14

Eoghan’s throat went dry. “Who issued the order?” he rasped.

Kil lifted both hands, palms out. “I swear to ya, I don’t know. ’Tis only because of our history that I’m talking to ya at all.”

“The message I delivered tonight, was I carrying my own death sentence?”

“I have no idea what was inside that note.”

“And the man I gave the message to, is he the one assigned to kill me?”

Kil stared blankly.

“Who is he, Kil? What is he doing here?”

“Hammy, if I knew—”

Eoghan grabbed him by the collar and shook him. “What do you know? Why should I even trust you? You turned tail quick enough when Sean went rogue and threatened to murder Turner and I tried to stop him.”

Kil’s face darkened as he thrust Eoghan’s hands from his coat. “Don’t push your luck. I’ve done you a favor telling you what I know. Risked me own neck!”

His words echoed and bounced along the cobbles in the alley. He drew a breath and shoved his face into Eoghan’s. “Can’t tell you how I know, only that I do.”

Reining in his rampant emotions, Eoghan nodded. “Fine. I’m beholden to you.”

His response sparked a kind of satisfaction. Kil withdrew to his side of the alley, half of his face and his gleaming eyes hidden by shadow. “I’m not asking for ya to be beholden.”

Ach, so that was it. Kil wanted a favor and this was his way of getting it. Eoghan jammed his fists into the pockets of his coat, afraid that if he didn’t, he’d use them to pummel his “old friend.”

“What do you want, Kil?”

“It isn’t like that, Hammy—”

“What. Do. You. Want?”

Kilarny flinched with each clipped word. A moment later, the last trace of feigned benevolence melted from his features. What was left was naked ambition.

“I want to know everything you have on Daniel Turner’s death,” he hissed.

The words snaked up Eoghan’s spine, left him tingling. He mimicked Kil’s action and withdrew into the shadows. “You know all there is to know.”

Kil shook his head. “I don’t think so. There’s more, even if you are too thick to realize it. The bit about being a pawn?” He leaned into the moonlight. A leer became visible on his lips. “You may be content to play that role, but I’m not. I intend to change all that.”

“How?”

He hesitated, his gaze measuring. “Let’s keep moving.”

He spun and headed down the alley. Eoghan fell in step beside him. “So?” he said when they’d covered a considerable distance.

They veered out onto a wide street lined with carts and vendor stands. Eoghan kept to Kil’s heels as they loped down the sidewalk, until they reached a long row of squat buildings.

An apothecary, Eoghan noted, and a dressmaker’s shop huddled next to it. Farther down, a clockmaker. Kil seemed to show no preference. He zigzagged through them all, then darted into another darkened alley.

The old wound below Eoghan’s right shoulder throbbed in protest to the strain caused by running. Even his breath was slow in returning.

Kil noticed the weakness and sneered at it. “Still not recovered, eh?”

“Getting there,” Eoghan said. “Just who do you think is following us, anyway?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t need you,” he retorted.

“Right. And what is it you want me to do again?”

Now that the tension in his lungs had lessened, Eoghan straightened and sucked in a couple of deep breaths. Kilarny, however, couldn’t seem to keep still. He paced up and down the alley, leaving muddy footprints in the thin layer of snow. By morning, both would have melted into the cobbles.

“All right,” he grunted at last. “I’m going to give it to you straight, but mark my words, Hammy, a word of this gets out and I’ll kill you myself.”

“Go on.”

A gas lamp situated at the mouth of the alley made seeing easier. Eoghan read apprehension in the tight lines of Kilarny’s face and the bunched muscles of his jaw. He stopped pacing.

“I have reason to believe Sean Healy wasn’t working alone. Someone wanted or needed Turner dead.”

“You think the plan was to murder him all along?”

Kil nodded. “I need to know who was behind that plot and why.”

“What makes you think I can ferret out the information? Who would I even ask?” He froze as he read the motive in Kil’s eyes. “You want me to ask my sister.”

His lips thinned. “She be a Turner now herself.”

“So what? I’ve had nothing to do with her since . . . Even if I did what you ask . . .”

“Not suggesting you have to deceive your own flesh and blood.”

A chill crept over Eoghan’s flesh. “But Rourke Turner, now he’s another matter, is that it?”

Kil returned only silence. Eoghan spun away—it was his turn to pace. “If I do this”—he cut a glare at Kil—“and I’m not saying I will, what do I get out of it?”

“A fair question.” He smiled, as though he’d already sensed what Eoghan’s reaction would be. “You help me get the information I’m after and I’ll see to it that you are accepted back into the Fenians.”

“One of whom wants to kill me.”

Kil shrugged. “I have a feeling the two are likely linked together. We flush the one—”

“You’ll get the answers you want, and I may avoid winding up dead,” Eoghan finished for him.

He nodded.

Kil had always possessed a keen sense of exactly what was going on inside a person’s head. It was what made him so skilled at poker. Eoghan turned his back to think and caught sight of the flickering gas lamp. Eyeing the flame, his thoughts winged to Ana.

She was haunted by the fire that had consumed her entire family. Not her entire family, he realized with a start. She mentioned an uncle. If he were to have access to resources, to his old contacts inside the Fenians . . .

He swept clean his features of emotion and turned. “You’re right, Kil. This little arrangement could be beneficial to us both.”

