Page 112 of By Any Means

August’s weeping was wrought from him in near-silent shudders.

“Couple of selfish bastards, wanting to live.”

Hiram Sumner, appearing from nowhere. Chary was indignant—until he saw August’s eyes open, saw relief cross his face. A second hand touched August’s shoulder, lightly, then sliding unerringly, through blood speckle and tears, to August’s neck, beneath his hair. August shuddered; Chary stepped back. Looked away. It was too intimate to look upon.

Raised voices in the house’s echoes made him straighten up, wipe his face.

“She’s a reporter! A civilian! A coerced one!” Laurie snarled. He led the way through the doorway, incandescent with anger. Brasher came more slowly: beside him he dragged a writhing, kicking, spitting-mad Sarah.

Chary said, “Oh, no.”

August looked equally taken aback, but then Sumner began murmuring; August’s head bent, engrossed by the smaller man.

“—accomplice to attempted murder,” Brasher was saying. “Conspirator to blackmail—” He seemed to be listing the woman’s crimes. Threatening her with them. Then he saw the bullet holes, the crumpled bullets themselves, and stilled.

Sarah saw them too. She stopped fighting and stood there, gulping, her arm limp in Brasher’s huge grasp. “No,” she gasped. “He said— He said he wouldn’t shoot anybody. Nobody would get hurt; he just wanted the plans. I didn’t know— I have a small nephew…”

Laurie grimaced. “Nobody’s going to hurt you, Sarah. Promise. Can you leave off, you behemoth, and prove it to her?” he said to Brasher. “She’s a victim just as much as Wright. A witness to August’s self-defense. Right?”

Sarah nodded hastily. “Self-defense. I’d swear to it. I’d swear.”

“Sidney.” Sumner; Brasher let go at once.

“Here, sit down.” Laurie guided her to a chair, then faced her. He put his hands in pockets, tilted his head: charm switched on. “You said you’re a woman stunt reporter?”

Sarah’s chin rose for the first time, though she still trembled: pride. Bravery. “An investigative journalist, just like you, Mr. Tulley. Sarah Stone.”

Laurie acknowledged with a nod. “You write for Pulitzer? Hearst?”

“The Cosmopolitan. Freelance.”

Laurie hummed. “Undercover work’s hard, and you’re good. I didn’t suspect you of a thing.”

“You wouldn’t, Mr. Tulley, begging your pardon. Past the bloom of youth, women are invisible to men. You yourself are standing on the shoulders of two decades of women stunt reporters who’ve come before you.”

Hiram Sumner laughed. He looked positively gleeful. He had moved to the longer settee with August; August was recumbent across the man’s lap, tolerating a damp handkerchief being swiped over his face, his hair.

“Topple that pedestal, Ms. Stone,” Sumner called. “He may yet crack.”

Instead of being wrong-footed, Laurie laughed. “Geez, I’ve lost my touch, eh? I never said I wasn’t. I’m for women’s suffrage, too, all right?”

“Why, thank you.”

“Look. You want to write a hit piece on Mr. Wright—either of them—I can’t stop you. Neither can a federal cop.” He nodded to Brasher. “Freedom of press, right? So long as it’s all true. There’s a lotta truth here; can’t deny that.”

Brasher clenched his jaw. No rich man’s solutions here, Chary thought.

Laurie went on, “But you’d get two good men in a hell of a lot of trouble.”

“Not to mention yourself,” Brasher added.

Despite her admonishments, Sarah had been flushed since Laurie’s easy flattery. (Chary sympathized.) “I wouldn’t. I really wouldn’t.”

Laurie nodded. “So, why not?” he asked softly. “What happened there?”

“You must know, Mr. Tulley. There was a bounty: five hundred dollars silver to the man’”—she smiled, tentative—“‘who can print the mystery of August Wright.’ Straight to my editor. A few others, and your Sam Sullivan, too, I must assume? Very exclusive. With conditions.”

“Conditions being that you cable your major findings along to Raberding.”