CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

OLIVIA

Throbbing pain brought Olivia awake. She groaned and tried to move but found herself restricted. Thoughts in a jumble, she tried to focus. Where was she? The answer didn’t immediately come to mind. She instead turned her attention to the sensations around her. Wherever she was, she was lying on her side on the floor. Her wrists were in pain, and when she tried to move her arms, something restrained them. Rope.

Realization cascaded over her like a flood.

Someone had grabbed her outside her house. White men she didn’t recognize.

She opened her eyes, and her head spun. She was in what looked like a basement. Like her secret room, on a dirt floor.

Tears sprang to her eyes. Why had she followed Mr. Gull? She had ignored all their safety measures of not traveling alone. And for what reason? Because she thought she could do so without asking for help. How foolish. How absolutely foolish not to recognize her limits. Not to see that her so-called “protection” of Douglas was her own delusion. No matter what she did, he could not be completely safe in a city of slave catchers. Her tears fell at the thought of Douglas. If she did not escape, she would never know what he wanted to talk to her about.

Steadying herself, she tried to roll to sit up. A voice spoke in the darkness. “I wouldn’t do that if I was you, Mrs. Kingston.”

She strained to see the speaker, although she instantly recognized the voice. “Henry?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Shock added to her dizziness. “What are you doing here?”

“Paying for my sins,” he said quietly. “They said they would help me free my family.”

“They who?” Olivia asked.

“Saunders, Logan, and Mrs. Johnson.” She heard him sigh. “I was a fool to think they would keep their promise. And now, you’re here.”

Olivia’s skull throbbed with pain. “I do not understand, Henry.”

“They told me if I helped them find out who was helping the fugitives, they would free my family.”

She lay back on the floor and sucked in a breath. “Oh, Henry.”

“I knew what all of you were doing. I gave them little bits of information. I didn’t think they could figure it out. I am so sorry.”

That jolted Olivia to action. “We will sort this all out later, but right now we have to get out of here. Are your hands free?”

“No.”

“Can you untie mine?”

He remained where he was and silent.

“Henry, you have to untie me. If we remain here any longer, there will be no way for you to make this right.” He was not the only one who needed to do some atoning.

A moment later, she felt Henry’s rough fingers working the knots in the rope at her wrists. “How long have they been gone?”

“Not long. Sounds like they all left. Lots of walking upstairs.” Henry pulled the rope, and Olivia let out a hiss of pain. “Sorry.”

“Just keep going.” In a few more seconds, she was free. She pushed off the floor to a sitting position and studied Henry. He looked haggard and thin. She untied his hands. “Let’s go.”

He nodded. She tried to stand, and the room spun. She braced herself against the wall. You have to be strong right now.

“Mrs. Kingston?” Henry asked from behind her.

“Follow me.” She took shuffling steps over to the stairs, her muscles stiff from lying on the floor. She slowly crept up the stairs, Henry one step behind her. She stopped at the top, hoping her suspicions were true. That if she and Henry were bound, their captors would not feel the need to lock the door. She turned the doorknob, and it opened easily.

She paused before peeping out into the room in front of her. It was sparsely appointed. Only a few chairs and a single lamp sat on a table. Other than that, the room was empty.

“Guess they all did leave.”

“We should do the same,” Olivia said, and the room swam again. “Grab that lamp.”

He moved across the room to retrieve it and then handed it to her. She motioned toward the back of the house.

“Door’s over there,” Henry whispered, pointing the opposite direction.

“They probably have someone watching the front door.”

Henry nodded, and they came to a short hallway leading to the kitchen. When she heard someone at the front door, she paused, Henry ahead of her and out of view. With steps that made her head pound, she rushed into the hallway just as the door opened.

Voices filled the room, and she instantly recognized two of them—Saunders and Mrs. Johnson.

“Your and your men’s incompetence is unacceptable,” Mrs. Johnson hissed. “Catch slaves and people look the other way, but you assaulted a white man, and now the law is looking for you.”

Mr. Gull.

“He didn’t see us.” Saunders sounded like a child being chastised.

“Does that matter?” Mrs. Johnson yelled. “They will be looking for someone who did see you. And then you bring the girl here. Why didn’t you just kill her and dump her body somewhere?”

“We can get information from her and then sell her.”

“The goal was to infiltrate the network here without raising suspicions. That would have provided us with as many slaves as we needed. We would have all gotten paid well. But she knows who I am. I have been to her house, fool.”

So that was the plan. Olivia’s heart thumped so loud that she was sure they could hear it. If they had succeeded … Olivia shuddered to think.

There was a pause, and then Mrs. Johnson said, “Did you leave the door open?”

“No.”

We need to move, now. Olivia listened and heard two sets of footsteps rush down the stairs. She leaned into Henry. “Find the back door.”

He crept two steps away from her, checked the kitchen, and nodded.

“Go,” she whispered.

But when she tried to step away, she staggered, the room tipping. “Would you look at this?”

She focused on the hall in front of her and saw Mrs. Johnson and Saunders standing at the other end.

Mrs. Johnson glanced back at Saunders. “I told you this one would be trouble.”

“All the better that we sell her quick.”

Olivia took a step back, assessing her options. As light-headed as she was, she would surely be caught before she made it out the kitchen door. Henry might make it but could be caught before he found help.

Then she remembered the lamp in her hand.

She said a quick prayer, then raised it above her head and threw it down the hallway toward Mrs. Johnson and Saunders with all her might. The lamp sailed through the air, and for a second she wasn’t sure she had thrown it hard enough. But when it hit the floor, it shattered, and oil and fire splashed across the floor.

Mrs. Johnson let out a cry, but Olivia did not delay any longer. Henry had already opened the back door. They rushed out and found themselves in an alley between rows of houses. As they ran, they heard Mrs. Johnson and Saunders shouting.

Olivia tried to keep pace with Henry, who was much faster than she was, scanning to see if she recognized anything around her. After running full tilt down two streets, she realized they were near the wharf. Which meant they were near Shipper’s.

“Follow me,” she called to Henry.

Head throbbing and breath stinging her throat, she ran until they reached Shipper’s. She staggered as Henry pounded on the back door.

The door opened and Molly appeared, her expression shocked. She reached out, grabbed Olivia’s arm, and pulled her inside. “They’ve been looking all over for you.”

Olivia made it to just inside the door before she collapsed.