with emigrants desperate for passage to a safe haven from the war, with walls that would shield the eyes for a time, sequestering thought on the scores of wounded who never seemed to stop arriving in the streets outside. The odor of fish hung on the air like a plague, working to turn even the hungriest stomachs sour.
Wren turned away from the activity in the back of the pub.
It wasn’t the way she’d have chosen to spend her birthday. But with her uncle’s death so recent and the war turning the world upside down around her, how could a birthday ever be the same again? She aimed to find a quiet corner somewhere, with a bowl of stew—even if it only had potatoes and thin broth—and a cider to toast her final birthday spent overseas. The plan was to eat quickly, stay out of notice on her way to her boardinghouse a street over, and find her passage on a merchant ship in the morning, leaving the world of war behind for a future back in America.
Another bellow and a fist jingling cutlery on a tabletop drew her attention back to the crowd.
“She’s taken my ticket for passage—”
A young woman’s voice cut in from the center of the small crowd. “You lost it without my help, you mongrel!”
“I’ve never murdered a woman in my life, but I’d make an exception for you, lass.”
“Well, who’s to stop you now? Don’t let the package deter you,” the voice fired back, sure and strong. “I don’t care if you claim you’re King George—your threats mean nothing. I can take care of myself!”
Wren edged around the small crowd until she could catch a glimpse of the activity at its center.
The voice had indeed belonged to a woman—one of slight build and exotic descent, who was flipping a deck of cards on a tabletop. More than seeing a female take charge of the rowdy and cidered-up travelers, it piqued Wren’s notice that she thought she’d seen the young woman before. In London, perhaps? Or was it just that the streets of Southampton harbored any manner of foreigners escaping the war in France and one weary traveler looked like the next? Either way, she couldn’t have been more than Wren’s age—which was entirely too young to have been threatening a group of grown men in a public house.
If she had taken some man’s travel money, as he’d argued, Wren feared how the young woman was going to talk herself out of such a mess.
Wren could follow the woman’s impressive sleight of hand—one that was similar to her own thimblerig, only this girl used cards and clever distraction with her words instead of shifting a pea under shells.
It made sense that the gentlemen were red-faced with anger.
The young woman was good. Too good. She was swindling them full stop, and she had a pile of winnings mounded in front of her to prove it: two watches on gold chains and a few jewelry baubles glimmering in the firelight. Scraps of folded paper—steamship tickets?—and a smattering of coins, a utility knife, salted meats, and canned fish made up the lot. With a war on, the food was as valuable as a gentleman’s finest timepiece, and she owned it all.
A gristly man leaned over the table, placing a tight fist on either side of the winnings, glaring down at the woman from behind a beastly beard. “I—want—my—ticket.” Tiny flecks of spittle flew with each drawn-out syllable.
She eyed him, the challenge flashing with consideration in her light-green eyes. “Double or nothing.” She tapped her index finger on the table with each word. “Choose a man here. Anyone. If he can best my magic, I’ll give it all back. If not, you leave me be. And”—she narrowed her eyes—“you apologize for your rudeness.”
Murmurs pulsed through the crowd. In truth, they pulsed through Wren, too, coursing with anger at the young woman’s use of one word . . .
Magic.
“I’ll do it.”
Wren was shocked to find that she’d not just thought the words, but she’d actually spoken them aloud and stepped into the light, where every ale-addled brow turned in her direction. They looked at her, dressed in a man’s tweed jacket and trousers, hair tucked up under a woolen hat, no doubt thinking she was nothing but a spry and gangly young man with a death wish.
“You?” the beastly man sco
ffed.
Surely he saw Wren the way the rest of them had. She swallowed hard but continued staring down the lot of them.
“That’s right.”
The young woman peered around the room, scanning face after face.
“Is there anyone to argue with my magic? Surely not this boy here. I extend an offer to stand up now, gentlemen. After all, it’s your wares you stand to lose to a novice.”
“I am no novice.” Wren glared back. Confident as ever. “And I never lose. I’ll get your winnings back, or I will personally pay each of you for the whole of your losses.”
The challenge was accepted with no dissention—only a raised eyebrow or two. The men eased back, clearing the way for her to step up to the table. And she obliged. It was, after all, a grand test before she’d be faced with Harry Houdini once again. This should tell her one way or another whether she was ready. And though her uncle’s inheritance left her far from being an heiress, it was still enough to cover the expense of a few stragglers’ pocket change if need be.
“Very well. Challenge accepted.”
A smooth smile creased the young woman’s lips.
“The aim is simple. You choose a card. Show it to these men so they’ll remember it. Then slip it back in the stack.” She flipped the deck out in a series of shuffles, then smoothed it out in a half-mooned fan across the table. “You may shuffle. And cut the deck wherever you choose. But the card cannot hide from me. I can retrieve it from the deck every time on the first attempt—with magic.”
Wren almost laughed. “Magic?”
“That’s right.”
“No. It’s not nearly magic.” Wren walked up to the tabletop and gathered the cards in her hands, reshuffling. “It would be pointless, gentlemen, to check this woman’s shirt-sleeves. Or to ask her to stand and inspect the underside of the table—which I’m sure men of your knowledge would have already thought of, no doubt. You’d have found your attempts wasted because that’s not her game. She’s not stashing away extra cards in the shadows somewhere.”
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