My kitchen was filled with children when Mo returned with the bandages and moonshine I’d requested.
I’d pulled the curtain closed that separated the kitchen from the front room so that nobody could see Joseph. It’d do no good for anyone to be talkin’ about the man in my bed or the fact that he was a member of the Moret gang. I wasn’t sure who’d stabbed Joseph, or even if anyone was looking for him, so I thought it best to avoid any outside attention.
“What’s goin’ on here?” Mo asked as he came in through the kitchen door.
In addition to the number of children gathered in the kitchen, there were at least six others waiting on the back porch.
“Ringworm,” I said and laughed as Mo immediately jumped out of reach of the children.
The little girl on the chair in front of me squirmed as I pressed a rag with cider vinegar against the red raised welt on her elbow. I gave her mum the same instructions I’d repeated to the others. “Clean it with the vinegar every few hours. Have her wear sleeves to keep it covered when she’s playing with other children. And be sure to clean the house from top to bottom.”
She nodded as she ushered the little girl onto the porch and down the path.
My little fungal-infested patients left as they’d arrived: in one giggling, barely managed herd.
I dropped all the vinegar dampened rags into one large basin. “I’ll have to boil the lot of them,” I mumbled, more to myself than to Mo who still stood, pressed against the wall. “Oh, fer heaven’s sake. Take a seat.”
Mo regarded the chair where my last patient had been seated and the table around which the other children had gathered. He maintained a wide berth as he crossed the small room and placed the box of supplies on the counter. “There’s all the bandages I could find. There’s also two pints of shine. That should be enough. At least for a while. Don’t let nobody see it, someone’s likely to steal it.”
I nodded. I was certain I had a small empty bottle I could pour it into that’d attract less attention. “Thank you.”
“How’s Joseph doin’?” His voice was low, hushed.
“Sleeping mostly. He’s been having some pain, but that’s to be expected. Yer free to talk to him if ye want.”
He shook his head. “Nah. We ain’t exactly friends. He’s one of Jack’s boys.”
My ears pricked at this bit of information. Were there cracks in the Moret gang?
I busied myself with the soap and a rag, cleaning the sink and table area. My mind churned, trying to think of the best manner of getting more information from Mo. I matched his hushed tone with my own. “I assumed ye’r all together.”
Mo walked over the doorway and pulled the curtain aside.
Through the opening I could see the heavy rise and fall of Joseph’s chest. He was deep in sleep, having had another few bumps of moonshine not even an hour before.
Mo turned back toward me. The curtain fell into place. Mo took a seat at the freshly cleaned table. “My uncle has his own fellas. They work directly for him.”
I sat next to Mo. “I thought everyone worked for yer da?”
He nodded. “Technically they do. But when he ain’t around they answer to Jack.”
There was a subtle, but bitter tint in his voice as he said that.
I decided to try and push the issue. I stood and bustled about the kitchen as I talked, keeping an indirect eye on Mo the entire time though. “I guess I’d assumed that they’d answer to you when yer dad’s not around.”
“That’s the way it was s’posed to be. Until recently.”
“Oh? Did somethin’ happen then?” I slid a glass of sweet tea in front of him then turned my attention to straightening the shelves.
“Nah,” he sipped from his glass. His voice had the quality of someone lost in a memory. “Just differin’ opinions.”
A moan sounded from the front room.
Mo looked over his shoulder toward the doorway. He took another drink of his tea and stood. “I’ve got business. Let someone know if ya need any more supplies. My pére expects Joseph to be back to work. You make sure that happens.”
He walked through the back door, leaving me standing in shock at the way he’d spoken to me. Who the bloody hell, did Mo Moret think he was?
“Girl!” Joseph’s voice was gravelly as he called from the front room.
I looked from the hanging curtain that divided the rooms to the back door. Had Mo talked like that for Joseph’s benefit?
“Do ya want me ta piss the bed or are ya gonna help me?”
Christ! It was going to be a long few weeks with Joseph. I became determined to get him healed and sent back to his boss in record time.
I pushed past the curtain. “Injured or not, if ye piss the bed ye’ll lie in it, ye understand me?”
He startled as I shoved a bottle in his direction. “Ye’ll piss in this until ye can get out of the bed.”
Joseph recovered from his surprise quickly. A devious smile crept across his face. “Ain’t ya gonna hold it for me?”
“I’ll not be holdin’ nothin’ fer the likes of you. And you’ll mind yerself while yer in my house. Do ye understand me?”
He leered at me. “Ya mean while I’m in Jack Moret’s house.”
I spun on him, not caring what he thought if me, wanting only to shut him up. “That’s right. It’s Jack’s house. And I’m livin’ here at his invitation.” I stepped closer, towering over him and dropping my voice, leaning directly in front of his face. With my voice low, silky and full of implication I added, “How do ye think Jack would react if his special guest were badgered by ye? I don’t think he’d take it well meself.”
