by Diana Ballew
I grunted. “I’m to trust you? It’s because of you I already have an heir with a woman — no — a She I do not love.” I slowly shook my head. “No, Regine. There will be no heir and a spare for you.”
Her chin quivered. “Are you so hateful you do not wish to hear about your son?”
For some reason, her words cut me to the core. I sighed but gave no reply.
Desperation flooded her flushed face. She reached up and touched my hair. I slapped her hand away and glared into her eyes.
“He is, of course, your age now, and he looks like you, Derek. Rudolpho’s hair is dark blond, like yours, but he has my eyes — brown and gold.”
Hoping to wash away my vile sin, I rose and paced to the water closet.
“He is a fine prince,” she called out. “A bit too independent for his own good, perhaps, but a fine Were noble, nonetheless. He knows his father is alive, but he does not know your name.”
I ignored her.
“Are you listening to me, King? Rudolpho is anxious to rule one day. He will find you. You will meet your son someday, and you had better be prepared. Mark my words.”
Mark my words. Her words reverberated inside my skull. I tossed the washcloth in the bowl and rested my head against the mirror in front of me. Queen Regine Delacour was ruthless. She could never be trusted, not ever. The farther away from her and Rudolpho I could get, the better.
I told Gregore of my misfortune with the Were queen. We both agreed it was best if we left for America right away.
He sold his paintings and sculptures, and I my theatres and real estate holdings. A week later, we boarded the steamer for America.
Chapter Eight
Everett, Washington
“Miss Erin!”
The urgent voice woke Erin from the puzzling dream. “Maggie?”
The servant opened the bedroom door and rushed in.
Erin slowly sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. “What’s the matter?”
“Your father’s rushed off.” Maggie yanked the bedroom curtains open. “It seems there’s been a wolf attack.”
“What — at the cemetery?”
“No, not this time. Over on Chestnut, and apparently the scene is horrific.”
Erin scrunched her eyes shut and sighed, trying to rouse from her interrupted dream. “Are … are there any details?”
“I don’t know anything more. You know your father. He rushed out the door. But judging from what I overheard, a woman was murdered.”
Another murder. Erin scrambled from bed.
Maggie grabbed the chenille robe draped at the footboard and extended it.
“I’m going to need an extra-large cup of coffee to tackle this day, Maggie.”
“Yes, Miss. Coming right up,” the servant said as she swiftly exited the bedroom.
Erin slowly shook her head. What the devil is going on around here? The graves disturbed in the dead of night at the cemetery. Mr. Avery shredded to pieces. Now this.
After washing and dressing, she made her way downstairs to the dining room where Maggie had already set out a pot of coffee.
The servant entered with a plate of biscuits and gravy. “Thought you’d want breakfast before heading out.”
Erin draped a linen napkin across her lap and watched as Maggie poured the steaming coffee into a cup.
The servant paused in mid-pour. “What do you suppose is happening around here?”
Erin gestured for Maggie to continue pouring. “I don’t know. I really just don’t know. Whatever it is, it’s nothing this city has ever seen before.” A cold shiver raced up her spine.
Maggie exhaled loudly. “And something tells me you plan to get to the bottom of this mystery, am I right?”
Erin forced a smile. “You know me far too well.”
After breakfast Erin saddled her horse and headed for Chestnut Avenue. As much as she tried to focus on the task ahead, foggy images of her interrupted dream kept resurfacing. With each steady clomp of the horse’s hooves, her heart kept beat as she recalled the faraway, dreamy vision.
Derek had been standing by her side near a sunny pebbled stream. Women in long woolen skirts sat crouched along the bank, smiling and talking to one another, while washing clothes in the flowing water. In the dream, Derek had looked the same, yet different. Dressed in modest, well-worn clothing and sporting a beard, his solemn face and poignant blue eyes had caught her by surprise.
But it was her own words in the dream that rang clear as a bell inside her mind now: “Go on,” she had said to him in a chiding tone, waving him away with a dismissive swish of her hand. Yet as she watched Derek slowly turn and walk away, pebbly goose-bumps had raced across her skin, and the sudden feeling of dread made her wish she had told him … something.
