We quickly got up and raced out the door to the main offices.
“Oh my God, Morgan! Are you all right?” Roarke was standing over her, watching her drink a cup of tea, his hands on his hips. She had a black eye and Roarke’s tie was wound around her wrist.
Storm Fio caught sight of her and erupted. “Good Lord, Morgan! What happened? Roarke, tell me what happened. I can’t believe I’m seeing—” I placed a hand on his arm to stop his tirade so that someone could indeed tell us what happened.
Morgan looked exhausted. She rubbed her face as if she had an invisible washcloth.
I said with a rush of air, “I haven’t seen you in a couple weeks. I sent word to your lieutenants because I couldn’t find you. What happened?” I sank down to my haunches to get close to her. I put my hand on her knee.
A ghost of a smile touched her as I said “lieutenants,” but then faded away. Damn. She’d been through something horrible.
“I got caught following someone. They held me all this time, I just escaped. Thank God you sent word. The kids were on it, but when they heard from you, they realized they needed a little more help than usual.” Her gray eyes raised to look at Roarke. “Not too shabby, Roarke,” she said.
His eyes glittered as he bantered with, “Not too shabby? I think I was better than that!”
“Yeah, and I’ll never forget the sight of you in a babushka.” That raised a lot of eyebrows. Roarke snorted.
“But um . . . really . . .” She tripped a bit over her words, then she tenderly patted her banged-up wrist with Roarke’s red tie wrapped around it, then looked at Roarke with her serious, gray eyes. “Thank you.”
His dimples disappeared as he felt the moment, too, and replied with a matching tone, “Absolutely. Happy to, Morgan.”
Then she seemed to get her strength back in an instant and turned sharply to me and Fio. “Lane. Fio. We have work to do.”
Fio mumbled, “That’s my line.”
“I saw who killed Donagan. And you’re not going to believe who it was.”
“Lane, you better sit down,” interrupted Roarke.
I hate it when people say that. It has the opposite effect. It makes me want to stand up to prepare and brace myself.
My face must have relayed those feelings loud and clear because he countered with, “Or not.”
Finn took a step closer to Morgan. “You saw the shooter? Up close enough to identify him?”
She nodded. “Oh yes. For sure. But it wasn’t a him. It was a her.”
I said, “Eliza? It couldn’t be her, she’d been holed up since the big shooting.” Eliza had been Donagan’s lover and mastermind at deception. But Donagan had used her just as he’d used everyone. To get her out of the way, he’d set up an elaborate plan that he hoped would get all of his competition for the legacy of Rex Ruby out of the way. Eliza thought she’d gunned down Finn and myself in a rickety old shack on the Lower East Side. But in the shack had been someone she hadn’t expected: her own brother, Tucker Henslowe. She finally knew what side Donagan was on: his own.
Morgan shook her head and slowly said, “No, Lane. It wasn’t Eliza. It was her mother. Daphne.”
“I think I better sit down.”
CHAPTER 8
Since the tender young age of ten years old, when my parents had been killed, I had recurring dreams of things my parents taught me, things they wanted me to remember. Survival skills, reading people and their body language, even throwing a knife with deadly accuracy. I could never decide if they did all that because they suspected their early demise or they were just built that way since they were both spies. I also had bits of memories flit in and out of my mind. Memories that would come back to the surface bit by bit, sometimes in dreams.
Daphne with her long white-blond mane of hair had been in those dreams from the beginning. Right after I fell into the frozen lake when my parents had been killed while we were ice skating, I remembered her leering over me at the hospital in an emerald green hat. I think she planned on killing me but had been interrupted.
Her husband, Rutherford Marco, had been Rex Ruby’s son, and apparently, he’d been a big disappointment to his father because he lacked the ruthless nature that Rex hoped he’d have. I guess Daphne made the cut.
A gold pawn had been left on the blood-soaked chest of Donagan, along with several hundred-dollar bills. The pawn was Rex’s final game piece, proving everyone was his pawn. It was only and always about his choice, his plan, his game.
So Daphne is the heir?
“I can’t get over that, Morgan. You saw her up close?”
