by Susan Wiggs
She sank down to the cold earthen floor and went to work. Although her hands were bound so tightly she’d lost sensation in her fingers, she managed to work her feet free. Her toes tingled painfully with the rush of blood, but she jumped up, jubilant over her small victory.
Angry voices sounded outside. She heard a woman pleading in Mandarin. Mother.
June hurried to the door and looked out, but could see no one. Fresh tears of fright and frustration squeezed from her eyes. Then she heard another voice—Lucas. She would know his voice anywhere, like an unforgettable song. She wanted to scream, to warn her mother and Lucas to go away and keep themselves safe, but she couldn’t.
There was a commotion in the alley, the thud of a blow and a body falling, the sound of running feet. Lucas said one of his vilest swearwords, and Mr. Punch said something worse. A heavy weight slammed up against the warehouse door, and June jumped back, falling to her knees.
Then the door opened, and a tall figure stumbled into the room.
It was Lucas, looking bigger and stronger than she’d ever seen him, the gaslight behind outlining the form of a grown man, his hair and the hem of his coat swirling on the wind. Mr. Charles Pisco came in behind him and gave him a terrific shove, and Punch joined in, hammering with his fists. June could hear the breath rush out of Lucas. Then she heard sickening thuds as blow after blow rained on him. For the longest time, he didn’t go down, no matter how many times they hit him. He put up a valiant fight, but it was June herself who finished him off.
She didn’t mean to. She ran at the crimps, her only thought to get them to stop. One swat from a rubbery blackjack flung her down.
“June,” Lucas yelled. There was an awful crunching sound and he staggered, then sank to his knees and finally pitched forward. The crimps gave him a couple of kicks for good measure. They stepped back, and the heap on the floor lay unmoving, making no sound.
Grief erupted from a black well deep inside June, but she couldn’t make a sound. The only noise in the big, cavernous room was the ragged breathing of the crimps.
Something stirred. At first she thought it was the wind rushing in through the doorway. Then she realized it was Lucas.
And when he dragged himself up, like a bear standing on his two hind legs, he was holding a gun in his hand.
“Untie her hands and let her go,” he said.
The crimps looked at one another, then Mr. Punch hastened to cut loose her hands. Her fingers felt useless and numb. When she spat out the cloth, she couldn’t speak.
She froze when she heard Lucas swear. Peering through the shadows, she saw that he still held his gun to Pisco’s head.
But Mr. Punch had a gun of his own, and he was pointing it straight at Lucas. A stand-off, she realized with a sinking heart. Someone would die. That was the only certainty.
“Let the girl go.” Lucas spoke in a commanding voice she scarcely recognized. “When I see her walk away free with her mother, I’ll drop my gun.”
Pisco said, “Let her go.”
No, thought June, even as she edged toward the door.
“Go on,” said Lucas in a rough voice that touched her deep inside. “I’ll be all right. I promise.”
“Lucas—”
“Have I ever broken a promise to you? Ever?”
Not once, she realized. Oh, she loved him so much. With every bit of her heart.
“You have ten seconds to disappear, China girl,” Pisco warned her. “Don’t let us see you around here again.”
She could not tear her eyes from Lucas. His lips moved, though he made no sound. He didn’t have to. She understood. I love you.
“Go,” Lucas repeated. “Hurry.”
Hurry. She wasn’t sure what he was thinking, but she guessed it was the same thought she had. Their best chance was for her to go get help.
She scrambled for the partially-opened door. Behind her, she heard the sound of Lucas’s gun dropping with a thud. She stepped outside and found her mother sitting on the ground, shaking herself awake. June sank to her knees and hugged her mother close. For a moment, the sweetness of safety overwhelmed her, but a sense of danger chased it away.
“Are you all right?” she whispered to her mother. “Can you run?”
“Like the wind.” With the same strength that had seen her through the dark years of June’s earliest memories, Li Mei stood up and took her daughter’s hand.