Then Maggie’s urgent knocks interrupted the dream.
“What was it I wanted to tell him?” she murmured, urging the horse to a slower clip as she approached.
Up ahead, policemen were shouting and waving their hands in a flurry, trying to keep the crowd of people away from the roped-off area.
She secured the reins to a weathered post and headed toward the swarm with her pen and notepad in hand. Just as she slipped underneath the rope, a policeman called out.
“Miss, get back behind the rope.”
“I’m with the Everett Messenger,” she said.
The young policeman grabbed her arm. “I don’t care who you’re with.”
Erin glared at the firm hand gripping her arm. She lifted her gaze to his. “Unhand me, now. I’m a member of the press, and I have every right to be here.”
Releasing his grip, his face flushed bright red.
She passed what appeared to be a body fully concealed with a wool blanket, lying at the bottom of the three-story brick building. Crimson stains seeped through the thick fabric. Her co- worker, David, was standing over the body, his arms crossed at his chest.
Erin approached him. “Looks like quite a story is brewing, don’t you think?”
David appeared to struggle with wrenching his gaze from the covered body lying on the ground. “Erin.” He frowned and shook his head. “Uh-oh. Wait a tick. What are you doing down here? Your father specifically told me he didn’t want you on this story or anywhere near this part of town. There’s talk about wolves.”
Good Lord. It was too early in the morning for this nonsense. She narrowed her gaze. “You men.”
David’s jaw flopped open, his arms falling limply to his sides. “What?”
She heaved a sigh and glared into his wide eyes. “You’re new, David, so you don’t know me very well. I understand you’re just following my father’s orders, and I appreciate that.” She lifted a single eyebrow. “Now let me do my work. Where’s my father?”
David’s gaze darted from side to side. “Hmm. He was just here.” He shrugged. “Heck, I don’t know. He’s around here somewhere. Do you want me to find him?”
She skimmed the faces of the panicked crowd. There was an important story waiting to be written. If she could get to the bottom of what had happened here before David did … .
A slight woman leaning against the brick building captured Erin’s attention. Tears sullied her pink cheeks, and her wilted shoulders heaved with quiet sobs.
“Erin? Do you want me to find him?” David repeated.
As Erin stared at the sad young woman up ahead, she felt as though she’d just entered a dark cave. Everything in her peripheral vision thinned to shadows except for the tearful waif-like creature standing alone, clutching a crocheted shawl draped across her shoulders.
“No,” Erin muttered, stepping toward the young woman. “I’ll find my father in just a bit.” Erin ventured forward. “Miss?” She gazed into the despondent eyes staring back and realized the woman couldn’t have been more than eighteen years of age.
With trembling fingers, the slender creature clutched her shawl shut and peered up with round eyes brimming with tears. “Yes, Ma’am?”
“Honey, ar
e you all right?”
“No, no, no,” she said, her soft voice trailing away with the cool breeze.
Erin jutted her chin toward the covered body lying on the ground. “Do you know what happened here?”
She sniffed. “It’s Julie.”
Erin stared at the blanket-covered corpse before turning her attention back to the distraught woman. “And you knew Julie?”
Sobs rocked the woman’s upper body. “I did,” she whimpered.
Erin rubbed the woman’s shoulder, and her finger snagged in a hole of the threadbare shawl. “Do you wish to talk about it?”
The urchin lifted her moist gaze. “I … I don’t know if I can.”
Erin scanned the area, looking for a warm restaurant where they could talk. “Let me buy you some breakfast. I think —”
“No.” The woman shook her head. “Please, I just need to go upstairs to my room.”
Erin sensed the young woman knew what had happened. As much as she wanted valuable insight into this important news story shaking the city, she couldn’t push the poor girl into talking with her, at least not yet. “I’ll just leave you to your privacy, Miss. But if you ever need to talk —”
“You’re welcome to join me upstairs.” The waif cocked her head toward the brick building.
