When he finished, Luke stood. “Jessica, I’ve got to go. Be good for Miss Livy, you hear?”
Jessica’s lip trembled.
Livy followed him to the door and touched his sleeve. “Luke, why don’t you come to the orphanage? Please. Bring the others.”
Luke shook his head. “We can’t.”
She glanced at Jessica and lowered her voice. “Are they wanted back in Chicago?”
He threw her a surprised look.
“Luke, I lived on the streets of Chicago as far back as I can remember. I know what it’s like.”
“Some of them.”
“Where is Bobby working?”
Luke pressed his lips together.
Livy grabbed him by the arm. “He’s working in a sweatshop, right? Here in Chestnut? Where is it? Tell me.” She glanced over her shoulder at Jessica, but Ginger and her kittens had entranced the little girl.
“I can’t tell you. He’ll kill me.”
“Luke, if you don’t tell me, he’s going to kill you. I know what those places are like.”
Luke met her gaze head-on, his eyes older and wiser than his years. “He brings the kids here to work for him for six months, or longer, depending on how much they cost him.”
“And what makes you think he’ll just let them walk out of there in six months or a year?” Livy whispered.
Luke hung his head. “I don’t know, but there’s nothing else I can do.” His gaze strayed to Jessica. “Except bring kids like Jessica to you before he gets his hands on them.”
“Tell me where the sweatshop is.”
A mulish expression thinned his lips. “No. I’ve got to go.”
Livy sighed. “All right. Just a minute.” She sliced open the rest of the biscuits, filled each with a slice of ham, and wrapped the food in used newspapers. She’d cook a pot of corn bread mush and open a can of syrup for breakfast this morning.
She held out the food. “Do you know the man’s name? The one who runs the place?”
“No. They just call him the boss.”
“Please, Luke, please stay.”
His eyes filled with tears as he glanced around the warm, homey kitchen. “I can’t.”
He slipped out the kitchen door while Jessica kept herself occupied with the kittens. Livy pressed a hand to her mouth to keep from sobbing.
* * *
The mercantile buzzed with tension when Jake walked in. Several shopkeepers stood around in addition to the regulars, their attention focused on Ed McIver, who was wound tighter than a Swiss clock.
“I’m telling you, if we don’t do something soon, those kids are going to take over our town.”
“What are we supposed to do, Ed?” Jesse Tatum said. “Them young’uns are slippery. I’ve only seen a couple of them on the streets late at night, and they scatter like rats before anybody can get a good look at ’em. I wonder how many there are. Jake, you have any clue?”
“Don’t know. Like you said, they make themselves pretty scarce.” Jake leaned against the counter and shrugged.
“I heard they’re living over in the burned-out shantytown.” Sam spoke up, busy restocking a shelf with canned beans.
“That’s a fire hazard waiting to happen. Gibbons bought all the land along the creek when he built the glove factory. Said he was going to clean it up and try to get more business in here.”
Jesse aimed for the spittoon and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’ll take some work to clean all that up. Half the buildings were gutted by that fire last winter. But Gibbons has the right idea. We could use some more businesses.”
“Jake, have you been over there to see if you could find ’em?” Ed asked, his jaw jutting forward. The thief taking off with his wife’s jewelry clearly had Ed’s blood boiling.
“I go through shantytown almost every day,” Jake said. “If you’ve been over there, you should know it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. With all the squatters and ramshackle buildings popping up, it’s hard to keep track of who’s where at any given time.”
“We ought to burn the whole place down.”
Jake shook his head. “It belongs to Gibbons now, Ed. You can’t just go in there and burn down a man’s property, no matter how dangerous it is.”
Ed slammed a meaty fist into his palm. “First it was a little food and some blankets from Sam, then guns; now they’re breaking into our homes. They’ve already shot at Sheriff Carter and Jake. What’re we going to do when someone gets killed?”
Jake straightened. Ed seemed determined to stir up the townspeople to the point where someone did something