by Renee Ryan
The sound of Hank’s responding high-pitched holler sent a swirl of guilt coursing through her.
“Hank, it’s me. Laney.” She reached out to touch his sleeve.
“That was not funny, Miss O’Connor.” With the petulance she’d witnessed in very young boys, Hank pushed her hand away. “Not funny at all.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“What are you doing slinking in the dark?” he asked, his gaze darting around the alley.
“Waiting for you.”
His audible gasp told its own story. “You knew I was following you?”
“You’re sort of hard to miss.” She touched his sleeve again. This time he didn’t push her hand away.
For the benefit of his dignity, she made a suggestion. “Let’s step back into the light. I can’t even see my own shadow.”
“Good idea.” He turned and started out, leading the way without bothering to see if she followed.
Once they were back in the full light of the street, Laney got straight to the point. “Why are you following me?”
“Just doing my job.”
“I figured that. But why?”
“As much as I like you, Miss O’Connor—” he gave her a sympathetic grimace “—I can’t tell you any more than I already have.”
“If it’s for my protection...?” She paused, waiting for him to affirm or deny the suggestion, but old tight-lipped Hank pretended grave interest in his right thumbnail.
His silence confirmed her suspicions. Marc wasn’t worried about her safety. The tenderness, the concern over her lack of sleep had been an illusion.
After another moment she softened her tone and dripped sugar into the air. “You really won’t tell me why you’re here?”
“I can’t.”
A little more sugar. “Not even a hint?”
Nothing.
“Hank, please?”
He sighed. “Miss O’Connor, I like you. Really, I do. Even when you did all that fancy safecracking and wall scaling the other night, I thought you were someone special. But I work for Mr. Dupree. And he doesn’t trust you. That means I can’t, either.”
She couldn’t keep the bitter taste of disappointment from filling her mouth. “Does your boss trust anyone?”
Hank looked down the street, as though checking to see if anyone was listening. “Sure. Just not...”
“Me.”
“No, it’s not you in particular. It’s all women.” He looked behind him again. “And believe me, he has a good reason not to trust your sort.”
Laney tried to remind herself that she’d long since accepted that Marc considered her just another woman of questionable virtue. But she couldn’t make herself believe it, not in the dark recesses of her mind. Saddened, she lowered her lashes to hide the hurt running through her.
Hank must have seen something of her pain. “Oh, no. I didn’t mean it like that. I meant Mr. Dupree doesn’t trust women, period.”
“No?” A small portion of her sorrow lifted, replaced by a different sort of pain, one for a man who had material wealth and comfort yet little faith in mankind. Or rather, womankind. “Why doesn’t he trust women?”
Hank slammed his mouth shut and shook his head.
Now that the subject had been broached, Laney couldn’t let the matter drop. “If you must follow me home, can’t you at least tell me the rest?”
“I already said too much.”
“You know, I have my own reasons for not wanting Marc...I mean Mr. Dupree...to know where I live.”
Hank blew out a puff of air. “I have to follow you anyway.”
Time to change tactics. “I always show up for work, don’t I?”
“Can’t argue with that.”
“And I work hard when I’m there.”
“Of course you do.”
“Seems silly that you follow me home.” She lifted an eyebrow. “What difference could it possibly make where I live?”
“It’s not that Mr. Dupree doesn’t think you’ll show for work, he just wants to know—” Hank cut his own words off, scowled and pointed a finger at her. “Oh, no you don’t.”
Think, Laney. Think. She hated manipulating this big, kind man, but she had to protect the children. “No one would have to know that you didn’t follow me home.”
“I would know. And that means Mr. Dupree would figure it out eventually. He’s smart like that.”
“What if you accidentally lost me?”
Hank rubbed his chin. “No. That could never happen.”
Before he had time to consider the possibility further, Laney darted down the alley again. Fifty feet later, a wooden fence blocked her passage to the other side. With considerable reaching, a good toehold and a solid jump she scrambled over the barrier.
Hank’s bark of shock and thudding pursuit motivated Laney to lift her feet faster off the ground. With no time to check behind her, she sped around the next corner then wove her way through two other streets. After a few more turns Laney gave in and looked over her shoulder.
Hank wasn’t following her anymore. She slowed her pace and sighed with pleasure. But guilt reared quickly. She’d like to think she and Hank had become friends. Not that she could count on that, not with so much at stake.
For now, she had to operate on the assumption that both Hank and his boss were threats to Charity House. Perhaps she’d played a rotten trick on the big, kind man but, in the end, she’d managed to protect her children for another night.
Chapter Thirteen
The next day after sending Laney home early, Marc went about his daily business. He still couldn’t fathom how Hank had lost her the evening before. Although he knew the woman was crafty, something about Hank’s story didn’t make sense. Had Hank lost her intentionally?
That would mean the two had become...amicable. At the notion a quiet, shocking jolt of jealousy burned through Marc’s soul. He wondered how long he could continue pretending he wasn’t growing attached to the woman.
The answer was painfully obvious.
Not long enough.
