by Eloise Alden
“But it’ll be very, very fast,” Chloe said. “Especially if the rope breaks.”
Verity closed the dumbwaiter’s door, leaving a space large enough to throw out the rope. She took a deep breath. “Ready?”
Even in the semi-darkness, Verity could see Chloe grin. “I’ve always wanted to do this.”
“Escape from a brothel?”
“No, ride a dumbwaiter.”
“You are joking.”
“There are dumber things to ride,” Chloe said, chuckling as she tossed out the rope.
Verity held her breath as the dumbwaiter plunged into darkness and sped toward the cellar.
CHAPTER 22
Smoke a Brisket low and slow. A brisket needs long exposure to heat and smoke to reach its ultimate taste and texture.
From The Recipes of Verity Faye
The girls milled around the cellar in various stages of undress. Most wore their nightgowns, a few were in slips, one had on less than the Little Bo-peep costume. Verity counted the girls. Nine girls. Verity’s throat caught. Could the profits from her bakery really afford to employ them? How would they all squeeze into Georgina’s townhouse? Would they be happy with a new life? Or would they return to prostitution? She took a deep breath. These girls hadn’t chosen this life, she reminded herself, it’d been forced upon them, and they weren’t being forced into a life of service in Verity’s bakery. They would be free to leave. But with what? They didn’t even have any clothes. Looking at the girls, some with wide frightened eyes, others stifling nervous giggles, Verity felt the enormity of what she’d begun sitting on her shoulders.
She hadn’t even found Minnie. Trent hadn’t found Gracey. Belle, Melanie. All lost.
A girl called Regina slipped a cold hand into Verity’s own. “Thank you,” she breathed.
Verity squeezed Regina’s hand. She’d started something, and now she needed to finish it. She didn’t know what would happen when Lady Luck roused from the private chamber and found the girls gone and the brothel filled with smoke. Would she seek retribution? Had Verity pulled the girls from the proverbial fire pan and landed them into the, albeit fake, fire?
Young Lee sat on the stone steps just below the root cellar’s trap door. A plethora of spent cartons lay about him. He shot Verity a gleaming smile. “I done all right.”
“Fabulous,” Verity assured him.
“I save the best for last. Our big escape goes with a bang.”
“But this time, no light, right?” Verity asked.
Young Lee pushed back a lock of his dark hair and wiped a smudge of ash across his face. “Just very big noise and lots of smoke.”
Shepherding girls was a lot like boiling bagels. They floated where they wished and, just like a bagel sometimes needed prodding to stay below the water, the girls needed constant reminders to remain quiet and out of sight. She finally managed to get them in a hushed huddle in the corner of the cellar. Most of them stood barefoot on the cool dirt floor. Crates of wine and barrels of whiskey lined the stone walls. It’d be so frightfully easy to start a real fire, she thought, watching Young Lee with his explosives and flint so close to the alcohol.
“We’ll leave one at a time,” Verity whispered, pointing to the open cellar door. “Chloe will go first to show you where to go. The wagon is hidden just beyond the trees.”
One by one the girls traipsed through the moonlit courtyard to the stand of trees beside the bridge. Verity wrung her hands until they began to scream in complaint. She tried taking a deep breath, but the tightened corset bound her ribs.
“Almost done, boss,” Young Lee said to her. “We’re ready for our last blast.”
When the last girl slipped into the night, Young Lee gave her a wicked grin. She nodded and he struck the flint. The tinder caught and lit. Young Lee thrust the powder-coated fuse into the small spark and waited.
It fizzled and then died.
Verity shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, Young Lee. We don’t need it.”
Young Lee glowered at her. “No.”
Again, he struck the flint. It flickered then winked away.
Young Lee worked the fuse with the desperation of someone who’d been promised a favorite toy and was about to have it denied. He fought for the right to use his rockets. Verity felt ready to burst with frustration and impatience.
She didn’t want to leave Young Lee, but finally she said, “I’m going. Stay here if you like.” Perhaps he heard her, perhaps not. The hood of his cloak had fallen over his face as he bent over his handiwork.
