Chapter 43

They stopped on the outskirts of Harpenden. The driver pulled over and remained in the car, but the dark-haired thug pulled Saffron and then Elizabeth out and made them stand on the side of the road next to the cab.

The midmorning sun, though high and bright in the clear sky, did little to warm Saffron. Next to her, Elizabeth was bouncing on the balls of her feet and puffing out angry white clouds.

"Why are we here?" she asked, waving a hand to indicate the empty field next to the road.

"Waitin' for someone," said the dark-haired man.

"And why can't we wait inside?" she demanded, pointing to where Colin sat in the cab.

He shrugged and lit a cigarette.

"Ridiculous," Elizabeth muttered.

Saffron inched a bit further away from the man and whispered, "Should we run?"

"They have guns, I have no doubt," Elizabeth replied. "What did you find at the lab last night?"

"Someone discovered a fungus that reminded Alexander of one he heard about in Brazil, one that can alter the behavior of insects. The bit of the report we saw said it had devastating potential."

Elizabeth's mouth dropped open. "I cannot even begin to understand that. Do they have it in the laboratory?"

"I think Wells stole the samples and the reports on it. He must have given them to Alfie to pass to the radical. We found only bits and pieces of evidence left over at the lab. And Sergeant Simpson was there, he had more information." Saffron quickly explained about Simpson's efforts to solve the mystery on his own.

"So he's in town, and he knows what is going on!" Elizabeth looked relieved.

"But how can we communicate with him? We're stuck with these … people," Saffron whispered back, nodding toward the cab and the bruiser leaning against it, trails of smoke obscuring his face.

"One of us will have to get away. Considering you know where Simpson has been staying and I do not, it'll have to be you."

"But they need me to get into the lab."

"That is a problem." Elizabeth blew out another steaming breath on a sigh. "Now would be an excellent time for Nick to show up out of the blue."

As if in answer, a sleek red motorcar slowed on the road and came to a stop behind theirs.

Saffron gave Elizabeth a look. "If that worked, I'll have to take back everything I said about that phony psychic in the 5th arrondissement."

"Darling, if it's Nick in that motorcar, I'll take up as a performing psychic myself."

The occupants were hidden behind the glare of the windshield. One emerged, the other remained inside. The one who came out was not Nick.

"Guess no one will be calling me Madame Elizabeta," Elizabeth grumbled. "That is Alfie Tennison."

Colin stepped out of the cab, smiling grimly at Saffron and Elizabeth. "Ladies, come meet your new employer."

Alfie Tennison approached the cab. He walked with a slight limp, as Elizabeth had reported he would, and wore a brown pinstripe suit with a bright yellow and green striped tie beneath a rather luxurious fur-collared overcoat. His face was ruddy and worn, and its age didn't match the too-even muddy brown color of his hair. He held out his hands as he approached them.

"Miz Hale and Miz Everleigh," he said with an exaggerated bow. His accent matched his broad smile. "A pleasure. Coulda knocked me over with a feather when one of my boys told me one of you had managed to sneak into my office the other night. I should skin the pair of you, but I love a woman with gall, I do."

"Perhaps your fondness for bold women will extend to the favor of letting us go," Elizabeth said with a charming smile.

He smirked. "Not even if you were willing to put that pretty mouth of yours to good use. Heard you could, but, ah, no time for that."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "More's the pity."

Saffron elbowed her. She didn't trust Alfie's cheerful demeanor for a moment.

Alfie chuckled. "Indeed. Now, my friend has some information he's in need of. Not pleased at all by the delay." He jabbed a finger at Saffron. "You're the one been in that laboratory. You're the one to go in to get what I want."

He paused, looking almost expectant. "Usually, this is the part when folks get their backs up and say stupid things like, ‘And if I don't?'"

Elizabeth and Saffron exchanged a look. Saffron cleared her throat. "We like to avoid saying stupid things."

"It's clear you have my brother," Elizabeth said. "I assume you're going to use that to make us do as you like."

"If I was making you do as I like, luv, we'd be in that motorcar going somewhere a bit cozier than a laboratory. No, you and your friend will be getting me what I'm due. My first scientist failed to get me all the pieces and parts for my associate. Once you've collected for me, I'll let you collect your friends."

"What friends?" Saffron asked at the same time Elizabeth said, "You said you have Nick."

"Didn't say nothin' about who I had," Alfie said with a twinkle in his eye. "But I will say I've got two strappin' young men in my care who are none too pleased with my hospitality."

A sudden suspicion dropped into Saffron's stomach like a brick.

"I might be offended," Alfie continued, "but I've seen the place they're being kept, and I'd surely be unhappy with such accommodations myself." He sighed melodramatically and patted his paunch. "And the state they're in, I hope you ladies can be quick about it. Anything could happen if you dawdle."

"Who do you have?" Saffron asked.

