THE HACK ROLLED TO a stop. For once, Isobel did not notice the fog rolling over the sea, or hear the crashing waves. There was only a dark pit, and a well of despair.
Riot ordered the hackman to wait, and she sped towards the life-saving station. Isobel met the door with her fist, banging until it opened. A woman answered. She was in her dressing gown, held a lantern, and looked as though this was a regular occurrence. The wooden door was worn with panic.
“The girl who threw herself in the water a week back,” Isobel said breathlessly. “There was a man with a little dog who discovered her—do you know where he lives?”
“Mr. Harrison?”
“Yes,” Isobel said. “It’s imperative that I speak with him.”
“I haven’t seen him walking for some days, but he keeps a room at the Cliff House.”
Isobel looked towards the square monstrosity sitting on Land’s End. She couldn’t help but feel that the whole world was tipping off that cliff into the sea.
Without a word, she ran back to the hack, ordered the driver to take them to the Cliff House, and climbed in beside Riot. He glanced at her, but said nothing, his lips a line of determination.
✥
The Cliff House was a gilded paradise (or hell depending on your viewpoint). Isobel would have ran through the doors and charged the prim concierge if it hadn’t been for her partner. He pressed her arm to his side, communicating the need for subtlety. Her attire attracted curious stares, but not upturned noses. In San Francisco, money talked, and Riot appeared to have it. With Isobel on his arm, Riot walked across the marble as if he wore top hat and tails, his stick moving in time to his step.
At the counter, he presented his card with a flourish. “Mr. Harrison is expecting me.” The accent that came with the words was pure upper-class British.
The concierge consulted his book, tracing the name to the room, and then picking up the telephone to ring the man in question. Riot looked around the grand hall, and just as the concierge was about to request the room number, he placed his finger on the hook.
“There’s the old fellow,” Riot pointed his stick towards a knot of guests. “No need to ring.” He soothed the man with a five dollar bill, offered his arm to Isobel, and they walked towards the lift.
“Did you note the room number?” he asked
“Third floor, room twelve.”
Riot repeated the floor to the operator, and in the agonizing moments that followed, he placed a hand over hers, squeezed it once and withdrew.
Room twelve was a suite, a corner room. There was money here somewhere.
Isobel pulled Riot to a stop in the deserted hallway. “Give me ten minutes. Then enter. I’ll sneak in through the window. I don’t want to risk Lotario.”
“It’s over a hundred feet to the ocean.”
“Don’t worry, Riot. It’s dark. What I can’t see won’t hurt me,” she said with a flippant shrug. She left his side and hurried to the wide windows at the end of the hall.
The eyes beneath his hat brim were dark, but he said nothing. Instead, Riot consulted his watch, and took up a position beside the door.
As with most ornate buildings, the builders had included a ledge. As much for repairs and anchoring scaffolding as it was for decoration. She put a leg over the windowsill and comforted herself with the knowledge that plenty of workers had scaled this building before. With a breath, she committed herself. The wind nipped and tugged at her coat, pushing her to the side as the surf thundered far below. The ledge creaked as she edged along, gripping the scrolling woodwork.
She reached the corner. It was void of decoration. Holding on to a groove with two fingers, she stretched her arm and foot around the bend, feeling blindly for a handhold. Her heels hung over blackness.
The surf roared, washing and churning, crashing against the cliff with the rising tide. She forced herself to calm, breathing easily, in and out, moving in the eye of the surrounding storm of fear. A curving piece of wood greeted her fingertips. She slid her foot along the edge, searching for purchase around the corner. The woodwork snapped. For a moment, she swayed with the wind, feeling like a feather about to be caught.
Isobel slapped her palm against the side of the Cliff House, using friction and leverage to hold her steady. Palm pressing, she edged around the corner, until both feet were safe on the same edge.
The shuffle to the balcony was a blur. She slipped over the rail on quiet feet and edged to the French doors. Light seeped through the curtains. She peeked through the slit. A dim light shone over the front door, and an armchair faced the entry. The back of a man’s head poked over the cushion. He was pointed at the door. She could imagine August with a gun in hand, waiting.
