Forgiven (21 page)

Even though people moved about and it was broad daylight, anything I did was useless. What had I been thinking coming after him? Coming here? Wilkie could throw me over his shoulder and march me away, and even if I screamed, it’d merit scarcely a look. No one knew where I was, and even if they did, no one in this town cared for me—not Will, not Miss Everts, not David . . .

David—David was right around the corner. David and Min. Wilkie had followed me, and I’d led him straight to a meeting between David and Min.

I didn’t want Wilkie to see them together. I feared for them, too. I thought about the money I’d earned from Sebastian Gable. “What if I told you I could pay you?”

“You?” He threw back his head and roared with laughter. And then to my horror, he stepped to one side, and caught David and Min in his line of sight. Wilkie’s laugh cut short, and I saw David and Min, their faces, and I knew. And so did they. We were all caught in Wilkie’s web.

“Well,” said Wilkie. David stepped in front of Min, putting himself between her and Wilkie. “Ain’t that a pretty sight. And don’t that beat all. And now I know who’s been betraying me.” Wilkie’s face grew dark, and I saw in it the hurt, the anger, and all directed at Min.

I tried to reach Min before Wilkie did, but she was faster. She pushed past David and past me and went direct to Wilkie. He took her chin in his great fist as David tried to press on them, but Min thrust out her arm against David. She succumbed to Wilkie.

“Shall we have a talk, yes, my love?” said Wilkie.

Min’s eyes closed, and she nodded as best she could.

“You leave her alone.” David started forward.

“Or what?” Wilkie turned his narrowed eyes on David. He lowered his voice. “What are you going to do to me? Look around. You think you start a fight in here you can finish? I got more friends in this here byway than you have in the entire country. So back off. You think you can protect that one there, too?”

He meant me, and now I saw—David could not help Min and me both, not here.

“Back off,” Wilkie repeated.

David stepped away.

Min reached her hands up and took Wilkie’s in her own. “I love you.”

“Yes, I’m sure you do. And I love you, too, my Jezebel. So off we go then, right? And you”—Wilkie looked back at me—“don’t you worry none, I’ll come find you again, girl. I’ll find you.” Wilkie took Min’s arm in that vice grip, and David and I, helpless, watched them walk away, Min stumbling behind Wilkie.

“He’ll kill her,” David said. I heard the anguish in his voice.

“He loves her. I’ve seen it. He hurts her, but he’d never . . .”

David looked at me as if I were simple. “Do you think that matters anymore, Kula? Come on, Wilkie was right. We’re fish in a barrel here in the Barbary.”

“You were here for her.”

He laughed as if I was an idiot. “She’s a spy. She watches Wilkie’s movements. That’s what he meant—he knew there was a spy on him, and now he knows it’s been her. She’s been helping us so we can find out where the girls are, when to get them out. She’s been doing this for months. And if you hadn’t interfered, it wouldn’t have turned out like this.” David grabbed me by the shoulders. “What are you doing here? You’ve been interfering right from the start. All that business about your father’s box. You’ve been messing with things that we’ve set up, and so many lives in the balance. You’ve cost us so much. And Min’s life, now, that’s almost certain.”

“I was trying to help!” His words stung—though I knew they were true. It was because of me that Min . . . I’d as good as led Wilkie right to her. I pressed my palm to my forehead, shut my eyes.

“No, Kula. You weren’t helping anyone but yourself. Let’s think. You said you were trying to find a way to get your father out of a jam, but really you wanted whatever treasures were in that box. When we first met, you pretended to be Miss Everts’s guest, not her servant. You played all sincere when you just wanted to become a society girl. Between me and Will, you chose Will because he has the money, the power. You’ve been playing two sides of the fence for too long.”

I pulled away from him and leaned back against the bricks. “You’re right.” I knew what my heart wanted now, but it was too late. Too late.

He waved his hand in the air, not looking at me. “That won’t help Min.”

“What can we do?” I’d lost him forever, but I couldn’t lose Min.

“We need to see Miss Everts.”

“Miss Everts—no! David, she’s in league with Wilkie. I’ve seen it! We can’t—”

“No.” David shook his head, with a harsh laugh. “No, she’s not. Phillipa Everts has been walking a very tight rope for a very long time. You’ll see.”

