Yesterday's Roses (40 page)

“Jake!” Penelope admonished, shaking a finger at her grinning brother. “Hallie wanted to tell me something important.”

“Oh, yes! I was going to … Jake!” Hallie squealed, pushing her husband's roving hands away from her waist. “Behave yourself! I need to tell Penelope about my morning call.”

Jake groaned. “Appetizing thought! Did you do some particularly fancy suturing? Or did you cut into some poor wretch's body?”

“Neither.” Hallie laughed and gave her husband's backside a playful swat. He jumped and let out an exaggerated yelp, pretending he'd been gravely wounded by her blow.

Hallie smiled at his lighthearted antics before turning her attention back to Penelope. “Madame de Sonennes tripped over a sandbag while she was rehearsing for this evening's performance. She hurt her ankle, and in order to preserve her modesty, the theater owner contacted me to tend her.”

“Madeleine de Sonennes? The singer?” Penelope choked. The world-famous Madame de Sonennes was in San Francisco to perform in a musical production titled
Gold Rush Nell
. Penelope practically worshiped the singer and had already been to see the operetta twice.

“The very same,” Hallie replied, grinning at the girl's moonstruck expression. “She told me that the girl singing the ingénue's part is leaving the company to get married and they're frantic to find a replacement. I suggested you.”

Penelope's mouth dropped open. “M-Me?”

“Yes. You. She'll hear you sing tomorrow if you're interested. And if she likes you, which I'm sure she will, she'll train you for the role herself.”

“Interested!” Penelope screamed, hurling herself into Hallie's arms to give her a hug. “Of course I'm interested! Oh, Hallie! I do love you! Did you hear that, Jake?”

“I couldn't help but hear,” Jake chuckled, jokingly rubbing his ears as if Penelope's shrieks had impaired his hearing. Giving his sister an affectionate squeeze, he murmured, “I'll look forward to bragging about my sister, the famous singer.”

Suddenly everyone was talking at once, making plans for Penelope's future and speculating on the scope of her coming fame. Even Ariel got into the act, chortling and waving her chubby fists in the air.

“Mister Jake! Mister Jake!” Hop Yung came tearing around the corner at breakneck speed. “Lawmen here—pant—say they take Mister Jake to jail.” He skidded to a stop in front of his employer, his chest heaving from exertion.

“What the hell?” Jake expelled, shaking his head at Hallie's questioning stare.

Struggling to catch his breath, Hop merely nodded.

“Darling?”

“Don't worry,” Jake murmured, tenderly stroking his wife's cheek. “It's got to be some sort of mistake.” Turning back to Hop, he demanded, “Where are the police now?”

Breathlessly, Hop pointed behind him, just as four policemen poured through the small garden gate.

“Mr. Parrish?” snapped a middle-aged officer with steel gray hair and paunchy midsection. “We're here to arrest you for the murder of Arabella Dunlap.”

Hallie gasped with shock, while Penelope stared at Jake, dumbfounded. Hop Yung, who had snatched up the now squalling Ariel, scowled at the policemen belligerently.

“On what basis?” Jake asked, taking Hallie's cold hand in his and giving it a reassuring squeeze.

“You were seen leaving Mrs. Dunlap's house this morning shortly before she was discovered dead. She'd been beaten and strangled. She was buck naked except for one red glove.” The policeman gave a short laugh. “But you already know the details. By the looks of your face, she must've put up quite a fight.”

“Ridiculous!” snorted Penelope, hovering protectively by her brother's side.

Jake stared at the man through narrowed eyes. “And just who are my accusers?”

The officer took out his tablet and shuffled through the pages. “You were seen by two witnesses. A Mr. Cyrus King and a Mrs. Lavinia Donahue. The latter claims that you were a frequent—ahem—visitor of the Widow Dunlap.”

“I was at Arabella's this morning,” Jake confessed, aching as Hallie pulled her hand from his and moved away, staring at him with a wounded expression. He took a step toward her, “Hallie—”

“Aha!” interjected the policeman, signaling for his companions to surround their suspect. “So you confess?”