Verity ran into the dark night.
But the wagon wasn’t there.
When the explosion ripped through the air, Verity covered her ears with her hands and closed her eyes. When she opened them she was dangling.
Hands like a vice clamped around her waist and hoisted her two feet above the ground. Verity screamed and flailed her legs. She hadn’t seen nor heard anyone, which wasn’t surprising. Her ears still rang and the sulfur stench of smoke rolled out the windows of the brothel. She couldn’t hear or see, but she could fight.
Just not very effectively from mid-air.
#
He’d need to wait. The two girls might be able to glide through the smoky dark confusion without notice, but Trent doubted he’d be able to sling Steele through the crowd without gaining unwanted attention.
So, he waited. It may have only been a few minutes, but it seemed an eternity amidst the vaporous reek of sulfur. Steele still hadn’t stirred by the time Trent hoisted him over his shoulder. He labored Steele down three flights of steps, knowing that he was more likely to die of asphyxiation than exertion. The halls still pulsed with yellow, red and brown haze. Finally, he pushed open the back door and took a deep breath.
As he’d hoped, the courtyard looked deserted. In the distance, he saw the outlines of coaches, and men astride horses parading into the darkness. He wondered which carried Chloe and Verity. And Chloe had mentioned others. Had they found Minnie? What about Miles?
#
Verity kicked, squirmed and tried to reach behind her to stop the chuckling. She didn’t like being abducted, but she especially disliked being abducted and mocked. Waving her staff, she tried to connect with any of her assailant’s body parts, but every bit of him seemed out of reach. “Put. Me. Down.” Her staff whistled through the air, never landing or making contact until it smacked a tree branch. The impact sent reverberations down her arm. “Ow,” she muttered as leaves, twigs and seed pods rained down on her head. She spat and increased her thrashing.
“I knew you’d put up a good fight,” a voice, frustratingly calm and steady, said.
Her energy had begun to flag, and it was disheartening to know that for all her efforts for the contrary, her captor sounded like he was enjoying himself. He sounded familiar. She managed to catch a glimpse of the tattoo on his massive forearm. Orson. Her hopes of escape diminished. Orson easily outweighed her by a hundred pounds.
“I like a fighter.”
She’d have to contest brawn with brain. Verity willed herself to be still and tried to go limp. She had a vague idea of slipping through his hands. Orson had other plans. Like tossing her over his shoulder, holding the right wrist while pinning the left ankle. Verity felt like a calf being carried to the slaughter.
A calf with a shepherd’s staff! She twisted so she could aim for his head.
Orson chuckled, grabbed the staff, and deposited her in the back of a hay-filled wagon.
#
Trent’s heart leaped when he saw a crook of a shepherd’s staff waving in the back of a wagon. The staff disappeared as the driver slapped the reins but it then reemerged, along with the top of Verity’s hair. Was he mistaken? No, she sat up and the moonlight glistened off her round shoulders. Trent swallowed fear mingling with rage. What was she doing? Where was she going? This couldn’t be another part of her ill-conceived, albeit successful, plan, could it? Where was Chloe, Young Lee, Mugs, the other girls? The wagon lurched over the bridge
, sending Verity back down behind the slats holding the straw.
The wagon turned and moonlight played on the massive forearms of the driver.
Orson.
Trent found Synosby still tied to the tree in the thicket of alders. To his surprise, Miles’ horse stood beside Synosby, casually chewing, long blades of grass protruding from his mouth. With his heart thundering in his ears and adrenaline surging, it seemed wrong for the horses to stand so casually. He knew it’d only take him and Synosby minutes to overtake the hag pulling the straw-filled wagon. He flung Steele across Synosby’s back. Steele’s tied hands and boots pointed to the ground on either side of the horse. Steele would have a raging headache and a stiff back by morning. Mid-morning, Trent corrected himself, looking at the rising sun that spread a slow pink stain over the eastern horizon.
