Page 40 of A Murder in Trinity Lane
The man in the shadows shifted. His gaze slid past the others—straight to me. Recognition flickered, followed by a slow, curling grin.
“Wait,” he said, a grin curling at his mouth. “Well, well. Looks like we’ve got company.”
Mulligan.
We’d crossed paths before. He was broader now, thicker through the neck and shoulders, but still had the same red hair, now streaked with rust at the temples. And that smile—tight-lipped and dead-eyed—like he’d forgotten how to mean it years ago.
“You shouldn’t be here, Your Grace.”
The brute sneered. “A bleeding nob?”
“The Duke of Steele, in the flesh,” Mulligan said, eyes still on me. “We go way back. Cost me a pretty penny, he did.”
He glanced past me, scanning the shadows. When he saw no one else, his grin deepened.
“You wandered into my world all by your lonesome? No constables lurking behind you? That was a grievous mistake, Your Grace.”
He nodded to the brute.
The brute charged.
Sidestepping, I grabbed the brute’s arm and slammed him into the edge of the table. His blade clattered to the floor.
He roared, twisted free, and swung. His fist caught my shoulder with a solid hit.
Pain jolted through me, but I was already moving. I drove my knee into his gut and shoved him backward. He stumbled, crashed over the overturned chair?—
—but not before his boot slammed into my ribs.
The crack and flash of pain nearly dropped me.
The man at the table moved, reaching beneath his coat.
“Don’t,” I said, drawing my revolver. “Reach for it, and I promise you won’t leave this room upright.”
Everything went still. Even the shadows held their breath.
The bloodied man groaned, trying to rise.
I nodded toward the masked man at the table. “Let him go. Now.”
He slowly raised both hands, his tone calm, his diction precise. “Merely a runner. He drank too much and spoke out of turn.” That voice didn’t belong here. Too polished for a backroom in Clerkenwell.
“Then he’s not your concern anymore.” I shifted just enough to keep everyone in sight. “Go.”
The bloodied man blinked at me in disbelief. “You—you don’t even know me.”
“I don’t need to.”
He staggered to his feet and limped toward the hall. No one moved to stop him.
Gun still raised, I backed toward the door.
No one followed.
I slipped through the back door into the alley, boots thudding against cracked cobblestones, side screaming, lungs burning. Pain burned through my side with every step, but I didn’t slow. Not until I reached the end of the alley and melted into the fog.
The man they’d been beating had vanished. He’d seen something. Not just heard it.Seen it.
