Daring Time (23 page)

The noises he heard emanating from the wall and hallway confused him: women screaming in a bloodthirsty manner and male grunts of pain and fury. Seconds later he heard footsteps running past, but no one tried to enter their room.

There was nothing for it. No matter what was going on out there, staying holed up in here wasn't going to help Hope escape.

He raised the poker and brought it down heavily on the door, breaking through the lock after two swings. He glanced back and saw Hope peering around the corner at him as she lay on her belly, her hair spilling wildly around her shoulders, the knife clutched in her hand, her expression livid with excitement.

There was ho doubt about it. If Hope Stillwater lived in his time period, she'd undoubtedly spend her time bungee jumping or climbing harrowing mountain peaks.

Christ, what had he gotten himself into, anyway?

"Somebody has been kind enough to provide us with a distraction," he whispered, "but I want you to stay
down
for now, Hope."

She nodded in agreement and he eased open the door a few inches. The sounds of women shrieking in rage amplified along with increasingly fading grunts of pain. Ryan froze when he saw two men running down the hallway. A quick glance told him it was the tall, blond man who'd stood guard at the bottom of the stairs along with the doorman who wore a black hat. Both of them had pistols drawn as they passed him. Apparently the debacle that was going on next door was more of a concern for the henchmen than Ryan or Hope.

Ryan waved for Hope to come near him. Whatever was going on was a heaven-sent distraction. Just as he felt a tendril of Hope's soft hair brushing his bare waist, however, one of the men bawled over the din.

"I'll shoot your brains out, Molly, and you, too, Nancy! Get
off
him."

"Go back," Ryan mouthed fiercely to Hope.
"Go,"
he whispered when she hesitated and grabbed his knife with both hands as though she were steeling herself for battle.

"Shoot 'em! Go ahead," Ryan heard Diamond Jack Fletcher roar.

"'Back"
Ryan ordered.

A scowl of mixed irritation and uncertainty creased Hope's forehead at Ryan's warning, but something she saw in his eyes must have made her fade back toward a place of safety—in regard to flying bullets, anyway.

No place was safe in this madhouse, at the moment.

Ryan gave a regretful glance to his cut and bruised knuckles before he entered the hallway. He had a quick impression of several women looking up from a pile on the floor just inside the viewing room doorway, their hair wild and tangled, their faces wary and showing clear signs of battle. He saw what appeared to be the bald head of Big Mario beneath the heap. As Ryan silently approached, he saw the behemoth's head move sluggishly and then go still.

He tapped on the blond man's shoulder.

When the man turned in surprise Ryan served him an uppercut to the jaw, immediately following with a left directly to his face. Although the man already was falling, Ryan gave him a forceful shove into the other henchman. The guy with the hat stumbled, losing his balance.

Ryan kicked the blond in the groin and took his gun from him as he doubled over, falling heavily on top of the other man, both of them grunting loudly. By the time the man beneath shoved the deadweight of his coworker off him, Ryan had the pistol trained on him.

"Throw it down or I'll shoot you."

"Ryan, get down!" Hope shrieked from directly behind him.

He glanced around in alarm and saw Diamond Jack standing on the other side of the pile of humanity in the doorway, a snarl of hatred on his face, a bloody hand raised and ready to fire Ryan's gun. Ryan flung his weight backward in the direction of Hope, covering her with his body. They both hit the floor with a crash, Hope unfortunately taking the brunt of his weight. The knife she'd been carrying skittered across the wood floor, but Ryan figured it was better off there than accidentally in his back.

He quickly aimed and fired at Jack. Without bothering to wait and see the result, he transferred his attention to the henchman on the floor, who was in the process of raising his pistol and aiming. Ryan winged him like he had Diamond Jack. The man grunted; the pistol clattered to the floor.

Ryan sprung up and surveyed the area for threat. Both of Jack's guards lay unmoving and there was no sign of Jack. The prostitutes stared at him slack-jawed, their faces pale with shock.

"Let's go," Ryan told Hope tensely once he'd helped her up off the floor. He pulled her with him toward the staircase, pausing to retrieve his knife. His eyes widened in disbelief when he felt her jerking back on his hand, resisting him.

