Sweet Revenge Page 23

  “Torbel…”

  He missed the note of alarm in her voice at first. “It’s all right,” he promised, his eyes focused on a point deep in the murk. “If we’re lucky, we’ll catch him off—”

  It struck him like a lightning bolt, the tension in her grip, the urgency in her low tone, the faint drag on his arm—and beneath that, some finer thing that could only be his instincts belatedly kicking in.

  Uttering a succinct obscenity, he closed his eyes.

  “Good fellow,” a raspy voice, indefinable even at close range, congratulated. “One wrong move, Torbel, and your lady love will resemble a piece of Swiss cheese. Very pretty—and very dead.”

  A SINGLE, HORRIFYING thought raced through Victoria’s mind. Torbel could move or stay put. The end result would be the same. They’d be dead. If not here and now, then later.

  The stairs groaned beneath them. Even though she was plastered against the wall, the boards beneath her felt weak. Victoria supposed it would be asking too much for Providence to crack one of them under the person behind her.

  She tried to catch a glimpse of him. But every time she turned her head, she was jabbed in the back—with a weapon she had managed to see.

  It was a military knife, similar to the one her father had inherited from his uncle. Who would make a military knife his weapon of choice?

  “No tricks,” their captor repeated in a vicious whisper. “Disappear into the shadows, Torbel, and she dies.”

  He jabbed the knife into Victoria’s back again for emphasis.

  Torbel’s body language said it all. Victoria felt the tension that radiated out of him. No doubt, so did the person behind them. And yet somehow he held all that energy and anger inside. For her sake, she hoped, he simply followed orders and climbed.

  He loved her; he must. If she was going to die tonight, she wanted to take at least that much solace to the grave.

  Below her sneakered feet, one of the planks gave way. Startled, she clutched at Torbel’s arm. He caught her, easing her foot free before she could release the scream that swelled in her throat.

  “It’s all right…” he began, then swore and started downward. “He’s gone!”

  “How can he be—” she looked behind her “—gone? I don’t understand. He was there a minute ago. He poked me in the back with his knife. Where did he go?”

  “There must be a hidden door.” Torbel drew her to the comparative safety of the second floor landing.

  “I hate this, Torbel,” she said, leaning against him. “It’s demented. Twisted nursery rhymes, a phone message that sounded like it came from a clown played on 78, and now a game of hide-and-seek.”

  Torbel’s blue-green eyes probed the heavy shadows. “More like ‘The Farmer in the Dell.’” He took her hand. “Let’s go.”

  She resisted his pull. “Where?”

  “Any place that’s away from the top of the bloody stairs.” His fingers moved to curl around her upper arm. “Stop asking questions and move.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m caught on a nail.”

  She expected him to reproach her for her clumsiness, but instead he sighed. Turning, he cupped her face and planted a swift, hard kiss on her mouth. “You,” he said simply, “are a pain.”

  “Thanks,” she murmured as he unhooked her. She looked back, shivering inside and out. Where had the person gone?

  They inched forward. Torbel kept his flashlight beam angled downward. Scrabbling claws spoke of rodents in residence, though none so large as the one wielding the knife.

  Victoria’s gaze swept the dingy corridor. It smelled like an old sea chest, dank and moth-eaten. There was even an old top hat hanging from one of the crooked doorknobs.

  She did a shocked double take. “Torbel!” she exclaimed suddenly, halting him with her free hand. “That hat over there has the top punched out.”

  Torbel pointed the beam at the door. “It’s Boots’s hat,” he said through his teeth. “Damn that unholy sh—”

  “Don’t,” she urged, her nails digging into his arm. “He’ll hear you.” At his skeptical expression, she rubbed her arms with her palms. “I’m sorry. I’m scared. I keep trying to figure out who it is. I couldn’t tell if it was a man’s voice or a woman’s.”

  “It was a man’s.”

  “You don’t know that, Torbel. You just don’t want it to be…someone we know.”

  The sidelong look he sent her felt like a dagger being shoved between her ribs.

  “I didn’t say it was, Torbel,” she defended. “Only that it might be.”

  He stared past her now, his manner preoccupied.

  She wished he would confide in her, voice the doubts she knew they shared. Then again, who was she to talk? The unpleasant prospect running around in her head stuck just as surely in her throat.

