“Trapped you here himself,” Gray says. “Yes, please always be aware of that. In this case, the young man in question is still lounging where you left him. I saw you speak to him and then head this way.”
He peers into the depths. “It really does not seem to go anywhere.”
“Right? So he wasn’t sending me on a wild goose?—”
A yelp. I wheel, and Gray catches my elbow to steady me. We both stare down the dark alley.
Gray glances over his shoulder, and I can read the question going through his mind. Should he take the lead, to protect me from someone leaping into our path? Or the rear, to protect me from someone coming up from behind?
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe that’s not what he’s thinking at all, but as if on cue, his gaze drops to the gun in my hand, and he nods and motions for me to take the lead.
I take it slow, moving along the alley and ignoring all the rodent-rustles. We’ve gone about fifty feet when I see that I was right—the alley is a dead end. Someone’s boarded up the other side, leaving it only accessible for the staircase we passed.
So where did that yelp come from? I lift my gaze, looking for any low windows, but any apartments that flank the alley are windowless along this side, for security. I’m about to turn when Gray taps my arm.
He reaches past me to point at something up ahead. When I see nothing, I blink to let my eyes adjust. Then I spot it—an alcove on our right, hidden from this angle.
I stop and adjust my gun . . . which gives Gray the opportunity to slip past me. I bite back an objection. I also stifle the urge to reclaim my position. You can’t play that game in this situation. If your partner takes the lead improperly, you address it later.
Of course, it’s easier to “address it later” when your partner isn’t a male of the Victorian variety. Gray is as forward-thinking and egalitarian as they come, but he’s still a man of his time, and he is not letting me walk into danger.
“Please take your hands off the child,” he says when he moves into that entrance.
“This doesn’t concern you,” Roy says, sounding only a few feet away. “You aren’t a policeman. You can’t arrest me.”
“I have no intention of arresting you,” Gray says calmly. “That is, as you say, a job for the police. My concern is the child. Either you release her, or I fear you shall be shot.”
Roy snorts. “With what? Your hand?”
Gray steps aside enough for me to move in next to him, derringer drawn. “I did not say I would shoot you. I said you would be shot.”
The “doorway” is an alcove, with what must have been a door into the building, long since boarded up. It’s a tiny spot, barely big enough for Roy, who has Dorrit lifted against the wall.
“Carefully lower her to the ground,” I say. “Or I will shoot.”
“She stole what’s mine,” he says.
“I don’t know what he means,” Dorrit says. “I stole nothing.”
Roy shakes her. “The dog. Bobby. You stole him. I knew it had to be one of you children. I saw the way you were watching me. So I offered the day watchman a bit of money to tell me where to find the lot of you. Turns out he heard this gent talking to that old ragpicker, who told them where they might find the dog. Instead, I found you. You stole from me, and it’s my right to teach you a lesson.”
“Put the child down now,” I say. “Then we will discuss where you got your law degree from, because that is not how it works.”
“I have the right?—”
Gray lunges, and the sudden move startles Roy. He falls back, releasing Dorrit with a yelp, his hands flying up to . . . ward off a bullet, I guess? Gray grabs him, whips him around, and slams him into the wall, hands pinned behind his back. Roy recovers his wits then and tries to struggle, lightly at first, expecting he can easily escape a gentleman. His struggles grow frantic as he discovers his mistake.
I pocket my gun and move toward Dorrit, who cowers back into the wall.
I lift my hands. “I won’t hurt you. I’m sorry we gave you a fright seeing us in the garden, but our only concern is the dog.”
Her eyes fill, and she blinks back tears as her jaw sets. “He doesn’t have a home. I could give him one, and then no one could steal him.”
“I know.”
“You did not see how that brute treated Bobby. Had him tied up in a horrible little coop, with dirty water and no sunlight.”
“I saw it, and it was terrible.”
