Rebecca Hagan Lee (28 page)

“The fact that you both have nine lives? Or that you two can’t keep your eyes—or your hands—off each other?” Jack queried, one eyebrow raised in mock horror and a smile playing on his lips.

“It’s quite apparent,” Dr. Stone continued in a similar vein, “that it’s mating season. You two have been hissing and spitting at each other since you first met,” he said. “What’s equally apparent is that you’re each down to eight lives.”

“You were lucky, Will.” Jack’s statement was heartfelt. “The doc says that without that antidote you’d have died.”

“I’m lucky you found me.” Will looked first at Jack and then at the doctor. “And I’m lucky you arrived in time to give me the antidote, Doctor.”

“I didn’t,” Dr. Stone told him. “Your lady did that.”

Will turned to Julie, a question in his eyes. She’d told him she translated the note. She hadn’t said anything about giving him the antidote.

“She mixed it up, tasted it to see if it was safe, and poured it down your throat while I held your mouth open,” Jack told him.

“The administration was crude, but effective,” Dr. Stone said. “For if they had not done it, you would not be here now.” The doctor smiled at Julie. “You could not have done a better job, my dear.”

Embarrassed by the praise, Julie deflected it. “I only did what the note told me to do.”

“And thank the good lord that you could read it,” Jack said.

Julie smiled at that. “Thank Lolly, our housekeeper, who began life as a peasant, but insisted that my father find someone to teach her how to read and write Cantonese so the shopkeepers and the butchers could not cheat her out of my father’s hard-earned coin.”

“I hope one day I may be able to thank her,” Will said.

Julie pinned him with her gaze. “Help me find her daughter,” she said. “Or help me find what became of her. That will be thanks enough for Lolly.”

Will met her gaze and nodded.

“Speaking of daughters and what’s become of them,” Jack said, “Madam Harpy sent you five. They were packed into a shipping crate and delivered here a couple of hours after I found you.”

Will closed his eyes and groaned, fearing the worst. “In a shipping crate? Are they dead?”

“No,” the doctor assured him. “Alive. More alive than you were at the time. I’ve examined them,” Dr. Stone said. “They are all malnourished and filthy, as usual. Two are suffering with dysentery and unable to travel for a few days, but otherwise appear to be in fair health. The three older girls are no longer maidens, but thankfully the two younger ones are. And now, for you . . .” Pulling his stethoscope from his medical bag, the doctor put in the earpieces and leaned forward to place it against Will’s chest. He listened to the steady beat of Will’s heart and the clear sound of his lungs and pronounced him alive and rapidly recovering from his ordeal.

“I’m as weak as a newborn, Galen.” Will reached for Julie’s hand. She placed it in his.

“The poison taxed your body almost beyond measure and the antidote purged it by purging you,” the doctor informed him. “And you’ve gone without food for more than half a day. Once we get something in you, you should regain your strength.”

“Well enough to continue the plan?” Will asked.

“In a few days, if you feel well enough to travel,” the doctor told him. “I see no reason why they can’t or you shouldn’t—provided you and they can eat something and keep it down with no ill effects.” Dr. Stone looked at Jack. “Send to Mr. Ming’s for a large order of noodles, and ask Ben to scramble a few eggs.”

Jack nodded.

“Wait a minute, Jack,” Will instructed, before looking at the doctor. “What about her?” He squeezed Julie’s hand, then lifted it so Dr. Stone could see their entwined fingers.

“What about her?” Galen asked.

“Is she able to travel?” Will asked.

“Will, are you sure about this?” Jack demanded.

“It’s time,” Will admitted. “She’s trustworthy and she has a right to know all of it. She’s living with us. We won’t be able to keep things from her now that she’s almost healed. And I don’t want to.” He smiled at Julie. “Our little missionary is a crusader, and instead of being at cross-purposes, we ought to let her know what we are about so we can work together.”

“As long as you’re sure,” Jack told him.

“I’m sure.” He had never been surer of anything in his life. Julia Jane had proven her courage and her loyalty to him and to Jack. She had a fearful temper, an unshakable sense of justice, and she was stubborn to a fault. She had sailed seven thousand miles to find her friend. She could be counted on to do the right thing as she saw it, and nobody could keep her from it. Will wanted her at his side as his ally, working with him, instead of as an adversary. Somewhere between the first verse of “Bringing in the Sheaves” and the smashing of his storefront window, he’d fallen madly in love with Julia Jane Parham, and if he was truly as fortunate as they all claimed, she felt the same way about him.