“Oh yeah,” she said with big eyes. “I wish I hadn’t. She was brutal. And so creepy. Didn’t you say she was locked up at Metropolitan Hospital? The lunatic asylum? She looked like she could summon her sanity at will. Sheesh, Lane, no wonder you had bad dreams about her all these years.”
I locked eyes with Roarke. “I don’t want to go back to Metropolitan, but I think we should.”
“I know. We need to find out what’s really going on,” he said. “Do you think maybe her insanity was just an act?”
“Oh, I don’t think it was wholly an act,” said Morgan.
“It’s not an act,” I said definitively. “But that doesn’t mean she’s not brilliant, cunning, and extremely dangerous.”
Roarke and I had gone sleuthing to the infamous lunatic asylum on Blackwell’s Island, called Welfare Island now, with its prison, workhouse, smallpox hospital, and lunatic asylum all on one narrow slip of land between Manhattan and Queens. That was the day I recognized Daphne as the woman from my dreams, and boy, did she recognize me. She’d had a Hollywood-style flair, and at first was excited to do an interview with Roarke, our setup for the appointment with her. But then the veneer on her face, holding in the sanity, slipped and crashed to the ground. It was like a different person under there. One that terrified me.
Finn abruptly said, “I’m going with you two this time.”
“That’s fine,” said Roarke, as I said simultaneously and with gusto, “Good!”
“You should go check out her room at the asylum, but she’s not there now,” said Morgan.
“She’s not?” I asked.
“No, just before I got caught by her goons, I saw her buying passage to London.”
“London?” asked Finn incredulously.
Morgan nodded and Commissioner Valentine grinned triumphantly as he said, “Well, that settles that.”
* * *
We got Morgan into a car with Roxy as her chaperone. She agreed to go up to my place to recuperate. I phoned ahead to Kirkland and Evelyn; they’d be sure to take good care of her. We needed a council of war. But first, Finn and I had to finish our meeting with Valentine. Roarke joined us.
Fio pounded his desk with a fist. “So! We need to get you to England right away.”
Valentine nodded, taking a deep drag on his cigarette. He was a thoughtful man, and I could practically see the cogs in his mind working. “Yes, I have a couple contacts there, too. I’ll get them word that you’re coming. Make an introduction with them and your own contact, Miles Havalaar. If Daphne Franco is heading back to where Rex’s syndicate began, it can’t be good.”
“Lane, you look like you’re thinking hard. Have an idea?” asked Fio.
“Well . . . the gunmen that killed Peter, they made a threat to you, Fio. But then they ended up nabbing Peter, which sounded like the plan all along from when we overheard Crusher talk about getting the mitney. Add to the mix that Rex’s network was about stealing art and whatnot. But all of it, the whole thing, the bottom line was always making money and creating chaos while he played his games. Do you think it’s possible that Daphne and the Red Scroll were behind the shooting? That she has a hand in the pinball and slots racket?”
Fio took a deep breath. “Sure, it’s possible. But we don’t have enough information yet on who works for who. There are a lot of other gangs who would be just as keen to get me out of the picture.”
“You shoul
dn’t be grinning, Fio,” I said, shaking my head. He loved making the bad guys mad; it meant he was doing the right stuff.
But with all this talk, I was getting fidgety. I agreed with the need for Finn to go to London; it had been President Roosevelt himself who had sent him there last time to check on the rumblings of the Red Scroll. But it was my parents who seemed to be the cornerstone of it all. They had been the ones to figure out the complexity of the Red Scroll Network in the war, and then my father and Kirkland were the ones who at last took out Rex Ruby, the masterful leader. And most importantly, it was Rex’s followers who murdered my parents. Why was I getting worked up and fidgety? Because I started to get the feeling I wasn’t going to be “allowed” to work on this case and go to London, too.
“I can hear you, Lane,” said Fio, rather omnisciently. “Stop fidgeting.”
“But I am not going to let—” I started to sputter.
He cut me off before I could continue. “Oh, Lane, please. You’re going, too.”
That shut me up. My eyes darted to Finn. He said, “Pfft. Of course. Like anyone had a choice. You have your own money; you’d be on the next ship anyway, right?”
