Tipton and Jones had departed, leaving Jasper amid the debris. The last stragglers had left. And the space that had just been filled with noise was eerily silent. No casualties, thank God, but several injured and terrified people. His eyes swept around the abandoned warehouse. An hour before, it had been alive with the movement and raised voices of people stirred in conviction. Now he stood, blood stains and torn cloth and ripped papers at his feet.
His eyes narrowed and focused, trained in to find something, anything. And they settled and focused on the slightest bit of something. Jasper knelt down. There it was. Not for the first time. A strange little knot… well what had once been a strange little knot. Not seared or singed as the same that had been found at the explosive scenes. Whoever was setting the bombs had been at the rally. Jasper may have passed the fellow. He held it out to the lone bulb sputtering overhead and then tucked it in his pocket.
His city was a barrel of gunpowder waiting to be set off. A canon, a gun.
He looked furtively around him. Tipton could ignore this all he wanted, Montague could focus his influence on sending his brute squad to interrupt an otherwise peaceful rally, but Jasper knew the truth. This was more than a few anarchists trying to make a point. This was imminent and purposeful death.
Jem couldn’t quite remember how she found herself spread comfortably on the settee in Merinda’s front room, tucked in comfortably with a blanket from a nearby chair. A fuzzy memory made out Benny, that kind Mountie who had saved her from the crowd.
She pressed the heel of her palm to her pounding head. She expected her wandering fingers would find sticky blood just congealed. Rather, they found a bandage, clean and carefully applied.
She sat up long enough for Mrs. Malone to fuss over her while praising the resourceful young man who had seen to her medical attention, but just as she was beginning to mumble something about needing to go home, she dozed off again.
When next she woke, it was in a scene as familiar as breathing. Light cast prisms on the Persian carpet, Mrs. Malone was busy in the kitchen getting the tea things ready, and Merinda’s footsteps bounded down the staircase, her voice raucous in her demand for Turkish coffee.
Jem held her hand to her injured head. “Shhh!” she croaked.
“Not dead then?” Merinda was chipper.
Jem glanced at the clock in the corner. “Merinda, it is eight o’clock in the morning. You never rise this early!”
“I wanted to make sure you weren’t dead,” Merinda said easily.
Jem snorted. “Liar.”
“Skip is interviewing me for the Hog.” Merinda bounced happily to her hearthside chair and accepted the pot and strainer Mrs. Malone set besides her. “You’ll stay for breakfast?”
“I should get home. Ray will be worried sick.”
“I’ll have Mrs. Malone telephone for a cab.”
Jem accepted the offer, and a quarter of an hour later she was ascending her own walkway.
It was colder than usual inside the house, and she noticed that neither the gas nor the fires had been lit the night before. Thinking Ray had probably fallen asleep at his desk again, she turned in the direction of the telephone, only to remember it had been cut off. But in the kitchen above the teakettle, she found a note.
J—
Had to go to Chicago. Viola in trouble. Finding Tony. Unsure of when I will return. Maybe stay at King Street?
R.
He had left no means of contact.
She took a moment, sinking onto the settee in her little mismatched parlor, her head throbbing something fierce, her heart clutched in a tight bind she couldn’t name. Finally, she rose and went up the stairs.
She opened a trunk and began folding in corsets and stockings, dresses and stays, shoes and trousers over the lavender scented paper, tucking clothes carefully, at once prim and lace, coarse and tweed.
She inspected her dressing table and found that Ray’s pocket watch, a memento as valuable to her as her wedding ring, did not occupy its usual space.
An hour later, Mrs. Malone was helping her settle into her old room. Little familiarities surrounded her—lavender in a vase, a cameo, a few dress patterns, a favorite quilt, a forgotten notebook and pen.
Still tired from the ordeal of the evening before and her head throbbing worse than before, she enjoyed a nap in her old, comfortable bed. Upon rising, she noticed that the sun was slanting more brightly through the window, marking midday. Voices rose from the front room. She checked her hair in the mirror and readjusted the small bandage.
In the sitting room, she found Merinda and Skip.
“Jem! I didn’t know you were back,” Merinda cried. Skip stood and gave her a quick nod as she lowered herself to the settee. “Skip was just doing a first-rate job of an interview.”
Jem looked between them. “I got the oddest note from Ray. He’s gone.”
“Gone where?” Merinda asked.
“To Chicago. Something about Viola and Tony.”
“Chicago!” Skip repeated.
“He’s going to find Tony. He doesn’t know when he’ll be back.”
“Skip here will be perfecting more than his interviewing skills. Why, he’ll have several more jobs at the paper,” Merinda said lightly, even while her face shaded with concern.
“I have to go.” Skip suddenly slapped his hands on his knees.