June didn’t dare look back, but plunged into the damp shadows and up the fog-shrouded hill, leading the way for her mother. She ran faster than she ever thought she could, faster than the wind, than danger, than a storm. But she left her whole heart behind.
Part Three
Travels with Isabel
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
—Mark Twain
Thirty-Nine
Isabel sensed a tang of autumn in the night air. Dead leaves from the Dutch elms and blue gum trees tumbled across the roadway and collected in the gutters. How swiftly the summer had passed, she thought. And how foolish she’d been to stay too long.
The truth about the shooting was finally coming to light, but with it came a truth she had prayed would never surface. Her identity. Her shame. The reason she could never, ever stay in one place. What an idiot she was to suppose otherwise.
Rory wasn’t to be found; his manservant indicated that he’d been on police business all evening. She and Blue had driven home without speaking. Home. Such a strange and inappropriate way to think of this place. She sneaked a look at him as he stopped the buggy under the port cochere at the side of the house. The image of him imprinted itself on her memory—strong, serious, hurting. She prayed he would remember the better times they’d shared, the brilliant summer days when they’d gone riding all the way to the Presidio, the deep, soft nights when they’d made love until dawn touched the sky. It was a futile hope, though. She was certain that he would always remember her as a woman made of no substance who could not stay in one place.
It was late, and she knew Blue would put the horse and buggy up himself rather than disturb Efrena. But first he seemed intent on ridding himself of his unwanted burden. He lashed the reins around a brass-headed post and walked to her side of the buggy. Wordlessly, he held out one hand, palm up.
“Thank you,” she said, and put her hand in his. Oh, that touch. Even now, her heart responded with a surge of longing. As she rose from her seat, she held his gaze with hers. He placed his hands at her waist, and just for a moment, as she swung down, she had the sensation of dancing. She remembered dancing with him. She remembered every touch, every kiss, every caress they had shared. She remembered the way he had looked at her when he’d thought she was someone else.
What she wouldn’t give for him to look at her that way again. But it was not to be. Now, his eyes were dark with anger, his face a frozen mask that hid his emotions. His retreat to the place where he buried his past was complete—and it was her doing. She’d won his trust and perhaps even his love, only to become living proof that it didn’t pay to give your heart.
He set her down gently as though she might break. Then he stood looking at her for a long time. The scent of late roses and mint perfumed the misty air. A night bird warbled; the breeze picked up. For some reason, he kept hold of her. She didn’t want to let go of him. For as long as he allowed, she would hold on. Later, she would treasure the memory of this final embrace.
“I wanted to love you, Isabel,” he said. “You. Not some illusion you conjured out of lies.”
She flinched at his tone of voice, surprised that he spoke of love now that it was out of the question. She forced herself to regard him with careless pride. “I suppose that’s what you get for letting an armed gunman into your house.”
“I didn’t let you in. You came by force. And for what it’s worth, I came to believe in your innocence.”
She let a brief laugh escape. “Innocence is something I lost the year I started to bleed like a woman, b
ut no hard facts will change your opinion of me.”
She thought that would make him let her go, but instead, he tugged her closer. “Don’t do my thinking for me, Isabel.”
She lifted their hands, still clasped, and studied the way their fingers wove together. “I used to fantasize that I was the daughter of a good-hearted but impoverished noblewoman, who wept upon relinquishing me and promised to come back and rescue me one day,” she confessed. “But the fact is, my mother was a whore who littered the city of London with her babies, leaving them like abandoned pets for others to care for.” The admission left her emptied out. She disengaged her hand from his. “I tried to leave. Remember that. I did try.”
“Isabel.” He seemed at a loss, wrenching her name from a well of hurt. “Why didn’t you tell me who you are?”
God. He didn’t understand. He would never understand. “This is who I am,” she said, pressing her hand to her chest. “My name is Isabel Fish-Wooten.” Her voice shook and she prayed he hadn’t noticed. “Excuse me. I must get a few things packed.” She walked toward the door.