“Well . . . yes. I would.”
Valentine wasn’t flummoxed in the least. In fact, he looked like Roarke when we get onto a good sleuthing scheme. His eyes were gleaming with excitement topped with a devilish grin. “Besides,” continued the police commissioner, “we need someone with a set of skills that you have readily exhibited, Lane. I rather look forward to your escapades.”
Finn closed his eyes and murmured, “Oh dear God. Escapades.”
I had a special knack for doing the spectacular and gathering a pretty good audience to witness it, including an amused NYPD. Finn and I were the talk of the town, let’s just say. And the cause of more than a few friendly wagers.
Fio spoke up. “Lane, you really shouldn’t be quite so dramatic, though.” My eyebrow shot up.
“You mean such as, not bringing my trumpet and shooting down the criminal right as he’s about to blow up a bridge?” Fio had done that. With pizzazz. He turned a little red as I pointed out his own dramatic tendency, yet at the same time he looked quite pleased with himself.
He couldn’t figure out a good comeback, so he left it with, “Mmm, yes.”
Valentine was enjoying the banter, his eyes going back and forth like watching a tennis match. But I also had my eye on Finn. I had recently faced the ghosts of my past in Rochester, Michigan, and they were nothing to sneeze at. I came out unscathed, but it had been a deadly game. And I still had a lot of questions about what exactly my parents were involved in while they were in the war working with intelligence. They were invaluable in stopping Rex Ruby. But there were still questions of how they infiltrated the Red Scroll Network. And there were a couple of moments where I was not one hundred percent sure of their trustworthiness. They at one point had to look like they were part of the crime syndicate, and there were dark parts to undercover work. I loved my parents. But I wasn’t sure I trusted them.
So, London held possible secrets for me and my parents. But London also held dangerous ghosts for Finn. Those were the questions I was searching for in his face and those dark gray-green eyes of his. Finn had both psychological and physical scars from some sort of accident that I believe his devious younger brother orchestrated. But he hadn’t told me the whole story yet. He would. When it was the right time.
I caught his eye at that moment, and we shared a knowing look. I loved the idea of a trip with Finn. But there was something else there, in the belly of this mystery. Something that sent icy tentacles of apprehension right through me.
CHAPTER 9
Ray drove Finn, Roarke, Fio, and myself up to my place. Ripley, our giant German shepherd, was uncharacteristically not on guard at the side window of our red front door. I loved the half-moon shapes of the uppermost windows, Aunt Evelyn’s studio. And the sight of the copper-topped, bumped-out window of the parlor in our townhouse warmed my heart. This place. It was a welcoming and joyful home, and it made me feel better, the mere vision of it easing out the tension of the idea of going back to Metropolitan Hospital and all that we faced with losing Peter.
We came in and I yelled out, “Hello!”
“Back here!” answered Aunt Evelyn. We trooped to the back room, a little area off the enchanting patio, with its charming lanterns and lights strung on the branches of the maple that created a natural canopy. Even with some of the more sensitive lights taken down for the winter months, the sturdier ones glistened and twinkled as the breeze caught the branches.
“There you are, buddy,” I said, grinning at Ripley, who lay completely covering Morgan’s lap on the comfy small couch next to the fireplace.
Morgan looked clean and peaceful. Aunt Evelyn was sure to get her into tip-top shape, and Ripley had an uncanny way of comforting those who needed his kind of furry reassurance. Morgan softly rubbed his head and his big ears. Ripley looked rather delirious laying his head to the side, letting his tongue loll out of his mouth. Morgan laughed a sweet, genuine little chuckle. She still had Roarke’s red tie around her wrist, but I glimpsed a clean bandage underneath.
My stomach rumbled as I smelled beef stew brewing on the stove.
Mr. Kirkland gruffly laughed when he heard it—it wasn’t a quiet rumble—always proud of his cooking. And who didn’t like to cook for those who truly appreciated it? Like me. I was always starving.
Aunt Evelyn came over and helped me get the dishes ready. Roarke went and sat with Morgan while Finn opened a bottle of red wine. Because of her European upbringing, Evelyn always had a lot of wine on hand, God love her. Fio and Kirkland stood at the stove discussing the finer points of beef stew.