Trent gave the brothel a fleeting glance as he secured a strip of linen that bound Steele to the horn of his saddle. Smoke poured out the windows that shimmered red, yellow and gray. Red hot sparks impersonating as embers flew and popped in the air. The place looked deserted until Miles emerged from the root cellar trap door lugging the spent canisters that, given the Chinese characters on the sides, had most likely held the fireworks. Miles’ hair stood in odd angles, and he had smudges of smoke smeared across his face.
“Nice work, my friend,” Trent called out. “Any sign of Minnie?”
Miles shook his head and then pointed at Trent’s burden. “What you got?”
“Trash. I was hoping you could deposit it for me at Calhoun’s.” He told him of Orson kidnapping Verity.
Anger and frustration flashed in Miles’ eyes. “Minnie isn’t with Steele. So, where is she?”
Trent, anxious to leave, just shrugged.
Miles eyed Steele lying across Synosby’s back like an extra-long saddle bag. “Seeing as how you already got him up there, why don’t you take my Nelly?”
Nelly wasn’t Synosby, but she looked strong. She gave Trent a curious stare as he mounted her. Trent slapped Nelly’s flanks and urged her forward while Synosby snorted a complaint when Miles swung onto his back.
Trent knew he could overtake the wagon in seconds. Miles, with Steele on board, galloped behind him. He understood the urgency. They’d found Steele, but not Minnie, which meant she was with someone else, somewhere else, and the possibilities seemed endless.
In any other circumstance, it would have been amusing to watch Verity bobble in the back of the wagon. Several times she attempted to stand, or even come to her knees, but the lurching wagon pitched her up, down, and sideways. At least he knew she wasn’t hurt. But that could change in an instant. A well-placed bullet or a blow to the head could silence Verity forever, and from his current vantage point, all he’d be able to do was watch. He tried to imagine his life without her and failed. She belonged with him, he belonged with her. He pushed Nelly harder while grappling for the pistol secured to his side.
Trent wondered why Orson had kept Verity alive. What purpose could she possibly serve? Other than the obvious. But why Verity? Of all the girls fleeing the brothel, why had he chosen Verity? Had it been random? Did he know Verity had staged the fire?
Trent dodged a low hanging branch. As of yet, Verity and Orson hadn’t noticed him and he prayed the rattle of the wagon and clip-clop of the nag would overpower the rumble of Nelly’s hooves. Miles and Synosby thundered away in the opposite direction as Trent approached the wagon.
Orson reached to his side and slipped a gun out of a holster. The gun barrel gleamed in the early morning light. Orson shot a quick glance at the fleeing Miles and then turned in Trent’s direction, pointed the gun and fired.
Nelly reared with a cry. Trent steadied on her back, afraid she’d bolt. He held on as Nelly crashed down. Verity screamed his name and he fell off Nelly.
Trent rubbed his hand across his forehead as he scrambled to his feet, momentarily disoriented.
Where was he? What had happened? In the distance, the wagon disappeared from sight. Nelly ran along beside it. He knew it impossible, but he imagined he could hear Orson chuckling. Trent brushed off the leaves and twigs. He’d never overtake the horse-pulled wagon on foot, but he didn’t know what else to do, so he sprinted toward town, hoping against logic that somehow he’d be able to catch the wagon and save Verity.
Trent surged with purpose. He knew at some point his energy would fail. Eventually, whatever enabled him to push forward would dissipate and he’d find himself collapsed in a jumbled heap. But please, he prayed, let me first find Verity. He ran. The coaches, horsemen, the wagons carrying the girls rolled just beyond earshot and with each wheel rotation, they moved further away.
If he could somehow contact Mugs or Miles, they could easily overtake Verity, Orson, and the hag pulled wagon, but since he couldn’t call out or overtake them, he pressed on, letting frustration carry him closer to town. Would he have to search all of Seattle for a lone girl? Isn’t that what he’d been doing for months?
Morning birds called out as he ran down the dirt path. Grass brushed his ankles and the dirt flew in small tufts of clouds around his feet. For a Seattle morning, typically thick with dew, the air felt remarkably dry and warm. A scorcher in a long line of heavy hot days.