I stood straight and walked from the room. Over my shoulder I added, “Now take yer piss, and I’ll get you somethin’ to eat.”
Joseph was on his best behavior the rest of the day. He answered every question with “Yes’m” and “no, Ma’am”.
It was worth it to have him thinking I was Jack’s lover to buy myself some degree of respect and freedom from his leering.
Joseph relied heavily on the moonshine for management of his pain, though I suspected he simply liked having a reason to imbibe.
As my bed was occupied, I pulled the armchair to the far wall and tucked myself into a ball under a blanket and tried to sleep.
In the middle of the night, I thought I heard a noise in the kitchen. I strained to hear anything in the other room before I rationalized that the sound I’d heard was probably just Joseph rolling over. Exhaustion took over and I slipped back into sleep.
The early morning light pulled me from my slumber. I unrolled from the chair, joints and muscles stiff from sleeping in the cramped chair. As I slowly rose from my sleeping position I looked at my patient. He slept facing the wall, breaths deep and even.
I stretched as I walked to the kitchen, letting the curtain fall behind me to muffle my sounds. I was in no mood to wake Joseph. It had been days since I’d had any time alone and I craved even a few moments of privacy.
On the table was a small sack. It hadn’t been there when I’d gone to sleep. The noise I’d heard last night hadn’t been my imagination, or Joseph moving after all. Someone had been in my kitchen.
The sack was secured with twine, which had been tied around several iris stalks. The brilliant purple-blue color of the blooms were beautiful, and I realized how long it had been since I’d had something so simple yet uplifting in my day-to-day life. I immediately trimmed the stalks and put the flowers into a jelly jar.
Inside the sack were stalks of asparagus, some carrots, cabbage, garlic, a few tangerines and several bright red, plump strawberries. I rinsed them all and left them on a towel to dry. Visions of an aromatic soup, simmering on the stove all day, filled my head.
I smiled as I chopped the vegetables and added fresh herbs to a simmering pot, imagining my benefactor sneaking in during the dark of night and leaving this gift on the table. I had no doubt it was Mo who’d left the goods.
“Smells good, ma’am.” Joseph hobbled into the kitchen, bracing himself against the wall as he walked.
Ma’am? I knew I‘d made some progress in demanding he show some respect but continuously calling me ma’am was quite a bit more of a progression than I’d imagined.
“It should be ready for supper. And not a minute before.” I wouldn’t have him trying to eat it before it was ready.
He eased himself gingerly into a chair at the table.
“Give me a minute and I’ll put some coffee on.” I cooked him two eggs and cut some of the berries and put them on a plate before him with the promised cup of coffee.
“Ye need to eat. Get yer strength up. I’m sure Claude is anxious fer ye to get back to work.
Joseph ate his breakfast as though he hadn’t had a meal in a week. He even used a stale biscuit to mop up the remnants of egg and berry juice.
I picked at a biscuit as I determined how to dig for more information about the Morets. “What sort of work do ye do, anyway? Am I getting’ ye healed up fer heavy liftin’ or are ye more likely to be tellin’ others what to lift?’
Joseph leaned back, hands trailing across his swollen belly. His eyes were direct and focused as he answered. “I do whatever’s needed.”
His response, so measured and rehearsed, unnerved me. He seemed to be daring me to ask more, while simultaneously warning me against doing so. I scrambled for a response that would make my question more innocent. “Well, if ye go liftin’ anything heavy, ye’ll tear the soft tissue open again. Best stick to tellin’ others what to do.”
Joseph considered my warning before pointing to the counter expectantly. “How ‘bout one of those tangerines Jack brought? Can I have one?”
“Jack?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I seen him in the middle of the night. He left it all there. Stood in the doorway lookin’ at us both fer a while before he left. I figure’d you’d seen him.”
“No.” The fact that Jack had been in the house without my knowledge was far more troubling than had it been Mo who’d left the surprise bounty. I grabbed a tangerine for Joseph. Suddenly, my appetite for soup wasn’t nearly as strong.
Joseph and I spent a quiet morning. I helped him out to the porch after breakfast, so he could relax and look over the lake.
“I’m expecting people might start comin’ by. Is there anything ye need?”
“There’s a book on the table,” he said. “Can I read that?”
I was surprised. I’d nearly forgotten about the book one of the boys left behind after being treated. Joseph didn’t strike me as a reader. I retrieved the book from the small table next to my armchair.
“The Tower Treasure,” he read the title.
“What’s it about?”
He looked up at me. “Well, I don’t know. Yet. But it has a treasure.”
I smiled at his excitement of the treasure that might await him between the pages. He was firmly absorbed in his reading before I stepped back into the cabin and shut the door behind me.
I hurried into the kitchen and checked the back porch. Nobody was waiting for me yet.