  They moved on, slowly, carefully, creeping from one gloomy shadow to the next. The floor let out unearthly creaks of protest; the walls, tilted and badly decayed, seemed to shudder around them.

  As the seconds ticked by, faces began dancing in Victoria’s mind’s eye, ghastly, distorted pictures. Of Zoe and Clover, red haired and turquoise-eyed, so alike physically as to be virtually indistinguishable. Of Augustus with his piercing Hollyburn blue eyes, his shock of white hair and his bony finger wrapped around the trigger of his rifle. Of Oliver Fox and Sophie Hollyburn, deceivers both. Of Sophie, pregnant with Robbie. Of Robbie, a would-be black sheep within the Hollyburn ranks. Everyone said he’d been different, kinder. He hadn’t thought like them, looked like them or acted like them. He hadn’t wanted to live like them despite his grandfather’s strong influence and the fact that he’d undoubtedly loved the old man.

  Ratz said Robbie had been excited the night he’d died. Zoe had confirmed that.

  Victoria pictured Robbie searching for Torbel, his brown eyes eager and shining, his brown curls wet with perspiration and the dampness of the fog. Hunting for Torbel on the docks.

  Zoe’s voice echoed in her head. He loved nursery rhymes…

  He’d also wanted to join the Rag Man’s agency.

  His mother Sophie had died in Ireland. What had she been doing in the land of Torbel’s birth? Why had she been so anxious to go there?

  Old Goggy would eat a double helping of crow when she returned; that’s what she’d said in the diary. She and her lover would be free at last. Free from Augustus?

  Victoria’s temples began to throb. Too many images crowded in. Of Boots and Peacock, who were probably both dead. Of Lenny Street, who’d been poisoned, and Boots talking of Torbel’s magic. Boots believed in magic; Torbel did not.

  She thought of Robert Peacock’s face. He never wore gold. He was allergic, broke out in a rash if he did, like her da when he ate peanuts. Boots hadn’t been allergic to gold. He’d flashed the ring that Tito had given him like a banner. And talked of magic. And Torbel’s temper…

  A feeling of dizziness swept through her. She was fighting it when her ears picked up the barest hint of a squeak behind them. If it hadn’t been a protracted squeak, she would have missed it altogether.

  Before either of them could react, a shot rang out, whizzing past Victoria’s head and into the dusty darkness of the stairwell. She heard the unmistakable thump of a body as it landed close by on the floor. Moving as swiftly as Torbel, she dived for the safety of the opposite wall.

  She spotted the fallen man instantly, recognized the tattooed forearm and bald head illuminated by Torbel’s flashlight beam. Her breath caught painfully. “Ratz!” she whispered in horror.

  “Quiet.” Torbel’s voice was a hushed growl in her ear. The ends of his hair skimmed her cheek; his warm breath fanned her temple. She took odd comfort in those things, in spite of a situation that threatened all three of their lives.

  The big pub manager lay there unmoving. Seconds that felt like hours ticked by until finally another floorboard creaked. From the darkness, there emerged a figure, visible from the torso down
. It was dressed in unrevealing black and moved with a casual grace that could only belong to one of two people.

  “Oh God, no,” Victoria said softly, not wanting to believe her eyes.

  The figure chuckled and deposited an oil lamp on one of the alcove shelves. “Oh God, yes,” the woman carrying it countered. The barrel of a handgun gleamed in the glass-filtered light. She strolled closer, smiling as her face came into distorted view. Her eyes glittered, emotionless blue green. Hollyburn blue, Zoe called it.

  Victoria couldn’t help it. She flinched at the fevered expression in those eyes.

  “Don’t move,” Torbel cautioned under his breath.

  The woman’s smile widened. “No, please don’t,” she entreated in mock horror. The barrel rose. “A moving target is ever so much more difficult to hit, or so they taught us at the police academy.”

  Clover Hollyburn’s mouth stretched into a grotesque parody of a smile. Double handing the gun, she took careful aim. “Bye-bye, black sheep. Time for you to die…”

  Chapter Nineteen

  She was mad. She was going to kill them! Victoria froze. She loved Torbel. Dear God, why hadn’t she told him that before?

