AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, do get out of my way.” She elbowed past him and stalked off.
He caught up with her almost instantly. “Samantha, I am not some annoying pest for you to shoo away.”
“At the moment, I do find you very annoying. And who gave you permission to use my given name, Dr. Kendrick?”
“I just did. And I suggest you also stop calling me Dr. Kendrick in that snippy tone.Thatis very annoying.”
“Well,doctor, what should I call you?”
“You might try Braden.”
“Really? Might I point out that we hardly know each other? Certainly not enough to be on a first-name basis.”
“Lass, we’re about to head into the most dangerous part of town on an equally dangerous mission to find a missing girl. If that doesn’t put us on a first-name basis, I cannot fathom what would.”
She sighed. “Ah, so you do know about Betsy. Bathsheba, again?”
“Partly. The rest I gleaned from Mrs. Culp. She’s a wealth of information when it comes to Old Town. The consensus seems to be that Betsy ran off with her man.”
“That is absolutelynottrue. Betsy has become an accomplished seamstress, and we’ve found an excellent placement for her with a dressmaker. I spoke to her only last week. She was very excited about it.”
He seemed to ponder all that as they exited the park. Ahead of them was one of the narrow streets—part laneway and part staircase—that would take them down the hill into Old Town. It was one of Samantha and Donny’s preferred routes, since it was usually deserted at this time of night. She’d been a bit worried about traversing it alone and couldn’t deny relief that Braden was now serving as escort.
So he’s Braden now, is he?
“Do you suspect she’s been kidnapped?” he finally asked.
She stopped him at the top of the wooden set of steps.
“What is it?” he asked.
“How much do you really know about . . . all this?” she asked, gesturing toward the decrepit old buildings that flowed down the hill in a jumble.
“Quite a bit, actually,” he said in a carefully neutral tone.
Samantha muttered a curse. “I take it that Bathsheba told you most everything, including about my . . . my illness.”
God, after all this time, she still had trouble saying the word.
“Yes, and I cannot tell you how incredibly sorry I am, for all of it.”
She swallowed hard against the lump at the back of her throat. “Thank you. But what is most important now is finding out what happened to the children. Donny will be out of commission for some weeks yet, and I cannot afford to wait that long. Not while these disappearances keep occurring.”
“You believe the children have been coerced into joining one of Edinburgh’s criminal gangs.”
She heard the skeptical note in his voice. There was no point in pretending she didn’t understand his doubts. “I think they’ve been kidnapped.”
“How is that even possible? Betsy, perhaps, since she didn’t live at the school. But the boys, right out from under your noses?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet,” she confessed. “But it’s the explanation that makes the most sense—if one is willing to look the facts straight in the face.”
So far, the only one on the board so willing was John. She held her breath, praying that Braden would believe her, too.
“Children can be valuable assets to an arch rogue,” he said. “They are often highly prized in criminal operations.”
It took her a moment to recover from the shock that he seemed to agree with her. “Arch rogue?”
“The leader of a thieving gang or a flash house. The problem is that many of these children willingly join the gangs. If that’s the case with your students, then it’s going to be bloody difficult to get them away without a fight.”