With a big pot set in the sink and filled with vinegar and water. I stripped the blood-stained sheets from the bed and submerged them in the liquid to soak. I quickly replaced the soiled sheets with the one other set that had been left in the wardrobe. They were far more worn, but at least they were clean.
Odi was the first to arrive at my door. “I have a tummy ache,” she complained.
I had no doubt that her love of sweets was partially to blame. I pulled peppermint leaves from the shelf and boiled them in a tea.
Moments after finishing her drink she exclaimed that she was cured and ran off—candy in hand—to continue her day.
I scrubbed the sheets as I waited for other patients. A faint pink stain remained, though you’d have to have known it was there to really notice.
Nobody else came to the door, so I closed it and went to check on Joseph.
“You ever been to New York?” he asked, looking up from his book.
“No.”
He held the book up, finger firmly marking his place, and shook it in my direction. “Now, it ain’t that I suspect you, but forty thousand dollars were stolen from the Tower Mansion and the thief definitely had red hair.”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head.
Joseph laughed and returned to his reading.
I retrieved the sheets and carried them to the laundry line. On the east side of the cabin, the line was placed perfectly for exposure to the greatest hours of sunshine. I guessed they’d be completely dry in only a few hours.
By late afternoon I couldn’t take Joseph’s questioning any longer and finally let him have a bowl of soup. He actually had three before he leaned back and rubbed his belly. He winced then.
“Is it hurtin’?”
He nodded, his eyes pinched and brows pulled together.
“Ye did too much today,” I chastised him. I retrieved the moonshine and a glass and administered a hefty pour. I helped him back to the bed.
“One more swallow?”
I brought the cup with another hefty pour. I’d manage two goals: I’d ease Joseph’s pain and give myself a few hours of privacy.
He was asleep before I’d rinsed his bowl. I looked about the kitchen and the irises caught my attention. Flowers left by Jack. I was disgusted and angry. What the hell am I doing?
I’d made no progress in finding out what happened to Finn. The only thing I’d accomplished is being tucked away by Jack Moret like some illicit lover while tending to the people who kept him safe. It wasn’t only Joseph and the other gang members who protected Claude and Jack Moret. It was every person in Cleric’s Cove. They all knew exactly who and what the Morets were about and turned a blind eye to their actions. It was the old people with their arthritic joints, the pregnant women, and the mothers with their fungus-infected, injury prone children. It was Leonie as well as Odi. Every one of them who came to my door and accepted my services while protecting the man who’d taken my brother from me.
I was just as bad. Because I’d softened my heart to these people. I’d treated them, listened to them, encouraged them. I’d even saved the life of one of Claude Moret’s henchmen. I could have easily let him die, could have even hastened his death. But I’d chosen to save him so that they could go about their horrible business of making people disappear. So they could steal people from their families in the dark of the night.
I ripped the flowers from the jar and carried them through the house. I stalked out to the dock and flung them into the lake. I let out an animalistic yell as they hit the water and were swept away in the tide.
“Remind me not to bring you flowers,” Mo’s voice was hushed behind me.
I spun around. My anger firmly leading me, though I did manage to not yell at him. “What are you doin’ here?”
“I just came ta check on ya. And bring ya this.” Mo approached me as if approaching a rabid animal. His movements were slow and hesitant. His eyes wide, showing that he meant no threat. He held his hands out, offering something, though because of the dark, I couldn’t tell what.
“What is it?”
“A bed roll. It ain’t much, but it’s got to be more comfortable than that chair.”
How did he know? If it had been Jack in my kitchen last night, how did Mo know I was sleeping in the chair?
I stepped toward him and accepted the roll. “Thank you,” I whispered.
I feared Joseph might wake and find Mo here. Certainly, he’d report that to Jack. There’s no way I’d have been tasked with caring for him if he wasn’t a loyal member of the gang. He’d keep none of my secrets.
Mo backed away. “I have to go. I just wanted to be sure you had that.”
The dark engulfed him before I had the chance to say another word.
I carried the bedroll into the cabin and closed the door behind me. Before I put out the lamp in the front room I retrieved my knife from the wardrobe. I stepped into the kitchen and pulled the curtain behind me before strapping the blade to my thigh. There was no way I was going to be caught off guard by Jack in the middle of the night. I pushed aside the chairs and laid out the bedroll next to the wall. The pad wasn’t terribly thick; it felt as though several layers of wool had been sewn together. It was better than the hard floor and far better than sleeping in that chair again. I retrieved the extra blanket from the armchair, blew out the candle, and lay down.
A soft bump near the window drew my attention. My right hand wrapped around the knife handle and I stilled, watching for movement. After several minutes I eased back onto the bedroll. I couldn’t see anything through the window. I thought of Mo as I lay there. He’s one of them, I reminded myself. Just like everyone else, his sole purpose is protecting Claude Moret. And just like everyone else, he isn’t to be trusted.
But unlike everyone else, it was Mo that lingered in my dreams and warmed the parts of my heart that had grown cold with vengeance.