Page 79 of If Looks Could Kill
“Pleased to meet you, Michael Finnegan O’Keeffe.” I held out my hand. “I suppose this is the moment where I’d better confess that I’m actually Tabitha… No. I can’t say it.”
His eyes lit up. “You can’t say what? Your middle name?”
Me and my big mouth! I’d put my foot in it now.
“You must understand,” I protested. “My mother died when I was young.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, that’s not what I mean,” I said. “I never knew her, but I love all I’ve learned about her. I have her letters and journals and precious things.”
Mike’s expression of polite bewilderment was fun to watch.
“But the one thing I can’t forgive her for,” I said, “aside from dying, is giving me my middle name. I don’t know why my father didn’t put his foot down.”
“After a build-up like that,” Mike said, “I have high expectations.”
I braced myself for the worst. “My name,” I said, “is Tabitha Adorabelle Woodward.”
He struggled bravely to keep from laughing. The harder he tried, the worse it got.
“That,” he said with courtly politeness, “is a lovely name.”
“It is not!”
“It is.” He tried to keep a straight face. “It suits you.”
I bumped him with my elbow. “You take that back, Michael Finnegan O’Keeffe.”
“I shall do no such thing.” He waggled a finger in the air. “If your mother took one look at you, upon your arrival in this world, and said, ‘I dub thee Tabitha Adorabelle Woodward,’ who am I to disagree with her?”
“Yes, well,” I said, “if you ever call me that, you’ll get an earful from me.”
“That’s reason enough to try it,” he said. “But I won’t have much chance to, will I?”
No. Not after tonight, he wouldn’t.
A cold wind sliced through my coat, reminding me that I was wasting precious time enjoying the company of a certain young man while all around me, danger closed in.
“What time is it, do you suppose, Mike?” I asked him.
He considered. “I saw a bank clock a ways back. It must be going on ten thirty.”
I couldn’t believe it. “Only that?”
“I know.”
“Then Emma and Carrie might still be up,” I said. “Come on. Let’s go warn them and get Pearl’s and my things.”
Pearl—Something to Remember Them By(Sunday, December 2, 1888)
Miss Stella pulls her silk turban from a pocket in her frock and settles it carefully over her head. She pinches the wick of Pearl’s candle between her thumb and forefinger.
The men have finished their noisy exploration of the ground floor and have reached the stairs.
A wide, arched doorway leads from the parlor to the foyer. Stella calmly advances under it and into the tiled entry, still holding Pearl’s candlestick. Pearl presses her back against the parlor wall. The men’s footsteps draw closer, advancing up the stairs. When they make short work of Miss Stella—the brutes won’t spare her for her age—they will come through that arch. She feels utterly exposed, shining like a ghost in her nightgown. As protected as a naked baby.
She creeps farther along the wall until she reaches a corner and a dusty velvet drape. She slips behind it and feels the chill of a drafty window. Lead mullions and glass panes, cold and damp to the touch. Many windows. One of them might be a door. Beyond this window is a patio bordered by iron rails and the great marble columns she’d seen from the street.