“Are you sure you want company right now?”
She pressed her hand to Erin’s arm. “Please, come.”
Erin followed quietly up the damp outside stairway leading to the third floor. Once inside, they walked a narrow hallway framed with peeling plaster from floor to ceiling. They stopped at a closed door. The girl reached up, retrieved a key from above the entry jamb, and opened the door.
Inside the small dwelling were two stools tucked under a drop-leaf table in the tiny kitchen with a hearth. Blankets hung on a tethered rope, separating the bed and small washbasin from the rest of the room.
“I know it ain’t much. But I do have tea. Would you like some?”
Erin followed her into the kitchen. “Tea sounds lovely, but allow me to make it.”
“No, no,” she said with a firm shake of her head. “Sit.” The girl knelt by the glowing embers of a dying fire, poured steaming water from a kettle into a bowl, and inserted the tea ball.
As the tea steeped, Erin sat on a stool, quietly observing the slight woman reaching into a copper bucket sitting by the hearth and placing a log on the waning fire. She said, “I just realized I don’t even know your name. I’m Erin Richland.”
Looking as though she had performed the same dull task hundreds of times before, the waif craned her willowy neck, leaned toward the embers, and blew gently until the log caught flame. “My name’s Pearl.” Without looking up she said, “And the body under the blanket outside? That’s Julie. My older sister.”
Her older sister.
Erin’s heart sank to her toes. She rose from the stool and hastened toward the girl. “I’m terribly sorry for your loss, honey.” She knelt beside her.
Pearl split the tea into two smaller cups and handed one to Erin before sitting on a stool at the table.
Erin took the seat opposite. “You know, Pearl is truly a lovely name.”
Pearl snorted into her teacup. “It ain’t my Christian name. Even Julie had her working name. She went by Lilly, you know, for the customers. Down ’round here, we’re known as the White sisters: Lilly and Pearl White.”
Erin’s cheeks warmed. While she had suspected sweet little Pearl was likely a prostitute, she hadn’t been sure until now.
Pearl sighed and lifted her gaze to Erin’s. “You look like a fine woman, Miss Richland. What are you doin’ talking to someone like me, anyhow?”
The question caught Erin off guard. “Well, I came here because I heard something horrible had happened.”
“But don’t you know a lady’s reputation gets tarnished to black ash if she’s seen down these parts of town?”
Erin pursed her lips. “I don’t care a whip about that. Truly, I don’t. Besides, I work for the newspaper and —”
“The newspaper?” Pearl stood in a flash. “I … I don’t want be in the newspaper. You hear me?” She paced the room, whimpering. Lifting her quivering chin she said, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave, Miss Richland.”
Erin slowly rose from her seat. “I’m so sorry, Pearl. I didn’t mean to upset you. I didn’t come up here to —”
Pearl stopped in mid-step. “You didn’t come up here to what?”
Guilt pierced Erin’s belly. Indeed, she had thought about reporting Pearl’s side of the story, but that idea had quickly faded once she realized the murder victim was Pearl’s sister. “If you don’t want your name in the newspaper, that’s fine. Truly.”
Pearl’s eyebrows rose to pale arches. “You trying to tell me you didn’t come up here to get a story?”
Erin couldn’t lie to her. “Well, maybe, initially.”
Pearl turned away with a sigh and gazed out the tall apartment window. “What happened last night. The sounds. I’ll never get them out of my head. Never. The screams, the pleading.” She covered her ears and flopped on the bed.
Erin rushed to Pearl’s bedside, but appropriate words of comfort felt locked inside her throat.
“And then the sight of my poor sister lying on the ground and all that blood — Oh, God.” She lifted her head from the pillow, her gaze snapping to Erin’s. “You’re a proper woman, Miss Richland. Promise me you won’t put me in the paper. Promise, or I won’t say another word.”
“Yes, yes, I promise, Pearl.” Erin sat at the edge of the bed. “Truly, I won’t.”