Jake forced his gaze away from his wife's and glared at the officer. “Of course, I didn't kill Arabella! She was very much alive when I left her. Reverend DeYoung can attest to that fact. And you can ask Judge Dorner about my whereabouts the rest of the day. You'll find him at the athletic club having a drink with Seth Tyler, the man who did this to my face.”

“Well, until we've spoken to—,” The officer paused to look down at his hastily scribbled notes. “Reverend DeYoung, Judge Dorner, and Seth Taylor?”

“Tyler.”

“Tyler.” The man made the correction. “Well, until we've questioned these men, we'll have to hold you at the jail.” He nodded at his companions, who swarmed in and seized their prisoner.

As one of the men clamped irons on his wrists, Jake's gaze sought Hallie's, mutely begging her to have faith in him. But her face was carefully averted, and she refused to look at him.

“Hallie?” he whispered, suddenly terrified, not of the charges brought against him but of the way Hallie had turned away from him. “I—”

His words were cut off as the policemen pushed him toward the gate. Firmly holding his ground, Jake rounded on his captors, snarling, “For God's sake! Have the decency to let me say good-bye to my wife.”

The men looked toward their superior, who shrugged and nodded. “One minute.”

Yanking himself from the officers' restraint, Jake closed the distance between himself and Hallie in several long strides. She didn't move a muscle, nor did she acknowledge his presence as he reached out to touch her.

“Sweetheart,” he murmured, grasping her chin in his palm and forcing her head up.

Hallie focused her gaze on the iron fetters at his wrists, unwilling to look into his eyes. She was numb, frozen inside.
Jake had admitted to seeing Arabella. Her husband had tired of her already.
With a sob, she jerked her face from his hands.

“Fine. Don't look at me,” he sighed, hating the way the tears coursed down her cheeks, despising himself for causing them to fall. “Will you just listen to me, then?”

After a moment, she nodded.

It was a start. “First of all, I didn't kill Arabella.”

Fixing her gaze on the toes of his boots, Hallie nodded.

“Good,” he murmured. “Second. Though I was at her house this morning and have been several times during the last couple of months, there was nothing between us. Not like you're thinking. It was all perfectly innocent. I—”

One of the policemen grabbed Jake's arm and gave it a tug. “Enough. It's time to go now.”

“Damn it! I'm not finished!” Jake ground out.

“Hurry it up, then,” snapped the superior officer. “We can't wait all day while you try to make up with your missus.”

Jake gave the man restraining him a hard shove and pulled himself free. Bending close to Hallie's ear, he whispered, “I love you. Don't you know that I'd never do anything to jeopardize our marriage? I'd kill myself before I'd hurt you.”

No reply.

“Sweetheart—” He sighed heavily. His words were falling on deaf ears. “All right. If you won't listen to me, then ask Seth or Marius what I was doing at Arabella's. They'll explain everything. Please … do it. I love you.”

The desperate plea in his voice tore at Hallie's heart. She wanted so badly to believe him. With a sob, she glanced up at him and for a split second, their eyes met. But that second was long enough for Hallie to read the truth. Jake was looking at her with such hurt, such despair, that all her doubts melted away. Only a man truly in love could be so wounded by his woman's abandonment.

As Jake was being escorted through the garden gate, Hallie picked up her skirts and ran to his side. Throwing her arms around her husband's neck, she exclaimed, “I do trust you, darling.” With that, she gave him a swift, hard kiss, ignoring the way the pressure of her mouth against his split lip made him wince. “And I love you, too.”

“Good,” Jake murmured, relief flooding through him. Tenderly, he returned her kiss.

“Enough!” snapped one of the policemen, pushing Hallie aside and giving his prisoner a shove that almost sent him sprawling.

Penelope shrieked her outrage at seeing her brother treated in such a manner and turned to give the man who had pushed him a severe tongue-lashing.

“I'm coming with you!” Hallie shouted above the chaos.

Jake, whose bad leg was beginning to give way from the policemen's constant prodding, was now fighting to keep his balance. He looked over at his wife, and her expression of mulish determination made him smile. How could anything go wrong with Hallie in his corner? Especially when she was looking so hell-bent on fighting for him?

Giving his head a decisive shake, he shouted back, “No. Go find Marius and bring him to the jail.” He then turned to the houseboy, who was hovering close to his other side. “Hop! Go to my club and fetch Judge Dorner and Seth.”