He grabbed her upper arm and spun her around to face him. “I never told you to leave.”
She refused to flinch at the hard bite of his hand on her arm. “Blue, I don’t fit into your life. We’ve always known that. Now the entire city will know, because Clarice is not about to keep this to herself.”
“Do you think that matters to me?”
She held her gaze steady on his. Then, with measured deliberation, she pried his hand from her arm. There were some things she would never be able to explain. “It matters to me,” she said.
“Dr. Blue.” Breathless and frantic, June Li came running up the walk. Far in the distance, her mother followed, hobbling in her wooden clogs. June’s shining hair was mussed, her smock soiled around the hem, her cheeks stained with tears.
Isabel’s agonized shame burned away when she recognized the terror in the girl’s face. She broke away from Blue. “What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Dr. Blue, you must come. They have Lucas.”
Blue was already heading for the house while the girl explained. She’d overheard talk of the shooting. Mrs. Hatcher’s footmen handed her over to a pair of crimps, but they released her in exchange for Lucas. Blue fired off his questions—Where were they keeping him? What was their purpose?
June sobbed out the answers as best she could. Isabel’s hunch had been correct. Clarice Hatcher and Vickery had played a part in the waterfront violence. And they weren’t finished yet. They had Lucas. Finally, Isabel understood what it was to love a child. Until this summer, she’d been driven by a need for money and adventure. Now she realized she would willingly give her own life, if only it would keep Lucas safe.
She also understood that she’d brought danger and corruption to this house. It used to be a safe place, but thanks to her, with her ties to the corrupt and violent underworld, they’d almost lost June Li and Lucas was missing.
She held the girl’s hand tightly as they followed Blue to a storeroom in the basement. With deadly purpose, he opened a musty footlocker, yanking out an old pistol. His sidearm, she realized. According to Delta and Efrena, he had laid it to rest the day his wife was killed.
With an expertise that should not have surprised her, he oiled the chamber and loaded it, then strapped on a belt of bullets.
Isabel didn’t ask him where he was going. She knew. “I’m coming with you,” she said.
“No, you’re not.” He held up a hand to silence her. “I’ll hogtie you if I have to, Isabel. I swear I will.”
She didn’t doubt it for a minute. “All right,” she said, casting her gaze to the floor and squeezing the girl’s hand. “I’ll stay and look after June.”
“You do that.”
“You should take money,” she advised.
“What?”
“There might be a ransom demand.”
Swearing under his breath, he took the stairs two at a time as he went to his suite of rooms, where he kept a safe. Isabel, too, burst into action. She felt responsible for all of the day’s disasters, and if there was a way for her to help, she intended to find it. She needed only two things—the pistol she’d borrowed at the tournament, and the money she’d won.
“What are you doing?” June whispered as Isabel slipped outside and headed for the buggy.
“Hoping the good doctor doesn’t check his luggage rack.”
Forty
In all his years of racing through San Francisco to answer emergency calls, Blue had never gone so fast. Any other horse would have collapsed under the punishing pace, but the Calhoun-bred gelding was equal to the task. Blue’s fear was as clean and cold as a naked blade. He would not falter or fail in his determination to save Lucas.
He drew the buggy to a stop in a plaza facing the waterfront and backed by dark warehouses. Even at this time of night, dockworkers and sailors were busy loading freight. The bay swarmed with skiffs and ferries.
“You’re too late.” Fremont Vickery’s shiny shoes, clad in snow-white spats, rang on the new brickwork of the Embarcadero as he walked toward Blue. “He’s already gone.”
Blue flung the reins into the buggy and leaped down to the pavement. “What the devil are you up to?”
“Protecting myself.”
“By kidnapping an innocent boy?” Blue slipped his hand into the pocket of his coat.
