Page 66 of The Number of Love
Or at the very least, he might begin making a trek down here every day, when no one was at home to berate him for it. Assuming, of course, he could get back up the stairs afterthisouting. Which was probably going to be a bit more difficult than comingdownhad been, and that was challenging enough.
Blasted gunshot wound.
But he couldn’t sit there anymore, looking out at the same dark-haired man in the grey overcoat who had been there the past twodays. He wasn’t quite sure what he intended to discover by investigating from the street, but surely more than he’d been able to glean from Dot’s flat.
Hall had paid him a visit yesterday to tell him that the phone call of the day before had been placed from a coin-operated telephone box a street over from where he now stood. He’d delivered the news with a tight mouth that proclaimed him unhappy with the discovery and with warning flashing in his eyes.
Jaeger had been here. One street over. He knew Dot’s telephone number. He knew where she lived. He knew Drake was there.
His blood felt as cold in his veins as the November air. Jaeger now knew all of this ... but what did he mean to do with the knowledge? What, exactly, would he deem the proper payment for a foiled shipment of anthrax?
Try as he might to cling to the admiral’s insistence that a professional win would not be met with a personal vendetta, Drake had begun doubting that logic the moment Hall told him about the call’s origin. Because he washere.
That felt blighted personal.
He had to know if the man in the overcoat was linked to him somehow. So here he was, on the street, with a grey overcoat of his own. Some of his sister’s facial powder in his hair to make it seem grey, too, a stoop to his spine that didn’t require much thought to maintain just now, and an old hat on his head—his father’s. Dot must have kept it. Drake’s favorite was no doubt still tumbling about the countryside in Spain, unless a local had rescued it after the wind stole it from his head on top of the train.
He’d brought a cane with him too—the one the doctor had given him but which he’d refused to use in the flat. He didn’t need it, not in general. There was nothing wrong with his legs. But it would help with the image he was trying to project now. With a bit of luck, no one would look past the overall image to his unlined face.
Usually he made it a point not to stoop in pain when he was walking. Now he let himself and exaggerated it until his spine curved over the cane. Head tucked down so that passersby would see Father’s oldhat more than Drake’s young face, he hobbled toward the abandoned shop whose door the mystery man liked to lean against.
He’d been there twenty minutes ago, whoever the bloke was. And, yes, he was there still. Drake’s pulse kicked up a few beautiful beats per minute, but he did no more than glance at that doorway. He’d chosen the back entrance of his building so that whoever-he-was wouldn’t be alerted. Now he shuffled across the street, aiming for a bench positioned at a bus stop at which buses never stopped anymore. Most of London’s buses had been sent to the front to move soldiers and supplies.
He settled onto the bench, his back to the bloke. Drew out a newspaper to unfold in front of his own face. And a mirror too. Careful to keep it shaded enough that the sun wouldn’t send out a homing beacon, Drake angled it until he could see the man behind him.
For five minutes, the only movement on the street came from everyone else bustling by. No one paused to question him, no one seemed to even notice he was there. Then, at just the time the chap had vanished each previous day, he moved. Folded his paper and tucked it into his overcoat’s inner pocket.
He kept his face down, so that an observer from the windows above wouldn’t see his features. But Drake was now at the perfect angle for that. Thanks to the mirror, that tucking of his chin actually presented his face to him.
Familiar ... maybe. Drake frowned and tried to memorize each angle and plane. It wasn’t Jaeger—of that much he was certain. But some chord of memory still jangled. Another of the blokes Charles the Bold had provided photographs of, perhaps? He couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t paid close enough attention to any of them but the one he’d identified as his opposite number.
But he was paying attention now. Whoever he was, Drake would be able to identify him in an instant if they crossed paths anywhere else.
Dark hair, long enough to brush his ears on the sides and collar in back. A trim beard that hid a nearly delicate mouth. Brows with an inquisitive slant to them.
The chap strode away, his pace just fast enough to blend in with most other pedestrians going about their business. Drake had no hope of keeping up with him, and frankly, he didn’t intend to follow just now anyway. He’d only wanted to see him.
And now he had. The next step, which would be considerably trickier, would be to discover whether he had anything to do with Jaeger.
He sat for another few minutes, working it out in his mind. How could he learn the man’s identity? Following him was certainly his best recourse, and it would be made easier thanks to the man leaving his post at the exact same time every day. Drake himself couldn’t keep up, but ... Red could. The changes he’d made to his prosthetic recently had been ingenious. His stride now was sure and smooth, and he could walk at a normal pace.
Red had done a bit of sleuthing for Margot, right? Maybe he’d be willing to do a bit more for Drake. Heaven knew the money he’d pay him for it would be welcome.
He should be coming by soon. They’d have tea, and Drake would pretend he needed the break from his work. He pushed himself off the bench, admitting another rather unwelcome truth to himself—he’d only dared come down here because he knew that help would be arriving soon, should he need it to get back up the stairs.
But pride insisted he try on his own first. Pride, and the fact that he was none too certain that Red wouldn’t tattle to Dot if he found him down here.
“Elton?”
Drake looked up, trying to place the voice, managing it only when he saw the face it matched. He began to smile for the old friend he hadn’t seen in seven years.
The smile turned to anoompfof protest when said old friend landed a fist in Drake’s stomach. He doubled over, the searing pain that exploded through his abdomen making it impossible to so much as shout a plea to stop.
Phillip Camden wasn’t given the chance to hit him again anyway—Red flew in from somewhere or another, pushing the idiot back with a shout that seemed nothing but wordless din to Drake’s ears.
His knees buckled. The bench was still there behind him, and he collapsed onto it, clutching his side. Though he almost wished for the ground, where he could have curled up in a ball until his vision cleared of the white-hot agony.
After an eternity, Camden’s blistering words made it through the ringing in his ears. “...didn’taskyou for your help, you blighted—”