Still holding Julie’s hand, Will faced her. “The day we met, you wanted to know about our second-floor business. If you still want to know, come with me and I’ll show you.”

“I want to know,” she told him. “I
have
to know.”

“All right with you, Jack?” Will asked.

“Looks like I’ll be staying here to supervise the installation of Typhoon Julia’s new window while she takes my place on the adventure.” Jack tried to sound disappointed, but he was happy for Will and for Julie. A man like Will needed a helpmate. A man like Will deserved one. “Give my regards to the Treasures. And our two keepers of the Treasures.”

“Thanks, Jack,” Will said.

“You’re welcome,” Jack replied, a catch in his voice. “I’ll take care of the details.”

Will nodded. “And telegraph our friends?”

“I already have,” he said. “Advising them that two of our guests were ill and that we will be delayed until they are well enough to travel.”

“I knew I could count on you to carry on in my absence.” Will wasn’t patronizing Jack. He genuinely meant it. If anything had happened to him tonight, Jack was fully prepared to step into Will’s shoes and run the operation.

“You’re the boss.” Jack saluted him, then turned and headed for the bedroom door and the busy world downstairs.

“Where are we going?” Julie asked.

Will smiled. “We’re going to visit two of my oldest and dearest friends and their family, and we’re taking a few guests along.”

Julie recoiled in horror. “I can’t meet your friends looking like this.” Her face had healed a great deal in a week, but it was still marred by a collection of yellow-green bruises and two black eyes that were a very unattractive shade of purplish green.

“Not in your nightgown, no,” Will agreed. “But your Chinese laundry girl disguise and your black wig will be perfect.”

Chapter Thirty-one

“It does not take a majority to prevail . . . but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”

—SAMUEL ADAMS, 1722–1803

I
n the three days it took for two of the five girls Li Toy had sent to Will in the shipping crate to recover from the worst effects of their dysentery, Julie thought she might go mad from boredom.

Postponing the trip meant a change in the routine of those who worked and lived in the Silken Angel—that included Julie and the five new girls. With Will installed in his suite of rooms once again, Julie had moved into the room he had previously occupied.

Still confined to the upstairs for her own safety, Julie was delighted when Zhing came to collect laundry. Days went by and her injuries healed. Her cuts and bruises faded a bit more each day. The marks left from the removal of her stitches were barely visible. She was the Julie of old, except that she wasn’t. She was a woman in love with Will Keegan, and driven to discover what had happened to her best friend.

But this time she wasn’t alone. Will was there fighting with her, searching for answers. He was still recovering from his poisoning, but he had kept his word to Julie and begun perusing each entry in his private ledgers, looking for any mention of Su Mi.

So far, he’d come up empty. He couldn’t find a single entry with a mention of a girl named Su Mi from Kwangtung province, but that hadn’t kept him from continuing the search. Chinatown was a relatively small community, and nothing stayed secret forever. Someone knew something, and Will was determined to find that someone who would lead them to Su Mi.

Despite his best efforts to quash them, the rumors that Will Keegan, owner of the Silken Angel Saloon, had taken the laundry girl, Zhing Wu from Wu’s Gum Saan Laundry, as his mistress were rife in Chinatown.

Living at the edge of the area, Julie couldn’t help but hear what was said about Will and Zhing in conversations among tradesmen and street vendors that drifted up from the streets. She ignored the rumors. Julie knew the truth. She had heard it from Will and from Zhing. Will Keegan
hadn’t
taken a mistress, and if he ever did, she intended to make certain it was Wu’s other laundry girl—Jie Li.

She smiled. In some ways she was still the laundry girl. Battling boredom, she’d implored Zhing Wu to bring baskets of clean laundry to the Silken Angel. Julia Jane Parham was learning to fold and iron. To that end, she and Will and Jack had turned the larger of the second-floor guest rooms into a laundry room.

“Not like that, Jie Li.” Zhing laughed at Julie’s clumsy attempts to properly fold men’s shirts for wrapping in brown paper. “You do like that and Mr. Alcott’s shirts be all wrinkled.”

It was Wednesday morning, and she and Zhing had the saloon to themselves. Luis and Ben were downstairs in the kitchen and behind the bar, respectively. Will and Jack were meeting with Peter Malcolm at Craig Capital, looking to overcome more of the staffing problems at the Russ House Hotel—staffing problems Will readily admitted to creating when he’d instructed Malcolm to sack Mr. Palmer and begin reorganizing the hotel employees. As far as the San Francisco business community was concerned, it was business as usual at the Russ House; Iverson had lost the hotel, but the company that held the note on it was running it until a suitable buyer could be found. What they didn’t yet know was that the owner of the Silken Angel had already bought the hotel. The
San Francisco Chronicle
had reported that the Russ House had changed hands, but had yet to report the identity of the new owner.

