Band of Sisters (42 page)

But the grim line where Katie Rose’s mouth should have been told her they did not. Mrs. Melkford changed the subject. “Have you found new work, Maureen?” She immediately sensed that was not a safe topic, either.

“Yes, I think so.” Maureen appeared to hedge.

“Not certain?”

“I begin tomorrow.” Maureen walked briskly on.

Mrs. Melkford decided to mind her own business, but that some extra time in prayer for her young friends was definitely in order.

“I’ll be away for a time.” Maureen surprised Mrs. Melkford by slowing and speaking at last.

“Going away?”
Now that is not what I expected.

“Yes.” Maureen hesitated. “My employer travels for work, and I’m to attend him and his family.”

Katie Rose stopped suddenly, wrenching Mrs. Melkford’s arm so that they both nearly fell backward. “You’ve gone back into service?”

Maureen’s face, a plum in the cool morning air, now blanched white. “It’s the only work I could find.”

“You said—you swore—you’d never—never in a million years!” Katie Rose exploded.

“Domestic service is perfectly respectable, Katie Rose,” Mrs. Melkford admonished.

“Not with her it isn’t!”

“Katie Rose! Apologize to your sister.”

But Katie Rose dropped Mrs. Melkford’s arm and pushed Maureen with both fists into the street, her words rushing out as though a dam had burst. “Who is he? Who is he this time, Maureen? Or is there more than one? Are you farmin’ yourself out to the masses now—lettin’ them take turns crawlin’ all over you?”

Maureen slapped her sister and slapped her hard.

“You whore!” Katie Rose hissed.

Maureen raised her arm to slap her again, but Joshua, who’d joined the group unseen, caught her hand in midair.

“You’re not wantin’ to do that,” he said quietly. “You love Katie Rose.”

“But she loves only herself, and she uses you!” Katie Rose shouted to Joshua. “Don’t you see? You’re just another in a long line of—”

Mrs. Melkford grabbed Katie Rose by the arm and shook her. “Stop that! Stop before you say more than you can ever take back.”

Katie Rose stopped abruptly, covering her face with her hands. The broken dam that had poured spite and venom now poured tears, great and wrenching.

Joshua took her in his arms. She beat against his chest and struggled to go free, but he held her and walked her down a side street, letting her cry and cry.

“Whatever has happened between the two of you?” Mrs. Melkford asked, very near tears herself.

But Maureen shook her head sadly, her eyes filled with such weariness and concern for Katie Rose that it made Mrs. Melkford’s heart ache. And yet, as she watched Joshua cradle Katie Rose against his chest as an older brother would comfort his young sister, she could not see the same familial love in Katie Rose’s face or in the fierce grip with which she clung to him.

Joshua motioned, above Katie Rose’s head, for the two ladies to go on.

“Come, dear. He’ll bring her along.” Mrs. Melkford tucked her arm in Maureen’s, squeezing her young friend’s hand, and guided them slowly to church.

As they climbed the steps toward the vestibule, Mrs. Melkford turned once. Her heart caught at the sight of a familiar figure, a face she’d seen weeks before, staring from outside her window. “Do you see that man, Maureen? The one in the checkered cap, there, beside the tree?”

But as she pointed, the man stepped back, the tree between them, and the two ladies were swept with the tide of the congregation into the church.

Mrs. Melkford, unsettled by the stranger, was grateful that Maureen seemed to regain her sense of purpose and take charge of them both, shepherding her up the balcony stairs to their seats.

Such a strange and too-eventful morning.
Mrs. Melkford sighed, sinking thankfully into their familiar pew, willing her heart to steady its beat.

The call to worship, the opening prayers, even the first hymn had finished by the time Joshua quietly ushered Katie Rose into the pew beside them. Neither removed their coats, and neither made eye contact with the women to their right. One glance told Mrs. Melkford that Katie Rose’s eyes, though dry, remained glassy and that the girl’s knuckles whitened as she gripped Joshua’s hand beneath a shared hymnal.

