She clutched her umbrella a bit more tightly. “It has.”
“But if he’s kept his promises to you—well, has he kept them?”
“He’s tried.” She looked unsure.
“In that spirit, I guess you need to keep your promise to him. Forgoing any chance of your own happiness, of course. It’ll be hard to break that to poor Mr. Kelley. He really is such a fine man. So…appealing.”
“He is, isn’t he?”
“And he certainly seems to dote on little Violet.”
“He does.”
My words felt like weapons, but there was no going back. I stabbed and twisted. “She deserves to be happy too, I think. I don’t know how that can happen if this husband of yours leaves you high and dry. Unless you have the reserves to run away and start a new life somewhere.”
I saw the light go on in her head. The choice of words had been right. She gazed out at the rainy park, the tension in her face relaxing, melting away. “I might be able to find reserves like that.”
“I don’t just mean strength. I know you’re strong. I also mean money. Do you need that kind of help from me? I’ll do my best.”
A smile came over her face. “No, dear, sweet one. I have money.”
“Whyever aren’t you using it now, then?” I exclaimed. “Cath, you could be so much happier! Either use a little to make your life better or a lot to start a new life outright! Whatever you do, if you have the chance at freedom, I’d take it. I wish I had such a chance.”
“Oh, my dear Kate, I wish you did too,” she said, and then I knew I had her.
She made her plans and her choice. Her paramour Mr. Kelley gave her the time and date to meet at the station, claiming he had bought train tickets for all three of them. Disguised, I tailed her. She swept into the bank on Market and out again, and it took no time at all for me to discover the alias she’d used there. Immediately after, I reported the wrongdoing to the local authorities, as Pinkerton had advised me. After that, our part was done.
Cath would be intercepted on her way to the station. That way, neither I nor DeForest had to break the news of our deception to her, though our feelings were not the reason for the procedure. It was simply better practice never to reveal a cover identity unless it was absolutely necessary. DeForest might have occasion to become Mr. Kelley again, or I might find myself in Philadelphia in the future as Mrs. Wofford. Hidden things had value, if we could keep them that way.
The logical part of me thought our betrayal of Cath Maroney no more remarkable than any other case, but there was a growing cloud on my soul that had nothing to do with logic. She had been my friend—or as close as I could get to one, given the deceit on both sides. And I knew her feelings for the mythical Mr. Kelley were as true as they could be. She’d fallen in love with the man, even if he wasn’t the man she thought, and I’d fed that fire. She’d trusted us, and we were her downfall.
We’d even used her little daughter against her. Was there any forgiving that?
I left Philadelphia the day after the arrest, and the ride home to Chicago was long and lonely. Procedure dictated that DeForest and I take separate trains, and truth be told, I wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to discuss it with him. I was still reeling from what I knew he’d done.
The boss had told us many times that he did not expect his operatives, male or female, to perform amoral acts of intimacy with our targets. But regardless of what he expected, I realized at last, these things happened. A woman like Cath Maroney would hardly run away with a man who merely pressed his lips gently against the back of her outstretched hand. She had appetites, and I had no doubt he’d done what was necessary to sate them. I knew she was a criminal, and I didn’t admire that, but I did admire how she’d known what she wanted and pursued it without qualms, without hesitation.
I had appetites too but no one to sate them for me, and I lived like a sacred sister. I hadn’t even attempted a romance in years. Who would I pursue, or who would pursue me? Everyone I met was either a colleague or a suspect. It wasn’t that my fellow agents weren’t fine examples of men, some of them very much so—I caught myself more often than I liked noticing a gentle hand, a firm jaw, the muscles of a strong back I might like to feel under my fingertips—but entangling myself with one would allow the others to discount me. They’d say they’d always known I was hunting a husband, not justice. I wouldn’t take the risk.
After two and a half years in the same boardinghouse, I still didn’t know the name of a single person who lived there other than the landlady, Mrs. Morris, nor did I know even her Christian name. The only man who’d been in my bedroom since Charlie’s death was Tim Bellamy, the night Sarah Harrington died. I grinned to myself, thinking how he would react if I told him of the honor, how he would bristle and bluster. I could still picture the outline of his rigid back as he stood, facing away from me, eyes on the door.
There were days that I loved my life, and I couldn’t imagine anything that suited me better than the work of a Pinkerton operative. I would not have traded it. But riding the train back to Chicago, free of artifice for the moment, with no one to deceive or impress, I realized how lonely I was.