A Lesson in Love and Murder (24 page)

Or she could just kiss him. Her lips tingled at the unwelcome thought.

Merinda Herringford did not make a habit of appearing vulnerable around members of the opposite sex. She was mighty impressed by Benny Citrone, though.

Clearly Benny was mentally thumbing through an index of her own accolades, for he grabbed her arm and pulled her close. “You're a detective. I'm a tracker. We are so alike. Sniffing out the darkness and… ”

“My sense of smell is not that good,” Merinda huffed, unsure of what she was supposed to say in this situation and lacking a
Godey's Lady's Book
*
to help her.

“You use the same abilities.” His mouth was just above hers, his eyes tracing her lips like a pencil. “Just differently. I use the powers of deduction too. Look at the trees, the stars, the imprint of the horse's hooves on the ground. That, Merinda, is my brand of deduction. You see and observe. I do too, but I am propelled by nature.”

She couldn't breathe. She tried to fall back on her heels, but he kept her so near and his breath mingled with hers and his eyes were sparkling the most luminous blue. “And that, Benny, is why we can never have a life together. For I am at home in the city.” She waved her hands, indicating the whole of Michigan Avenue.

“A life together?”

Merinda snapped down to earth and tried to recollect the part of her heart that had spilled out of her mouth. Cracker jacks! How did Jem do this? Live like this? Knowing that at any moment the words she kept bottled up might spill out audibly. She'd never speak again. She sputtered, “Who said… what I meant was… you are attracted to me.”

“Pardon me!”

“Do you think that my years of studying the art of deduction have left me immune to male glances?”

“You perturb me,” he said, raking his fingers through his hair. “I
fascinate
you.”

“Perturb!”

“When I'm near, you lean closer and your eyes spark just a bit. You really do have the most interesting eyes,” said Benny.

“I don't know whether you're flattering me or… ”

“Are you attracted to
me?
”

Merinda coughed. “I do not find you completely repulsive.”

“Nor do I find you repulsive. Indeed, I find you… No. Enough of this. Stop looking at me like that! My handbook says that women are not conditioned for the harsh elements of the Yukon!” Benny said.

“The Yukon!” she spluttered.

Fortunately, before Merinda could become any more flustered and do something completely flabbergasting—like propose—she looked up and realized they had reached the Palmer House.

Merinda chewed her lip. “If you are desperate enough for something, then you believe its resolution into being.”

“That's not very logical,” Benny joshed.

“I know. But it's my story, isn't it? I'm a lady detective who trips into solutions. I have to believe that the conclusion I reach will be the right one because I believe so much in my cause.”

“Which is?”

“That just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't find a way to dig into the mysteries the men in Toronto would ignore.”

“You'd be a great Mountie,” he said proudly. When silence ticked incessantly between them for a few moments, he said, “There's a lot spinning in that head of yours.”

“I was wondering if I should kiss you,” she blurted. “But that just seemed so commonplace.”

Benny, startled, swallowed. “C-commonplace?”

“You and me.” Merinda motioned between them. “We're not ordinary. But clearly there is some sort of chemistry here. I think we'd be better suited to arm wrestling.”

“Instead of kissing?”

“Do you want me to kiss you?”

“I… ” Benny's face took on the color of a ripe tomato.

She leaned in and stood on her tiptoes. Their lips hovered with a phantom closeness for a moment. Everything fizzled and flickered. Their noses nearly touched as the world fell away.

“You have a pretty smile.”

“Yawn,” she said, falling back.

“Why
yawn
? It's pretty. It's part of you.” He moved in, gripped her shoulders, inclined his head, moved his lips close to hers, and…

“Anyone can have a nice smile!” she spat.

“I thought you were going to kiss me!”

“You ruined it!”

“By
complimenting
you?” His voice rippled frustration. “So you're leaving?”

Merinda pivoted on her heel. “I will walk on that side of the street”—she inclined her head—“and we'll talk later.”

“Merinda… we're going in the same direction.”

“It won't be too long until you get to the inane moment where you say my eyes are like stars!”

“I wasn't going to say that! You're an absolutely flummoxing woman, Merinda Herringford.”

Merinda turned before his eyes could catch her smile.

Ray and Jasper waited for Jem, who was, if Ray thought about it, a little too indecently excited for an enterprise that required criminal activity.

“Well, I ask you,” Jem said with a wink, “do you really expect to vet the new shipment without the aid of the rather invaluable Silent Jim?”

In spite of her enthusiasm, Ray tried to convince her to stay in the Palmer, but she was adamant, and when he told her she was very much unwelcome, she merely ignored him, sitting on the front step of the lodging house in hat and trousers, inspiring glances and even a wolf whistle from the particularly astute, so Ray decided she would be safer with him than anywhere else.