The little man bobbed his head and raced off across the lawn, Ariel in his arms.

“Penelope?”

Penelope broke off her berating of the policeman long enough to look up at her brother.

“Tell Celine to bake me one of her rhubarb pies. I'm innocent, and I intend to be home in time for dinner.”

Chapter 27

The setting sun glimmered through the stained-glass windows, unfurling ribbons of colored light across the pulpit of the Ascension Tabernacle. It was a new church, immense in its proportions and magnificent in its gothic splendor. Even though Hallie had attended services here for months, the grandeur of the sanctuary never failed to take her breath away.

But today, as she rushed down the aisle toward the vestry, she barely spared her surroundings more than a cursory glance.

“Marius!” She knocked once on the office door before pushing it open and entering the room. Like the rest of the church, it was deserted. Snorting her frustration, she walked over to the cluttered desk, hoping to find a clue as to the preacher's whereabouts.

He had obviously left in a hurry, for the ink bottle was uncorked and his pen was lying next to a piece of parchment partially covered with neat writing. Hallie picked up the paper and quickly scanned its contents.

The mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled.

Sermon notes. It appeared that humility was to be the topic of Sunday's lecture. With a shrug, Hallie let the paper drop from her hand. The parchment rustled softly as it drifted past the edge of the desk, spiraling downward until it came to rest at the corner of the autumn-hued carpet. As she bent forward to retrieve it, the wide expanse of her skirts belled out behind her, upsetting the dustbin beside the desk.

Bang! Whoosh!
Rubbish scattered everywhere. Cursing the impracticality of crinolines, Hallie knelt down and began to clean up the mess. As she pitched a sheath of parchments back into the bin, a colorful piece of cloth slipped free. Hallie reached for the scrape and then froze, her hand poised in midair.

It was a scarlet silk glove, rusty with dried blood. Gingerly, she picked it up, grasping an unsoiled edge between her thumb and index finger. Two faux diamond buttons twinkled at the wrist closure, and Hallie could see a small rent in the fabric where the third had been torn away.

She gasped in horror as comprehension dawned. It all made terrible sense now. The common denominator among the murdered women was their interest in Reverend DeYoung. Serena and Arabella had both spent a great deal of time with him, heading up this committee or leading that fund-raiser, and the prostitutes had been openly enamored of the man himself.

Why someone at the church had felt compelled to kill the women was a question Hallie couldn't begin to fathom. She shook her head and hastily stuffed the glove into her reticule. Perhaps the police could figure it out.

As she made to rise to her feet, she heard a creaking sound directly behind her, followed by a soft scraping. With a startled gasp, she swung her head around. But before she could identify the dark figure hovering over her, pain exploded through her head. Then everything went black.

When Hallie regained consciousness, she found herself lying face down on a hard wood-planked floor. Her hands were numb from being tied behind her back, and the corners of her mouth ached from being stretched by the too-tight gag.

Moaning, she rolled onto her side, trying to peer around her. Except for a faint glimmer of light shining beneath a door, she was completely engulfed in darkness. There was a familiar musty smell permeating the space, and as her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she was able to make out the outlines of flat items piled in towering stacks on either side of her.

Hallie sighed. She had no idea where she was. All she knew was that she was cold and stiff, and her legs hurt. Groaning into the gag, she stretched her bound legs, trying to ease the cramps. She succeeded only in toppling one of the piles.

Books
, she thought, wincing as she was repeatedly bombarded by falling volumes. Lying half buried beneath what felt like the entire literary collection from the San Francisco library, Hallie now realized where she was. She was in the small room behind the altar where the extra hymnals and seasonal decorations were stored.

“Hallie!”

Hallie's breath caught in her throat as she heard the barely audible syllables of her name penetrating through the door.

“Hallie!”

This time the voice was louder … nearer. A whimper escaped her lips.

“Hallie!”

Jake.
Hallie's heart surged with relief. Somehow he'd gotten himself released from jail and had known to come for her. Desperately she tried to answer him, to call out, but the gag between her teeth muffled her voice.

“Hallie?”

Jake's voice seemed to be moving away now. She had to do something … give him a sign … alert him.