His brows drew in a frown. “I don’t like that look on your face, Hammy. Why do I think you’ve something else in mind?”

Eoghan allowed the comment to pass and lowered his voice. “What matters, old friend, is that you do have something I want, something I might even be pressed to bargain with you for.”

Interest flared in his eyes.

Eoghan waited, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall. “Well? Do you want to hear my idea or not?”

He watched as Kilarny debated, doubt flickering across his features. For a split second, he even thought his offer would be refused before he could give it voice, but then a smile spread across his friend’s face.

“All right, then. Let’s hear it. What is it you want?”

Eoghan licked his lips. He needed to frame his words carefully, keep Ana’s name out of Kilarny’s hearing if he could help it.

As for the rest, he’d worry about his part of the bargain later, when he’d had time to think about exactly how he’d go about betraying his sister. Only it wouldn’t be betrayal, because by revealing the truth about the Turner clan to her, he’d in fact be saving her.

He repeated the thought to himself later, after he and Kilarny had parted ways, and again when the wagon rumbled up the street in front of the church. It made no difference. Even multiple reprisals failed to give him the peace he sought.

He scowled at the one portion of the church visible in the deepening gloom—the ghostly steeple piercing the night sky like a sword.

Fie. If the church didn’t offer what he wanted, he’d find it somewhere else. Instead of circling the wagon around to the back, he clucked to the horse and kept driving.

Never, not even after he’d fled Ireland and pretended to be dead, had Eoghan ever wanted a drink so badly.

A low whistle drifted on the night air, a haunting melody that raised bumps on Ana’s flesh. She craned her neck to see, first one way and then the other. Farther up the street, against one of the lampposts, leaned a man of average height and build. Atop his head—she squinted—aye, atop his head he wore a cap with a jaunty green feather sticking out from one side.

The same man Cara had seen outside the candle shop? Her pulse quickened as she stumbled on the steps and felt behind her for the knob. What was he doing here? Perhaps he’d followed them the night Cara and Rourke brought her home and now mistakenly thought to find Cara here, unless . . .

She shivered as the man straightened and with slow, measured steps closed the gap between them. What was wrong with the knob? Why wouldn’t it turn?

Though it meant taking her eyes from the man, Ana twisted and grasped the knob with both hands. It refused to budge. The hour? Her stomach sank as she realized it was after eight, and Amelia had no doubt locked the door.

She fumbled in her reticule for her key. After what seemed an eternity, she found it, though it took an extra half second to yank the thing free once it became entangled in the fringes that lined her cloak.

The whistling was louder now, closer than before. Ana’s heart beat harder, and her breathing came in shallow spurts that formed wispy clouds on the cold night air and made it nearly impossible to see the keyhole. Perhaps she should knock.

Ana lifted her fist and pounded once, twice, then looked over her shoulder at the approaching man. He was close enough to see his face, to see the gleam in his narrowed eyes and the half smile on his full, whistling lips.

She shrugged closer to the door and knocked again. “Amelia? Laverne?”

There was panic in her voice, a shrill edge no bluster could hide, but she didn’t care. The man stared steadily at her now. There was no denying his intended path. She tried the lock again, but instead of fitting the key into the hole, it slipped from her fingers and clattered onto the steps.

“Evening, miss.”

Ana whirled and pressed her back against the door. There was no weapon here, no hiding place she could seek.

The man peered up at her from the bottom of the steps, half his face shadowed by the brim of his gray tweed cap. He gestured at the key lying at her feet. “Locked yourself out, have you?”

So dry was her mouth, she found she couldn’t answer. Instead she simply shook her head.

“Perhaps I should help you.”

He moved as if to reach for the key. Ana stooped and snatched it up before he could get to it.

“N-no, thank you. I have it.”

“Ah, well, all right then.” Laying his finger alongside his cap, he gave a smart salute. “Good evening, Miss Kavanagh. Was a pleasure meeting you.”

His eyes remained fixed to her, his gaze as unyielding as a snare, holding her captive. Only when he’d moved a significant distance away was she finally able to slide the key into the lock and give it a half turn. She grappled with the door, wresting it open and shoving her way inside, then slamming it closed behind her. One thought swirled through her brain, one mind-gripping, terror-wrought idea.

His words, his manner, they were benign, even benevolent. He’d offered to help, after all. Still, she’d never seen him before, of that much she was certain. And yet . . .

He’d known her name.

It was intoxicating, holding another’s life in one’s hands, seeing fear spark in a person’s eyes, knowing that with just a swipe of his knife . . .

Kellen sighed and tucked the blade in his palm back up into the sleeve of his coat. Too bad The Celt had been explicit in his directions. Otherwise he might have given in to his instincts—those which made him a born killer—which fed the empty, hollow place inside that gnawed at his guts until it forced him to move or go mad.

Giving a jerk, he shook the thought free. Killing wasn’t the only thing that satisfied him. Power was an adequate substitute. Being near power, seizing it when he could.

The Celt had power—imparted bits of it to Kellen now and again, which was why he stayed by his side. And this . . .

He smiled.

McCleod would fail, and then the job would fall to him. Power over life. Power over death. He would claim it. And then . . .

He rubbed the ragged scars that snaked up both wrists. Killing the girl wouldn’t be enough to scrub away the memory of what had been done to him, to remove the childhood fears that haunted him to this day. But at least the gnawing, aching hole would be filled . . . temporarily.