A Lesson in Love and Murder (22 page)

“You make it very difficult.”

“I don't intentionally do so.”

“I fell in love with an independent woman. I fell in love with a girl who isn't afraid to take a risk and bound into the night.” Ray grimaced, reaching and brushing a curl from Jem's forehead. “But that was before I realized what it would be like if she bounded into the night away from me.”

“Ray… ”

“Jem, I feel like I am at odds. I love you for who you are, but the thought of you hurt or scared or playing Silent Jim amidst crates of explosives… ”

“It wasn't so bad,” she said softly.

“I have to help Hedgehog tomorrow,” he said after a thoughtful moment. “I still think there is a wonderful story here, Jem! Another nail I am collecting for Montague and Spenser's coffins.”

“I want to be a part of it,” she said, expectation starring her eyes. “All of it.”

He kissed her then. Uncaring who saw. Uncaring that she was in trousers and vest while her bowler hat hung limply in her hand. “I want you to be a part of it too.” He just wasn't sure how to let her be a part of it without risking her life.

Merinda was pestered with an attraction that, with a persistent buzz, fluttered and grew with the flicker of the streetlights. She wondered why her heart was thudding and her head spinning. She only wanted a few more minutes—time to taste his words and study his profile and sense his nearness over her shoulder and… Cracker jacks! She was even
thinking
like Jemima!

She was looking at him, hoping that he wouldn't see her looking at him, so of course he was looking at her. What might he see in her? She didn't have the bow lips or curls that were the ideal of feminine beauty. The features that Jem possessed in spades. But Benny… Maybe he would throw in for
interesting.
For
unexpected.

“Look there!” She pointed to a darkening sky whose rim was the color of fairy floss. “Cassiopeia.”

“Actually, Cassiopeia is a circumpolar constellation,” Benny explained. “You're not likely to find it in August.” He took her hand in his hand, light as a feather, and propelled it to the other corner of the sky. “That is Aquila.” He lowered their hands but didn't let go, her soft hand in his large, calloused one.

“Aquila,” Merinda repeated, tracing the map of his eyes.

He nodded. Cleared his throat. He spun her hand to the universe again. “Lyra,” he said.

“Lyra.” She blinked up at it. It watched them slyly, winking its approval. As did the others he labeled, their hands still attached, little sprightly constellations and sparkly dots, more than a few stars in the sky.

“Why didn't you just find Jonathan on your own, Benny?” Merinda removed her hand. “You're such a smart tracker. You never really needed Jem and me.”

He looked at her, from the brim of her bowler down to the scuffed toe of her brogans. “Merinda,” he sighed, “I can track a moose; I can hunt a lynx. I can label every star in the sky. I cannot map my way through a maze of city streets.”

The next morning, en route to the communal sink, Ray noticed that Jasper Forth's pillow was still over his head. Ray rolled his shirtsleeves up, adjusted his suspenders, and splashed cold water over his face before raking his fingers through his hair. The cracked mirror and the morning light striping through the window betrayed tired eyes and worry lines he was certain hadn't been there before. He had several years on Jem to begin with, but was he finally starting to look his age? Soon gray would speckle his hair and his mouth would secure itself into a constant frown. He was certain the majority of this burden would be smoothed away when he finally was at ease about his sister.

He laced his shoes and returned a few grunts from fellow lodgers with a small smile. He scrawled the address of a coffee shop on a piece of paper and placed it at the edge of Jasper's pillow and then walked out of the lodging house and almost directly into Viola.

His heart tugged at her attempts to look presentable despite the threadbare cotton of her dress and her sunken hat.

“Vi!”

“I've spent the better part of this morning visiting almost every boardinghouse in this end of the city,” she explained as he took her elbow and guided her off of the yard and to the main street. “When Tony said he saw you, well… ” She smiled. “You should be proud.” She bopped her head in a confirming nod. “I am not unlike one of your girl detectives.”

This coaxed a slight smile from Ray. “Indeed. Come, you can help us find somewhere to eat breakfast.”

It was a beautiful morning, made more so by Viola's proximity and the feather weight of her hand in the crook of his arm. She had left Luca with the neighbor. She was in the kind of bright mood that allowed her to expound on her son's progress and how comfortable he was at being with other children. Ray said very little, cherishing instead the rather endearing hybrid of English and Italian in Viola's soft sentences.

