Page 55 of House of Sin
Carl nodded grimly. “I don’t believe it’s just hearsay, Maeve. I’ve seen how he watches the girls in town . . . it ain’t right.”
I stayed quiet for a moment, the pressure in my chest tightening until it felt as though my ribs might splinter beneath it. The very thought of Father Frederick lingering somewhere near the brothel made my skin crawl. “You think he’s really what they say?” I asked at last, my voice softer than I intended.
Carl looked at me seriously. “I think there’s more to him than meets the eye. Something dangerous.”
I sat up, the sheets slipping from my skin, nipples tightening in the cold. “Dangerous?”
“Oh, definitely.” Carl affirmed, shifting on the bed with a look of discomfort on his face. “The way he talks to the young girls, the way he watches them . . . it’s like he’s searching for something, and I don’t think it’s salvation.”
I let out a slow breath and swung my legs over the side of the bed, my toes brushing the cold floor. The old boards groaned beneath me, the familiar creakgrounding me. “If he’s sniffing about,” I said, dragging my slip over my head, “I’ll deal with him myself. I don’t care if he’s wearin’ white robes or fucking armor. He so much as lays a finger on anyone in this house, I’ll take his bloody hands off at the wrists.”
Carl studied me, something shifting behind his eyes. Respect, maybe. Or fear, hard to tell sometimes with men, as the line between the two was often thin.
“Just . . . be careful,” he cautioned. “If what they say about him is true, men like him don’t play fair. And they don’t stop ’til they’ve taken everything.”
I gave a crooked smile. “Love, I was raised by men like him. I’ve danced ‘round their fists, emptied their wallets, and left ‘em cryin’ for their mothers. He’s no different.” But even as I said it, something inside me whispered:Yes, he is.
After Carl left, I stayed in my room, pacing the narrow stretch between the bed and the window, the floorboards sighing beneath my feet. I wanted to write it off as rumor, to tell myself that whispers had a way of twisting into monsters by the time they reached our ears, but Carl wasn’t the sort to spin lies, and never about something this dark.
Eventually, I moved to the window and parted the curtains. Moonlight spilled across the streets, bleaching them bone-white, casting the town in a ghostly quiet. I let my gaze wander over the cobblestones, and just as I was about to turn away, something shifted in the shadows beyond the lamplight—a flicker, a shape. My heart stuttered in my chest, and for a breathless moment, I couldn’t tell if the cold crawling up my spine came from fear . . . or recognition.
Father Frederick. As if the act of speaking his name had summoned him, and he was close. Far too close. “He’s here.” I whispered, my voice barely audible, even to myself. My fingers curled tight around the windowsill, the wood biting into my palms as anger rose inside me.I had to tell Birdie.
38
I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE SOMETHING…
The night had settled fully over The Oily Cat. The usual ruckus from the bar downstairs had dwindled, and Elona & Violet were finished for the evening, their laughter fading out the door. I’d been moving room to room, checking locks and drawing curtains, setting the place to sleep like I always did. When I knockedon the door of the room Maeve had occupied that night, I didn’t expect it to open so quickly. The sound of my knuckles had barely faded before the latch turned, and there she stood, backlit by the thin ray of moonlight spilling in from her window, curls wild, and her face half-swallowed by shadow in a way that told me whatever storm she carried inside her chest was neither fleeting nor gentle.
“Bernadette,” she said, voice tight, “we need to have a word.”
I stepped inside without asking, easing the door shut behind me. Maeve was pacing, again. She was moving in the same restless, angry rhythm she always fell into when something was wrong and her fists weren’t enough to fix it. I folded my arms and steadied myself for whatever she was about to say. “What’s going on?” I asked.
Maeve’s eyes shot toward the window, her face looked pale, almost haunted. “It’s Father Frederick.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, like she was afraid of saying his name too loud.
Dread crept in and I felt my face harden, a reaction almost beyond my control. “What about him?” I asked, though I already knew it wouldn’t be good.
Her accent always deepened when worry took hold, soft vowels curling around her words until they felt heavier. “Carl said he’s been seen outside, more than once, in the wee hours, right ’fore the sun comes up.”
Maeve stopped pacing, her movements jerky as she turned to face me, her green eyes looking darker than usual, like stormwater. “Lurkin’. Just standin’ out there, watchin’. He’s got no business bein’ anywhere near this place, but he keeps comin’ back all the same.” She took a breath, jaw working. “Carl said he’s not just passin’ through, Birdie, he says the man was run outta Illinois. Quietly, y’know? Not a word, no uproar, just gone one day. Moved along like a bad smell.”
My arms tightened across my chest, a shield I didn’t even realize I was raising. “Moved for what?” I asked, bracing for the answer.
Her voice dropped again, and it wasn’t just fear—it was fury trying not to shake loose. “Girls, Bernadette, young ones. That’s what the whispers said, that he had . . . leanin’s.” Her hands clenched at her sides. “And the church, they didn’t fight him. Didn’t throw him out proper, just packed him up and sent him somewhere no one’d look too hard.”
My breath caught hard in my chest from the way it all fell too neatly into place. “Violet . . .” I whispered, the sound barely audible, weighed down by fear, and anger.
Maeve nodded quickly. “Aye. Him and that look he gets. You’ve seen it, the way he watches her. And not justher, the younger ones too, the fresh faced ones that don’t know better. He watches them like he’s choosin’, like he’s settin’ a clock to somethin’ awful.”
I turned away from her, every muscle in me coiling, and I felt physically ill. Violet was eighteen, but with the softness of her face and the slightness of her frame, she could have passed for fourteen with little effort. “You’re sure?” I asked, fighting to keep my voice steady.
“Carl swears it.” Maeve said, her chin lifted with a brittle confidence. “Said he saw him standin’ out front just before sunrise. Starin’ up at the windows, like he was waitin’, or markin’ the place. And I swear on mylife, Birdie, that I just saw his shadow move outside. Not even a moment before you knocked on my door.”
Hunched forward, I pressed my palms against my thighs, trying to calm my mind, while Maeve’s hands fluttered at her sides like she didn’t quite know what to do with them. Outside, a chill wind rattled the windowpanes, carrying with it a faint, distant howl. Each sound seemed amplified, a cruel reminder that nothing was safe. “If he’s creeping around outside my brothel,” I said, stepping forward, “then he’s not just trespassing, he’s hunting.”
Maeve’s posture shifted, shoulders squaring, spine straightening. There was something new behind her eyes now—relief, maybe, or the faint release of a burden she had been carrying alone, finally shared. “What do we do, then?” She asked. “Do we go to him? Confront the bastard?”
“No,” I said, finally regaining some of my composure. “Not yet. We don’t show our hand until we’ve got something solid. Right now, we watch him, and we keep the girls close.”