Pearl rolled over and covered her eyes with the crook of her arm. “I’m all alone in the world now.”
Outside, shouts from the lingering crowd demanding answers to the heinous murder rang out. Erin lifted her chin and gazed out the tall leaded glass window. Policeman shuffled the angry people away from the crime scene as an ambulance cart moved up the street, presumably with Julie inside.
Determined to get to the bottom of the murder of Pearl’s sister, Erin asked, “What did you hear, Pearl? What exactly did you see?”
A large brown eye peeked out from below Pearl’s draped arm. “Remember now, you promised you won’t write anything about me.”
“I remember.”
Pearl’s long drawn-out sigh filled the small apartment. “Last night, Julie and I were downstairs in the saloon. A man came in looking like a real fine gentleman, top hat, dressed in a suit that must have cost a fortune.”
“Had you ever seen this man before?”
“No, but new clients had been coming in here ever since the building was bought by a new owner. Trust me, I surely would have noticed this man before. You probably know the rich-looking type, Miss Richland, but me and Julie, well, we have our regulars, and they don’t look like him.” She sighed and her arm dropped limply to her side. “The gentleman bought me and Julie drinks. ’Course he didn’t know that our new boss just puts apple juice in our glasses. Hell, if we had liquor every time a man bought us drinks, well … ”
Erin nodded. “Go on.”
“Anyway, after he bought us the drinks he said he wanted something special.”
“Something special,” Erin repeated.
Pearl blushed. “Well, he wanted both of us — me and Julie, together, for the night. We’re sisters, so we ain’t never, well, you know, not together — ”
“Yes, yes. I understand,” Erin said, hoping to move the story along quicker.
“Julie told him it would cost him big. There was something in the handsome man’s eyes. Wild lookin’ eyes, he had. I got real nervous. I wanted to pull her aside and talk to her a minute and tell her how uneasy I was feeling.”
Erin cocked her head. “And did you?”
“Yeah.” Pearl sniffed. “I got her alone, behind the bar, and told her I didn’t trust the man. She laughed and told me not to worry. Said she’d take care of him herself. She liked the idea of being with a well
-dressed gentleman with money. It was a pleasant change from all the loggers and mill workers, she said. I looked at him sitting at that table with an arrogant smile and those wild eyes of his. I begged her not to do it, but there was no arguing with Julie. She always did what she wanted, when she wanted, and that was the end of it. At first he put up a fight. Demanded the two of us. But after she whispered something in his ear, he smiled and nodded. After that, I called it a night and went upstairs to my room.”
Erin frowned, trying to piece together all the information Pearl had just relayed while combining it with Maggie’s announcement about a wolf.
Pearl sighed wearily, fresh tears moistening her eyes. “But that wasn’t the end of it. Next thing I know, I’m being woken up in the dead of night. I hear Julie next door, and there’s more pounding against the wall than usual, if you know what I mean.”
Oh, Erin knew exactly what Pearl meant. The mental image of Derek’s naked body hovering above her, his azure eyes seducing her, rendering her powerless, flashed through her mind. Instantly, a flush of heat raced across her neck and cheeks.
Pearl’s eyes softened. “Oh, Miss Richland. You sure you want to hear this?”
“I do. I’m sorry, I’m just —”
“Only if you’re sure. Fact is, I really don’t have anyone to talk to anymore. I know we’re strangers, but having you here helps.”
Erin managed a smile. “I want to help. Go on.”
Pearl closed her eyes. A single tear glided down the side of her face, disappearing on the dingy pillow beneath her head. “I was hearing noises against the wall. More grunting and groaning than usual. I didn’t think too much about it at the time. Some men are, well, some men just have more vigor than others. But, then the sounds turned different, growling, heavy panting, muffled cries. I got real scared. I shot out of bed and quickly dressed.” Pearl cleared her throat. “Then I heard cries. Sounded muffled, like he had Julie’s mouth covered, then a loud growl followed. And it weren’t like a growl from a man or a mangy ol’ dog. It was like it was coming from … a beast.”