Stealing Jake

CHAPTER Twenty-Three



Livy opened the door to find Jake standing on the porch. He stepped inside. “How’s the boy?”

“Better.” She smiled. “His fever broke about an hour ago. He’s still asleep, though.”

“That’s good.”

He slumped into a kitchen chair. Livy watched him as she finished wiping down the table. She slid into a chair and touched his arm. “Jake, what’s wrong?”

“I arrested Will McIver this afternoon.” A worried frown creased his brow. “You were right. Will’s the one who’s been stealing from the merchants, not the street kids.”

“Oh no.” She hadn’t wanted to be right, not if it meant the thief was another kid. “Do Mr. and Mrs. McIver know?”

“They know.” Jake nodded, his expression grim.

“What’s going to happen now?”

“Judge Parker’s going to go light on him, give him a chance to turn around. Maybe this will be a wake-up call.”

Livy rested her hand on his arm. “I’ll pray that it is.”

His gaze flickered over her face and softened. Livy’s heart hitched in her chest. He gave her a lopsided grin. “I’m sorry I was so hardheaded about the street kids.”

“You couldn’t know. No one did.”

“But you believed in them.”

Livy shrugged. “It’s not like street kids to put themselves in the limelight like that.”

“Livy, come quick,” Mrs. Brooks called from the other room. “He’s awake.”

Livy tossed the dishcloth on the table and headed toward the bedroom, Jake close on her heels. She slowed, glancing at him. “Don’t scare him.”

Jake scowled. “Give me some credit, won’t you? I won’t bite the kid.”

Livy eased into the room and found Mrs. Brooks smiling at the boy. Cautious eyes stared back at her, shifted to land on Livy, and quickly jumped to Jake and the badge on his shirt.

Livy’s heart squeezed in dismay at the way the boy’s thin frame shrank against the feather tick, as if he wanted to disappear under the covers until they all went away.

“Hello.” Livy injected a friendly, soothing tone into her voice. “I’m Livy O’Brien. This is Mrs. Brooks and Deputy Russell.”

A quick flick of his eyes at Jake confirmed that the boy was more terrified of him than anything.

Livy stepped between the two, forming a barrier. “It’s all right. You’re not in any trouble, and the deputy is not going to arrest you for anything. We want to help you, okay?”

He stared at her, silent. No way did he believe her. Livy sat on the edge of the bed. He tried to scoot away, but pain contorted his features. Instinctively Livy reached out a hand, and he froze, looking like a mouse being stalked by a cat.

She dropped her hand to her lap, all too aware of the caution that thrummed beneath his rib cage. Should he trust her? Should he tell a tall tale and try to somehow worm his way out of here? Should he play on their sympathies? Or should he keep his mouth shut?

“Bobby?”

His gaze ricocheted to Livy; his mouth opened, then snapped shut, forming a thin line.

“Your name is Bobby, isn’t it?”

He dropped his eyes to the quilt covering his legs. Finally he nodded, the movement so slight Livy almost missed it.

“How are you feeling?”

“Okay,” he mumbled.

Livy glanced at Mrs. Brooks. “Maybe we need to send for the doctor now that he’s awake.”

“I’ll send Mary or one of the boys for him.” Mrs. Brooks left the room.

“Bobby?” Jake stepped forward. “I know you’re feeling pretty rough, but we really do want to help you and the other children. To do that, we need some information.”

Bobby kept his gaze centered on the quilt, not moving, not making eye contact, not answering. Livy knew that look. He’d stay that way for a long, long time, simply out of fear.

“Bobby, I want you to look at me.”

Her firm tone encouraged the boy to obey. She didn’t want him to be afraid of her, but she needed him to listen to what she had to say. Green eyes filled with defiance met hers. She leaned closer, everything else fading into the background as she attempted to connect with this scared little boy who reminded her of herself.

“Bobby, I know what you’re going through. I’ve been there. Maybe not the exact circumstances, but when I was a kid, I ran from the coppers more times that I can count.” She shifted on the bed and caught a glimpse of Jake in the mirror atop the dresser. Should she reveal more? He wouldn’t like what he heard. But she had to reach Bobby. She forged ahead. “And sometimes I got caught.”

