Page 42 of A Vocation of Violence
As fond as I remained of Amelia Croft, I couldn’t bring myself to look his older sister in eye right now—the weight of their secret pressed too heavily against my beleaguered conscience at the moment.
I stepped into the night through the door Croft held open for me and was pleased when he took his pipe and tobacco from his pocket. The scent was among my favorite things in the world, though I’d die before admitting it to him.
Croft stared up at the clouds as if he might spy a star through their ranks. “I thought Darcy might have his cap set for your affections, so warm was the air between the both of you.”
I caught his side-eyed glare as I glanced over at him, and hid a smile. Croft was many things, but subtle wasn’t one of them.
“It was my brother, Flynn, who caught his eye, and heart, years ago,” I explained, the new information still settling a new layer over my memories. “I can’t help but wish Flynn and he…” My throat closed over a choked emotion, and I had to clear ittwice in order to speak. “Had my brothers survived, they might have had a life together, which means Vivienne might have lived, as well.”
“You learn not to do that when you’re a detective,” Grayson said, his hand hovering over my shoulder without landing before he returned it to his side. “Take care not to focus on theif only. That way, madness lies.”
“You’re right,” I conceded, falling into step with him as we walked in the vague direction of the train he’d take home to Lambeth. “I shouldn’t wish against death. He always wins.”
“Loss, I’ve discovered… It carves into us, hollows us out,” he confided, a rare glimpse of vulnerability surfacing in his eyes. “I believe that it is our ability to endure such hardships that ultimately defines who we are. And you are more resilient than most, I’ve noticed.”
“Thank you.” My thoughts drifted to the countless nights I had spent poring over old letters and photographs, seeking some semblance of comfort in the remnants of a life that had been so cruelly snatched away from Mary. From me. “Sometimes, I cannot help but feel that the past is a specter that haunts my every step. Like a needy ghost that refuses to let me be.”
“I’m not immune to that feeling,” Croft said, a faint smile curving his lips as he regarded me intently. “It is not the past that holds me captive so much as it is the unknown. To find peace, I know I have to find the truth first, even if the truth is more painful than the kindness of ignorance.” His voice was a low thrum filled with a resonance that spoke of kindred spirits forged in the crucible of pain.
The intimacy of our exchange lingered between us like the final notes of a requiem as we strolled through the muted daylight. The cobblestones were slick with the remnants of a morning drizzle. The thrumming pulse of London life swirled around us—a stark contrast to the somber cadence of ourfootsteps. The leaden sky hung oppressively low, mirroring the weight that pressed upon my chest.
“Detective Croft,” I began, my voice scarcely above a whisper, yet slicing through the cacophony of the city’s heart like the sharpest of blades. “What if… What if I knew a truth that would cause you and your sister pain, but would answer a question you’ve been chasing for years?”
He halted mid-stride, his countenance etched with lines of wary anticipation. His eyes, those twin pools of fathomless inquiry, fixed upon me with an intensity that beckoned the truth forth from its shadowy recess.
“There is no such truth…except…” His eyes widened, features hardening into stone.
“Your nephew,” I whispered. “The baby Amelia gave up in her youth.”
He backed up one step. Then another, forcing a few pedestrians to change gait and walk around him. He remained solely focused on me, verdant eyes alight with a fire I’d never witnessed. A dark flame. One that could never be extinguished.
“You gave the child to Katherine Riley,” I continued, the words tumbling out in a headlong rush. “The woman who worked as an illegal adoption agency for…desperate mothers.”
“Desperate” usually meaning the unwed or prostitutes.
A silence fell between us, heavy and suffocating. My heart hammered against my ribcage, each beat a metronome marking the passage into forbidden territories.
“You know I was hired to clean the Katherine Riley murder scene, and it was there I found out what she’d been up to. Katherine was taking her placement fee from the mother and then…” Something about the darkness in his face made it impossible to finish my sentence.
“Then…what?” The question was spoken in a voice so low, I might have imagined the vibrations of it.
I frantically searched my brain for anything that could soften the blow.
“Thenwhat, Fiona?”
Every part of me was trembling. My next words would shatter the thin veneer of hope he and Amelia had clung to the many years since she was forced to adopt out a baby she couldn’t raise at sixteen.
“I don’t know what happened, for certain, but…” I swallowed, or attempted to. “But in the ashes of her fireplace I found…I found…tiny remains.”
I expected a storm. A tempestuous reaction as violent as the pain I could read in his eyes as the full implications of my revelation sank in.
What met me was a cold so arctic, it hurt my lungs to breathe in his vicinity.
“You.Knew?” The word was laced with incredulity and the sharp tang of betrayal.
“Grayson, please understand,” I implored, my hands reaching out only to fall limply by my sides when he flinched away.
“You sat at my table. Befriended my sister. Listened as she spoke of her little boy out there somewhere, and the whole time you—” He broke off, turning away and stalking through the few pedestrians blinking at us both in surprise.
