state lines, fakes an assignment to get closer to the girl, gets arrested after being ordered to stay away.
It had sources. It had scandal. And all of it was true. Even without a false accusation of indecency, his reputation and credibility would be shot.
As would any chance of Geraldine seeing her children.
Ellis fought an onslaught of nausea while steering back to his mission. He asked, slow and firm, “What…happened…to Calvin?”
Alfred, too, was looking at Sylvia, awaiting an answer.
“I see you need time to think things over,” she said to Ellis. “I trust you’ll let us know when you decide.”
A surge of anger sprang Ellis to his feet, and Alfred scrambled to rise with a defensive arm across his wife. A silent standoff.
“Everything okay in here?” the guard asked, suddenly in the room. His question was clearly meant for the Millstones.
Ellis had no other option. With effort, he eased himself back. Not only for his own sake, but for Ruby and Calvin. This wasn’t the way to uncover the truth, or to help either kid.
“We’re fine,” Alfred answered for them all. He dropped his hand to gather his hat. “It’s time to go, Sylvia.”
Without further protest, she rose from the table, her face eerily unreadable. The couple exited the room, leaving Ellis to stare at two empty chairs. His pulse throbbed at his temples.
“Party’s over. Back to your cell.” The guard’s command didn’t register at first. When it did, Ellis mindlessly stepped forward until a single thought grabbed hold.
“I need to get outta here.”
“Won’t be tonight.”
Ellis looked at him. “Why?”
“Bail clerk’s gone. Have to wait till morning.”
Was that the Millstones’ plan, a flexing of muscle? A whole night behind bars just might encourage cooperation.
“At least let me have a second call.” A half plea, half demand. “Please.”
The guard waffled through a long blink.
It was just as possible that the cops were teaching Ellis a lesson for smacking their fellow pal in blue. If so, he hated to imagine what other ways they might take revenge if he stayed here much longer.
The guard huffed. “Make it fast.”
Ellis nodded with vigor, and his mind swam. There had to be someone around with enough money or pull, or both, to spring him loose. A new level of desperation produced two possibilities: the first was the Irish mobster who’d traded tips that once saved Ellis’s career, and the second…was Ellis’s father. Soliciting help from either one would come at a price.
Sadly, it wasn’t an easy choice.
Chapter 32
Two blocks from the boardinghouse, Lily’s heart pounded like a tribal drum, a portentous beat in her ears. She was well accustomed to walking the city streets on her own, even at night. But anytime she became too comfortable, a report on the wire about a mugging, or worse, would revive her diligence. As a mother, she couldn’t afford to ignore a feeling that something wasn’t right. And that intuition now sent a chill over her skin.
She hurried around the last corner. Footsteps in the dimness further quickened in her wake. On the verge of breaking into a run, she dared a second look back, and someone called out. “Wait! If ya please!”
The voice, being female, was largely disarming, but it still took a second or two for Lily’s feet to slow.
“Miss Palmer…” The lilt of the woman’s tone was young and familiar. Hat pulled low, she approached slightly short of breath. “It’s only me…Claire.”
“Claire?” The girl’s face was pale with freckles. Out of context, and without the sight of her red hair, the Millstones’ housekeeper hadn’t immediately connected with Lily’s memory.
“I didn’t mean to startle ya, ma’am. I was waitin’ outside the newspaper building in hopes of seeing ya come out. From across the street, I couldn’t be sure ’twas you.”
Lily smiled with relief and patted her chest. “It’s quite all right.”
“I woulda phoned instead, but when I tried this mornin’, the gentleman said you were far too busy to take calls.”
The chief.
And the woman he had spoken with was Claire. Not Sylvia, as Lily had presumed.
“So you traveled all this way?”
“It was a day I’d planned to go visit with me sister. But she agreed. This had to be done, she said.”
Voices cut through the evening air, and Claire’s head snapped toward them. A jovial-looking couple were nattering on while crossing the street.
Returning to Lily, Claire clutched her coat collar under her neck. “Is there a place we can speak, the two of us?” Her wariness over meeting in the open pointed to an unfortunate conclusion: Lily’s