He remained focused on her, and she knew she’d snagged his interest.

“I’d get away from the cops and go right back to life on the streets. But one day something changed. I lost my sister and then got really sick, like you. Mrs. Brooks took me in and took care of me. She never judged me for what I’d done. She accepted me and loved me.”

“I had a sister.” Bobby looked down.

“What happened?”

“We got separated when we got here.” Bobby’s chin trembled. “I don’t know what happened to her.”

Livy tilted his chin up. “Bobby, what would you say if I told you your sister is here with us? She’s doing fine.”

“Jessie’s here?” His eyes widened.

“If her full name is Jessica. Would you like to see her?”

“Yes. Please.” An excited shine replaced the despair in Bobby’s eyes, and he bobbed his head, his shaggy red hair flopping over his forehead.

“Mr. Jake can bring her in here.” Livy met Jake’s gaze in the mirror. “She’s asleep, but under the circumstances, I don’t think Bobby can wait until morning.”

Jake carried the sleeping child in and placed her in the crook of Bobby’s good arm. She sighed and snuggled close. Bobby’s gaze riveted on his sleeping sister’s rosy cheeks and sweet-scented hair.

“Bobby, we’d like to take care of the other children just like we’ve been taking care of Jessica. But we can’t if you don’t tell us where they are.”

The sweet moment turned sour as the color drained from Bobby’s face. “I . . . I thank you, ma’am, for taking care of my sister, but I don’t know nothing.”

Livy bit her lip. If she didn’t get through to this boy, more children would be in danger. Jake put a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up. He stepped forward. “Bobby, if you don’t tell us, what’s going to stop them from getting rid of the next kid who gets hurt or the next one who’s too young to work?”

His eyes grew wide again. “Butch got rid of a little girl a few weeks ago.”

“A toddler? About a year old?”

“Yes.” Tears swam in his eyes. “The boss said she was too little, and Butch took her. Her sister cried and cried. Until Grady whipped her and made her stop. She still cries at night when she thinks nobody’s listening.”

“The baby’s here. Luke found her and brought her to Miss Livy. Just like he brought Jessica.”

Bobby’s head jerked up. “Luke? His brother is at the factory, too.”

“He told us.” Jake hunkered down. “I need you to tell me which factory. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Bobby closed his eyes and hugged Jessica close. “The glove factory.”



* * *





The doctor arrived and shooed them out. Livy confronted Jake in the kitchen. “Gibbons runs the glove factory.”

“I should have known.” Jake jerked on his coat. “He’s been a thorn in my side ever since he got here.”

“You’re going over there, aren’t you?”

He slanted her a look. “What if I am?”

“I’m going with you.”

“No, you’re not.”

“You need my help.”

“You’re wrong there. I don’t need your help.”

Livy glared at him. “How do you intend to get in?”

“I’ll find a way.”

“What’re you going to do? Break a window or kick down a door?”

He crossed his arms. “If I have to.”

“For your information, Gibbons has bars on the windows, and they’re too high up to see into. And there are only two doors, both padlocked.”

His eyes narrowed. “And how do you know all this?”

“It’s my job to know these things.” She looked away. “Or it used to be.”

“And what was your job, Livy?” He moved closer, green eyes flashing. “Maybe it’s time you told me the truth about yourself. You weren’t just a poor little street kid Mrs. Brooks took in, were you?”

“You’re right. I wasn’t. Before Mrs. Brooks saved my life, I was one of the best lock pickers in Chicago.”

“Not to mention an ace pickpocket too, right?”

Livy nodded. Might as well have it all out in the open. He was bound to find out sooner or later. Maybe if he knew the whole truth, he’d stop looking at her in a way that made her think about becoming a wife and a mother to little dark-haired babies who looked just like Andy.

He speared her with a suspicious look. “That first day I met you. Those boys did steal my watch, didn’t they?”

Livy raised her chin. “Yes. And I put it back, and you were none the wiser.”

His disgusted look twisted in her heart like one of the wires she used to pick locks. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him, but she couldn’t change her past, no matter how much she wanted to. “I’m sorry. I never meant to mislead you or anyone else. My past is behind me.”

