MONTGOMERY DREW THE CARRIAGE up sharply and the three of us jumped out. We tore over twisting roots to reach Valentina’s coach. It was on its side, nearly unrecognizable in its destruction. I was the first to hear Valentina moan.
“She’s here!”
I raced around the wreckage, tripping on a shattered strut, and stopped short at the sight. I cupped my hand over my mouth to stifle a gasp. The driver’s portion of the coach had been torn completely off and now lay across Valentina’s middle.
“Balthazar,” I called. “I need you!”
I knelt in the wreckage, tossing off the scraps of wood that were light enough for me to lift. Her hair streaked her face, and when I brushed it back, it caught on a line of blood seeping from her mouth. She coughed, and more blood came. I glanced at the beam pinning her down—right across her essential organs. Balthazar and Montgomery came stomping through the wreckage behind me.
“Hold on,” I said. “We’re going to try to get you free.”
“Juliet Moreau,” Valentina whispered angrily, voice barely a sound. “Just a spoiled girl with her pretty toys, who cares nothing for anything or anyone else.”
“Shh,” I said, and signaled to Balthazar. “Over here. Can you lift this beam?”
“Aye, miss.” He wrapped his big hands around the end, then strained with all his strength to lift it off Valentina. She moaned painfully as more blood poured from her mouth. Balthazar tossed the beam to the side.
“Montgomery,” I said, kneeling next to her again, “is there anything you can do?”
He bent next to her but didn’t bother to inspect her wounds. He grabbed her shoulder instead. “Where were you going?” he demanded. “You veered off the road to London. If not to Scotland Yard, where?”
“Montgomery, she’s dying!”
He ignored me and fixated on Valentina instead, but she just coughed more blood, and then let out a joyless laugh. “You might have stopped me, but I’m not alone. Someone is very desperate to find you, Miss Moreau. All of you.”
“Who were you going to meet with?” Montgomery demanded.
She convulsed once, twice, her lips stained with blood, and then she sagged against the wreckage.
I put a hand over my mouth. “She’s dead.”
Balthazar removed his cap out of respect. Montgomery leaned over, letting his loose hair hide his face, and then he took a deep breath and tossed his hair back. He started going through her dress pockets.
“Montgomery, must you do that?”
“She was planning on meeting with someone. We need to know who. She was going to have you arrested, Juliet, so don’t spare her any sympathy.”
He dug through her coat pockets and came up with nothing, then picked up a leather satchel strapped across her chest. He freed the strap with his knife and pulled out a handful of telegrams.
“Let me see those,” I said.
There was a blank where a telegraph operator would normally type the address of the sender; Valentina must have sent it from Quick but specified that she wanted her location kept confidential.
Her first telegram read:
RESPONDING TO SPECIAL MEMORANDUM
KNOW WHEREABOUTS OF JULIET MOREAU
INQUIRING ABOUT REWARD
I felt a burst of panic. She’d already contacted Scotland Yard? I hurried to read the next few telegrams.
REWARD ￡10,000
PRIVATE INVESTIGATION DO NOT GO TO THE POLICE
WHERE IS YOUR LOCATION
I paused. A private investigation led by someone who didn’t want the police involved? That was even more frightening. Who would want to find us without the police’s knowledge?
Valentina’s response read:
YOUR IDENTITY IS ANONYMOUS
SO IS MINE
WANT TO MEET TO DISCUSS TRADE
The final telegram read:
MEET AT STONEWALL INN NEAR INVERNESS
ON THE EVE OF SAINT TIMOTHY’S DAY
“What do they say?” Montgomery asked.
“It isn’t the police looking for us, at least not in any official capacity,” I said in confusion. “But that doesn’t make sense—the police were looking for us at the inn.”
Montgomery studied the telegrams. “Perhaps someone is paying off a few officers. Running their own investigation outside of official police business. But who? We killed all the King’s Club members who would have attempted any kind of retribution.”
“We must have overlooked someone,” I said. “Or perhaps a member of Dr. Hastings’s family.”
A crow cawed overhead and I jumped.
“We have to go to that inn near Inverness,” Montgomery said. “We have to know who she was meeting. It’s never going to end, not unless we know who’s behind this search.” He looked up at the sky, where the sun was getting low. “It will be another few hours to Inverness. If we don’t leave now, her contact might leave.”