Panicked, Hallie kicked at the stack of books closest to her feet. Like the walls of Jericho, they came tumbling down, burying her beneath an avalanche of leather and parchment. Stunned and too sore to move, Hallie lay beneath the pile of books, listening.

There was the sound of footsteps hurrying up the altar steps, followed by a rattling at the door. “Sweetheart?”

Hallie gave the fallen books on top of her a violent kick, an act which was duly rewarded with a loud thump.

“Move away from the door and lie flat on the floor,” she heard Jake yell. “I'm going to shoot the lock off.”

Hallie did as instructed, curling into a tight ball and carefully tucking her face against her chest. After a long moment, she heard the discharge from a gun, and with a splintering crash the lock exploded inward.

Throwing his weight against the door, Jake burst into the room. Wildly he scanned the shadowy cubicle for his wife and when he spied her, an anguished cry escaped his lips.

There, circled in a shaft of light from the open door, was Hallie's still figure. Except for a length of bright hair and a tangle of blue skirts, she was almost completely buried beneath a pile of books. Jake fell to his knees and began to push the books, off her body, terrified that she'd been badly injured.

“Sweetheart?” he gently touched her shoulder. To his relief, she raised her head to look back at him, sobbing into the gag.

“Don't cry, Mission Lady. I'm here,” he crooned, deftly removing the filthy cloth from between her teeth. Sweeping the rest of the hymnals aside, Jake gathered Hallie into his arms, cradling her close. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

“I hurt everywhere,” she replied with a sound halfway between a sob and a hiccup. “But I'll be all right.”

Jake crushed her against his chest, groaning. “God! I've never been so afraid in my life as when I returned home from the jail and found you missing.”

“Not nearly as afraid as I was when you were arrested. How did you get out of jail?”

“Arabella's cook told the police that he'd spoken to her shortly after I left.” Jake turned Hallie onto her belly and draped her across his knees. “The parlor maid confirmed the story. They had no choice but to release me.” He gave the knotted rope at her wrists a tug. It loosened slightly.

“When I arrived home, Coralie LaFlume was at the house. The prostitute who was beaten finally regained consciousness, and she was able to identify her attacker.” Jake pulled out the last of the knots. “It was Marius.”

Hallie lay still for a moment, absorbing the news. “I found the mate to Arabella's glove in Marius's trash bin, but before I could take it to the police, someone hit me from behind.” She pointed to the sore spot at the back of her head. “I was knocked unconscious. When I woke up, I was in the closet, tied up.”

“Poor sweetheart,” Jake whispered, kissing the injured place. “Hop and Coralie have gone for the police. After you've spoken with them, I'm going to take you home and tuck you into bed with a warm brick at your feet.” He helped her sit up and then began to untie her ankles.

“I'd rather have you warm me,” she murmured, closing her eyes with a sigh as the ropes dropped away.

“And I'd like to warm you,” he replied, drawing her back into his embrace. With that, he tipped his head forward and hungrily captured her lips with his. For one brief moment, Jake let himself savor the sweetness of Hallie's kiss, relieved to have her safe and in his arms once again.

Hallie eagerly returned his kiss, a kiss that, in her opinion, was much too brief.

Smiling tenderly at his wife's disappointed expression, Jake explained, “Marius has fled, and I need to help the police find him. I don't want him to have another chance to hurt you.”

Hallie curled up in Jake's lap, her head resting on his shoulder. She felt so warm and safe nestled against the muscular strength of his body. “No one can hurt me while I'm in your arms,” she sighed, snuggling closer.

“Such a touching display of faith,” Marius observed, leveling his pistol at the embracing couple. He didn't miss the way Jake tightened his grip on his wife, nor did he fail to note the man's protective demeanor.
Good.
Then the gossip was true. Jake Parrish was madly in love with his wife.
Marius smiled with satisfaction.
It would devastate him to watch her die.

“Where did you come from, DeYoung?” Jake snapped, glancing around for his gun. “I searched the church thoroughly.” Damn! He'd set his pistol by the door when he found Hallie, and it lay just out of his reach.

“Obviously not thoroughly enough,” Marius replied coolly.