“But I saw her giving him money. She’s—”

“Come on. You’ll understand.” I followed him out of the alley, and out of the Barbary, but he wouldn’t look my way.

David was right. I hadn’t saved my father. I’d let myself believe that I stood a chance in Will’s world, and threw away the one man who held my heart. And I hadn’t saved Min, but doomed her. David was right. I’d had my mind fixed on myself.

Chapter
TWENTY- NINE

April 16, 1906

 

 

 

 

MISS EVERTS WAITED IN HER DRAWING ROOM, ALMOST as if she knew we were coming. At first glance, she looked as she always did: done up in her silk and satin. But when David and I walked into the room, I noticed something new. The dress she wore today—expensive, surely, for the fabric was blue silk and the details finely made—was fraying a bit along the hem, and the lace had been mended more than once. And she wore no jewelry.

David spoke first. “Miss Everts, Wilkie discovered Min with me. He knows about her.”

“That’s unfortunate.” She spoke softly and, I was surprised to hear, not without compassion.

“We have to get to Min—”

Miss Everts pursed her lips and didn’t respond.

I clenched my fists. I could no longer play these games. “Miss Everts. I’m hiding a girl in my bedroom. I’d wager you know that already.”

She nodded. “The clothes you bought her were delivered in your absence. And Jameson isn’t blind.” She smiled, a fleeting smile. “I’m proud of you for thinking to protect the poor thing.”

I straightened my shoulders. “And I saw you with Wilkie. I saw you hand him money at the Hendersons’. You’re working with him. You’ve been working with him all along.” My voice rose with every word I spoke.

David, standing at my elbow, coughed.

She said, “Well, now. David, tell her, for pity’s sake. She knows enough of it anyway and is only going to keep getting it wrong.”

“Kula, Miss Everts is trying to save the girls. But to do that, she has to either buy them or steal them away. It all has to be done with great care and secrecy; that’s why no one told you anything. No one in the law wants to get mixed up in Chinese business. No one in the government will back us up. Wilkie has powerful connections. We have to do what we can.”

“I have a home across the bay, if you remember,” Miss Everts said. “That’s our way station. We smuggle them out, to safety.”

“So,” I said, “Yue and Mei Lien, you stole them?”

“Not Mei Lien,” said Miss Everts. “Jameson bought her straight off the docks. We’ve let Josiah Wilkie think that Jameson has a . . . fetish. That’s what you saw me doing that night—buying girls.” Miss Everts sighed. “But it’s expensive. I haven’t enough money left for buying these poor girls outright. I’ve just about run through everything. Stealing them before Wilkie gets his hands on them is our only recourse now.”

The candlesticks, the silver, the worn clothes, the missing jewelry. I knew where the money had come from. She was, indeed, trying to save souls. I’d misjudged her, and badly. In that instant, Miss Everts gained my undying devotion. I bit the inside of my cheek, took a breath. “But I don’t understand. Mr. Henderson was there when you paid Wilkie . . . How are the Hendersons involved? And what about my father?”

David spoke up. “Wilkie’s been in and out of the business for years, trafficking in human flesh. The Hendersons, well, William Henderson, and now Will, employ Wilkie to do various bits of their dirty work.”

This was beyond imagining. “But how could they? How could the Hendersons let Wilkie do such a thing? Trafficking in girls . . .” I could hardly form the words.

“They don’t know.” Miss Everts was firm. “At least young Will does not. He thinks it’s all import and export of art and other goods, not slaves. When you saw me in that room, Kula, William Henderson thought I was paying Wilkie for some stolen art.”

I whispered, “Why didn’t you tell me?” I thought about what I might have done differently, what might have changed . . .

David said, “We didn’t want to involve you. This is dangerous business. We didn’t want you to know.”

“But whyever not?” My blood boiled up. “If I don’t know about it, then I can’t help to stop it, can I? I hate it! It’s outrageous and ugly.”

“Of course it is,” said Miss Everts. “Dear girl, it’s the way the world works. Unfortunately, there’s much that is ugly about life.”