Knowing that Riot would enter at any moment, she drew her gun, took a breath, and tried the handle. It gave. She rushed in and the room erupted with barking growls. A blur of hair charged her legs. Isobel ignored the beast and his sinking teeth. The man in the chair started to rise, but she was quicker. The barrel found a home in the man’s temple.
“Drop it, August!” she warned. A breeze caught the curtains, bringing a chill that mirrored her voice. Teeth sunk into her calf, and she pressed the barrel into August’s skin.
The front door opened, and Riot appeared in the light, off to the side, revolver aimed. Faced with two guns, August dropped the gun, and Isobel kicked it away. The Yorkshire charged the new arrival. Keeping his gun pointed on the man in the chair, Riot scooped up the beast, and held it under an arm as it nipped and snarled.
Riot moved through the rooms, turning on lights, searching for Lotario. When he returned, his eyes said it all—Lotario wasn’t there.
✥
For a murderer who had just been captured, Duncan August was remarkably calm.
“Am I accused of something?” he inquired.
“A great many things,” Riot replied.
While Riot kept his gun leveled on the man, Isobel ripped off the curtain ties, and bound August securely. Satisfied with her efforts, she took a step back, so she might study her opponent. Riot walked to the bedroom, gently tossed the dog inside, and shut the door. He took up a position beside August.
“Where is my cousin?”
A flash of Riot’s eyes shone with disapproval. Not a good opening move, she realized too late.
“I haven’t the faintest idea. Charming singer.”
August looked at her. He was the same man with whom she had conversed in the morgue and the same who had conducted a thorough (if slanted) investigation.
“May I ask why you have abducted me?”
“I don’t have time for games, August,” Isobel stated, bluntly. “I know everything. I know that you were lovers with Virgil Cunningham. I know that Violet caught the two of you together, but she didn’t recognize you in female garb. You’re tall, like her, and you have fine hands and an ambiguous bone structure.”
“This is very entertaining.”
“No, it’s not,” she shook her head, letting the sorrow she had felt for Virgil creep in. “Henry, Elma, and Violet betrayed Virgil to the dean—their childhood friend. All it took was two signatures to sign his life away and save the college a scandal. And all the while you played the coward and let Virgil suffer in an asylum,” she hissed.
The blow hit home. “I did not!” August snapped. His arms strained against the ropes. And she pressed her attack.
“You hid, too afraid to come to your friend’s aid while his mind slipped away, bit by bit, until the dust settled and you grew some bollocks.”
“I did everything within my power!” he shouted. August took a breath, and turned his head away. She let him pant, and think, and wonder.
When he faced her again, his eyes were clear.
“You have no proof.”
“I have your signature on Virgil’s death certificate,” she replied. “I have a witness who can identify you as Mr. Leeland. You were spying on Violet.”
“And we found Thorton, the man you hired to seduce E
lma,” Riot added. “Thorton isn’t the sort of man to hold his tongue under pressure.”
“You were stalking Violet, you and Virgil, driving her to madness. You tried to ruin Elma, but instead, she took her own life, robbing you of that satisfaction. And Henry, I plan on having another coroner perform a postmortem. I wager he was drugged, subdued, and tortured. Those marks I saw in his ears weren’t a side-effect of the belt. Was it you or Virgil who stuck electrodes in his ears?”
August did not answer.
“You wanted Henry to die a humiliating death. To be discovered in that bath with the photographs in the next room. You killed and framed him.”
“You’re unfortunately clever, Miss Bonnie.”
“Yes, unfortunate for you.”
August shook his head. “No, unfortunate for your cousin. I know Virgil is dead,” he stated dispassionately. “I begged him to stay, but he was determined to protect my name. He didn’t ring. And I know that he wouldn’t be taken alive again. I felt him die.” The man in front of her changed, something shifted, from a proud, intelligent man, to a cold empty shell. It was as if a switch had been thrown.
Isobel’s blood chilled.
