Unraveled (Turner, #3)

She was ten feet away now, but it might as well have been ten yards. She was darting and ducking through the crowd, and here his size was a curse, not a benefit. She squeezed between two passersby, finding gaps where he would never fit. By the time she got to the top of the steps, he wouldn’t be able to see her. In the warren of streets on the hill above, she’d escape.

If he yelled, “Stop, thief!” now, the crowd might catch hold of her.

But she wasn’t a thief, and he wasn’t a liar. “Stop, attempted perjurer!” didn’t have the same ring. He stared after her. But the baleful frustration didn’t last long.

It didn’t matter. If his legs wouldn’t do the trick, he’d have to use his mind.



BY THE TIME MIRANDA found her way back to the tilted bell tower of Temple Church, she’d managed to catch her breath. Her pulse, on the other hand, was still racing.

She stormed into the building—empty, still, as it was hours before evensong—and pushed aside the curtain that shielded the closet-cum-confessional.

She was too outraged to sit. Instead she paced—two steps forward, a turn, two steps back, over and over, back and forth, and then forth and back once more. She wasn’t sure when she became aware that she wasn’t alone. The fury of her exercise had masked any of the usual betraying sounds. Only the slow prickle at the back of her neck informed her that someone had arrived.

“I didn’t get the list,” she said. “And in case you were wondering, Lord Justice saw me. He took one look at me and said, ‘You there—what do you think you’re doing?’ He chased me over half of Bristol. I scarcely escaped.”

“And yet you did.” The voice that came out of the darkness was the same as the one she’d heard yesterday—dark and raspy, and more than slightly forbidding. “Why was it that he chased you?”

Miranda remembered belatedly that she’d not recounted her entire history with Lord Justice. “He recognized me. From yesterday.”

“Useful,” the representative remarked, “that he should have paid so marked attention. It might be advantageous to have someone who’s caught the eye of a man like Lord Justice.”

“No. If he had some sort of lustful interest in me, I should think he’d have tried a more gentle tactic than shouting ‘Ahoy, you!’ Not unless he’s particularly inept with women.”

He had many faults, she was sure, but somehow over the course of their short, dismal acquaintance, she’d gleaned enough to guess that ineptitude with women was not one of them.

“So there it is,” she said. “No papers. I doubt I’ll be of further use to you. I don’t dare go near the Council House again.” And how she was to keep Robbie safe, if she had nothing to bargain with, she didn’t know. She wasn’t sure if she should weep at what would become of them or rejoice at her freedom.

“The Patron didn’t want the list,” the voice said.

Miranda stared at the curtain, her fists balling. “Pardon?”

“It would have been convenient if you had been able to wield some influence over Lord Justice as well, but the Patron has no real interest in him, either.”

Miranda stared at the rosewood screen. “Then…then why have me take so large a risk? I might have been caught. Arrested.” She tried to keep all hint of anger from her voice. She didn’t succeed.

“The Patron wanted information,” the voice said. “And now he has received it. You will be informed when you are required again.”

“What? What did he want to know? I haven’t told you anything!”

She waited, but only silence met her. She sat on the stool and peered as best as she could through the grate, but she could see nothing. She waited until she was ready to poke the broom through the holes in the screen, just so she could have some kind of response. Any kind of response.

But there was nothing. The audience was over.

What had the Patron learned? She pondered the question as she left the church and crept back down the alley. He’d learned that she could outrun Lord Justice—or at least, out-dodge him, with a little luck. But what use was that?

He’d learned that Lord Justice would give chase. She glanced to either side when she reached the main thoroughfare, waited until a brewer’s dray passed by, and then zagged across the street to the alley on the other side. This one was scarcely wide enough for her, little more than a gap between buildings, but at the moment, she didn’t want to talk to people. She didn’t have much friendliness in her.

None of the things she came up with seemed the sort of information that would justify the smug tone the voice had used.

Perhaps it was simply that. If you were a shadowy, anonymous figure, it made sense to pretend everything had gone according to some diabolical plan. Never mind if it hadn’t. Maybe it was all just for show. Miranda understood show.

Thomas Street was clotted with slow-moving carts. It took her a few minutes to jog down to her alley.