The plan was very much the same as before: receive and survey the goods and ensure they were ready for David Ross's imminent use.

“There's another shipment chugging in now,” Hedgehog said, pointing his bowler toward a vessel sliding into the docks.

“That's a lot of fireworks,” Jasper remarked. “That anarchist fellow the other night, he said he wanted to make an impression. This is more than that.”

“We don't ask. We don't tell. We get paid for transporting things that are a little less easy to get in through traditional channels.” Hedgehog tugged his bowler on and turned his back. “You two wait for this one and whatever requisition Valari has for you.” He walked away.

Ray, Jem, and Jasper waited. And waited. The boat seemed so near, but why did it take so blasted long for it to finally glide in and dock? The midsummer heat billowed around then. The hot morning warned of a blazing afternoon.

“I wasn't cut out for criminal life,” Jasper said as men on board threw ropes over the side of the boat and began scrambling down from the deck. “It's so sedentary.”

Ray hollered to ask if they needed help unloading, and they began the slow jog toward the boat when given the assent.

It started as a hiss and then a fizzle, and then the air shimmered around them. Jasper, panicking, got to Jem even before Ray could and shoved her out of the way. The blast followed but seconds after, sending them back with little time to fling up their arms and protect themselves.

Jasper fell the hardest, protecting Jem, and once the shock and smoke dissipated, he blinked the grit and grime of the dark fog away and frantically looked to her. “Are you all right?”

Jem nodded. “A little dizzy. W-where's Ray?” Her eyes searched the vicinity. “Jasper?”

Nearby, Ray stood, uneasily, an incessant ringing vibrating through his left eardrum, pricking daggers through his head and throwing off his balance.

Jasper rose with Jem and joined him, and they sprinted as far away from the blast as possible.

“There's a chance of another explosion,” Jasper yelled, and while Ray could make out the echo of sound, he couldn't hear a word. “And there won't be any survivors there.” They surveyed the growing devastation and fire. Not too long and the sirens of the fire brigade would be heard, the boat doused, the charred bodies moved. Jasper assumed the destruction, all red and orange, shooting incendiary sparks to the sky, could be seen a mile away.

Ray held one hand to his ear and folded over, free hand on his knee.

“You all right?”

“Eh?”

“Jasper, can he even hear us?”

“I can hear you, Jem,” Ray said, having watched her mouth and her panicked face and put two and two together.

Jasper led them farther away, pulling Ray with a tight force so Ray was required to do little walking. They fell against a makeshift shed, Jasper coughing the debris out of his lungs.

“Are you all right?” Jasper asked Ray again when he had composed himself.

Ray ran his hand over his soot-smudged face. “My ear is popping something fierce. This awful buzz.” He broke into Italian for a moment, unable to think hard enough to translate.

Jasper motioned for him to remove his hand from his ear.

“Your ear's bleeding pretty badly,” Jasper said. His eyes were full of concern.

Ray took Jasper's offered handkerchief, smoke stained and wilted from the dense humidity of the day, and held it to his ear.

Ray could sense Jasper was holding himself back with force, shoulders tightened, fists balled, wanting to propel into law enforcement mode. Jem shivered, and Ray assumed it was from the shock of the blast. He painted her face furiously with his gaze. She was pale and she had a slight cut on her temple from when Jasper had shoved her out of the way. Other than that, she seemed fine.

Jasper gripped Ray's shoulder. “Not a lot I can do for those poor
fellows back there,” he said, his kind blue eyes made brighter by the smoke film on his face. “But I can get you looked after.”

Jasper wanted to take Ray to the nearest hospital. Ray said that would cost a fortune and require his name and several other details he would happily not have in the open. Instead, they went to the Palmer House, ascended the elevator to Jem and Merinda's room, washed up, and now sat in the broad sitting room of the girls' suite.

Eventually Merinda and Benny arrived. Jasper swallowed, watching Benny inspect Ray with the precision of a medical professional. There didn't seem to be a place or situation that Benny Citrone could not step in and command. “Blasted eardrum,” Benny said.

“What does that mean?” Jem asked frantically.

“Likely that he'll never hear from that ear again,” Benny said softly. “Perforated eardrums are not that uncommon up north,” he explained. “I've seen something like this before.”

“It could be worse,” Jasper said, looking at Merinda and wanting to smooth the sadness from her face. “We're lucky to be alive.”

Ray, wincing at Benny's application of a sort of a makeshift cotton bandage, agreed. “It was bad,” he said much more loudly than he would have if his voice was not compensating for what had been blasted out of his ear.

“Everyone there is dead,” Jasper conceded. “All the men on that illegal boat. No one could have survived that.”

“You can't hear,” Jem sniffed.