"Hope, get back here," Ryan ordered furiously when she yanked her hand out of his and ran over to the prostitutes.

"Quickly! Diamond Jack will kill you when he recovers," Hope hissed at the stunned women.

"Hope, get your butt over—"

She turned around to face him, her expression anxious and desperate.

"Do you want to just leave them all here to die? What do you think Diamond Jack will do to them? They attacked that man. They helped us escape!"

"We haven't escaped yet," Ryan muttered as he scanned the hallway warily. Was it possible that only these two—the guard at the front of the stairs and the doorman—had been warned of what was occurring upstairs at the Sweet Lash? It seemed too good to be true, but Ryan had to admit the large, interior room that housed the bar and staging areas was quite a distance from the front stairs.

Several of the prostitutes started out of trances of shock and looked into the interior of the viewing room. Ryan glanced around in time to see Mel, the elder of the pair who'd performed the Slip and Whip. Her blonde hair hung askew and her cheeks and mouth were smeared crimson with blood. She steadily regarded first Ryan and then Hope in turn with sharp, brown eyes. Ryan instinctively understood that she was the leader among the women.

"Where would we go?" Mel asked Hope cautiously.

"To Addie Sampson at the Marlborough Club. She runs one of the few brothels in the Levee District that isn't controlled by Jack. A word from me and she'll protect you. You can either work for her or go where you choose. I'll provide something for the finances for those that choose to leave. You have my word on it," Hope added quickly when she saw Mel's doubtful expression.

"Decide now, Mel," Ryan said harshly as he retrieved the pistol from the unconscious doorman. He glanced pointedly at Mario. "The giant's awakening. He's not going to be in a good mood when he does."

Mel looked down and saw Mario's huge bald head moving from side to side. He mumbled gutturally in a foreign language. She nodded decisively.

"We're going. There ain't time to get nothing from your rooms, so don't let me hear a word about that. Amy, give Molly your robe." When the woman, who was apparently Amy, opened her mouth as if to protest, Mel pointed a finger at her. "If you're gonna whine, then stay behind, Amy. You got a corset on under your robe and Molly's naked.

Now, let's go."

"Wait," Ryan said to Mel. "Is Jack unconscious?"

She glanced back into the room and nodded quickly.

"Get my gun from him. And the rest of you—
mover

He approached Hope as the women began clambering off a sluggishly moving Mario.

"Stupendous job of following my instructions, Hope," he murmured in exasperation.

"I'm sorry, Ryan, but I couldn't leave you out in the hallway alone. And the women—Jack'll kill them if they stay."

Ryan opened his mouth and closed it. The fierceness of her spirit left him speechless.

And of course, she was 100 percent right about the prostitutes who had participated in the attack. Diamond Jack wasn't the type to lightly accept a rebellion against his authority.

Ryan met Hope's dark-eyed gaze and nodded once.

She sighed with relief.

"Here. Do you know how to use this?" he asked as he handed her the pistol.

"No," she said, eyeing the gun like he'd just put a snake in her hand.

"The safety is on, Hope, just—"

He paused when Mel stepped over Big Mario's body, carrying his SIG. Ryan took it from her and gave her the doorman's pistol in return, pausing to give both Hope and Mel terse instructions on how to use the weapons. In fact, he'd been a little surprised at how modern seeming the pistols were despite the narrow barrels. He would have guessed they'd be revolvers, but they were, in fact, early versions of automatics.

"If you should have to fire, shoot to kill. Chances are you'll hit
something
if you do,"

Ryan instructed.

The women were all assembled now. He told them to wait a moment while he checked out what the situation was in the entry-way. A few seconds later he came to the top of the stairs, raised his finger to his mouth to indicate they needed to be as quiet as possible and beckoned for Hope and the women to follow.

Ryan reached the bottom of the stairs first, pausing at the sound of approaching voices.

He signaled for Hope to go behind him and lead the women out the front door while he waited for whoever approached. Most of the women had scuttled out the door by the time a middle-aged, balding man who was leaning down as he flirted drunkenly with the woman on his arm looked up to see Ryan holding his weapon on him. Ryan noticed that he had a short-brimmed ivory felt hat clutched in his hand.

"What the—"

"Shut up or I'll hurt you."

