Page 70 of Razors & Ruin

No. See it through.

“I heard all about you, old man,” I say, my voice venomous. “You took my Johanna and stole her innocence. The Beadle told me so.”

He frowns. “YourJohanna?”

I brandish the razor at his stricken face. “I searched high and low for the truth, and all roads led to you. So spill your guts, you degenerate bastard, or rest assured; I will.”

To my surprise, Sommers doesn’t flinch. His eyes, cloudy with age, still hold a sharpness that unsettles me. He’s too calm. Too composed.

“Put the blade away, Mr. Todd,” he says, rolling onto unsteady feet. “You’ll find no satisfaction in killing me.” He gestures to a small sitting room off the landing. “Come. We should talk.”

The urge to drive the sharp edge into his throat is almost overwhelming, but something about his demeanor stops me in my tracks.

I am the lock and he is the key. If I don’t stop and take heed this time, there will be places within I can never go, and in those places, something will forever fester, rotting me from the inside out.

I follow him into the room, and Sommers sits heavily in an armchair.

“You want to know the truth about Johanna.”

I don’t sit. I can’t. My blood is too caustic, and my veins are like barbed wire. Instead, I stand by the fireplace, razor in hand, the metal flaring against my skin.

“She didn’t die in the workhouse fire,” I say. “I know that much. But what happened after? Where is she? Tell me now, or I swear I’ll?—”

“You won’t find peace in her,” Sommers interrupts, his voice infuriatingly calm. “She’s not yours to find.”

“How dare you!” I yell, taking a step closer. “You did unspeakable things to her. Made her into a plaything for?—”

He shakes his head. “I didnot, sir. I love her dearly, with all my heart, but as a fathershouldlove a child.”

His words hit me like a punch to the gut. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“The workhouse children did indeed come to me,” he says. “I heard that Wetherby and his ilk were looking for help to move the young ones to places no child should go. I volunteered, but never with the intention of going along with it.”

I sink into a chair. These are obviously lies, but oh, how I want to believe.

“I spent my family’s fortune on hiding them,” he continues. “They lived with me a little while, for appearance’s sake, but the wealthy perverts who coveted them were an invention.

Instead, I sent them to seminaries, orphanages. Gave my own money in fees to Wetherby, the Beadle, and others who were in on the racket. Of course, I could only take a certain number, and many poor things were not so lucky.”

Could it be? I never imagined my daughter’s life could have been thus so charmed. With all the corruption and filth in the world stacked against her, did the stars smile on my little girl and give her blessed sanctuary?

“If what you say is true, where is my child?” I ask.

Sommers leans forward, his hands on his knees. He studies my face with eyes that have seen terrible things, maybe even worse than mine.

He will go to his God with the way before him clear and bright. This priest does not fear the hereafter.

“Do you not wonder why I know you?” he asks. “Gerald and Veronica Cope were regulars at my church. Veronica was a tortured, frightened girl when I met her, newly pregnant and so terribly afraid. She came to me one night after evensong and begged for counsel.”

My mind recoils at the mention of Veronica’s name, at the thought of her whispering her secrets.

“She told me of your indiscretion. How it’d started so passionately, and like any young, inexperienced thing, she thought it was love.

But you got possessive, controlling. Too close, too much, all the time. She wanted to end the affair, but you would not abide it. When she discovered she was with child, she was delighted, despite her fear.”

The splinters in my mind are back, sharper than any razor, jabbing deep into my psyche and slashing the veil that shields me from the void.

I squeeze my eyes shut against the onslaught as images flicker behind my closed lids, too bright, too vivid.

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