“Isaid, where the hell were you last night?” Fletcher’s tone wasirritated. “You weren’t here when I got home from the Exhibition. I never even heard you come in.”
“Ah.” Kane felt his face twist. “Remember when I told you I’d promised to help Zaria find someone? A woman named Cecile, in exchange for a favor?”
“Yes.”
“Well, things didn’t go… smoothly.”
Fletcher’s pale brows drew together. “What the hell did you do now?”
That was rather presumptive. After all,Kanehadn’t initiated what chaos had ensued. He took in Fletcher’s state of considerable disarray: the blood on the sleeve of his white shirt that undoubtedly wasn’t his, the disturbed ruffle of his hair. For once the two of them seemed equally miserable.
“I found Cecile,” Kane said after a moment. He got to his feet as he spoke, suddenly feeling the strong need for a hit of tobacco. As he readied his pipe, he continued. “And I took Zaria to meet her at St. John’s church.”
Fletcher twirled his hat on the tip of his index finger. “Okay. The problem?”
“She wouldn’t let me come with her—she wanted to talk to Cecile alone.” Kane shook his head. Everything about Zaria was intense. Rash. And yet she thoughthimdifficult to trust. “So I waited outside.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I didn’t care much either way. About thirty minutes later, though, we ended up with company. The murderous kind.”
Fletcher stopped twirling the hat. “Beg pardon?”
“Someone wants Zaria dead, and they’ve hired the most incompetent blokes to carry out the deed. Don’t ask who,” he added,because Fletcher had opened his mouth, presumably to do just that. “I have no idea. The problem is, it seems there’s no shortage of people she’s pissed off. Her father took a ton of deposits from rich clients without delivering a product, then he went and died, leaving her to fulfill the commissions. Except she’s not very fast at it.”
“And now she’s being targeted by a client who thinks the Mendozas swindled him.”
“That, or it’s the one client she actuallydidswindle. She delivered a faulty commission last week.” Kane didn’t know what his expression looked like, but Fletcher appeared to read his face without difficulty.
“There’s more, isn’t there?”
He sighed, sinking back into his chair as he passed Fletcher the pipe. His friend took it but didn’t put it between his lips, instead staring at Kane with an intensity that made him feel like a naughty child. “Yeah, there’s more. Cecile’s dead, and whoever killed her knew my real name.”
“What?”
Kane launched into the story of how he and the large man had gotten in a fight while the man’s two companions went into the church. How Kane had killed his attacker before finding Zaria hunched beside Cecile’s body with a gun in her hand, trapped in an impasse.
“Wait a moment,” Fletcher interrupted. “You murdered someone atchurch?”
Kane gave a dismissive flick of his wrist. “We were in the street. It’s not like I shot him at the foot of the cross.”
“You can’t kill a man so close to God’s house. It’s not right.”
“Lord save me.” Kane groaned, tilting his head back. Fletcher’s Catholicism was a little more deeply embedded than his own tatteredfaith. “We’re sinners, Fletch, and you know it. Anyway, I took Cecile’s body to Roberts’s factory and was up nearly all night.”
David Roberts was on Ward’s payroll and thus offered up the use of his factory’s enormous coal-fired ovens for dealing with remains. He was a rich businessman, gruff and aloof, with a strictdon’t ask, don’t tellpolicy.
Fletcher gave a slow shake of his head. “Well, better hope Zaria got what she wanted out of Cecile before she was murdered.” At long last, he put the pipe between his lips and gave a mournful puff.
“Mm-hmm,” Kane agreed. “She never told me either way. She was too busy trying to rip my head off. She thinks I have something to do with the danger she’s in.”
“Maybe you do.”
Kane blanched, scowling. “I thought you were supposed to be on my side.”
“Think about it, Kane. Someone could know she’s useful to you. But since they can’t seem to kill her, maybe they’re trying to turn her against you.”
“Nobody apart from you knows she’s useful to me. Besides, who would care enough to do that?”