“Why, Marius?” Hallie whispered, staring up at the man who had always seemed to be the personification of the word “goodness.” “I thought we were friends.”

“Sometimes friends get in one's way.”

Jake subtly shifted Hallie on his lap as he inched toward his gun. Her voluminous skirts camouflaged his motions, and he thanked God for crinoline skirts.

“What do you want, DeYoung?” he ground out, giving Hallie a furtive nudge in the side. She seemed to sense what he was about and moved accordingly.

“Thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”

“Stop speaking in riddles.”

“Hardly a riddle. But, of course, if you had spent more time at church and less time sniffing after Dr. Gardiner's skirts, you would understand exactly what I mean.” The preacher advanced one step forward. “The translation is quite simple: vengeance. I mean to bring you down. To punish you. To make you suffer for the crimes of your blood.”

“And what exactly have I done to deserve punishment?”

“He walked in all the sins of his father,” quoted Marius, idly tapping his finger against the trigger of the gun. “Are you not the son of Reed Parrish?”

“What has my father got to do with anything?” Jake snaked his hand beneath the fabric of Hallie's outspread skirts, effectively disguising his movement as he reached for his pistol.

“Your father … and mine.”

That brought Jake up short.

Marius laughed at Jake's shocked expression. “Oh, yes. It's true …
brother.
Not that our father ever acknowledged me.” His voice seethed with venom. “After all, my mother was just a housemaid, and I was nothing more than the unfortunate result of a youthful indiscretion.”

Hallie opened her mouth to speak, but quickly clamped it shut again as Jake gave her a warning squeeze. The way Marius was waving the gun at them terrified her.

“Our grandfather sent his randy son on a grand tour of Europe as
punishment
for his dalliance,” the preacher rasped, his handsome face twisting into a mask of bitterness. “As for my mother, she was turned out without a reference.”

His voice began to rise, taking on the booming, sonorous quality he used during his most inspirational sermons. “I was born in a New York tenement to a mother forced into prostitution to keep food in her mouth.
You
were born in a mansion to a mother from a wealthy family.”

Marius's eyes narrowed as he studied his half brother. “I used to see you riding with your parents in their carriage. You inherited your mother's beauty and our father's arrogance. How I hated you.” His voice was soft now. Chillingly so. “Nothing was too good for the mighty Parrish heir … the Parrish son. While you spent your early years being loved and coddled, I spent mine in a one-room hellhole trying to make myself invisible while my mother entertained her
friends
.”

The sight of his mother pleasuring those men, her hands always clad in scarlet silk gloves, was indelibly etched into his brain. The darker scenes, those filled with horror and degradation, had been ruthlessly locked away in the deepest dungeons of his memory. Memories to be hidden but not forgotten, shackled to his subconscious by his shame.

“By the time I was seven, I knew every perverse sexual act by heart. I'd even experienced a few myself, seeing as how some of the men preferred young boys.”

Hallie gasped. “Your mother let them use you so?”

“Gladly,” he snapped. “After all, the price for young boys far exceeded that for wornout whores. The money she made from allowing some old reprobate to use me was enough to support her opium habit for a month.” He shifted his gaze from Hallie's compassion-filled face to stare down at the gun in his hand. “When I was nine, my mother was murdered. Strangled by a dissatisfied customer.”

And he'd felt nothing when he'd found her. By the time he was eight, Marius had taken to roaming the city streets, picking pockets, sometimes staying away from the tenement for days on end. She had been killed during the hottest part of the summer and had lain there for several days before he'd discovered her.

Marius almost gagged as he remembered the smell. Her face had been bloated beyond all recognition, her peeling skin a deep angry purple. On her hands had been the tattered remains of the red gloves with their faux diamond buttons, gloves which had been a gift from his father nine years earlier.

She had been his mother and he'd felt nothing.

After his mother's death, he'd been claimed by his only living relative, an itinerant street preacher by the name of Uriah DeYoung. For the next eight years, young Marius was dragged from town to town, spending his days listening while his uncle preached hellfire and redemption to unrepentant sinners. Marius had quickly learned that the word “hell” was synonymous with night, for it was then that Uriah had turned his attention to the redemption of his nephew's soul, a soul tainted almost beyond salvation by the stain of his bastardy.