had hauled Gibbons off to jail in the wee hours of the morning.
She turned down another alley, hoping against hope she’d find him. Lord, let him be alive. Please.
A half-grown boy who looked like Luke darted down the street ahead of her. Livy hiked up her skirts and broke into a run.
“Luke!” she shouted.
They almost collided at the end of the alley.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Luke said.
“Have you seen Jake? I can’t find him anywhere.”
“He’s in a bad way.” He grabbed her hand. “Come on.”
Livy jerked him to a stop. “Has he been shot?” Oh, Lord, please, not that.
“No. Just beat to within an inch of his life.”
Her heart lurched with fear. She’d known something had gone wrong, or he would’ve kept his promise and come back to Emma’s last night. Oh, Lord Jesus, please keep him alive; please don’t let him die.
“Take me to him.”
* * *
Victor Gibbons stared at the ceiling, hands clasped behind his head. Frustration welled inside his gut. It galled that he’d had to send for his brother’s lawyer to get him out of this mess.
If it hadn’t been for that McIver kid getting the town all riled up, none of this would have happened. Then that deputy and that nosy little lady from the orphanage had decided to snoop around when Butch and Grady torched the factory. Bad timing, to say the least. It would have been better if they’d died in the fire.
But they couldn’t prove a thing.
Grady and Butch had stashed those kids in an abandoned mine. Nobody would think to look for them there. Once Jimmy Sharp took care of them, the only person who could identify him would be that kid named Bobby. No jury would convict him of any wrongdoing on the word of one street kid.
It would be easy to start over somewhere else. As soon as he got out of here, they’d regroup in a bigger town, a little closer to Chicago—but not so close that his brother could tell him how to run his business.
He smiled. Maybe this would all work out after all.
* * *
Jake came to with a start. He felt like he’d fallen down a mine shaft and hit rock bottom. A wave of panic washed over him at the thought of being trapped in a mine. He stifled a groan and concentrated on the scents and sounds around him. The musty smell of old blankets and rotting wood permeated the air along with the pungent odor of burning coal, its fire barely keeping the cold at bay.
Not a mine. At least he could be thankful for that.
He opened his eyes and stared at the remains of an old shack. One wall had collapsed, but the rest looked fairly stable. He turned his head and came face-to-face with a group of dirty, bedraggled boys ringed in a semicircle on the other side of a tiny fire, all eyes trained on him. He didn’t even try to guess their ages. A couple were as big as Luke—he scanned the half-dozen or so faces for the boy and didn’t see him—and some were smaller, as small as Georgie. His heart twisted at the gaunt faces and hollow eyes gazing back at him in the dim light.
He blinked. How had he gotten here?
It all came back with a rush. The fire, arresting Gibbons, going after Livy, the fight.
What if they’d found Livy? And where was Luke?
Daylight filtered through the cracks and crevices of the dilapidated building. Several hours had passed since he’d left her at Emma’s.
He struggled to sit up, breaking into a cold sweat with the effort. It felt like a knife stabbed through his chest with every movement, every breath. The smaller boys scrambled to their feet and retreated behind the older ones. Two of them brandished iron pipes and threw nervous glances at each other. Jake eased up against the wall, waiting for the pain to subside before he tried again.
“How’d I get here?” His voice sounded like the roar of a bear after a long winter of hibernation.
They didn’t seem inclined to answer.
“Do I look like I’m any danger to you? I couldn’t catch a turtle in my condition, let alone one of you boys.” He studied the boys wielding pipes. One of them looked familiar. Jake caught his eye. “You brought Bobby to the orphanage, didn’t you?”
The boy glanced at his companions before giving a cautious nod. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s going to be all right.” He inched into a better