When they reached the restaurant, he opened his mouth to order coffee, but Viola was adamant that they drink lemonade. Ray advised her that lemonade with the sticky buns she was also adamant about ordering were an odd pairing, but she cared little. A girl at the town fair for an afternoon with a few pennies to recklessly spend. Ray was thankful for the wad of sweaty bills Hedgehog had pressed into his hand the evening before.

The waiter set down two lemonades. Ray smiled as Viola wrinkled her nose at the first taste.

“Should I ask for more sugar?” he asked.

Viola shook her head. “What is the English word—
aspro
?”

“Sour.”

She nodded. “
Sour
. It's good, though. Cold.”

Ray stirred his straw around his glass. His eyes drifted from her to the cold drink to an open newspaper at the next table with a picture of Theodore Roosevelt's sunny face and portly form. Ray glanced at it quickly while Viola bit into her pastry. It summarized what was to happen at the convention. Roosevelt was not to step into it like a prelude but rather give a speech on the second day of the proceedings.

He looked at Viola again, and with her face a trunk of memories was unlocked. “We tried to make lemonade—do you remember?”

Viola laughed. Like a slight trill of unexpected music. Ray was so unused to this laugh. “It wasn't pleasant.”

“We should have taken the seeds out first,” Ray said with a deciding nod.

“I like this much better.”

“And I like seeing you smile.” He reached out and took her hand.

“There hasn't been a lot to smile about. I pawned the pocket watch—a place on Michigan Avenue. And I feel like I am being dishonest with Tony by even talking to you.” Her face darkened. “But there is something that is unsettling. Tony is determined to do whatever they want him to do. He won't tell me who ‘they' are, but he tells me it will make things better. This… Ray, Tony thinks that all of our problems will be over. Once and for all. If he only goes through with this one last job. He calls it a score.”

“You remember Jasper Forth from the police? He is here, and we can stop him.”

“I don't want him to get hurt.”

“I don't either.”

“And I don't want him to hurt anyone else.” Viola reached into her ratty handbag and extracted a piece of paper and pencil. Her handwriting was poor. Their father had found little need for an educated female in the house when there were chores to be done on the farm and in the kitchen, but Ray made out a time and an address, not letting Vi know both were familiar to him already. Tony was to meet Hedgehog for the same shipment to which Ray and Jasper were assigned.

They finished their lemonade, and Ray pressed a few bills he had earned from Hedgehog into her palm. “I'll get more.”

“You found work here?” Viola's eyes widened.

Ray nodded. “Lifting things for this fellow down at the docks. It's some kind of criminal activity though, Viola, so it pains me that all I have to give you is what I have made from dishonest work.”

“But look, you're smiling.”

Ray nodded, and as he spoke his hands picked up movement and his words came out faster before she asked him to slow down. “I know that what this man is doing is connected to Toronto. It's going to make a wonderful story, Vi.” He reached out and squeezed her arm. “I have you to thank for it!”

Viola leaned across the table and kissed him on the cheek. “You make me so proud, you know. With your stories! Your name in print. You'll be at the
Globe and Mail
someday.” She nodded. “I am sure of it.”

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

Everything can be perceived as a trail of bread crumbs. Sometimes you would be surprised what you found at the end. Sometimes you waded into a mystery half solved, sometimes into the middle of a problem you didn't know was in need of a solution.

Benfield Citrone and Jonathan Arnasson,
Guide to the Canadian Wilderness

W
e're playing with gunpowder and bombs.” Merinda tried to keep a warning and chastising tone in her voice, but it was all excitement instead. Ross wanted Benny and Merinda to meet and go over preliminary instruction for Tuesday.

“You sound indecently excited,” Jem said, wiggling into black pants in preparation for Silent Jim's meeting with Ray and Jasper. “I wonder if that has something to do with Benny.”

Merinda huffed and flounced her curls. “Bombs, Jemima.”

“Humph. Besides, I forgot, I shouldn't even be talking to you.”

“Don't be so childish.”

“You can't just go to blows with my husband, Merinda.”

“I didn't plan on it!” Merinda whined. “I just saw him and I… Well, I felt bad that he left you that note and that he was off running into danger when you are… well… in your condition.”

Jem rolled her eyes. “What would Sherlock Holmes say to this? Letting something—
someone
—other than the facts of the case cram into your little mind-attic!”

“Clearly a romantic rendezvous has muddled your brain, Jemima.”

“You think you're something special, guarding your heart, Merinda. Stop tugging that poor man along.”