The time had come to find out exactly who she was and where she lived. Marc would ask the one man who knew the truth—Thurston P. Prescott III. And if the banker wouldn’t cooperate, Marc would introduce him to Trey. Amazing the plethora of information a tin star could get out of an otherwise reticent source.
Now that he’d decided to take action, Marc was anxious to solve the mystery of who Laney O’Connor really was beneath her pretty smile and evasive manner. Unfortunately, before he could question Prescott, he had to check in at Mattie’s first.
All week long he’d had a bad feeling about one of the restaurant’s waitresses. Julia had left early three nights in a row, with the obvious lie of not feeling well. Marc hoped he didn’t find the girl working for the infamous madam again. As much as he’d hate to do it, if Julia had broken the rules he would fire her. If for no other reason, he’d have to release her for the sake of the other women who wanted to make the change permanently.
His gut told him Julia had lapsed. And his gut was never wrong. Except once. Even now, he couldn’t squelch the onslaught of painful memories over his wife’s betrayal and subsequent self-destruction. Till the end of his days, Marc would never understand what made a woman like Pearl indulge in a lifestyle that she’d hated as much as she’d craved.
It was too late to save Pearl. He just hoped it wasn’t too late to help Julia.
* * *
Clutching the gold dress in her arms, Laney made her way along the upstairs hallway of Mattie’s brothel. She stopped at the end of the corridor, shifted the neatly folded garment to one arm and knocked on the closed door.
No answer.
She tried again. “Sally, it’s me, Laney. I’ve come to return your dress.”
While she waited again for an answer, Mattie Silks sauntered down the hallway toward her. “Laney, my dear girl, Sally’s not up for visitors. She had a bad bout of coughing this morning and it’s worn her out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this when I first arrived?”
Concentrating on smoothing a nonexistent wrinkle from her sleeve, Mattie shrugged. “It’s none of my concern, as long as that lunger does her job in the evenings, I don’t care what she does during the day.”
Choked with anger, Laney took a long, hard look at the petite madam. Pretty and plump, the blonde, coldhearted woman had the audacity to wear a cross studded with diamonds around her neck.
Laney’s anger boiled deeper as she realized the expensive piece of jewelry had been purchased with the commission Mattie earned off her girls. Girls who knew no better when the madam demanded an outrageous percentage of their evening wages.
“How could you not care?” She strained to keep every bit of emotion out of her voice. “Sally’s been with you for years, since before my mother came to work for you. That lovely British accent of hers brings in the fancy men and their money.”
“I run a business, not a charity house.” Mattie giggled at her pun on words. “Oh, that’s funny.”
Jaw clenched tight, Laney focused on the dress in her hands, sickened at the sinful deeds that had been committed to pay for the expensive garment. Mattie drove all her girls hard, literally enslaving them with her demand that they work every evening in dresses imported from Paris and supplied with their own money.
Reaching out, Mattie’s eyes turned shrewd as she touched Laney’s shoulder. “You’ve got it all wrong. The life I provide my girls is really quite comfortable. Your mother certainly didn’t mind it. You just have to look at it from the proper perspective.”
“Proper perspective?” Laney practically choked on the words. “Don’t forget who you’re talking to. I know what this life does to women, how it steals their youth, their futures, often even their lives.”
“Now, now, don’t be so dramatic.” Mattie pulled at a loose thread on her collar. “If you ever get tired of taking care of other women’s mistakes, I could use a girl like you.” Her gaze roved past Laney’s hair, across her face, and slowly along her body. “You’d bring in the fancy money, too.”
“My answer is the same as always.” Laney shuddered. “I’m not interested in working for you, Mattie.”
“If you change your mind...”
“I won’t.” Laney turned back to the closed door, knocking with more force than before. “Sally, open up.”
Coughing erupted in answer.
Hating to ask but not having much of a choice, Laney turned back to Mattie. “Would you unlock this door, please?”
Like a dog with a bone, Mattie continued the previous conversation. “Sally won’t be around much longer. You could take her place. She has the best room in the house.”
In an attempt to gather her patience, Laney squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “Just open the door.”
“Rude, that’s what you are.” Mattie shook her finger inches from Laney’s face. “I should kick you out of here.”
“But you won’t. Like it or not, you need me. I keep you in business.”
“How do you figure that?”
“I care for your girls when they get into trouble, and then I care for their children so they can come back to work for you. You’d be out of half your income if it weren’t for me.”
“I’d manage.” Mattie leaned against the opposite wall and flashed a false smile. “By the way, a man came around a few days ago asking about you.”
Laney’s hand froze on the door handle. “What man?”
Mattie plucked out a handkerchief from her sleeve, waved it in front of her face, sighed. “Handsome devil, that one.”
“You get his name?”
Smiling an I-got-you-now smile, the madam paused for several long beats. “It was that hotel owner, Marc Dupree.”
No. “What did you tell him?”
Instead of answering, Mattie fired off her own question in response. “What does he want with you?”
“It’s personal. And I’d rather you not tell him how you know me.”
Mattie rolled her eyes. “I’m not stupid, Laney. No one outside our circle knows what service you provide me. Or rather, what service you provide several of my girls.”