"What do you want?" the young woman asked. Ryan recognized her as being the prostitute that had been in the lap of the man Jack had clobbered earlier. Up close, she looked like she was about sixteen years old.

"That hat, for starters. It's mine," Ryan informed the man, who had somehow procured his Coach Stagg hat that he'd left at the bar.

The man handed it to him, speechless. Ryan slammed it on his head, his entire ensemble now consisting of his pants, socks, boots and the hat.

He looked at the girl.

"Mel and a bunch of the women are escaping from the Sweet Lash if you'd care to join them," he told her quietly. When her mouth dropped open as though she were about to barrage him with questions he shook his head. "No time. I'm leaving now. If you want to come—"

But Mel saved him further explanations by hissing from the opened doorway. "Sally, get your ass out here. We're leaving the Sweet Lash for good."

Sally looked up at the bald man, who wore a stunned expression.

A huge grin spread on her pretty face. She didn't seem too upset when Ryan brought down the butt of his gun on the man's temple. "Bye-bye, Charlie," Sally whispered happily after Ryan had stuffed the unconscious man's body in the entryway closet.

SIXTEEN

An hour later, Ryan wandered around the drawing room of 1807 Prairie Avenue. Hope had hastily lit a gas lantern and several candles upon their arrival. Since their mission was secret, she didn't dare illuminate any of the newly installed electric fixtures. Mel sat in a yellow print chair and watched him as he prowled around the amazing room.

Hope had left just thirty seconds ago, saying she needed to retrieve something from her bedroom. At first Ryan had insisted upon going with her, still worried about something happening to her.

"Nothing dangerous is going to happen to me in my own house, Ryan," Hope had exclaimed in muted exasperation.

Ryan wasn't so sure about that, however. He still didn't know if he was helping to change Hope's fate or nudging events to make her demise more inevitable. The thought brought him close to panic. It was starting to feel like every choice he made—move right or move left?—was somehow inevitably predetermined. The one thing he knew for certain was that the year 1906 was
not
a healthy year for Hope Stillwater.

He needed to get her out of it as soon as possible. For some strange reason, however, Hope had been adamant that he could
not
accompany her to her bedroom before she'd turned away, blushing, and hurried out of the room.

Ryan's nervousness for Hope's safety had slowly been replaced by awe as he took in the interior of the drawing room.

Every nerve in his body seemed to vibrate with mixed shock and amazement as he studied the details of the luxurious room. The only items of decor that remained in the year 2008 were the priceless mahogany panels covering every square inch of the walls and the elaborately carved fireplace. To see all the rich paintings, oriental carpets, crystal decanters and highly polished silver brought it home with more force than anything he'd experienced yet.

He truly
was
walking around in a different century.

One rarely saw this degree of luxury in modern times or if they did, never was it so naturally and elegantly displayed. This was a room that was clearly lived in and enjoyed, not a stiff, stuffy place where Hope and her father occasionally ushered in august visitors with an aim to impress.

Although the furnishings were well made, with fine woods and luxurious fabrics, the couch and several of the chairs by the fire were slightly worn, indicating how much Hope, her father and their visitors sat and
lived
in here. Ryan picked up a delicate blue-and-white porcelain bowl. Granted, he was no expert on the subject, but it appeared to be a genuine piece of Ming porcelain. Alistair had a few Ming vases that Ryan had studied with interest on several occasions.

He looked inside the bowl and saw that Jacob Stillwater used the priceless object as an ashtray for his cigars.

He shook his head in amazement and replaced the bowl on the table. Hope's father must have inherited his wealth. Surely social reformist ministers didn't make enough financially to afford a Prairie Avenue mansion. He tried to recall if he'd read anything about Jacob Stillwater's roots in the report he'd gotten from Gail, but came up short.

Ryan squinted in the dim light as he studied the portrait of a dark-eyed, dark-haired woman above the fireplace. She wore a lavish sapphire-and-diamond necklace along with matching earrings. The woman's physical similarity to Hope was so striking that it immediately caused a person to seek out the few subtle differences— lips that were thinner in comparison to Hope's lush rosebud mouth, breasts slightly smaller than Hope's, a more aquiline nose—