“Show me again,” Julie replied. They were speaking a mix of Cantonese and English, with the emphasis on English, so Zhing could practice hers.

Zhing patiently unfolded Jie Li’s effort and refolded it, showing her step by step how it should be done. “Here.” Zhing pushed the shirt across the table. “Try again.”

Julie did so and failed.

“Jie Li, you are hopeless.” Zhing took the shirt, folding it quickly and efficiently before wrapping it in brown paper and scratching something on the packet in black grease pencil.

“‘Fat butcher on Fell Street,’” Julie translated. “So that’s the way you remember everyone.”

“It’s good that you can read Chinese,” Zhing retorted, “because you are one lousy shirt folder.”

“Wait until you see me iron . . .” Julie shot back.

Zhing shook her head. “I don’t trust you to iron yet.” She took another garment out of her basket and pushed it across the table to Julie. “This one is easy. Try it.”

Julie caught the garment, smoothed it out on the table, and froze.

“Jie Li?” Zhing’s voice was filled with concern. “Are you all right?”

“Where did you get this?” Julie demanded.

“My laundry basket.”

“No!” Julie spoke more sharply than she intended. “Where did you get it?” She’d recognized the exquisite embroidery on the tunic immediately. It was Su Mi’s. “Which customer?”

Zhing looked at the tag on the basket. “This laundry came from the Nightingale Song.”

“Did you collect it?”

Zhing shook her head. “No. No. Mr. Wu.”

Julie clutched the tunic to her breast. It was Wednesday. She knew where to go to find the screeching little harpy and get answers about Su Mi. Glancing at the clock on the mantel, she saw she could make it if she hurried. Going to the armoire, she pulled out the dress and the accessories Seth Hammond had packed up from room number six and sent to Will at the saloon.

It was time Julie Parham, Salvationist missionary, came back from the dead.

* * *

“
B
RINGING IN THE SHEAVES, BRINGING IN THE SHEAVES, WE
shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. . . .”

She announced her arrival with her tambourine and a song. Julie knew it probably wasn’t the smartest thing she had ever done, but she was determined to end her search for Su Mi the way she’d begun it. She didn’t make the mistake of going in the front door, as she had the first time she’d gone to the Lotus Blossom. She went around to the side entrance—the laundry entrance—and marched in determined to confront the madam and get the answers she needed.

There had been bodyguards standing at the front door, but there wasn’t anybody to stop her at the parlor doors except the woman she’d come to see.

Li Toy stood up. “You!” she accused, her face pale, her eyes wide. “Missionary girl. You dead!”

Julie walked past her and locked the front door. “I’m the ghost of the missionary girl,” she said in a native Cantonese dialect she knew Li Toy would understand. “And I’ve come for my friend Su Mi.”

She had flown out of the Silken Angel in a white-hot rage, but Julie knew her mission was risky. Always too impulsive for her own good, Julie realized she should have listened to Zhing and waited for Will to return, but it was too late now. She was here and she owed it to Su Mi and to Lolly to do what she could to find her. She knew she might encounter Li Toy’s henchmen before she found Su Mi, but she liked her chances. If there was one thing Julie had learned from the last assault on her, it was that she was harder to kill than anyone expected. And Julie wasn’t entirely on her own. She’d sent Zhing to find Will and Jack and to tell them where she had gone. No matter what happened, Julie had to believe that Will would find her

Will would save her.

“You come singing into my place looking for Su Mi when you should be dead.” Li Toy rushed toward her.

But Julie stood a head taller than Madam Harpy and she stood her ground. “I’m harder to kill than you thought, you
murdering bitch
. You produce Su Mi and I’ll leave with her and never trouble you again. Or you can keep denying you know where she is and I’ll tear this place apart. Starting with you.”

Drawing a chopstick from her hair, Li Toy gripped it like the stiletto it was and lunged, aiming for Julie’s heart. “You want find your friend Su Mi? I help you.”

Julie waited as long as she dared, then stepped to one side and swung her tambourine with all her might—right at Madam Harpy’s evil head.