“Thank you.” With that settled, she turned her attention back to Sally’s door. “Since we understand one another, I’d like to check on Sally now.”
“You better watch out, girl.” Mattie pushed forward, unlocked Sally’s door and then moved aside. “Marc Dupree isn’t like most men.”
Laney didn’t need anyone telling her something she already knew, especially not a woman like Mattie Silks.
“If he wants to find you,” Mattie said, shaking her finger in Laney’s face again. “He’ll find you.”
Hearing the truth spoken so casually, with Mattie’s knowing grin on her face, Laney could only pray the madam was wrong.
Marc consulted the large double doors outside the fancy brothel, hoping once again that Julia hadn’t gone back to work for Denver’s notorious madam. True, Mattie ran the most elegant parlor house in town, but a brothel was still a brothel.
Pushing open the door, he stepped into the gaudy foyer and strode into the main parlor. Though nothing in particular assaulted his sensibilities, everything about the chosen décor was too much. Alone, each piece of furniture and various adornments could almost pass for tasteful. But together, the red velvet divans, the paintings, the gold fixtures and the bold wallpaper defined bad taste.
As with the décor, Mattie Silks overdid everything. She only served champagne while her girls dressed in the height of Parisian fashion. Marc surveyed the interior with a critical heart and a twinge of conscience got to him. Here he stood, judging the woman for the very offense Trey had accused him of—the acquisition of nice things.
Was Marc turning his need for wealth and security into a modern-day form of idol worship? Was he putting more stock in what he could accomplish with his own hands instead of turning to the Lord for guidance?
Perhaps. But that didn’t make him an idol worshipper, and it certainly didn’t make him similar to Mattie Silks.
Concentrating on the task at hand, rather than dwell on his own uncomfortable thoughts, Marc nodded to Mattie’s bouncer walking toward him. “Jack.”
“Dupree.”
“Mattie around?”
Jack smiled, the diamond in his tooth twinkling under the soft lantern light that glowed day and night. “She’s not talking to you. Not since you stole Julia, Ruth and Lizzie right out from under her nose like that.”
Shrugging, Marc pulled out a ten-dollar bill. “Tell her it’s important.”
Jack grunted while quickly palming the money. “She won’t like it.”
“Just tell her I’m waiting.”
Moments later Mattie sauntered toward him, taking her time and striking a pose every fifth or sixth step. Carrying a flute of champagne, she wore an immovable smile on her overly painted face. Marc decided she looked older than her reported twenty-nine years. At least twenty years older.
Stopping close enough for him to get a whiff of her cheap perfume, she offered her cheek. Out of politeness, Marc leaned down and touched his lips to the plump curve, the taste of grease and pungent roses slipped into his mouth.
In the next second, he found he couldn’t prevent his mind from comparing Mattie’s offensive smell to Laney’s soft, pleasing scent. Shaking his head, he stepped back and offered his usual greeting. “You’re looking well.”
“Don’t you use those sweet words on me.” Tapping him on the arm, she added, “I’m still mad at you, Marc Dupree.”
“I know.”
“You’ve stolen a total of five of my best girls. And for what?”
“An honest job and a second chance.”
Mattie sidled to the nearest chair and hitched her hip against one of the arms. “Such righteousness I hear in your tone. My girls are entertainers, Marc, nothing more.”
They both knew that wasn’t the truth. At least not the full truth. “Ruth and Lizz
ie are happy working for me.”
“Ha. You make them wear dreary black.”
“They aren’t complaining.”
“Yet. But they will. And just like Gretchen and Patsy, they’ll come back to work for me in the end.”
Marc didn’t bother commenting on the two he’d lost recently.
“So, what brings you here this morning?”
“You mean afternoon.” Marc’s lips twisted into a grimace. “The sun rose hours ago, Mattie.”
“You will call me Madame Silks.”
Marc inclined his head, trying not to laugh at the way she attempted to pronounce the word like the French but failed horribly. “It’s pronounced Madame.”
Mattie relaxed into a pose, her tone full of begrudging affection. “You are the most rude, impolite man I know.”
He doubted that. “That’s why you love me.”
Without taking her eyes off him, she took a long, slow sip from her glass. “We should go into business, the two of us. With your brains and my looks, we’d make a fortune.”
“I’m not looking to go into the...entertainment business. I’m looking to get women out of it.”
With her free hand, she tossed a few curls off her face. “So they can work in your hotel for slave wages, compared to what they can make here?”
“It’s not about the money, Mattie. I give them a better living than what you give them, an honest one where they can look themselves in the mirror at the end of every shift. That’s why they leave you and come to me.”
He had to give it to her, though Mattie visibly stiffened at his words none of her outrage showed on her face. “I should throw you out of here right now.”
“Probably.” Marc edged toward her, glancing up at the staircase. “But you like me too much to send me away just yet.”
“You’re a rogue, Marc Dupree.” Fanning herself with her hand, she sighed. “Pity I like rogues so much. So, what can I do for you this morning?”
“I’m looking for a woman.”
“I have several.”
“Not that kind.”
She rode her gaze across his face and down to his toes. “Maybe I’ll break a rule or two and take care of you myself.”