Page 105 of If Looks Could Kill
I nodded. “More or less.” Very shrewd of Freyda to figure that out.
“Then, if she can’t afford to take a train out of town or stay in a hotel, she would’ve had to go back to your Army base,” Freyda said, “or somewhere she knew she could be safe.”
“So you’d think,” I said, “but I’ve been looking everywhere I can think of. High and low. She’s nowhere.”
“Rosie,” Cora whispered.
Freyda met her gaze. The room, if it were possible, seemed to grow even colder.
“You don’t think…” Freyda couldn’t bring herself to finish her sentence.
“?’Course I do,” Cora told her.
Freyda turned to me. “You shouldn’t have come.” She folded her arms across her chest. “You’ll point a trail for Mother Rosie’s attack dogs, all the way to us.”
Hello to you too.
“You won’t believe this,” I said. “Remember Joe, and the two men who were with him?”
She gave me a pointed look. “Yes, Tabitha. I remember Joe.”
I gulped. “Right. Sorry.”
“What about him?” she prompted me.
“All three of them broke into Miss Stella’s last night, and…” Then I remembered Ben.
“I’ll just give you ladies a minute,” he said, and disappeared through the bedroom door.
Freyda rolled her eyes at me. “Smooth.”
I ignored this. “Miss Stella turned all three of them to stone.”
Cora turned pale. She fumbled for a chair and sat down. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Joe Minkin, dead?” She let out a weak laugh. “Are you sure?”
“Saw them with my own eyes,” I said. “And I saw… what you said about how Miss Stella was acting.”
Freyda’s eyes narrowed. “Did she do that to your face?”
I nodded.
Freyda sat next to Cora. “Cora,” she said softly. “Remember the mess? In the dark? That we nearly tripped over? We thought it was one of her statues, fallen down.”
Cora let out a low whistle. “Joe Minkin,” she echoed. “Ira Broder. Dan Schechter.” She roused herself from her shock and turned to Freyda. “Those noises you heard before weren’t a dream.”
Freyda nodded solemnly.
“So no need to worry,” I said, “about Mother Rosie’s men coming after you.”
Cora laughed bitterly. “Don’t kid yourself. She’s an empire. She can hire all the muscle she needs. And after the stunt we pulled last night, she’ll be out for blood.”
Cora had been a fresh-faced girl a few months ago. Innocent and young. Looking ahead to an exciting “job” in the city. Now she sounded like a street-hardened denizen of the Bowery.
“You should go,” Freyda told me. “We’re fine. Don’t bring any more danger here.”
Apparently, a heart is never so broken that it can’t be broken more.
I looked away to hide my embarrassment. Cora and Freyda sat close together while I stood, awkwardly, as one who didn’t belong. My gaze fell upon the table strewn with papers, pens, and ink.
