BreadCrumb Trail (The Yellow Hoods, #2): Steampunk meets Fairy Tale (17 page)

At first, Gabriel thought this was a case of a boy lost in the forest, but after getting the woman to sit down and tell the complete story, he was convinced that it was something more.

Spotting a guardsman walking by, Lieutenant Archambault called him over. “Could you, please, help this poor woman look for her son for the next hour?” asked Gabriel. “If you can’t find him by then, come and get me.”

Late that afternoon, when Gabriel walked into Matthieu’s office, neither was happy.

“Lieutenant Archambault,” said Lieutenant Charlebois, irritated, “I appreciate you helping our citizens, but in Mineau, we do not take a guard off patrol duty to help a woman whose child has run to play in the forest. This happens frequently, and the child almost always returns home within an hour or two.”

“Oh,” said Gabriel, sitting down in Lieutenant Charlebois’ office. It was several times the size of his own office back in Minette. Everything seemed bigger in Mineau. “So, the guardsman found the child, then?”

Lieutenant Charlebois was taken aback. “Ah—well… no,” he replied, a little defensively.

Gabriel nodded to himself. “I was with the first woman for an hour, and only then asked your guardsman to spend an hour with her. Children get lost in Minette, too. It’s rare that it’s longer than twenty minutes. After that first woman, I ran into
three
other families—each claiming a child had been taken from them—
today
—one way or another.”

Flattening his mustache and leaning forward, Lieutenant Archambault looked his counterpart in the eyes. “I think we have a real problem. I don’t know about Mineau, but I’ve never had that many children go missing in so short a period, with none of them being found by now. By the way, you’ll have a couple more guardsmen come say that I re-assigned them.”

“Where did these events happen?” asked Matthieu, his brow now showing real concern.

“All on the eastern edge of town, near the Red Forest. I knew Mineau was big, but hadn’t realized there are three archways to the east. A child was taken at each.”

“Wait a moment—” said Matthieu, leaning back. “Are you telling me that we have someone stealing
children
?”

“Yes. That is exactly what I’m saying,” said Gabriel, with a grave expression.

The lieutenants then spent their next two days searching the Red Forest together. They had a dozen men with them, and yet found nothing. Worse, two more children had gone missing in the meanwhile.

On the third day, the pair decided that just the two of them would head to the Red Forest, hoping that, without the distraction of ordering around less-experienced guardsmen, they might be able to find something on their own.

As they headed out, Gabriel noticed a gruff-looking man covered in furs exiting a nearby trading shop. The man’s hair and beard looked wild and unkempt.

Gabriel had an idea, and ran up to the man. “Excuse me! I’m Lieutenant Gabriel Archambault, of Minette. This is Lieutenant Matthieu Charlebois, of Mineau. Might you be a tracker?”

The rough-looking mountain man looked at each of them in turn, each wearing a slightly different uniform. He was naturally suspicious, as he liked neither people nor authority. Yet, when he looked into Gabriel’s eyes, he could see the pain and exhaustion. For the first time in a long time, he decided he would be civil.

“I know how to track things,” said the man, backing up slightly and folding his arms. “My name is Pierre de Montagne. What’s the matter?”

“
Woohoo!
I can’t believe that worked,” yelled Franklin as he finished scrambling onto the rooftop. Franklin waved to the guards who remained floors down, and a building over. They stared at Franklin in disbelief, through the open window of the rented room.

“That was a
lot
faster than I thought it’d be,” Franklin said to himself as he detached the black cable from his armband. “I’ve got to thank Mister Klaus again for sending me the design for my birthday. I should’ve made another bolt, though, because
that
one isn’t coming out.”

Franklin removed the armband and put it back into his backpack. Before heading down the rooftop stairs, he sneaked a peek to see if the guards were still at the window. They weren’t.

The thrill of using the armband morphed into panic. “Okay, Franklin—they’re going to come up here. All you have to do is run around a city you don’t know well, lose those guys, then circle back to get the plans… assuming they haven’t found them.”

After descending to street level, he spotted the guards exiting the building across the street. He turned to face a street vendor selling smoked fish, and the guards ran right past him and up the stairs he’d just come down. Franklin glanced around and caught sight of the abbot, two blocks away, talking with a couple of guards.

“Quite a few people are looking for me. Can’t imagine that’s a good thing. The big question is,” he said to himself, “do I try to get the plans now, or not?” Franklin pondered what to do. “They
could
have a guard up there waiting for me.”

When Franklin had first taken the room, he’d deliberately secured the brass tube holding the steam engine plans to the bed’s frame, positioned such that one couldn’t see the tube just by glancing under the bed.

“Excuse me, aren’t you—” said a man dressed similar to the abbot.

“Geez!” said Franklin, tearing off down the street.

“He’s over here!” yelled the man, running after Franklin.

Franklin ran down every alleyway he could but eventually found himself at a dead end.

“Boy, you are making this harder than it needs to be,” said a tall, thin man with an eyepatch and dark robes. He had three guardsmen with him. “You’re coming with us—now!”

All of a sudden, there was a flash of red as a cloaked figure tumbled from a floor above. The figure sprang off one wall, hit a guard, landed, and sprang again. Within ten seconds, Franklin’s four assailants were on the ground. The red-hooded figure stood with its back to Franklin.