Maureen took the chair beside Joshua, explaining to Curtis, as best she could, Sunday’s fiasco with her sister and Mrs. Melkford’s account of the man who’d watched them enter the church.

Curtis nodded as he spread a New York map across half the desktop between them. Madame Sevier, who’d returned to help Maureen and Joshua with their disguises, spread her wares across the other half.

“I understand your concern—” Curtis thumped weights on the map’s corners—“but her outburst may work to our advantage. Unless I miss my guess, Mrs. Melkford’s checkered cap man was your Jaime Flynn—and Katie Rose’s nickelodeon predator. If he’s been following you ladies, hoping to ascertain your current circumstances—your daily patterns—perhaps he’s scheming to pressure you into working for him. Or more likely he’s working for Darcy’s, keeping an eye on you. They’re probably uncertain how much you know and how far your interest into the disappearance of your friends goes. It’s just as well he caught sight of Joshua and Katie Rose together again rather than the two of you. We don’t want to supply fodder for any suspicion that you’re especially connected.

“When he realizes Joshua is not with your sister, Flynn may keep himself busy trailing her for a few days rather than looking for you—at least if he thinks pestering her might give him or Darcy’s some sort of insurance for your silence. They won’t touch either of you, certainly not while you’re living under Olivia’s roof. The attention and scrutiny would be too great—the last thing they want. In any case, it might throw him off your trail just long enough.”

“Olivia’s agreed to demand that Katie Rose limit her comin’s and goin’s to daylight, but I’ll not leave the city thinkin’ Jaime Flynn will be pesterin’ after my sister,” Maureen retorted.

“I’ve got a man on it—a good man following her, someone neither Katie Rose nor Flynn will see or recognize. He’ll not let Flynn get too close, and he’s not afraid to step in if necessary.”

“You’re askin’ me to trust you with my sister’s life.” She sighed.
Perhaps that will be safer for her after all. If I’m not at Morningside, at least she won’t be leavin’ early and returnin’ late to avoid me. But how resistant to Jaime Flynn’s wiles are you, Katie Rose?

“Ouch,” she protested, jerked from her reverie as Madame Sevier, wielding tools surely made to torture her clients, twisted and pulled Maureen’s hair tightly into a bun, pinning it mercilessly against her scalp.

“Do not complain, mademoiselle. Were it up to me, I should cut it off.” The fingers of Madame’s right hand made one sharp snip in the air.

Maureen clamped her mouth. Joshua raised sympathetic eyebrows.

“That might be the most practical disguise, Madame Sevier—” Curtis smiled—“but we may need Maureen to reappear in the city at any time. She must have her normal hair.”

“Her ‘normal’ hair, monsieur, would, in all events, twist high upon her head. To cut it eight inches or ten . . .” She shrugged, spreading her fingers. “No one would be wiser, and yet it would fit more securely beneath the wig.” She pulled pins from her mouth. “If flaming tendrils spill from beneath these raven tresses—how do you say?—the jig is up!” Her finger swiped sharply across her throat.

Joshua pulled the pair of scissors from the table and placed them squarely in Madame’s hand.

Maureen challenged Curtis, “I’d feel much better about havin’ my hair cut if I understood the point of this disguise.”

“There’s a very good chance we’ll encounter some of the gentlemen frequenting Darcy’s fourth floor. They must not recognize you. Each of our lives—yours, in particular—depend on it.”

Maureen bit her lip and nodded once.
My hair will grow back; my neck will not.

Madame whipped the pins from Maureen’s hair, brushed it sharply, and began to snip.

Maureen cringed, watching locks of hair fall around her.
You snip, snip with relish, Madame, and your “eight inches or ten” look more like a baker’s dozen!

“With a bit of financial persuasion—including the outrageous purchase of two more tenements I neither wanted nor needed—last week I convinced Drake Meitland to introduce me to the man above him, a Victor Belgadt.” Curtis leaned back in his chair. “I’m not certain if he heads the organization or is just another rung in the ladder. But I’ve convinced Belgadt and Drake that I’m an asset—that I can match any financial backing he can cultivate and that I already oversee lucrative mines—and moles—in Washington from which he can glean property.”