  “I love you,” she managed to whisper.

  His eyes on the unfired gun, he murmured, “I love you, too.” Her teeth bared, Clover cocked the hammer. And squeezed…

  Two shots blasted out in rapid, earsplitting succession.

  Pressing her fist to her chest, Victoria dropped her forehead onto Torbel’s shoulder and waited for death. If one of the shots had hit, she didn’t feel it yet. She wondered hazily if it was supposed to be like that.

  Unsure, she lifted her head. The blood pounded so loudly in her ears that she couldn’t hear anything. But she was fairly certain that Clover hadn’t fired again.

  She couldn’t read Torbel’s expression, either. Had one of the bullets struck him? She wanted to ask, but she could no longer seem to control her vocal cords. It wasn’t until she went to move that she realized he was unharmed. Gripping her forearm, he said sharply, “Don’t!”

  Don’t what? Move? Talk?

  Another blast. This time, Victoria heard a thud as something fell to the floor.

  Snatching her gun hand into the shelter of her chest, Clover dropped to her knees, her face contorting into a mask of pain. “Chivers,” she cried. “How dare you!”

  To Victoria’s astonishment, Augustus Hollyburn’s butler materialized on the fringe of the light pool. Wisps of smoke from his gun curled up to fog his normally bland features.

  Utterly confused, Victoria appealed to Torbel. “What is this?”

  A small shake of his head preceded Clover’s high-pitched shriek of betrayal. “This,” she screamed, “is sabotage! You idiot, Chivers. You prevented me from doing the just and right thing.” She scrambled to her feet, searching for the unfired gun that Torbel had picked up and tucked discreetly into his waistband. He went to his haunches now, bringing Victoria with him.

  Clover’s face by lamplight went from chalk white to mottled red. “You’re fired!” she screeched at the butler, who looked as dazed as Victoria felt. “Who sent you here to interfere?”

  “Your—your grandfather, miss.”

  “You’re lying!” She coddled her wounded hand, her mouth stretching to ghastly proportions. “He didn’t know I was coming tonight. He couldn’t have. I want the truth.”

  The butler shuffled discomfited feet. “The truth is he ordered me, er, to shoot a certain woman. And, er—” his eyes shifted to Torbel, then swiftly away “—a man.”

  “What man?”

  “Me,” Torbel said quietly from the wall. With a subtle head motion at Victoria, he stood. “Your grandfather sent Chivers out to make sure that Victoria and I would die tonight, isn’t that right, Chivers?”

  The butler hung his head. “That’s right, sir.”

  “But Chivers couldn’t commit cold-blooded murder, even for old Goggy. He also couldn’t stand by and watch you ruin your life, so he altered his employer’s plan.”

  “Clumsily so,” Chivers admitted, his eyes still downcast. “It shouldn’t have taken three shots. I’m sorry, sir, miss.”

  Victoria didn’t know if the apology was directed at her or Clover, but she did know she needed to check on Ratz. Concealing herself in the shadows, she crawled over to him.

  Clover appeared not to notice the creaking floorboards. Hatred spewed from her eyes and mouth.

  “You snake,” she hissed at Chivers. “You’re fired. As for you, Raggedy Man, you’ll get yours with or without my help.”

  His gaze hooded, Torbel inquired, “Where’s Zoe, Clover? Is she here with you?”

  Clover’s upper lip curled. “Don’t be absurd. We don’t hang out together, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  Confident that Ratz would survive, Victoria joined Torbel.

  “We have noticed, Clover,” she said. “At least, I have.”

  “We’ve all noticed,” Torbel confirmed. “Tell me, have you and Zoe ever been in the same place at the same time?”

  Her laugh was bitter. “We’re twins, isn’t that enough punishment?”

  Torbel studied her. “Who killed Street, Clover? And Boots? And Peacock?”

  “I don’t know, Torbel.”

  He advanced on her, his face set in a determined line. “I think you do know. You set us up tonight and tried unsuccessfully to kill us on several other occasions.”

  She swallowed under Torbel’s intense stare. “You’re wrong,” she denied. “Much as I’d love to take all the credit, I only read a note. ‘The Pierpont,’” she quoted, “‘tonight, in Blue Fish Lane.’”