Trent ran, creating his own dust devils. He’d gotten close to a quarter of a mile from town when a dark coach trundled toward him. Where had it come from? The road only led to the brothel and he’d been fairly sure he’d been the last left on the island. But he must have been mistaken. After all, once he saw Verity bobbing in Orson’s wagon, he’d been able to think of little else.
He stopped in the center of the road, holding out his hands for the coach to stop. It continued toward him, not fast, but not slow and definitely not showing signs of stopping. “Hey!” Trent called out.
The pair of Arabians pulling the black coach shook their manes at him as if to say, we see you, but we aren’t stopping. “Hey!” Trent called again, but the driver, a woman draped in a dark cloak, urged her team past, forcing Trent to jump out of the way or be maimed and trampled beneath the horses’ hooves and the coach wheels. He sprinted beside the coach and pounded at the door. “I need a ride to Seattle. I can pay handsomely!” he called out, but the driver, a female and the sole occupant, flicked the reins and the horses trotted past.
Trent didn’t even stop to think as the coach moved away from him. He ran, jumped and landed with a thud on the backboard. Catching his breath, he hunkered below the window, his hands grasping the sill. He waited a moment and watched the ground pass below him. The woman had to have heard him, but the horses didn’t stop. He allowed his screaming thighs a moment of rest before he pushed himself toward the window. If he’d thought the driver would allow him to roll in through the back window, he’d been sorely mistaken.
And if he’d been a fraction to the right, the bullet that ripped through the back of the coach would have torn through his belly as easily as it’d punctured the coach’s cushion and splintered the wood.
#
“Tell me where Steele is,” the woman demanded. She wore her thick dark hair piled on her head like a coiled snake. A tuft of hair stuck straight up from the crown of her head like a serpent’s head poised to strike. As she paced across the sparsely furnished room, arms swinging with her agitated gait, her hair slipped bit by bit. How long at the current pace would it take for the woman’s hair to fall to her shoulders? Verity didn’t want to wait and see.
“Who’s Steele?” Verity asked, fighting her twitching eye. “And who are you?”
The woman flashed her a venomous glance. “Come, love. Let’s stop the games. You know me just as I know you.”
Verity bit her lip and tried to sit straight in the chair. If she slumped at all the ropes binding her constricted her breath. She wasn’t hurt, the ropes didn’t chafe, but sitting straight meant being able to breathe and her back and shoulders were beginning to ache from the enforced posture practice. Worse than dance class, she thought, remembering her early ex
perience with toe shoes. She didn’t want to admit ignorance, nor did she want to further antagonize the woman marching across the room.
Verity shot a glance over her shoulder. Out of her line of sight, she knew Orson hung somewhere in the background. His breath was audible and he reeked of cigars. In the past few hours, Verity had grown all too familiar with his odor.
Smoking cigars in the morning was just wrong. It was like having ale for breakfast, it wasn’t necessarily sinful, but it wasn’t done, either. Verity sighed. Looking out the window at the sun shining off the Sound, Verity couldn’t decide if morning had already passed. The sun had risen while she’d bounced in the back of the wagon, and it seemed like she’d been tied to the straight back chair for hours.
The woman kicked Verity’s chair and successfully returned Verity’s attention to the conversation at hand. “I repeat, where is Steele?”
Verity rolled her neck. Sufficient time had surely passed. Trent would have delivered Steele to Calhoun by now, she didn’t think he’d be in danger any longer of being intercepted, but she wanted the frothing woman and Orson to think she worked alone. She needed to protect the others. If she could. Even if she couldn’t protect herself.
Verity looked at the ceiling. “He’s at the sheriff’s.”
The woman snorted. “You expect me to believe that?”
“Why not? They were business partners after all. Both had a stake in the brothel.”
The woman halted and Verity watched conflicting emotions crossing the woman’s face. If she believed Verity, she’d know where to ambush Steele, but she couldn’t very well go there herself. But why not send Orson? After all, he’d been Steele’s henchman. And what had happened to his cohort, the other brute?
“It makes sense,” Verity continued. “The brothel had been destroyed. They’d have plenty to discuss.”
The woman wheeled around and pointed her finger at Verity. “Yes, but the brothel still stands!”