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Was there nothing this woman wouldn’t do? He mused, horrified and delighted at the same time.
“Come on, let’s go,” Marguerite ordered from within the darkened interior. Her face was wreathed in a cheeky smile that made his lips twitch.
Sighing deeply, Joe clambered aboard, impressed in spite of himself, and settled back to hold her while the coachman followed the black carriage.
“Where are we?” Marguerite whispered when they had stopped at the end of a road in what appeared to be a warehouse district half an hour later.
“The docks,” Joe sighed. “Sayers is nothing if not a creature of habit. His father worked on the docks when he was a free man. I am sure someone like Sayers knows this are like the back of his hand. I wouldn’t be surprised if he owns a few of these warehouses now. He certainly owns that one from the look of it.”
He nodded to the dilapidated hulk the carriage pulled to a
stop outside of. He handed the carriage driver a heavy tip and told him to be quiet as he left before he nudged Marguerite into the shadows and watched Sayers sweep into the building.
“We need reinforcements,” Joe murmured. “If Marcus and Ben are in there, they will be heavily guarded. I cannot go in there alone.”
Marguerite shuddered. She had no argument with that. She hated the thought of Joe going in there at all but knew that this was a part of his job. If anybody could get in there, find out what, or who, was inside, and get back out again it would be Joe and his trustworthy colleagues.
“How do we find help? If we leave Sayers might be gone by the time we get back,” she whispered.
“We both need to go and take a chance on that. It isn’t all that important whether Sayers is here or not. What is important is what is in that warehouse,” Joe replied. “I need backup from at least one of my colleagues. Until we can find out what is in there, then we won’t know if it is worth raiding.”
“What do you mean?” Marguerite asked with a frown. “Isn’t it worth all of you going in, anyway?”
“Not if the warehouse is empty except for the men Sayers is keeping captive. It could be an empty warehouse. We will just give Sayers more information on how many men we have, and how we work if we storm the place to find nothing there. We need to be as quiet and circumspect as he is.”
“Quietly go in and out as though nothing is happening, you mean,” she murmured with a nod. “It is all very clandestine.”
Joe looked at her a little ruefully. “It is how we work, I am afraid. Things have a tendency to sneak up on you.” He smiled at her when he said that to make the point that this new burgeoning relationship between them had snuck up on him as well.
She smiled back, supremely pleased with herself. “So what do we do?”
“We do nothing except leave,” Joe replied. “We will go and see if anyone has found Reg yet.”
“Where is he?” she asked finally.
She hated to ask because she didn’t really want to know if he was dead, mortally wounded, or had vanished. Either was not good news. He was a traitor, and that was all he could be whether dead or alive.
“He was lying on the kitchen floor with a knife in him the last time I saw him. As far as I am concerned, I don’t care if he bleeds to death. He isn’t one of us now that is for sure.”
There wasn’t much she could say to that and so Marguerite lapsed into silence and followed him.
“Wait!” Joe whispered, hauling her into a darkened entrance of a dilapidated warehouse opposite. His gaze remained trained on a spot further down the road. He neither moved nor spoke for several long minutes. Marguerite was relieved she couldn’t see anything but his broad shoulders. She was starting to hate the dark. Suddenly, Joe whistled a strange rhythmic sound. She opened her mouth to speak but froze when a haunting whistle was turned.
Joe sent a prayer of thanks heavenward. He had no idea what had drawn his colleagues to this particular area but signalled to whoever was out there. He could only hope it wasn’t Reg who had answered.
Thankfully, Kerrigan appeared before him seconds later, followed by Jacob. Both men were in disguise, but Joe would recognise them anywhere.
“We followed Sayers’ right-hand man here,” Kerrigan murmured quietly.
“We lost him around these parts, though,” Jacob added, his frustration rife in his voice.
“I know where he is,” Joe replied. “We need to move fast.”
Joe briefly told them about Sayers warehouse.
“Where is it?” Kerrigan asked, glancing around them with a menacing scowl.
“Right here,” Joe replied, unable to hide his rather pleased smirk, especially when he watched Jacob’s brows go up.
