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  He slammed into her, knocking her clean off her feet. The air stuck in her lungs, and he was on top of her in a frantic second. His weight crushed her, and he wrenched her arms back, placing her square on her belly. An iron hand pressed her face into the ground. Sand filled her nostrils, and clogged her mouth. She couldn’t even scream. And as she fought and struggled against his strength, air never returned to her body.

  Isobel fought until there was nothing left, and still she struggled right up until darkness won.

  3

  A Wager of Life

  A photograph lay on a table like a snake. At least that’s how Atticus Riot felt about it. He had not played this card lightly. Jim Artells, the man sitting across from him, stared at the photograph with narrowed eyes.

  Riot was taking a gamble on the man. With every careful word, he gauged his client’s reaction. “My men tracked your wife to a cabin in Santa Cruz. She’s safe, Mr. Artells.”

  The photograph was of the cabin—a well-equipped retreat. It was situated along a river that ran to the sea.

  Artells’ face turned as red as his hair. “What do you mean, she’s safe? My wife didn’t go on vacation; she was abducted.”

  “This is the third time your wife has been abducted,” said Riot. He hoped the real estate tycoon would come to the same conclusion that his agents, Smith and Johnson, had come to.

  Artells shot to his feet. “Is she there with another man?” His Irish lilt came through in his anger.

  Riot shook his head. “No.” And here was where he hoped his instincts would not fail him. “Sit down, Mr. Artells.” His voice was quiet but commanding, and the man listened. Fairly bristling, Artells leaned forward with an intensity that promised violence if Riot stalled much longer.

  “She abducted herself.”

  “What the devil?” Artells shot back to his feet, and took a threatening step forward. Rather than react, Riot sat calmly back in the chair, crossing his legs, and gestured at the ode to wealth that was Artells’ study.

  “Every time she’s gone missing, what have you done?”

  The man looked on the verge of lunging at him. “I’ve heard mixed reviews about your agency, Mr. Riot. But I never realized the extent of your incompetency.”

  At another time, Riot would have liked to find out what the man had heard, and from whom. But he remained focused. “How many hours a week do you work?”

  “I’ll ask you to leave now. I don’t have time for this—”

  “Just as you don’t have time for your wife?” A well placed word at the proper time was like a blade to the heart. His question stunned the man. Slowly, the color drained from the Irishman’s face, leaving him a pasty white. “You work nearly every day,” Riot said. “And after work you spend your evenings at a gentleman’s club.”

  “What are you implying?”

  “Exactly as I say. In order to find your wife, we had to investigate your own habits, your associates, your friends, and enemies—I’m sure you understand the necessity. Along the way my agents discovered that you have a mistress.”

  “I do not.”

  “She is your work.”

  This made the man blink. Good, Riot thought. He hoped Artells would tip towards change rather than rage.

  “The first abduction of your wife was legitimate,” Riot explained. “What did you do when she disappeared?”

  “I dropped everything to find her.”

  Riot nodded like an approving school teacher. “Your wife noticed. She was touched. She felt loved again. You even took a holiday with her. But then you went back to your mistress.”

  Artells sat down hard. All the hot wind taken out of him.

  “The second abduction was staged, as well as this one. A close friend helped with the subterfuge—I won’t divulge the lady’s name. The rest of the players are hired actors who believed they were participating in an arranged charade on Pacific Street. One or two may have suspected more, but when cash is involved, even the most honest men are struck with acute blindness.”

  “Does she know your men discovered her ruse?”

  Riot nodded. “I spoke with her today.”

  “And what did she have to say for herself?”

  “That she loves you. That she misses the man she married, but holds little hope that you will forgive her.”

  Color traced Artells’ unforgiving complexion.

  “My agency is discreet, Mr. Artells. None of this will find its way into the papers—not from my agency.”

  “Reporters have been hounding my every move.”

  “You’ll have good news for them—that your wife was found alive and in good health. Unfortunately, the villains escaped capture.”