Vickery noticed, but stayed perfectly calm. Blue watched him through new eyes. The man was uniquely dangerous, a fellow doctor and eminent colleague who lined his pockets with the glittering wealth of the opium trade, a millionaire who would go to any lengths to protect the source of his wealth.
With his hand still in his pocket, Blue closed his grip around the gun and fit his finger snug against the trigger. In ten years, he had not touched a gun, yet his hand remembered the heft of it, the chill steel against his flesh, the almost delicate feel of the trigger mechanism. “Let my son go. He has nothing to do with this. I’ll take him home and leave you to go about your business.”
“As you did in the matter of my private patient, Officer Brolin?” snapped Vickery. “You’re a meddling fool, Calhoun. You and that woman—” A chorus of rough laughter rang out. Vickery broke off, flicking a glance over his shoulder. Like Blue, he seemed to know the waterfront denizens weren’t likely to intervene.
“Why Lucas?” Blue demanded. “Your quarrel’s with me.”
“I believe I know how far you’d go to protect someone you love,” Vickery said, and he looked away again, this time at the gleaming coach parked across the plaza.
Alma Vickery, Blue realized, following the direction of his gaze. His addict wife. Was she in the coach, awash in bliss after her husband injected a dose of morphine? Blue wondered how much she knew, how deeply she was involved. Had she shot Officer Brolin and Isabel that night? Or had Dr. Vickery done the honors?
The gun was smooth and hard in his grip. He was through trying to reason with Vickery. “Where’s Lucas?”
“There was a ten-thirty tide. The bar pilots have been ferrying men out to the fleet all evening. So your boy is at sea already, Dr. Calhoun. But you needn’t fear. So long as nothing happens to me or to those I care about, nothing will happen to him.”
Lamps on curved poles bobbed from the gunwales of scores of Whitehall skiffs. The swift, slender crafts crossed the bay to the deepwater moorings of the brigs and tall clippers. Crews of outbound sailors sang and swore in a multitude of tongues, their hoarse voices rolling across the jammed waterway. Women stood in clusters on shore, waving and weeping and calling farewell. No one took any notice of the two tense men facing each other at the head of the wharf.
Blue imagined Lucas beaten, frightened, forced into service aboard a ship that might not return for months or even years. He wanted to roar with frustration. Vickery felt no threat at all from him. He knew Blue wouldn’t harm him so long as he knew the whereabouts of Lucas. What the hell did you say to a man who wouldn’t listen t
o reason or threats?
“This is insane,” he said.
“You should have thought of that when you let a dangerous criminal into your house.”
The door of Vickery’s coach thumped open. “He didn’t let me in. I forced him to take care of me.” Moving with the lightness of a hummingbird, Isabel dropped to the pavement.
Vickery gasped. Blue, on the other hand, felt no shock at seeing her. After an entire summer of Isabel, he should have realized she would not wait patiently at home while he played the hero. She’d defied him, of course, following him down to the waterfront. His gaze slipped to the luggage rack of his buggy. It took him no time at all to figure out what she was up to. She’d stowed away, and then while he and Vickery argued, she’d slipped into the coach with Mrs. Vickery.
She turned and took Mrs. Vickery’s hand, helping the older lady down. Blue could see instantly that she was under the influence. The wobbling legs, the flat, glassy eyes, the expression of childlike bliss were all too familiar to him.
She never saw Isabel’s gun, but Blue and Vickery did.
“Dear God,” Vickery said, staggering a little. He quickly recovered and rapped out a command: “Put that away.”
“I hope to momentarily,” Isabel said in her perfect accent. She sounded every bit the haughty noblewoman she pretended to be. “However, that is up to you.”
“Fremont, what’s happening?” Alma asked, her blurry gaze sweeping the busy wharves.
“An unfortunate situation,” Isabel said.
“Oh. That seems to be a common occurrence this summer,” Alma said distractedly. “It was awful the last time I had to come down here after you, Fremont, remember? You thought you’d put me on the train to Monterey, but I followed you here, you and that hussy—”