  A chill far colder than fear rippled along Victoria’s spine. “What are you saying, Clover? That you didn’t write those notes?”

  Another voice took over. It came from the corridor ahead of them, from a place deep within the jet black shadows. “That,” it said in a precise, terrifyingly familiar British accent, “is exactly what she’s saying. Good evening, all. Welcome to the moment of truth. And death.”

  AUGUSTUS HOLLYBURN tottered into his daughter’s dusty bedroom. Crossing to the desk, he removed her old photo album.

  There she stood, he thought in disgust, pregnant, unable to look her husband or the camera in the eye.

  He snapped the book shut. “I won’t believe it,” he vowed. “Robbie was a Hollyburn on both sides, her son and Duffy’s. I won’t accept another.”

  But hadn’t he done that already? Accepted one other than Duffy as Robbie’s father? All those favors…

  He opened the album again, grudgingly this time. He found a picture of Robbie as a child. Big brown eyes, happy, chubby face, red cheeks, brown curls, noticeable scar below his left cheek…

  His breath hitched painfully at the coloring. But what did hair color prove? Plenty of brown hair in the Hollyburn family.

  Brown eyes, too, for that matter. Why, his own uncle Morris had had brown—No, no, Morris’s eyes had been green.

  A sudden dryness invaded his throat. He hadn’t looked closely at a picture of Robbie for two years now, hadn’t been able to do so since the funeral.

  Big brown eyes stared up at him from the photo. Familiar eyes? He couldn’t be sure. He’d never thought so before, but then, he’d never had thoughts like these before. The suspicions that plowed their way into his mind tonight were born of an unexpected vendetta, one he had approved of if not officially endorsed.

  The dryness worsened as horror began to supplant suspicion. The scar on Robbie’s jaw. Where had it come from? Surgery, to be sure, but what had been removed to cause it? Not a mole, a birthmark of some sort.

  Another face began to swim in his head. He didn’t know why, but there it was. A man’s face. A man with brown eyes and below his left cheek a—

  Pain stabbed his chest like flaming arrows. It wasn’t his imagination. A resemblance existed, a strong one. And yet how could it be? All that had happened this past week could not have occurred unless—r />
  He groped for the edge of the desk as an invisible wire seemed to tighten around his chest. His eyes scrunched. His shoulders slumped.

  It had been a fake from the start, a clever lie. And they’d fallen for it, he thought with a twinge of black humor. Even the Rag Man. His grandson’s sire was a master of manipulation. And as mad as a bloody Hatter.

  VICTORIA STARED, shocked, at the man before her. Sergeant Robert Peacock, late of the London police force, Stepney Precinct.

  It was impossible—but true.

  “Tie them up well, Torbel,” Peacock ordered. His fingers rose to stroke the birthmark on his left jaw. “If they escape and interfere, they die. Otherwise—” he shrugged “—what happens to me after tonight doesn’t matter.”

  Torbel finished binding Clover’s and Chivers’s ankles, stood and faced the nemesis Victoria had been looking at all along. She still couldn’t believe her eyes.

  “Damn you, Peacock, I was trying to help,” Clover barked. She kicked at Rate’s still-unconscious form with her bound and booted feet. “If I escape, I’m hardly likely to turn you in, now am I?”

  A knife gleamed in one gloved hand, a gun in the other. “Shut her up, Torbel, then join us over here. You had no idea who was behind the notes, Clover,” Peacock retorted coldly. “You harbored no particular love for your younger brother. You hate Torbel because your grandfather despises him. A hatred which, I suspect, goes deeper than Robbie’s death.”

  “It goes as deep as Blodwyn,” Clover stated, firing a venomous visual dart at Torbel. She tried to bite his finger when he gagged her, but Torbel was too fast.

  Peacock had taken them to a second-floor room. Through the begrimed windows, foggy river water caused the shadows within to ripple. Victoria stared, dry mouthed and with a palpable sense of panic rising in her stomach.

  The man was a ghost. He should be dead. And yet, she thought, her brow knit, there had been clues, details she couldn’t grasp right now but had been pondering in the corridor when Clover appeared.

  Zoe’s voice echoed in her head. We were all named for some ancestor or other. It’s a Hollyburn tradition…