“And with that knowledge, I can see your last bargaining chip fading from your eyes, Miss Bonnie.”
“You have your vengeance. Leave my cousin out of this.”
August smiled. His lips curved, but it did not touch his eyes. “I don’t think so. This is justice. A complete circle. An eye for an eye as the preachers say. The scales are balanced, but only if your cousin dies.”
Isobel tensed to strike him, but Riot stopped her with a slight shake of his head. “How do you figure that?” he asked.
“Elma ruined Virgil. So I ruined her. Suicide was not my aim,” August stated matter of fact. “Violet drove Virgil to madness, and so I repaid her in kind. And Henry,” August relaxed into his narrative, “I would have only inflicted the same pain on him as the asylum inflicted upon Virgil, but Henry murdered Violet’s grandmother for money. And I’m positive Elma was involved. Mundane, isn’t it? When I performed the postmortem, I discovered the arsenic in Mrs. Foster’s system. But killing Henry wasn’t my choice to make, so when Violet came to the house, I told her everything. I took her into the bathroom, showed her Henry, and offered her a choice: rescue the man who murdered your grandmother and pretended to love you, or leave him to freeze in the bath and meet Virgil on the beach.”
“How magnanimous of you,” Riot drawled.
“I thought so,” August agreed. “If there is one thing I can’t stand, it’s a hypocrite.”
“And what of my cousin? How does she wager into this?”
“She?” August laughed. “Oh, no, don’t play coy with me. It’s a shame. I would have liked to meet him under different circumstances.”
“Then let him go, August,” Isobel beseeched. “Too many lives have been ruined. Don’t condemn him as others condemned Virgil.”
“But that’s the rub,” August said. “I don’t have Virgil anymore. And if balance is to be restored, then you can’t have your cousin.”
“No,” she argued. “It’s not balanced. You offered Violet a choice. And you had a choice to save Virgil sooner, to speak out, to run away together. You’re not offering me anything.”
August considered her words. A long minute passed, and she ached to rage and strike the man, but Riot’s patience washed over her. And she glanced at him, finding the resolve to still her tongue.
“You’re right,” August said slowly. “I’m not. You might be able to save him, but I doubt you have the time. The cold will kill him in half an hour.”
Isobel looked at Riot, and he mouthed the word morgue. She nodded. He lowered his gun and walked briskly to the telephone, demanding the city morgue.
“Even if your cousin lives, I will tell everyone what is under Madame de Winter’s silken skirts.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because you are no different than me. What I did for love, you would do too. So here is my offer: Kill me, and save your cousin from ruin, or don’t and watch him share Virgil’s fate.”
Isobel extended her arm, aiming. “I’m nothing like you.”
“I think you are.”
“No,” Isobel shook her head. “You see I’m already dead.” And with that, she squeezed the trigger.
The bullet shattered August’s calm, but not his skull. The bullet sunk into the armchair by his ear. Isobel charged forward, planting a hand on either side of August’s head, staring him in the eye.
“Virgil tried to strangle me,” Isobel said, loosening her collar to reveal the bruises. “And then he ran into a cave. I tried to help him, but you were right, he wasn’t about to be taken alive. He blew himself up with a stick of dynamite.”
Pain entered August’s eyes. “Then it’s fitting,” he rasped. “Your cousin will die in a cave too.”
Isobel straightened, mind racing. “Riot!” she called. “Is there a cave nearby?”
“The Sutro Baths.”
33
With Difficulty
WAVES CRASHED ON THE rocks with a roar of freedom. Its thunder swallowed her heart, and filled her bones with fear. For the first time in Isobel’s life—she hated the sea. Death marched in, slow and relentless, with every churning spray.
Isobel and Riot ran through the night, down the long road, towards the squat, glass roofed buildings. Riot raced past the Sutro Bath entrance, moving towards the cliff. A steep, narrow staircase spilled down the side. Beneath the moonlight, Isobel saw a squat building huddled against the bottom of the cliff wall. The pump house. She took the steps two at a time, and reached the bottom on Riot’s heels. He tried the door. It was locked.