He took a step toward her. “Is it, Livy? Is it really?”

Livy looked away, unable to bear the censure in his eyes any longer. “I know you don’t believe me, but Mrs. Brooks didn’t just save my life when she took me in. She led me to Jesus Christ and taught me that what I was doing was wrong.”

“How do you justify what you did all those years?”

The hot sting of tears gathered in her eyes. He still didn’t understand how children abandoned on the streets suffered, not even after seeing Bobby at death’s door, and then hearing that same child struggle with identifying the men who’d almost killed him.

“I didn’t know any better. All I knew was that I was freezing, my stomach was empty, and my sister had bled to death in a filthy alley right before my eyes, taking her babe with her. I wanted to eat, to live. That’s all that mattered.” She wanted to shake him. He knew nothing—nothing—about what she’d been through. She jabbed at his chest, unable to check the tears squeezing out the corners of her eyes. “Don’t talk to me about justifying my actions until you’ve walked barefoot through the snow or fought the dogs for bones to throw in a pot to have a little something to eat.”

When she stopped, the only sound was her harsh breathing filling the room. Jake stared at her, suffocating her with his silence. Was he repulsed by what she’d told him? It didn’t matter what he thought anymore. All that mattered was saving the children on the streets of Chestnut and in the hands of that monster Gibbons.

If telling the truth about her past opened people’s eyes to the plight of these kids, then she’d tell the world.

Jake turned away, gripping the window seal until his knuckles turned white. “Was it that bad?”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then opened her eyes again. “It was worse—much worse. I . . . I don’t have words to describe it.”

He glanced at her, a hint of compassion now in his gaze. “Can you give me another chance? I promise to listen to you, to Luke, and to the others this time.”

She pushed the memories to the back of her mind and swiped at the tears on her cheeks. “I’ll give you another chance on one condition.”

“What?”

“That you take me with you to the glove factory.”



* * *





“Would you hurry up already?”

Livy shot Jake a look filled with daggers, and he clamped his lips together. She pressed her ear against the lock, a long, thin wire in her hand. The temperature, already below freezing, kept dropping. It seemed like they’d crouched in the shadows for hours, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes.

A click later, Livy threw a triumphant look in his direction. The lock popped open, and they slipped inside the darkened building. Once the door shut behind them, Jake lit a lantern and pulled the shutters low so that only a sliver of light illuminated the room. The light revealed an office, small and cluttered, with barred windows set high in the walls.

Livy hurried to a desk in the corner and pulled out a drawer. “I tried to get a job here not long after Mrs. Brooks and I arrived in Chestnut, but Gibbons said they weren’t hiring. He must have been using child labor the whole time.”

Quickly they searched the office, finding precious little about employees but plenty of orders and invoices detailing the various buyers the factory dealt with.

“Funny that Gibbons would have such good records of his customers but nothing on his employees,” Jake said.

They moved on to the factory floor. Other than the office, the building consisted of one huge room filled to the brim with machines and stacks of leather goods piled high. Row after row of sewing machines, packed close together, didn’t leave much room to maneuver. The stench of unwashed bodies and refuse permeated the place.

Jake’s stomach churned. He didn’t like the looks of this, not one bit. They rummaged around some more. Livy moved away, and Jake raised the lantern, trying to see what had caught her attention.

“Give me a little more light. Nobody knows we’re here anyway.”

Jake turned the lantern higher and followed Livy. Haphazard piles of foul-smelling blankets ran the length of the rear wall. He spotted small boxes and crates here and there, separating the pallets.

Livy’s gaze shimmered in the lantern light. “Looks like the kids were living in here.”

“Where are they now, then?” Jake wanted to punch someone, namely, Victor Gibbons. If Bobby had worked in this dump, then Gibbons didn’t care a fig about what happened to any of his workers, no matter what he said.

“I don’t know.” She riffled through a box and held up a wooden horse, missing two legs. Another box revealed a small sliver of a mirror and a tattered children’s book.

Jake picked up a shirt, small and threadbare. “What do you think?”

“Definitely a child’s.” Livy frowned.

“But without the children, there’s not any proof.”

“There’s Bobby.”