I thought I knew. I thought I knew so much, about Miss Everts, about the girls . . . about everything. I’d seen ugliness and conniving and tricks and ways to manipulate, and I thought I’d understood. I thought my world was a harsh one, and if I just escaped my own life, it would all be so much better. Everything I believed was turned upside down and inside out, and ugly things were tumbling from its pockets.

“I want to help,” I said.

David spoke. “We have to get Yue out of here and across the bay. Wilkie knows Yue’s here, but I don’t think he’ll act, at least not yet. Still, we don’t have much time. William Henderson is managing a shipment of art that leaves here early on the morning of the eighteenth, and that’s our cover.” He turned to me to explain, and I saw the emotion in his eyes. “Miss Everts takes the art, stores it, and when she disperses it to customers, that’s when we smuggle the girls out of San Francisco with the art.” He brushed his hair back from his forehead. “It’s a tricky business. We use oversize crates to get them across the bay. Everything is done at the last possible moment. The last thing we want is for any of them to suffer further.”

“And when they reach Sausalito? Where do the girls go then?”

“We have connections,” said Miss Everts. “Thank the good Lord there are still decent people left in the world. They find employment elsewhere, where people will treat them right.” She watched me for a minute. “Your father, Kula. He’s recently become one of our connections.”

I cried out. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t he tell me?” All of the lies, the betrayal . . . I could have helped them. I pressed my hand to my heart.

She waved her hand. “I didn’t see how you could help. I’m concerned that your father’s current situation is a result of his involvement.”

David said, “We think he was set up. He and a Quaker family just outside of Yellowstone Park were tending to one large group of girls we had traveling through.”

“The Blacks,” Miss Evert said. “I imagine you could put the rest of the picture together.”

I was right—Pa had been set up. And finally, I understood. Those girls were Pa’s unfinished business; that was why he hadn’t joined me at Mrs. Gale’s. Mr. Black: murdered, but not by my father. And murdered because he was helping the girls. “Then we have to uncover their scheme. Expose them all. It’s the only chance my father has. The only chance any of them have.” My voice was firm.

David and Miss Everts exchanged a look.

“What?” I asked. “I will help with this—you’re talking about my pa here.”

David said, “We’ll try. Let’s get the girls out first. And Min.”

Miss Everts reached for her fan. “Heavens, it’s warm for April. David, please open some windows.”

I gripped my arms tight, hugging myself as if to keep my heart from exploding from my chest. Everything I believed in was shaken from me, even my old suspicions. Saving my pa had been all about me; now saving my pa was about something larger. I watched David as he unlatched and shifted the windows open, letting in the warm, moist late afternoon air.

Miss Everts said, “Now, Kula. I do have something for you to do. Mr. Sebastian Gable has asked that you attend the opera with him tomorrow night.”

“What? Me?” Opera? I was clueless.

“Caruso is singing. It will be quite the event.”

“I don’t know who that is. And really, I don’t see how that will help anything. It won’t help me find the box. And it certainly won’t help Min or those girls.”

“Ah, but it will. Wilkie often acts as bodyguard to the Hendersons. And both father and son will be attending. They will all be at the Opera House on Tuesday night.”

“But what has that to do with me? I don’t understand!”

“My dear girl, you want to help. By attending and drawing the attentions of Mr. Henderson and his son and Wilkie, not to mention keeping an eye on them, you will afford us a window to get the crates ready for the next morning. Thanks to Min, we’ve learned that a ship with girls is due in during the night Tuesday and the girls offloaded into a warehouse. David needs to bribe the guard and spirit the girls out of the warehouse and out of the city at dawn on Wednesday. I must assist him. I shall not be missed at the opera if the Henderson eyes are upon you.” She raised her fan, beating it vigorously about her face. “I wonder if we shall have storms. This stillness and heat are unnatural.”

I would hear Caruso, whoever he was, sing opera, whatever that was. I had twenty-four hours to learn what I could from Miss Everts about both so I would not appear foolish. I had no time to find another gown; I’d have to wear the scarlet-colored gown again. Perhaps it would remind Will of a time when he looked on me with favor. But after our argument at the beach, I wasn’t sure I wanted him to look at me at all—not after what I’d learned today. Not after knowing that he had my father’s box, that he might even be involved in the slavery of Chinese girls.