These Shallow Graves (23 page)

“Where's the money?” Sally Gibson hissed, opening the servants' door under the stoop of the Owenses' brownstone.

“Lovely to see you, too, Miss Gibson,” Jo said, handing her a ten-dollar note.

Sally glanced up and down the street. “Come inside. Hurry up!” she said, tugging on Jo's arm.

Jo was dressed like a servant. She'd borrowed one of Katie's work dresses again. A battered straw bonnet covered her head. She and Sally Gibson had arranged this meeting during Sally's visit to Jo's home.

“Come on Sunday afternoon when no one's home,” Sally had said. “The servants have the day off and the Owenses go to Mrs. Owens's sister's for an early supper.”

Jo had told Eddie of the plan last night as he'd walked her home after their visit to Mulberry Bend. She'd asked Sally to smuggle her into Eleanor's room, and Sally had agreed. Jo planned to search it from top to bottom, hoping to find the letters and manifests Stephen Smith had sent her.

“Be careful, Jo. The Owenses aren't the Tailor. They'll call the police if they catch you. This is a dangerous game you're playing,” Eddie had warned.

A
dangerous game? She was playing so many, it made her head spin. And none more dangerous than the one she was playing with him. Yet she couldn't let him go. After their night in the Bend, after learning about his past and what he'd overcome, her feelings for him had only deepened. The thought of a day without him in it—that was the most frightening thing of all. More frightening than the scar-faced man, or even the Tailor.

It had taken some doing for Jo to get herself to the Owenses' house. Her mother had been up and about, so Jo hadn't been able to simply leave a note and disappear. Instead, she'd told her she had a headache and wanted to go to Central Park to get some fresh air. Katie would accompany her.

Anna had allowed it and Theakston had offered to call for the carriage, but Jo declined, telling him she planned to walk. She and Katie set off together, but the minute they turned off Gramercy Square, Jo hailed a cab. Once they were inside it, she pulled the shades down and switched clothes with Katie. Then she'd had the driver drop Katie at Saint Mark's Place, where Katie's mother lived, and Jo continued on to Murray Hill.

Katie had instructions to meet her on Thirty-Sixth Street in two hours' time. They'd hail another cab there, change clothes again, and return home. Jo found the machinations required just to take a trip of a few blocks exhausting.

“How nice to be Bram or Cousin Rob and go where you wish when you wish,” she'd grumbled to Katie, but Katie hadn't responded; she'd been too busy counting her money.

“Don't make any noise,” Sally said now, leading Jo up the back stairs of the Owenses' house. “You have to be quiet in case someone returns home early.” She led Jo to a room on the second floor and unlocked the door. “I'll fetch you in two hours. The cook and butler usually return first, at six-thirty. You have to be out by six,” she said.

Jo nodded, unnerved by the task ahead of her. She felt like a thief. Eddie's words came back to her:
Sometimes you have to do wrong to do right.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the door to Eleanor Owens's bedroom and stepped inside.

The air was heavy and sad and carried the faint scent of violets, and Jo felt as if she'd entered a tomb.

Nothing of Eleanor's had been touched, it appeared, since the day she'd been taken to Darkbriar. A pair of silk slippers stood by the bed. A pile of books lay on the night table. A clock ticked. Jo moved around the room slowly, painfully aware that she was trespassing.

The furniture was all of good quality but dated. A faded rug covered the floor. A slipper chair stood in a corner. No dust was to be found anywhere; the maids had obviously been told to keep the room clean but to leave everything as it was.

Why?
Jo wondered.
Do Eleanor's parents come in here for solace? Or to punish themselves?

The vanity table was covered with silver-backed brushes, perfume bottles, and framed photographs. Most of the photos were of pets—a cat with a ribbon around its neck, two small dogs, a horse. One was of a pretty young woman with delicate features, light hair, and smiling eyes. She was wearing a style of dress that had gone out of fashion years ago. Jo reminded herself that Eleanor had died in 1874. Things had changed. The world had moved on.

Next to the photo was a jewelry box. Jo lifted its cover. Inside was a string of pearls, several pairs of earrings, some bracelets, and a few brooches. There was also a gold pocket watch, ruined, it appeared, by water.

A shiver ran up Jo's spine as she realized she was looking at the watch that had been on Eleanor's body when it was found. She remembered Sally telling her that, and also saying that the gold pendant Eleanor had worn—one half of a heart, engraved with the word
Stephen
—and her sapphire-and-diamond engagement ring had likely been stolen.

Jo turned the watch over.
For Eleanor, on her 18th birthday. Love from Mother and Father,
read the inscription.

Her parents loved her, yet they imprisoned her in this room,
Jo thought.
They hoped to save her reputation, to protect her; instead they destroyed her.

Eleanor had made her own choices—or tried to. She'd chosen a man. She'd chosen to sleep with him before they were married. She'd chosen to keep their child. She'd broken the rules and she'd paid for it—with her life.

Jo thought of Eddie and imagined telling her mother about him. She wouldn't end up locked in her room, but she'd undoubtedly find herself on a train to Winnetka to visit her maiden aunt for a good long time.

Because that's what happens to girls who break the rules,
she thought.

The porcelain clock on the mantel chimed. Four-fifteen, its hands said. There was no time to waste. Jo put the watch back in the jewelry box, ready to begin her search.

The draperies were drawn over the room's two windows. Wanting more light, Jo walked to one and opened the heavy silks. She glanced into the Owenses' large back garden as she did. The flowers were dead and the leaves had turned. White marble statues lined the perimeter of the yard. In its center was a bower, presided over by two more statues—one of a man, the other of a woman. Jo couldn't make out who they were.

She turned away from the window and faced the room. “Where do I start?” she whispered.