Jake laughed, a harsh sound in the cavernous building. “One street kid’s word against a man like Victor Gibbons? It’ll never fly.”

“It might if people saw the condition of this place.”

They headed toward the front door, Jake holding the lantern high so they wouldn’t trip over anything.

Livy grabbed his arm. “What’s that smell?”

Jake sniffed. Dread snaked through him. “Smoke.” He grabbed Livy’s hand. “Come on.”

He wouldn’t have thought twice about the smell of burning coal since the scent hung over Chestnut most of the year. But woodsmoke? They hurried toward the front door. Jake tried it, but it wouldn’t budge.

“It’s stuck,” Livy said.

Jake shook the knob again. “No, it’s locked. Someone’s locked us in from the outside.”

His gaze caught and held Livy’s in the flickering light of the lantern. “They’re going to torch the building.”



* * *





Livy froze. She’d seen what fire could do to a building, reducing it to ashes in minutes. The fear of fire had hovered over the slums of Chicago like a dark cloud, striking terror into the hearts of all.

Lord, please help us.

“We’ve got to get out of here.” Jake lifted the shades on the lantern all the way and exposed the darkest corners.

Livy’s frantic gaze swept the factory: the high, barred windows, the padlocked doors. Jake ran to the rear of the building, his shadow dancing against the walls. He checked the back door, but like the front, it must have been locked from the outside. The light bobbed as he raced back to her side. Livy clutched her stomach and focused on his tense face, illuminated by the lantern and the light from the fire.

Oh, Lord, help us. Please, Lord, get us out of here. I don’t want to die. Please.

“Come on.” Jake pulled her through the doorway separating the office from the sweatshop and slammed the door behind them. “That’ll buy us a little time.”

Livy’s gaze darted around the office before she broke free of Jake’s hold and raced to the locked door. She pounded against the wood. “Help! Somebody, help! Please get us out of here!”

Jake wrapped his arms around her from behind, capturing her fluttering hands against her waist. She stilled, willing her pounding heart to slow.

“Save your breath. There’s nobody close enough to hear,” he whispered.

She closed her eyes and shuddered against him, trying not to scream, trying not to run to the corner and huddle in a ball against the onslaught of fire that would surely come.

“We’re going to make it. Okay?”

She took a deep breath and nodded. He sounded so sure, so confident. She could almost believe he was right.

He kissed the top of her head and let her go. Shoving a desk chair underneath the window, he climbed onto the chair, grabbed the bars, and shook them.

Smoke curled under the door, drifting in sluggish curls toward them. Livy shivered. How harmless the smoke looked, but how deadly it would be when it wrapped itself around them and completely took over until they couldn’t breathe. She backed toward the corner. They were going to die. Right here in this room. Tonight.

The smoke would kill them long before the fire consumed their bodies.

Through a fog of fear as thick as the smoke slithering under the door, Livy watched Jake. He found a metal rod and pried against the bars, using the iron as a lever, trying to create an opening big enough to escape through. Sweat beaded and rolled down his face.

A whimper gurgled up her throat.

Lord, we need You now more than we’ve ever needed You. Please, Lord.

Jake stopped, lowering the heavy iron rod from the window. “It’s no use. The bars are bolted tight against the frame.”

Livy slid down the wall into a puddle.

Oh, God. Oh, God. Have mercy.

Jake hurried across the room, hunkered down, and grabbed her by the shoulders. His eyes, their green depths fierce in the flickering light, stunned her. “We will make it, Livy. Don’t give up.”

Livy shook her head. There was no need for words.

Desperate time stood still.

“Please don’t cry, Livy.”

The air left Livy in a rush, leaving a desperate feeling of yearning inside. Tears tracked down her cheeks. With shaking hands, she traced his features, her fingers lingering on his cheekbones, the stubble along his jaw, and finally, his lips.

Jake hauled her to him, covering her mouth with his in a burning kiss that rivaled the fire raging out of control not thirty feet away. All too soon, he jerked away, rested his forehead against hers, and gazed long and deep into her eyes. He didn’t say another word, but his expression glowed with a passion that seared her to the core.

A passion they would never have a chance to explore.