D is for Deception: A Langley & Porter Mystery

14 The List

I left the doctor's office and looked around. I didn't see anyone following me, I hadn't since I left the shop and Cecily. Ever since I had spoken to George Keene about becoming involved in his operations, his thugs had stopped following me as much around the city. But I still wanted to be sure.

So I took the carriage to a busy market street and wound my way around it until I felt that I had zig zagged enough to lose anyone who might have been following me. Then I made my way down a side street and then another until I found myself at the back of a very familiar row house. I reached out and jiggled the handle and smiled. Unlocked. He would never learn, would he?

I slipped into the row house and made my presence known by closing the door loudly behind me.

"Ryland," I called into the open space but received no answer. I wasn't surprised. I doubted the man spent much time at home given the nature of his work. So I moved to the writing desk he had arranged in his living room and opened the drawer to find a scrap of paper, intending to leave him a note, when suddenly I heard a shuffle from the room above me.

"Don't be going through my drawers, Porter!" a familiar, rugged voice shouted down the steps and I smiled as I stepped away from the desk. A moment later, a red-faced detective came marching down the stairs as he tied his tie around his neck. "Can't a man get dressed for an evening shift in peace?"

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Chief Detective," I told him as he came to a stop in front of me.

"What is it, Charlotte? Something must be wrong for you to have risked coming here."

He crossed to the window and looked out onto the street briefly before closing the curtains so we could not be seen from outside.

"I need that list," I told him. "Now."

He just stared at me for a moment, blinking in surprise.

"It isn't finished yet," he argued.

"How many names are on it?"

"About twenty. Maybe thirty."

"It will have to do. I have an opening tonight and I have to take it. I don't know if I'll get another one."

Still, he watched me.

"What's happened, Charlotte?" he asked.

"You don't trust me?" I answered stupidly. Of course, he didn't. He wouldn't be the Chief Detective if he did. He raised a brow and I sighed. "I have an opening, Ryland. That's all I can tell you for now."

"I want to trust you, Charlotte, and you haven't given me any reason not to thus far. But I worry that you may try to rush things in an effort to have certain... people returned to you sooner rather than later."

My cheeks burned at the accusation but I knew that he was right to worry.

"Those people," I began, matching his tone, "are the reason I'm doing any of this in the first place. I would never risk their safety or my own by calling in a favor before it was due. You will have the Keene's, Ryland, and with all of the proof that you need to put them away forever. But you have to trust me more than this."

He considered me for a moment before nodding. Then he disappeared back up the stairs and I heard him rifling through his files above. I waited in the living room of his small row house, hearing the scratching of his pen upstairs and knowing he was compiling the list I requested. With nothing else to occupy my mind, I took a step toward the window that the Chief Detective had covered with the curtains. I slid them aside slightly and froze.

Out on the street, across the road and staring straight at the window, straight at me, was Nathaniel Harrison. My lips parted in surprise as our eyes met. I moved to the door but by the time I was able to open it, he had climbed back into his carriage and rode away. I stood in the threshold, blinking after him, wondering if my mind was playing tricks on me, if my lack of sleep was truly starting to get to me.