“Who are you?” asked Franklin. “That was…
amazing.
”

The figure turned and pulled the hood down. Her long, braided, platinum blond hair seemed to sparkle. “You need to come with me,” she said.

“Um, sure. My name’s Franklin,” he said, looking into her light brown eyes. She looked about twenty. Her face was quite striking.

“I’ve come to get you, Mister Watt.” The woman peered left and right out the entrance to the dead-end alley, then turned to him. “Come,” she said, offering a hand. “We have to get going. By the way, if you think that was good, you should see me with a bow.”

Franklin stepped over the moaning men and took the woman’s outstretched hand.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Gretel.”

Gabriel knocked on the open door of Captain Charlebois’ office. Both captains wore the same grave look.

“It’s good to see you, Captain Archambault,” said Matthieu, with heaviness in his voice. He slowly got out of his chair and walked around the desk to shake hands with his Minette counterpart. “And, Monsieur de Montagne, also a pleasure,” said Matthieu, shaking Pierre’s hand.

“I wish it were for better reasons,” said Pierre.

“As do I,” said Matthieu. “I am, however, pleased that Captain Archambault could get hold of you so quickly. I thought that would present a challenge.”

Pierre shook his head. “My life’s changed recently, and for the better. I’m in the city more often these days.” 

Matthieu motioned to the two chairs in front of his desk. “Please, sit,” he said, circling back around to his own chair.

Gabriel noticed Matthieu’s desk was covered with old notes from the Ginger Lady case.

After making themselves comfortable, Gabriel spoke first. “It’s been ten years, Matthieu. What makes you think the Ginger Lady has returned?”

Captain Charlebois sighed. “I wanted to tell myself it was just one child that had gone missing. That happens all the time, right?”

Gabriel leaned forward, elbows on his knees and hands clasped together. “I assume, like in Minette, this doesn’t happen much anymore. People are wiser, and have taught their children better.”

Matthieu sighed again. “Yes, exactly. I haven’t had a claim of a lost child—at least not one missing for more than a couple of hours—in some years.” He took a sip of his lukewarm tea. “When the first report came in, I immediately thought back to that horrible house.”

Gabriel shuddered. “All those children, dazed and confused. The horrible smell of ginger and filth… overwhelming. I remember,” he said.

Captain Charlebois leaned back. “It bothered me, there being no one in charge there, and how that three-year-old boy was the only one who could tell us anything about the Ginger Lady. I was certain she must have a second house somewhere in the forest, and that somebody warned her we were coming. It felt staged.”

“I thought so, too,” said Gabriel. “But we couldn’t find anything… and then I returned to my duties in Minette.”

“Actually, I have a confession to make,” said Matthieu, now leaning forward, his head slightly hung. “I lied when I told you that we wrapped up the investigation, that day that I sent you home to Minette. I continued searching for that other house for almost two years. It cost me my marriage, and almost my job.”

Gabriel looked at Matthieu and understood. What they’d seen that day in that house had deeply disturbed them both.

Matthieu looked up with a half-smile. “That brave little boy… he was something! He looked like the people from over the eastern mountains. What was his name?”

“Richy,” said Gabriel.

“Whatever happened to him?” said Matthieu. “I didn’t want to ask, before.”

Pierre looked in surprise at Gabriel. “Wait—
Richy
from the Yellow Hoods?”

Gabriel nodded and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms on his chest. “Matthieu and I knew we’d have to surrender all of the children to the Magistrate of Mineau, but we just couldn’t let that happen to our brave little soldier.”

“I’d forgotten we’d called him that!” said Matthieu. “Our brave little soldier, indeed.”

Gabriel smiled sadly. “Pierre, after you left, we managed to get Richy to talk. That brave little three-year-old told us everything that happened, from his perspective. His speech was still slurred from the Ginger, and his memory full of holes, but you could see he was standing up for all the other kids, even if they were older. He got frustrated at his limited vocabulary. He was remarkable.

“We agreed we couldn’t turn him over to have an unknown fate. So, Matthieu and I arranged things so that I could sneak back to Minette with the boy. The Magistrate never knew he existed. We didn’t include him in the report—he was a ghost.

“I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the boy as I arrived in Minette—and then I ran into Jennifer Klaus. She said she could see a story in my eyes, and asked me to tell her everything. And I did.”

Standing to stretch his legs, Gabriel briefly paced the room before continuing. “The couple Jennifer found had just moved to Minette, or else had stopped for a visit—I can’t remember, exactly. Jennifer convinced them to adopt Richy. She told them his name was Aldrich, but they always called him Richy. They couldn’t say the name right; imagine Jennifer’s frustration! Ha—they almost didn’t want to adopt him because of the name Jennifer had given him. The couple was curious at first about his slightly different look, yet became captivated by his deep blue, almond-shaped eyes, and finally agreed to give Richy a home.”

Pierre couldn’t believe it. “I’ve been working with Richy these past months, and I never thought for a moment he was the same boy. Does he know?”

Gabriel stood behind his chair and leaned on it. “No, but I couldn’t handle it anymore, seeing you with him, and seeing him around and helping people as a Yellow Hood. I was proud of him, but I feared what would happen if he learned the truth in the
wrong
way. So, I approached his parents a couple of months ago, before his thirteenth birthday. They listened, yet ignored my advice. Something big was going on between them, preoccupying them. Anyway, I can hardly look at the boy these days. I tend to talk to the girls and glance over him.”