  “Oh, it’s as easy as that, is it? And I just forget all this—the heartache, the worry, the fear?”

  Riot leaned forward and caught the man’s eyes with his own. “Those emotions are exactly what you need to remember. How much you love her. You failed your wife. Whether you do it again is entirely up to you.” With that, Riot stood, and collected his hat and stick. “I’ll send my bill shortly. Agent Smith is waiting outside to escort you to the cabin, or to a divorce attorney. It’s your choice. But either way, I’d stop toying with her heart.”

  He showed himself out, and climbed into a waiting hack.

  Matthew Smith closed the door, and looked through the window. “How’d he take it?” the young detective asked in a low voice.

  “Well enough, I think.”

  “What do you think he’ll do?”

  Riot looked at the large house situated in the Oakland hills. “I think you’ll be taking another trip to Santa Cruz tonight. But just in case I’m wrong, have Monty keep an eye on things for another day.” He had been wrong before. As a gambler, he had simply lost gold, but as a detective, he lost lives.

  Instead of looking despondent over an evening of travel, the man brightened.

  “Good work, Smith.” The praise would go to Monty as well. The Pacific Street Case had been more complicated than any of them had supposed.

  Matthew’s chest swelled like a pigeon, and Riot extended his hand. The ex-patrolman had a firm shake. He liked the fellow. Matthew was genuine and kind, but far too trusting at times.

  Riot knocked his stick on the ceiling. “The ferry terminal.”

  As the carriage rolled down the drive, a voice whispered from his past. We are detectives, not magicians, my boy. We cannot be held accountable for the atrocities of others.

  “We’re accountable for our mistakes,” he murmured.

  You are always too hard on yourself.

  Riot wanted to shout at the voice. Ravenwood had been all cold logic, and had relied on Riot’s uncanny knack for reading people. Ravenwood had trusted him. And Riot had failed.

  His head gave a mighty throb. He rubbed at the scar tracing his skull. From dark corners in his mind, snatches of memory bubbled out like slick oil from the ground, tainting everything. As he rattled towards the ferry terminal, he looked out the window into the storm, and tried to make sense of his regrets.

  4

  Broken Blossoms

  Tuesday, July 7, 1896

  “This is the fourth girl, Ravenwood.”

  His stately partner was unperturbed. But the younger man was nearly fuming.

  “Each death brings us closer to an answer.” No emotion, no feeling, only simple fact. That was Zephaniah Ravenwood.

  A muscle in Riot’s jaw twitched. He shot his gaze over the water, and rubbed a hand over the day-old stubble on his chin. “It would have been better to find the killer after the first murder.”

  “Better not to find a body at all.”

  Riot glanced at his partner. Ravenwood was tall and solid, his white hair and beard immaculate, a pristine color compared to the dingy gray of San Francisco Bay. His shoulders slumped forward, not in defeat, but like an owl pondering a question from a lofty perch. Who?

  Unfortunately, despite one murder every two weeks, they were no closer to finding t
he answer to that question. Eight long weeks of searching cribs and brothels for forgotten girls hadn’t garnered a single lead.

  “What do you see, my boy?” Ravenwood asked, as he bent over the body. His careful fingers searched through her hair, moving a strand here, and there, as if picking out lice.

  What did he see? Riot nearly snorted at the question. He had started seeing the faces of slave girls in his dreams—their hopeless gazes, the life bleeding from their souls. And lately, he saw it in his own eyes when he looked in the mirror.

  Riot couldn’t bring himself to look down again. He knew her face would haunt him; instead, he turned away from the girl, and cast his gaze over the muck of low tide. The world spun as a cold rage chilled his bones. He ran his fingers over his revolver; the wood was familiar, and the steel cool. He itched to shoot the man responsible.

  Two patrol men standing nearby shifted uneasily. They were waiting for the Deputy Coroner to arrive to take her to the morgue.

  Ravenwood braced a hand on his silver-knobbed stick, and used it to stand. “If you keep avoiding the corpse, you won’t learn anything new.”

