Deadly Illusions. Brenda JoyceЧитать онлайн книгу.
name, which was no more Irish than her own. She was surprised she had been wrong, but there was still a pattern. She went grimly forward but Newman suddenly detained her. “Miz Cahill? Should you be here? I mean—” and he blushed crimson “—this is a police matter and if the c’mish is not here, I am not quite certain you should be.”
Francesca didn’t hesitate. “I am officially on this case, Inspector, and we both know the commissioner will be supportive of that.” She smiled, at once friendly and firm. But she no longer knew just how supportive of her investigative work Rick Bragg would be. So much had changed—and so quickly.
“Well, I guess I won’t have to decide!” Newman cried in relief as footsteps sounded behind them from the hallway.
Francesca didn’t have to turn to know who it was. She tensed as the police commissioner strode past the sawhorse and into the room.
He was a handsome, charismatic man. Once, she had thought him the most handsome man on the planet, but that had been before she had learned of his estranged wife and his on-again, off-again marriage. Rick Bragg stood a bit over six feet tall, his stride long and purposeful, his shoulders broad, the brown duster he wore for motoring swinging about him. His complexion was dark, his hair golden, and no one looking at him could mistake his air of authority and purpose. In fact, the night they had met at a ball held by her family, in spite of the crowd she had seen him the moment he entered the room. But that felt like a different lifetime, and she had been a different woman, oh yes.
Their gazes met and held.
She realized she had bit her lip and that her fists were balled up. Her pulse had also accelerated. “Hello,” she said, trying not to be nervous. But it was hard. Once, they had been in love. Now she was engaged to his most bitter rival—his half brother, the wealthy and notorious Calder Hart.
If he was surprised to see her, he did not evince it. “Francesca,” he said, pausing before her. His gaze did not move, not even once, from her to the victim or the crime scene. “This is a surprise.”
She stared into his amber eyes and instantly saw how tired he was, both emotionally and physically. She ached for him. She knew he had agonized over the condition of his wife. And suddenly she did not want to talk about Margaret Cooper—she wanted to talk about him, his wife and the two children fostering with them. She wanted to take his hand, she wanted to help.
Instead, briskly, she said, “I ran into Isaacson from the Tribune.” She tried to smile but it felt like a grimace and he simply stared, saying nothing. Her anxiety increased and she clutched her purse with both hands. “He must have been at headquarters when the call came in. When he told me that it might be the Slasher, and that the victim lived on Tenth Street and Avenue A, I had to come directly over. Maggie and her children live two doors away, Bragg,” she said earnestly.
“I know,” he said. His expression softened. “I was concerned myself.” He hesitated, studying her with some intensity, his gaze dipping to the way she held her purse.
She smiled a little at him. He did not smile back. It was simply awkward now, being with him. What should she say, what should she do? Were they still friends? Did he hate her? Had he forgiven her for becoming engaged to the man he bitterly despised? Had he accepted the fact that one day she would marry Hart? For she had finally, with great difficulty, accepted the fact that Bragg belonged with his wife.
Francesca wanted to reach out to him and demand answers to all those questions, but she did not dare. How selfish it would be. But God, there was no one she admired more, no one more noble, more determined, more honorable than Rick Bragg. He had been appointed police commissioner with the charge of re forming the city’s infamously corrupt police department, but it was like spitting into the wind. He had fired some officers, hired new ones, reassigned entire units, but every small step forward was gained at a painful cost. The press hounded his every move. The clergy and the reform movement demanded he do more; politics demanded he do far less. Tammany Hall had lost the last election, but still ruled most of the city. He was up against Platt’s political organization, and the mayor, elected on a re form platform, did not always back him up, afraid of losing the working man’s vote. An election loomed, one Mayor Low did not want to lose. Bragg fought it all, alone.
She knew he would never give up.
And all this with his wife lying in the hospital, the victim of a tragic carriage accident. “I heard that Leigh Anne will be going home soon,” she suddenly said, reaching for his hand without thinking about it. He started as her fingers closed over his, and realizing what she had done, she quickly released him.
“Yes. In fact, they will release her tomorrow.” He looked away.
Francesca knew him so well—or once she had. Now she could not tell whether it was grief or guilt that made him flinch and turn away. “Thank God she regained consciousness within days,” Francesca whispered, a small hurt inside her heart. Why couldn’t she simply hug him and hold him close? He needed to be comforted, that much she knew. She might be engaged to another man, but she would always love Rick, too.
He was grim and he did not speak.
“Is the prognosis the same?” she asked. She had gone to the hospital several times, but in the end had only visited with the rest of the Braggs, who had been coming and going to see Leigh Anne, and not with Leigh Anne herself. She had been afraid of her reception; she had not wanted to upset the other woman, either.
“She will never walk again.” His tone was flat, final. He glanced past her at the victim. “If this is the work of the so-called ‘Slasher,’ then we have a serial killer on the loose.” He walked over to the bed.
Francesca followed until they both stood within feet of the victim. “But the first two victims survived, if the reports I have read were correct.”
He grimly surveyed the body in the bed. The sheets were a cheap coarse cotton, and except for the bloodstains, freshly laundered. The woman’s hair was undone and some of it lay across her neck. “They did survive. Both attacks were one week apart, exactly, each on subsequent Mondays.”
“Oh dear,” Francesca said, intrigued in spite of the terrible tragedy she was witness to. The reporters had failed to note that. “Was this woman killed yesterday?”
“She was found at noon today. But I am going to hazard a guess that she was killed last night, Francesca.” He gave her a significant look.
If the woman had been in her underclothes, then she had been murdered either first thing in the morning, or in the evening before bed. “Rick, I had read that the first two victims were Irishwomen in their twenties. Is that true?”
He leaned over the woman and moved her long, tangled dark red hair away from her neck. Her throat was brutally slit. Francesca wanted to gag; instead, she closed her eyes and breathed hard. No matter how many cases she had, she was certain she would never grow accustomed to violence and death. Of course, there had only been six investigations thus far. Her career as a sleuth had begun last January when her neighbor’s son had been abducted. She had tried to help, never imagining how it would change her life.
Bragg straightened. “Both victims were Irishwomen in their twenties, yes. Both were estranged from their spouses. From the look of this cut, I would say the Slasher has been at work again, but this time with deadly results.”
Francesca stared, forgetting all about her fiancé. She fought her queasiness. “This woman is not Irish. The name Cooper is as American as apple pie.”
“A pattern remains. Three attractive young women, each without means, assaulted on subsequent Mondays.”
Francesca agreed. “Do you think she was killed accidentally? Or is murder now the Slasher’s intent?”
“I have no idea. But if she was murdered Monday, and if the Slasher holds true to the course he has set, there will be another victim in six days exactly.” He faced her and their gazes met.
“We will find this killer, Bragg. And I do mean it.”
He started and, finally,