I said softly to Evelyn, “She seems okay?”
She nodded seriously. “Yes. She’s a bit bruised and banged up. But nothing else happened to her,” she said knowingly as she pierced my eyes with her flinty glare.
I blew out a grateful breath. “It sounds like she had a narrow escape. I sent word to her lieutenants. Plan on them showing up later.”
“I figured,” she said with a smirk. “That’s why Kirkland made two pots of stew. And brownies. He loves those little devils.”
I chuckled. “I know. I wish we could get them to live in regular homes.”
“Well, I think some of them do. I believe some just work with Morgan. But yes, I want to keep trying to get them into safer situations.” She turned to me then and put a hand on my cheek.
“I’m so sorry about Peter, Lane. Are you all right?” Even with all the commotion of hearing about Daphne and then Morgan’s narrow escape, Peter’s death hung heavy on all our shoulders. I felt the prickle of tears and she pulled me in for a hug. She must have been painting, because she still wore her Gypsy garb and her long black hair fell past her shoulders. She was soft, heartening, and smelled of lavender and oil paint.
“I got in more Sanders hot fudge,” she said consolingly.
“You know me so well. Thank you.”
We all ate companionably. The thick, dark gravy and big chunks of beef and vegetables tasted substantial and comforting. It had been a long, long day, but we still weren’t done. With the plates cleared, we got down to business.
“Okay, Morgan. You ready to tell your story, dear?” asked Aunt Evelyn.
She quickly looked at Roarke and then began. “Yeah. Well, it started the night I followed Mr. Hambro, who had been tailing Donagan. I don’t know why I did it. Your friend, Fio, Mr. Hambro, is quite capable. But I had this feeling that I wanted to see what was going down. So I followed Donagan and his shadowy partner to Putnam and Paulsen’s downtown. Donagan went inside, swaggering all the while, talking about Rex’s games sending taunting messages in red envelopes, planting clues around the town on architecture, and playing with people while he twirled that gold pawn in his fingers like a cat toys with a mouse.... He said all of that was exhausting and childish to him.
“After about twenty
minutes, I heard a savage scream and then Donagan stumbled out. He wasn’t holding anything but a little piece of paper. He obviously had not received the legacy he’d been hoping for. Mr. Hambro skulked away after that, but I was rooted to the spot. I couldn’t move; it was like I had to watch the entire thing play out.”
Morgan took a sip of hot tea then went on. “Up ahead—it was a really foggy night—I spotted a hooded figure. Donagan did, too, and went toward it like he wanted to talk to the person. But as he got close, the figure pulled out the silver gun, Lane. And shot him.”
I couldn’t help myself, I gasped. “She did have the silver gun! It was the same silver gun?”
“Oh yeah. She came closer to Donagan and I saw the bloody scroll on the handle and everything. That was when she pulled her hood down and I saw her long, almost-white hair. Donagan was just as shocked.”
“I bet,” muttered Kirkland.
I was sitting on the floor, up against Finn’s knees. His hand came down and brushed my hair lightly with his fingertips. “What did she say to him? Could you hear?” I asked.
“Yes. I kinda wish I hadn’t. She’s really creepy.”
“I know,” I agreed.
“She said something about everyone being kings or pawns of men,” said Morgan with her fingertips massaging Ripley’s ear.
Finn said, “That was the quote from Napoleon that Rex left for Donagan. Everyone was a pawn to Rex. Even Donagan himself, his hand-picked apprentice.”
Morgan nodded. “Yeah. Then Daphne said she had demonstrated to Rex, from the beginning, that she was his most trusted partner. And that she was the rightful heir. Then she said she would give him what he deserved for messing with her children. That’s Tucker and Eliza, right?” she asked.
Kirkland nodded. “Then what did she do?”
Morgan gulped. “She unloaded the gun into him. Then she sprinkled money over him and placed a gold pawn on his bloody chest. Then she just walked away. Whistling.”
“Jesus,” whispered Kirkland.
At that, Evelyn popped up and began to pour restoring tots for all of us. Even Morgan got a little taste.
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