  “She’s a girl. She was alive,” Riot said through his teeth.

  “Not anymore.”

  Riot’s fingers curled around his revolver stock.

  “Shooting me won’t help,” Ravenwood said.

  Riot put his back to his partner. A moment later, a strong hand gripped his shoulder. It anchored him to the ground, and Riot let his hand fall away from his gun.

  “This was tangled in her hair.”

  Riot turned to his mentor, his friend, his compass. A small bit of wood sat on Ravenwood’s palm.

  “It could have gotten tangled in her hair while she was in the bay,” Riot said.

  “It might have,” Ravenwood agreed.

  “You’re doubtful?”

  “The corpse was meticulously cleaned, and wrapped in an oilskin tarp. I’ll ask you again, what do you see?”

  Riot took a steadying breath. Steeling himself, he crouched, and slipped on thin leather gloves to buy himself precious seconds. He flipped aside the tarp, and forced himself to look.

  She looked no more than thirteen, but her short life had been as rough as her death. Branding marks, knife slashes, old wounds. And new. The cuts on the thighs were deep, severing both femoral arteries.

  “The same,” he said roughly. “The body is clean. The shift is new, and plain. A common variety from a ready-made store. The cuts…” His voice caught. “To the thighs, the stomach, pubic bone. She’s been hollowed of her female organs, like the others.”

  The oilskin had protected her from rats, fish, and seagulls. Her eyes were glassy and wide, like most of the girls who stared from between their crib bars. But there was one difference—her face bore no lines, no grief. So unlike the misery in the eyes of the living that he encountered every night.

  “She’s peaceful,” he murmured, expecting a sharp rebuke, or a chiding remark about logic over the heart.

  Ravenwood tapped a finger on his silver-knobbed stick. It was heavy, and deadly. “The dead do not feel,” he mused.

  Riot didn’t know if his partner was agreeing, or disagreeing. He waited. Silence stretched, and the gnats began to gather. Flies would come soon enough, and more aggressive vermin if the coroner didn’t arrive soon. No doubt, a dead Chinese girl was low on his list of priorities.

  Riot shifted the flimsy bit of cloth, knowing what he’d find. The same as he had found on three other girls—all Chinese. He tilted his head, looking at the pattern of cuts.

  “The pattern of cuts is significant, don’t you think?” Ravenwood asked, seeming to sense his thoughts.

  “It’s a deliberate sort of defilement.” He rewrapped the oilskin tarp around her body. It looked like a funeral dressing, leaving a serene face, and eyes staring into the sky.

  According to the coroner’s previous reports, the cuts to the thighs had severed femoral arteries. He hoped that had been the first cut for this girl, but he feared that it wasn’t always so—feared that the next victim would not be at peace, but that he’d find her face contorted in a scream.

  Ravenwood folded his large hands over the knob of his stick. “Either our killer is dumping the bodies from a boat or transporting them in some manner.”

  “He could be tossing them in the bay straight from Angel Island.”

  “The tide would sweep them either to Oakland, or out the Golden Gate.”

  It was true. These girls had been found floating in the flotsam and rubbish around the dock districts.

  “Or he’s transporting his victims via the sewer,” Riot said.

  Ravenwood cocked his head like the bird of his surname. “A cumbersome task.”

  “But not impossible.”

  “Nothing is impossible,” Ravenwood said. “Keep searching. The dead always leave a trail.”

  “But not the forgotten,” Riot murmured.

  Fog and smoke, and paper light. The alley smelled of rot, and the men who came in and out of dark doorways looked as if that rot had taken root in their bones. Atticus Riot felt tainted by proximity; he feared the rot would soon infect his soul. He tried hard to forget his childhood—when these alleyways had been his home.

  Tong watchmen were out in force as he turned down Stout’s Alley. But long before entering the alley, white men and highbinders alike would have already decided if he were a threat to their undertakings, and if so given the signal to scatter. Dressed as he was in bowler and rough clothes, Riot looked no different than the other laborers sampling cheap flesh.