* * *

S
HE AWOKE ON A DIRT FLOOR AND DISCOVERED SHE WAS
alive. Alive and lying in front of a heavy wooden door. Pushing herself to her knees, Julie reached up and grabbed at the handle. A
locked
heavy wooden door
.
And she was on the wrong side of it in a room lit by a single tiny flame from a small oil lamp. She felt a warm trickle beneath her corset along her rib cage and recognized it as blood. She had been stabbed. Again. The wound wasn’t as bad as it might have been, because she’d taken precautions: Julie had had Zhing bind her ribs and help her into her steel-boned corset beneath her Salvationist uniform. Madam Harpy’s blow had been a glancing one, grazing Julie’s ribs instead of penetrating her heart or lungs. It hurt, but not as much as the first knife wound had. As long as the chopstick wasn’t poisoned, and she didn’t die of infection or starvation or dehydration, she’d be fine.

Focusing on a pinpoint of light, Julie tried to stand up, but a wave of dizziness overtook her. She crawled on her hands and knees, exploring the room inch by inch, mapping it out. “Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty.” She bumped into the wall, changed direction, and crawled until she banged into a second wall. She gritted her teeth and began again. “Forty-four, forty-five, forty-six . . . Ouch . . .” She expected to make it to fifty, but she’d bumped into something protruding from the wall. Reaching out, she touched the edge of a wooden shelf. Relying on feel, Julie realized she had bumped into a raised bed of sorts—a shelf covered with what felt like a fraying woven mat. Her nose told her a slop bucket that hadn’t been emptied in some time was close by. Julie gagged at the horrific odors, covered her mouth and nose by pressing her face into her sleeve. She alternately gagged and heaved as she felt her way along the shelf, making her way toward the light. Sitting back on her haunches, she reached for the tin lamp, lifting it off the floor and raising it high enough to get a better look at her prison.

For as long as she lived, Julie would remember the sight. The image was burned into her brain and branded on her heart.

There were three benches mounted a few inches off the floor. Two filthy rice mats. An empty tin cup. An equally empty tin bowl. And a girl lying on the middle shelf.

The hair on the back of Julie’s neck stood on end, and her heart hurt so badly she thought it must surely explode. She put out her hand and felt cool flesh and crawling vermin.

Julie gagged.

The girl lying in her own filth was almost unrecognizable as Su Mi, but Julie knew it was her friend.

“Su Mi.”
The high-pitched keening took Julie by surprise. She didn’t recognize the sound as hers. Crawling to the shelf where her darling Su Mi lay, Julie brushed the tangled hair from her face, and gently laid her palm against Su Mi’s cheek. “Oh, God . . . Su Mi . . .”

Su Mi didn’t respond. Ignoring the filth, Julie placed her hand on her friend’s chest. The rise and fall was barely detectable. “Su Mi . . . please . . . answer me. . . .”

“Julie?” Su Mi’s voice was thready and weak, more a breath than a whisper.

Julie’s voice cracked. “I’m here, Su Mi.” She couldn’t be sure in the darkness, but she thought she saw Su Mi’s mouth turn up at the corner.

“He made me be a hundred men’s wife, Julie.”

“Shh, Su Mi, don’t . . .” Julie forced herself to speak over the lump in her throat and the burn of tears threatening to choke her. It hurt so much to see her friend like this, to know . . .

“I cannot live”—her voice was slightly stronger, determined—“with the shame. . . .”

“Not your shame, Su Mi.” Julie gave up the fight and let the tears flow. For her friend. “His.”

“Julie . . .” Su Mi tried to lift her arm, but couldn’t. “Madam put me here after the abortionist destroyed my baby and my womb . . .”

Julie took her hand. It was tiny, dehydrated, and reduced to skin and bone. Julie lifted it to her face and pressed it against her cheek. Six months ago, Su Mi had been a beautiful, healthy twenty-three-year-old woman preparing for her wedding, now she was skin and bones and a hair’s breadth from joining her ancestors.

“Oh, Su Mi . . .”

“I knew you would come, Julie. I waited for you. Three months I waited.”

“Don’t, Su Mi, please . . .” Julie choked on her sobs. “I’m here. I’ve found you. I’ll think of something. I’ll get us out of here. I promise. And I’ll take care of you. We’re sisters. I love you. Don’t give up. Please don’t leave me. . . .”

“Julie . . .” Su Mi’s eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t have the strength to open her eyes. “I can’t stay here. Let me go. . . .”

“No . . .”

“Please . . . Julie . . . I want to go home. . . .” Su Mi took a breath and then another and then she stopped. . . .