Sarah knew exactly what kind of work Will Yardley did, and if there hadn’t been much of it lately, it was because he’d been too lazy to climb into someone’s window and relieve them of their valuables. Or else he’d simply spent all his money treating his friends tonight. She glanced around the comfortably furnished room and wondered how much of the furnishings had been carried down a fire escape in the middle of the night while the rightful owners were sleeping unawares.

“Will, I have a business proposition for you that will take care of whatever you owe me. Let’s step into the other room so Dolly and the baby can rest.”

Will looked a little uncertain as he followed her out of the bedroom. They lived on the first floor in the front, the choicest location. No need to stumble up steep and dirty flights of stairs in the unlighted stairwells to a higher floor, and whatever fresh air was available would make its way into their front windows.

Unfortunately, as in most tenements, only the front room of the apartment had windows, so the rear rooms were dim even on the sunniest days. Will pulled the bedroom door closed behind him, leaving Dolly and the baby in darkness except for the single gaslight on the wall. The kitchen, which was the middle room, was also dark except for the light coming in the other doorway. Sarah went through it into the front room, where she could see that the rain of the last few days had finally stopped and the sun was coming up strong and bright again.

She turned to Will, who looked a little worried. “What kind of business proposition you got for me, Mrs. Brandt? I know people say things about me in the streets, but I want you to know, I’m an honest man. I never done none of the things-”

“I just need some information, Will. I need to locate a person, and you might have the contacts to help me find him.”

“What’s this person done?” Will asked suspiciously.

“Nothing that I know of,” Sarah lied. Actually, he might be perfectly innocent, although an innocent man wasn’t likely to behave as this fellow had. “I’d just like to ask him some questions. About a friend of mine.”

Will nodded wisely, as if he received requests like this all the time. “Who is this bugger you want to find?”

“His name is Hamilton Fisher. He’s a tall fellow. Not very handsome. His hair is blond and his teeth stick out in front. I think he might be a cadet.”

Will frowned. Plainly, he considered such work beneath him. “And you want me to bring him to you?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Sarah assured him hastily. “I just need to know where he is. Then I’ll send someone to talk to him.”

Will nodded, sure he’d figured it out. “I see it now. You’re trying to find some girl he recruited.”

“Something like that,” Sarah agreed. She was getting far too good at lying.

“And when I find him, I let you know, and we’re square?”

“We’re square for this baby, and the next one, too. The boy you want so much,” Sarah added.

Will scratched his chest absently as his gaze drifted toward the back of the flat where his wife and child slept. “Sure would like to get me a boy.”

“Girls are nice, too. You’ll see. And you’ll find this fellow for me?”

“I’ll find him.”

Sarah hoped he could. Finding Hamilton Fisher would bring her one step closer to finding Alicia’s killer.

In fact, it might bring her face to face with him.

5

FRANK COULDN’T BELIEVE HE WAS STILL IN THE same state as Manhattan. The wagon he’d hired at the train station in the picturesque little village of Mamoraneck had carried him down winding country lanes through lush fields rampant with wildflowers and past stately lawns that graced enormous mansions. When he thought of the squalid tenements of the Lower East Side and the dives of the Bowery, Frank wondered that they could exist in the same world as this place that looked like something out of a fairy tale.

On the other hand, he knew that the rich must have a haven outside the city that the poor could never invade. In the city, no matter how wealthy you were, you couldn’t be very far from those who weren’t. Fifth Avenue had become home to the wealthy because it was as far as you could get from either of the island’s waterfronts and the slums and the vice found there. Even still, it was only a few short blocks away from that vice and could go no farther. Blocks that anyone, no matter how poor or depraved, could walk in a matter of minutes. Trapped on the tiny island of Manhattan, the rich could never hope to have a world completely unto themselves.

This is why, for decades, the rich had been going north to where the land opened wide and could be purchased in huge parcels that would ensure no encroachment by the unworthy. They had come here to escape the unhealthy air and the unhealthy inhabitants of the city and to live in stately splendor.

And here they could send their daughters when they wanted to hide them, as the VanDamms had wanted to hide Alicia.

Frank glanced at the fellow driving the wagon. He was dressed in rough clothes, obviously a farmer, except instead of being in the fields on this unseasonably warm spring day, he was driving Frank to the VanDamm’s summer home.

“Do you farm?” Frank asked.

The fellow looked over at him suspiciously. He was past middle years, his hair white where it straggled out beneath his farmer’s hat, and his face was as brown and withered as an old potato. “Used to,” he offered.

“But you don’t anymore?” Frank said by way of encouragement.

“I drive this wagon. Make more money carrying the swells from the train to their fancy houses than I ever did behind a plow.”

This made sense to Frank. “Do you ever drive the VanDamms?”

The fellow shrugged his powerful shoulders. “Sometimes. Mostly, they get their own carriage.”

“Did you ever drive their daughter? The younger one, Alicia?”

“Once or twice. She’s a sweet little thing. Not like the other one. That one’s got a tongue on her could raise a welt on a leather boot.”

Frank thought this was probably true. “The VanDamm girl’s dead, you know.”

He looked surprised. “Is she now? Can’t say I’m sorry.” He spit a stream of tobacco juice over the side of the wagon. “What happened? Did she try that razor tongue of hers on the wrong man?”

“Not her,” Frank said. “The younger one, Alicia. She’s the one who’s dead.”

“The hell you say!” the driver exclaimed. “And her so young. Hardly more’n a babe. She get sick or something?”

Frank watched him carefully as he said, “No, someone murdered her.”

The driver gaped at him, his shock almost painful to behold. For a long moment, the only sound was the clop, clop of the draft horse as he plodded on, but finally the driver was able to say, “What happened?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

The driver nodded wisely. “That’s it, then. I been wondering what a copper’s doing out here, asking for the VanDamm place.”

Frank frowned. He hadn’t told the man his profession, so he must have been able to tell just by looking at him. He wondered what gave him away, but he didn’t ask. The man would only lie.

“You didn’t, by chance, take her to the train station about a month ago, did you?” he tried. “She would’ve been alone, or maybe with a young man.”

The driver shook his head. “Haven’t even seen her in a couple years. They keep ’em close once they start getting ripe.”

It took Frank a minute to figure out what he was saying. “They keep a close watch on the girls, you mean?”

“Always afraid they’ll get in trouble. You know what young men’re like. It ain’t so long since you was one yourself.”

Frank could hardly remember, but he nodded his agreement. “You ever hear of her getting in trouble? With a young man, I mean?”

But the driver shook his head. “Never heard nothin’ about her at all. Like I say, they keep ’em pretty close.”