“Property?” Maureen’s mouth felt suddenly dry.

“Girls, women. Either kidnapped outright or more likely lured in with promises of good jobs, marriage, bribes—whatever it takes. Then they’re sold to the highest bidder to be used in brothels, sold as sexual escorts here in New York, or shipped to private buyers elsewhere.” Curtis stopped, nearly breathless from his intensity. “You do understand this is what’s been happening?”

Maureen nodded solemnly.
I do understand. But I’ve never heard the words said aloud, as though it’s some master, manipulative plan—all supply and demand.
Her spine pressed into the rungs of her chair. Madame gave her hair a tug, making her sit up straight once more.

“And they trust you?” Joshua asked.

“Enough that Belgadt’s invited me to an event he’s hosting at his estate outside Cold Spring—a few days of wining and dining other potential investors.” Curtis pointed toward the map. “The estate lies sixty, possibly sixty-five miles from Manhattan, just off the Hudson, opposite West Point.”

Joshua nodded. “Far enough to be out of the city’s news and patrol, but close enough to make a river run out and back before daylight.”

“Exactly, which is what I’m guessing happened with your friends from Darcy’s.” Curtis glanced at Maureen. “I can’t say for sure, but I’m banking on a hunch that he holds women captive somewhere on or near the estate until they can be transported. No doubt it’s rigged to look like just another night fisherman or something entirely legitimate. In and out, no questions asked.”

“Or someone there is on the take.” Joshua crossed his arms.

Curtis shrugged. “There are enough tributaries in the area to mask any method. But this is the plan.” He leaned forward. “I’ve convinced Belgadt that I never travel without my own manservant and chambermaid because I trust no one else to attend me or my rooms, no one else to oversee my food over any period of time. Distrust is something Belgadt understands.”

“Enter us,” Joshua confirmed.

“He considers me an eccentric, but that, too, is something he understands. You’ll need to attend me as if I’m as strange as I’ve portrayed, but I also want you to fraternize with the other servants. I’m assuming they know whatever goes on at the estate—especially those who’ve been there longest. Do what you can to get close, get them talking. Keep your eyes open for anything we can use in court. If we’re able to prove they’re selling or transporting women over state lines for purposes of prostitution, we can nail them.”

“The Mann Act against human traffickin’,” Maureen remembered, as Madame swatted wisps of hair from her shoulders. “The girls at Darcy’s spoke of it.”

“I’m just hoping it’s enforceable—it’s new legislation, so we’ve no precedent to predict success.” Curtis frowned. “There’s no way to guess the extent of political or police involvement in human trafficking; we only know it exists. Even if we compile sufficient evidence to make a case, I don’t know what will stick or what kind of ruling we can realistically expect. No doubt the judge appointed will carry the day.”

“The risk—” Joshua began, but Curtis cut him off.

“If we gain enough evidence to bring them to trial, and if, through exposure, we can raise a public outcry, that might just be enough to shut them down—ruin the operation at the source of its power and money and begin to bring down those in office who are criminally involved. For them to fall like dominoes—that’s the best, the highest hope. Though it may not be realistic.” He sighed. “It’s all a gamble.”

“Suppose we gamble and fail—suppose they discover us . . . what will stop them from comin’ after us?” Maureen couldn’t hold back the question any longer.

Curtis met her eye. “Nothing.”

“Then she’s out of it,” Joshua stated flatly. “I’ll not have Maur—”

“We need a woman in the house,” Curtis insisted, “to search places neither you nor I could gain access to. The more of us there are, the less able Belgadt’s people will be to keep tabs on each of us—especially with all the coming and going during these events.”

Madame pulled a stocking cap over Maureen’s scalp, then a wig over her eyes, and jerked it back to her hairline.

“I’ve no idea exactly what we’re looking for or where we’ll find it. But if they’re keeping captives at the estate, they must be feeding them,” Curtis went on, “which might be noticeable in the amount of food prepared by the kitchen each day.”

“If they’re feedin’ them well,” Maureen cautioned.