The bed seemed like a good place. Moving quickly, she ripped the bedcovers, shams, and sheets off it and felt the mattress for lumps but found nothing. Next, she pulled the carpet up, sounded the floorboards, knocked on the baseboards. After that, she removed all the drawers in the vanity and the bureau and felt around inside the frames. She lifted pictures off the wall to see if anything had been taped to their backs. Undeterred, she opened the closet and went through the pockets of the dresses still hanging in it. She tapped the mantel, listening for a hollow place. She went into Eleanor's bathroom and looked inside the medicine cabinet, under the tub, and behind the toilet.

And then, nearly two hours after Jo had started her search, she gave up. She'd found nothing. Wherever Eleanor had hidden the letters, it wasn't in this room.

They could be anywhere in the house,
she thought despondently.
She could've hidden them inside the piano or the grandfather clock. Up in the attic or behind the coal bin. I need two months to search, not two hours.

Jo glanced at the mantel clock. It was nearly six. Sally would be coming to fetch her any minute now. She'd been careful to put everything back in its place, but a last glance around the room revealed that she'd forgotten to close the draperies. As she reached for the heavy silk panels, her eyes strayed to the garden, and she froze.

A man in rough clothes with tattoos on his face was standing in front of the bower. He must've sensed her, for he looked up, and his eyes, dark and vengeful, met Jo's.

It was Kinch.

“He was
here
! I swear it! I
saw
him!” Jo said, standing by the bower in the Owenses' back garden. “He was
right here
! A man with black hair and marks on his face. How did he get in?”

She was breathless. Eager to corner Kinch, she'd run from Eleanor's room down the back stairs to the kitchen and then outside, with Sally hot on her heels.

“I don't
know
how he got in, and I don't care,” Sally said. “You have to leave, Miss Montfort.
Now.
” She looked back at the house anxiously. “It's past six. If anyone sees you here, I'm done for!”

Jo took a last look at the bower. She was close enough now to see the two marble figures flanking it: Selene, goddess of the moon, and Helios, the sun god. “How could he have just disappeared?” she asked, bitterly disappointed that he'd gotten away.

“If you don't come along, miss, I'll lock you out here and pretend I have no idea how you got in, and you can explain yourself to Mr. Owens,” Sally threatened. “Or you can fly over the wall, just like your make-believe man did.”

“That's
it
!” Jo exclaimed. “Didn't you tell me that there's a door in the garden wall? And that it opens onto an alley?”

“Yes, but it's locked. Would you please leave?” Sally said, desperation in her voice.

But Jo didn't. Her eyes played over the garden's alley-side wall, searching for the door. The wall was heavily overgrown with ivy, but in one place, the undersides of several leaves were showing, and the vines were hanging loosely, as if they'd been disturbed. Jo dashed to the spot and immediately saw the door underneath it. Its wood was old and weathered, its hinged rusted. A sliding bolt was fastened to the door, but its keep was missing. Jo looked down and saw it lying on the ground.

“Kinch kicked it open,” Jo whispered. She turned to Sally. “Didn't you say that's how Stephen Smith used to meet with Eleanor? By using this door?”

At that second, a light went on in the parlor. Sally saw it. She grabbed Jo's hand and pulled her into the shadows of the house. “Mr. Baxter's back!” she hissed. “Come
on
!” She ran into the kitchen, dragging Jo after her. They hurried past the butler's pantry, to the front of the house and the servants' entrance. Just as she put her hand on the doorknob, the door was wrenched open.

“My goodness, Sally!” A small, red-haired woman stood in the doorway with her hand on her chest. “What a start you gave me!”

“I … I'm sorry, Mrs. Clarkson,” Sally stammered.

Jo remembered Sally telling her that Mrs. Clarkson was the Owenses' current cook.

“Who's this?” Mrs. Clarkson asked, eyeing Jo suspiciously.

“Josie Jones. Sally's cousin,” Jo said, thinking quickly. “Pleased to meet you, ma'am.”

“You know you're not to receive visitors here, Sally,” Mrs. Clarkson said sternly. “I'll have to inform Mr. Baxter.”

“I'm not visiting, ma'am. I only came by to give Sally some news. Our grandmother has taken ill. The doctor says she only has a few days left. I had to let her know. She's Gran's favorite,” Jo said, surprising herself with how easily the lie came to her lips.

Mrs. Clarkson softened. “Oh. Well, I suppose that's all right, then,” she said. “I'm very sorry to hear it.”

“I'll be on my way,” Jo said. “Goodbye, Sal. Try not to be too upset.”

“I'll try,
Josie.
Thanks for coming by,” Sally said, glaring.

A few seconds later, Jo was back on Thirty-Sixth Street. Kinch's voice was in her head, and his threat to Scully echoed in her mind:
There is proof. There are manifests, signed and stamped.

There are manifests.
Not
I have the manifests.
Because he
didn't
have them. But he needed them if he was going to continue extorting money from Van Houten's partners.

In her mind's eye, Jo saw his face again. She saw his fearsome eyes and, though the evening was not a cold one, she shivered. Ever since she'd first spoken with Sally, Jo had been certain Kinch and Stephen Smith were the same man. They'd even used the same method to gain access to the Owenses' garden. But now, having seen Kinch again, doubts gnawed at her. In the portrait hanging at Van Houten's, Smith looked like a kind, mild man, and Kinch looked like anything but.

He'd seen her at her father's window; he knew who she was. And now he'd seen her at Eleanor's window. Did he know she was searching for Stephen Smith's letters, too?

From the second Jo had laid eyes on Kinch, he'd struck her as a ruthless man. She doubted he would let much stand in the way of what he wanted.

Not a garden wall.

And certainly not a girl, either.