  In the deeper shadows cast by a paper lantern, a highbinder stood outside a den. His queue hung over his right shoulder instead of his left. The tongs were fond of details, and Riot had learned to read a good many of them.

  Riot paid the man no mind as he submitted to a quick pat down. When the man missed the Shopkeeper in his concealed ankle holster, Riot was allowed to enter. He ducked under a low doorway, and climbed the stairs to a cramped landing. A reinforced door at the top was scarred with axes and sledge dents.

  He pressed a silent bell, and a slat slid to the side. Riot didn’t smile into the mesh grate, he only waited. The door opened, and he stepped into a dingy den. It smelled of sweat and incense and pungent tobacco. Riot ignored the gambling tables, and went straight for the girls cloistered behind a curtain. Most gambling dens kept at least one Daughter of Joy in case the gamblers tired, or became bored. It kept players in the house.

  He dropped his quarter in their keeper’s hand, and brushed aside a curtain. Two glassy-eyed girls sat on a dingy settee. They were sedated with opium, and wore thin cotton shifts. These were not a higher class of slave girl.

  Riot removed his hat, and eyed both girls. He chose the younger of the two. Her eyes were clearer. He motioned her behind a screened off nook, and she obediently went.

  A thin mat lay on the floor. She sat, lay back, and started to spread her legs, but he shook his head.

  “No, not that,” he said in Cantonese. It didn’t seem to faze her that he was a white man speaking her tongue. She did not so much as glance at him, but rose, and reached for his belt.

  He gently took her hand, and knelt. “I’m only here to talk,” he said, keeping his voice low, careful not to alert her keeper. The girl looked at him for the first time, and fear crept over her glassy stare like ice over a window pane. He had seen that look in men about to be hanged.

  “Have you heard anything about girls being taken, or disappearing?” he asked softly. It was a ridiculous line of questioning. These girls were cut and beaten on a regular basis. But what else could he ask? He withdrew four sketches, and showed them to her one by one.

  She kept her lips firmly closed, and did not so much as glance at the sketches. There was distrust in that fear. A whole well of it. Riot waited, but patience rarely worked with these girls. They were beaten into silence, because no one needed them to speak.

  He tried a different approach. “Do you want to
leave this place?”

  She stared.

  “There’s a mission at 920 Sacramento Street,” he said. “A brick house with a big door on the corner of the hill. The women there will help you.”

  Not even a twitch of a lash.

  “Here is what the numbers look like.” He showed her a card he had prepared. “If you change your mind—show this card to someone who might be sympathetic to you, or run.” As if she’d trust any man. Trust had more than likely gotten her here.

  He left the card in her hand, and with an inward sigh he stood, placing his hat on his head. It would be a long night yet. A night of hopeless eyes, and silent tongues.

  It didn’t matter that it was night. The sun never touched the street in Baker’s Alley. Cobbled-together balconies jutted from rookeries, and what slice of sky there might have been was hidden by a maze of laundry lines and lanterns. These lanterns were green.

  The eerie light illuminated the cribs that lined the street. Small, cramped dwellings with heavy doors and iron grates on the front. Slave girls called out their price and flashed their flesh as he passed, while highbinders guarded either end of the alley, keeping a close watch on their investments.

  A girl with clear eyes called out her price. She had a scar running along her cheek, and a burn on her bare shoulder. Her keeper leaned against the plank wall. He wore a wide-brimmed hat, and a loose silk blouse that likely hid a mail shirt and a wide array of armament.

  Riot stopped in front of the clear-eyed girl. She pressed her breasts against the grating, and Riot stepped inside the crib. It was a small room. Three walls taken up by a double bunk, a small washbasin, and two curtains. Three other women occupied the crib, waiting their turn at the window.

  The clear-eyed girl took his quarter, and held back the curtain. There wasn’t even a hook for his hat. No self-respecting white prostitute would entertain a man while he wore his hat. It was obscene. But these girls weren’t prostitutes; they were slaves.