Alfie turned the full weight of his gaze on her, and in his gray eyes, she saw no hint of the charm of his smile. "Pretty sure you already know, luv."

Alexander. Alexander was trapped along with Nick, and one or both of them were hurt. Her knees went weak.

Elizabeth's arm came around her shoulder. "So we go into the lab, find … something, and then we all go free? I somehow doubt that's how things are going to go."

Alfie's brows rose. "I am offended you'd suggest I'm not a man of my word."

"I am offended that you think we're that stupid!" Elizabeth retorted. "I want assurance that we'll go free."

With a patronizing smile, Alfie said, "Like what?"

"I have a friend in Harpenden. Doesn't know anything about this, or the lab," Saffron burst out as an idea struck her. "You tell her we'll be at her house for lunch."

Alfie blinked. "Why the devil would I do that?"

"Because if someone is expecting us, they'll know if we go missing," Saffron said.

"I could just make a telephone call," Alfie said easily. "Say the fellows in my care are to no longer be among the livin'. How's that for an assurance?"

Saffron swallowed hard and stepped out of Elizabeth's protective embrace. Keeping her voice low, she said, "You've got a man in Lord Tremaine's office. You've got people infiltrating at least one government research station. And you've got any number of men who look very capable of wielding the weapons they carry. But it's been two weeks since you killed Jeffery Wells." The placid smile Alfie wore flickered. Saffron pressed on. "Two weeks during which you could have sent someone to break into the lab for the rest of the information, but you haven't. Because you don't know what it is you need."

Elizabeth stepped up next to her. "Your collaborator is getting impatient. I hear he is a frightening man. Someone who'd be angry if the information goes unretrieved."

Alfie's lip curled. "You're all talk, ladies. I'm getting that information, or bodies are going to start turning up downriver. You do what I want, or you'll be the first to make a splash."

After Nick had revealed more about Alfie Tennison's identity, Saffron had wondered why Alfie would meet with Wells himself in the Dancing Sparrow. He was at the top of his hierarchy. It didn't make sense for him to be a go-between, but now that she saw how badly Alfie wanted the information from the lab, badly enough to take hostages and drop the niceties after only a few minutes, it made more sense. He was desperate for the information from the Path Lab. Desperate for payment, or desperate to stay in his radical collaborator's good graces? Either way, this situation was growing more dangerous by the minute.

"We're at a stalemate, Mr. Tennison," Saffron said, hoping her estimation of Alfie was correct, and that her voice revealed none of her fear. "You need us. We want to walk away from this alive and well, and our friends returned safely. Unless you're willing to compromise, you'll have to find another way into the Path Lab."

"You're going to dislocate something if you keep that up."

Alexander ignored Nick, as he had for the past two hours. He also ignored the sting of his wrists as he continued to tug at where they were bound behind his back. The scratchy rope had rubbed his skin raw. But unlike Nick, he wasn't content to sit and do nothing.

He'd fought against Alfie Tennison's men when they took them from Nick's hotel, and attempted to get away when they shoved them into the motorcar waiting in the mews behind the building. Blood crusted his upper lip and his ribs ached for his trouble, while Nick had come out of it with not a scratch. He leaned on the wall across the room from Alexander, his hands bound and attached to the radiator. Alexander was tied to the iron grate embedded in the fireplace's grimy tiled hearth and had no comfortable way to sit, as Alfie's men had seen fit to tie his ankles together too.

They'd been tied up and left alone in the small, cold room. They could hear murmurings and movements beyond, as well as the smell of something frying, weighing down the musty air. With dust clinging to every surface and the single window covered with a tacked-up sheet, it was clear this place was a temporary hideout. It was in London, somewhere along the Thames. He'd lost track of the streets as he struggled to push his way out of the motorcar.

Alexander had counted three men in total when he and Nick were hauled inside. If he and Nick could get free, he was confident they could escape, either by going through them or sneaking past. If Alfie had come after Nick, it was likely he'd sent someone after Saffron and Elizabeth as well. Staying here and waiting to see if they'd drag the girls into the little house wasn't an option.

He gave an almighty tug, trying yet again to muscle apart his wrists, and a sharp, deep pain shot through his right shoulder, accompanied by an ominous pop. Alexander could barely make out Nick's sigh over the harsh, uneven sounds of his breathing.

"And now you'll be halfway to useless. But you learned to be left-handed, didn't you? You can still throw a punch or pull a trigger, I wager," Nick said.

Alexander was too caught up in the pain to be annoyed that Nick knew he'd taught himself to use his left hand after his injury.

After a minute of breathing through his teeth to get the pain under control, he ground out, "Do you have a plan for when I might need to do those things?"

Nick's reply was as opaque as his expression. "Just be ready."

But as the pain in his shoulder worsened and the minutes passed to hours, Alexander began to suspect that Nick didn't have a plan, at least one he would enact from this room. They'd have to wait for something to happen, and Alexander was impatient for whatever that was just as much as he dreaded it.