He rapped his stick on the wood, but did not wait for an answer. Riot handed her his stick, reached into his breast pocket, and pulled out his lockpicks. He knelt in front of the lock with torque wrench and pick in hand. A lone electric bulb flickered above the door, casting deeper shadows rather than light.
But that did not matter, Riot had his eyes closed. The seconds stretched, until Isobel felt as if her heart would burst. She tightened her grip on his stick, anchoring herself to the solid shaft, and tried not to wonder if Lotario had taken his last breath.
Riot withdrew his tools. He turned the handle, and she flew through the portal. The building was a maze of pipes and pumps. Her hard breathing was drowned by the crash of waves against its walls. She ran towards the back, following a large pipeline and the thundering sea. A hole had been bored through the rock. Sand was beneath her feet. Water swelled into gaps in the cave, eating at the rock with relentless power and slow time. The sea had ages. Lotario did not.
“Lotario!” she screamed, searching the shadows and half light. Crevices and nooks swirled with white tides. Riot trotted ahead, and she followed on his heels, trusting that he had been here before. A natural tide pool had formed around the treacherous shore. A swell hit the rock and surged into the air. Riot turned his face, catching the spray. The force nearly knocked him off his feet. The water swirled in the pool, and subsided, only to return.
Isobel stood her ground, letting the chill hit her full on as she searched the swirling dark. Anyone in the tide pool would have been snatched by the sea long ago. White foam churned around her shoes, eddying in the sand, and then flowing away. But not back towards the sea. A steady stream flowed beneath a pipeline. She pulled her thoughts from the dark deep, and scrambled beneath the pipes.
The water poured into another pool. The water rose, as if deep currents pushed from beneath, and then pulled it away, swirling in a fit, and surging, climbing ever higher with the tide. Pipes climbed out of the collection pool with the rock. A shadow hung on the other side, chained to a filter grate. Lotario. The water was up to his neck, seeking to force itself down his throat with every surge.
“Here!” she called to her partner. Isobel tossed down her hat, shed her coat, walking suit, and shoes. Stripped to her underclothing, she climbed
down into the pool. The rocks were sharp and slick, and the currents tugged at her feet. The cold clutched at her chest, and she embraced it, forcing herself to breathe. Pushing off, she dove through the water and swam, fighting the tug of some unseen passage in the dark depths.
The pool was not wide. “Lotario,” she said desperately, reaching the other side. He was cold as ice, his body limp, and when she lifted his chin, his eyes were glazed with confusion.
Isobel ran her hands beneath the water, feeling his body, searching for restraints. A heavy canvas jacket held him fast, his arms crossed around his chest, and tied around his back. A chain held him to the pipe, bound with a lock.
“There’s a lock!” she yelled over the thunder. Her panic roused Lotario, and he lifted his head, eyes trying to focus.
“My reflection,” he slurred as if he were drunk. Unfortunately, it was not drink or drug; he was intoxicated with cold and close to surrender.
“Better looking,” she said.
Riot stripped down to trousers and shirt, and lowered himself into the water. One hand gripped the pipe, and the other hand held his knife and lockpicks. He hesitated, white as a sheet.
“I need help,” she called. “There’s a chain and straightjacket.”
The man let go, walking, struggling against the swirling sea, straining to keep his bearded chin above the water. Isobel gripped the pipe, and stretched her hand towards him. Her fingers curled around his shirt front and she pulled him through the water. Unaccustomed to the cold, he was gasping for breath, but he focused, wrapping one arm around a pipe, and feeling for locks as the water ebbed and flowed.
Isobel tugged and tested the chains, searching for the anchor. The lock was on the other side of the pipe, jammed between rock and metal. Isobel heaved on the chain, sliding it up and out of the swell.
Riot ran his fingertips over the warded lock, tracing the key hole. With numb, shaking hands, he fumbled through his key ring of picks. When he found the one he desired, he wedged himself between rock and pipe, and inserted the metal.
A Bitter Draught Page 27