“I’m not a thief . . . unlike some,” Bridget snapped. “You need to get out of here. Do you have any idea what will happen to you if Corey sees you here?”
She took hold of Esta’s wrist and tugged her toward the ballroom. But when she eased the panel open to enter the barroom again, the room on the other side had erupted into a riot. Women screamed and men tumbled over each other to avoid the clubs that the police were using on the heads of anyone who struggled to get away. “We have to go,” Bridget said. “Come on. If they see us without escorts, they’ll assume we’re working girls. It’s the whole point of the raid. They’ll arrest us for sure.”
But Esta had an escort. She looked up toward the balcony, but with the mess of people tearing at one another to get away, she couldn’t tell if Harte was still there.
“Where are you going?” Bridget shouted as Esta pulled away and began shoving her way through the crowd, pushing against the flow of people. She was so intent on searching for Harte that she didn’t notice the policeman behind her until she heard the shrill scream of his whistle. And she didn’t notice the baton he held until it came down on her head.
THE WATER’S EDGE
The ballroom was in chaos. As soon as the whistle sounded, Harte felt paralyzed by the memories crashing into him. He was eleven again, cornered in the alley where he’d made his bed that night, unable to escape.
“Darrigan!” Jack was pulling at him, saying something.
But the sound of the whistles and shouts drowned out everything but the memory of being dragged from his sleep and into a Black Maria packed so tightly with filthy men and women that he couldn’t move. Couldn’t get away from the stink of them. Couldn’t get away from their hands. Grabbing at him, pulling at him . . .
He couldn’t breathe.
Jack’s voice came to him from somewhere far off. “This way, Darrigan.”
Harte let himself be led, panicked confusion keeping him from processing what was happening until they stepped out into an alley that reeked of rotten meat and piss, the smells of his childhood. It took everything he had not to retch.
When the cool night air hit his face, he gasped, sucking the air into his lungs. He was barely aware of Jack shaking Paul Kelly’s hand, thanking him for the help getting out of the hall.
“Good seeing you again, Darrigan,” Kelly said with a rough slap on his back, before he hailed a cab and disappeared into the night.
As he came back to himself, Harte had the sudden—and delayed—realization that he was no longer inside the Haymarket.
“What are we doing out here, Jack?”
“We’re not getting swept up in the raid, that’s what,” Jack said. His hair was sticking up at an odd angle and the shoulder of his jacket was torn, but he looked pleased with himself. ?Almost exhilarated from their escape. “Damn nice of Kelly to help us out of that mess.”
“We can’t leave without Esta,” Harte said, starting to go back.
Jack caught him by the arm. “Are you insane? The girl will be fine. All those jewels? They’ll let her go. Hell, they’ll probably escort her home. Come on. I can’t be caught up in this, and I can’t imagine you’d want to spend a night in the Tombs either.”
He pulled his arm away from Jack, but Harte didn’t move. He couldn’t be taken to the Tombs, he thought as the wave of panic crested over him again. Not again.
“Are you coming or not?” Jack asked, tugging at him.
Harte looked back at the rear door of the Haymarket. “But Esta—”
“She’ll be fine.”
He turned on Jack. “You can’t know that.”
Jack gave him a shrug. “You’re right. I can’t. Think of it this way: If she gets caught up in the mess, at least she won’t be keeping the baron’s journals from us anymore.” He elbowed Harte as he laughed at his own joke.
Harte’s fingers closed into a fist and it took everything he had not to drive it into Jack’s pretty white teeth. But to do that would destroy the con and any chance of ever getting the Book.
“Come on,” Jack insisted. “There’s something I want to show you.”
He couldn’t leave Esta, but he also couldn’t let Jack get away. Not when he was so damn close.
“Well?” Jack asked, impatient.
She was probably already outside, halfway back to their apartment—his apartment, he corrected. She’d be fine, he told himself. If the tables were turned, she would probably do the same. She’d improvise, wouldn’t she? She was good at that.
“Fine,” he told Jack, looking back at the door one last time. “Let’s go.”
They walked a block west, avoiding the noise coming from Sixth Avenue, where some of the Haymarket’s customers and waiter girls had tried to avoid the police but ran right into them instead. If Esta had gone that way—
If she went that way, she can get out of it. Whatever magic it was that allowed her to move like lightning, disappearing and reappearing in barely a blink, she’d be fine. He needed to stay with Jack. They were too close to let him off the hook now.
The cab they found smelled like someone had been sick in it earlier, but Jack didn’t give any indication that he noticed. Instead, he slouched back in his seat with his eyes half-closed as the carriage started off.
After a while, though, it became clear that Jack wasn’t taking them toward the mansions on Fifth Avenue, as Harte had expected. ?When he saw the spires of Trinity Church, a landmark well below the safety of Canal Street, he started to worry.
“Where are we going?” Harte asked as the carriage rattled on.
Jack opened his eyes enough to squint at him. “You’ll see,” he said with a self-satisfied smile. Then he closed his eyes again and, a few seconds later, let out a soft snore.
As they rode, Jack dozed drunkenly while Harte considered his options. But the carriage never stopped as it followed a route that cut deeper and deeper into the poorly lit neighborhood streets, each progressively darker and quieter than the last.
When they approached the eastern edge of the island, Jack snorted and came awake with a jerk. When he saw where they were, he looked excited, anxious, and suddenly more sober than he had all night. But as they followed the shoreline, the closer they came to the towering span of the bridge, and the more uneasy Harte became.
He couldn’t cross that bridge, but he also couldn’t stop the carriage without risking all the work he’d done to get Jack this comfortable. More important, Harte couldn’t let Jack realize the real reason he couldn’t cross the bridge.
Every block they passed brought the bridge closer still. Harte glanced at Jack’s wrist, noticing the sliver of exposed skin between his cuff and his gloves. He’d wait until they turned toward the bridge, just to be sure. Until the danger of the Brink was worth the risk—
But then Jack rapped on the driver’s window, and the carriage came to a shuddering stop. “We’re here,” he said, excitement and anticipation shining in his eyes despite the effects of the champagne.