Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Gus
WHAT WAS WRONG WITH ME? SINCE Kit had left hours ago, I’d asked myself over and over, and had no answer.
The bourbon I’d switched to hadn’t made anything clearer.
And it sure as shit on Sunday hadn’t numbed the pulsing, bleeding ache in my lungs, knowing Kit Lovely was leaving me.
All it’d done was numb the lingering soreness in my arm and shoulder and leg.
But those were nothing compared to the despair of losing Kit for good.
I should’ve said something. I should’ve told him I still love him, for a start. Should’ve told him I want him, for second, and third I should’ve begged him not to go.
But while this wasn’t the same as Dad leaving, hearing Kit talk about going to the states or the other side of the Atlantic had triggered the same sense of powerlessness, and I couldn’t make myself speak.
By the time my brain had caught up with my slamming heart and buzzing ears, I didn’t know that I should.
Kit, Ted, and Mary-Alice would all be safer out of Whitman’s reach.
So would I, since I wouldn’t be working the case anymore.
I didn’t actually care about me; the sharp side of a wicked blade hadn’t scared me away from Kit, and not even facing down a fae could get me to abandon him.
But I could see Whitman reaching out to his friends at the paper to have Mum fired. Or Henry. And what about George?
There were a million ways a man like him could ruin the lives of good, hardworking, innocent people to get to me, and so far, I didn’t see a single sign he wouldn’t.
Look at what he’d done to Kit. I could only imagine the sordid story they’d spin to explain his termination, because they’d have to give the public something when there was an outcry.
Three sheets to the wind, and that was what finally brought my spiralling thoughts to a grinding stop. When whatever news might break tomorrow came out, whatever rumours insidiously slithered their way through this city and across the country, Kit would need someone to lean on.
Sure, he had Marion and Agnes who would go to bat for him, and he’d have his brother and his sister-in-law if they could ever get out of this mess, but despite the years of separation, I knew Kit.
I knew him better than anyone else ever had, and I understood the way he worked.
He’d never tell them it so much as twinged.
Whatever else Whitman did or took from him, Kit would gloss over it with sweet little lies to keep them from bearing the burden of how wounded he was.
Earlier, when he’d said his only choice was leaving, was that what he really wanted? Or had he wanted me to ask him to stay and fight? To tell him I was in this until the end, no matter what. That I wanted him more than anything in the world and I needed him just as bad.
What if he'd needed to hear that so he could talk to me?
I’d been so wrapped up in my own head that I hadn’t given him a glimmer of a ghost to go on as he tried to find a path forward. How foolish and selfish could I be?
Shooting to my feet, I stumbled as the world tilted a little before righting itself.
Driving was out of the question. I’d have to walk all the way down to the hotel and hope I could talk the front desk into dialing Kit’s room.
No way in hell was I waiting to sober up.
The last time I’d waited until morning to talk to Kit was the night he left.
I’d thought I should give him time to cool off, and that was the last time I saw him for seventeen fucking years.
I wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.
Flinging open my front door, I was met with both darkness and a distant racket.
The sound of what must be revellers throwing a massive party after the German surrender seemed…
angry? Laced with an undercurrent of threat that even so far away, I could pick up, along with the scent of smoke.
Whatever was happening out there wasn’t good, the celebration gone sour.
But God help anyone who got between me and Kit Lovely.
I made it to Barrington Street before the true level of chaos hit me.
Thousands of navy men in uniform, clearly drunk, swarmed all over the place.
Storefronts were smashed out and they were looting everything they could get their hands on, civilians joining in too.
A jewellery store was on fire, plumes of smoke floating up into the dark sky, flames licking the front of the building and reaching for neighbouring stores. It was a goddamn riot.
The wail of police sirens, fire trucks, and ambulances rang out in all directions, but I didn’t see a single Mountie.
There was nothing I could do to stop this, either, so I continued, weaving my way through the crowd.
At least until I caught sight of a man with a case of Keith’s leading two skinny boys who couldn’t have been more than ten toward a dark alley.
The predatory look on his face and the trepidation in the kids’ cautious steps hammered rage through me.
I pushed past the people in my way, rushing to reach the kids before they disappeared into shadow, and slammed the man back against the brick of a building.
I pressed my forearm across his throat to hold him.
“Do you boys know this man?” I shouted, consciously holding onto the tatters of my control in case my gut was wrong—it never was, but I was drunk as a skunk.
“No sir,” one of them answered, real terror in his voice. “He promised us two of those beers if we went with him, and we never had one. He seemed nice?”
“Didn’t your mum ever teach you not to go off with strangers?
” The bite in my voice made them flinch, and I didn’t want to scare them, but he was going to—He’d have hurt them.
Really hurt them, and they didn’t know any better.
“He’s not nice, are you, buddy? You're just another fucking monster prowling around in the dark.”
“I'm not, I swear! I was just—”
I pulled him away from the wall and slammed him back again. “There is no goddamn good reason for a grown man to lure little boys down an alleyway. People like you wreck lives, you cowardly little pervert.”
His eyes bugged out, and he shook his head wildly. “I wouldn’t have—I wouldn’t hurt them. I would never hurt a child. I love children.”
I remembered my last case, a girl’s broken body. “I've met more men like you after kids go missing than I ever want to think about again, and I'll be fucked if I let you hurt anyone else.”
My fist connected brutally with his face. I barely felt it. His head snapped back with the impact, blood rushing from his nose as he sobbed.
“Go straight home,” I ordered the boys, sparing a glance at them standing stock still in terror. “This isn’t a night to be out. Get home before something awful happens.”
They looked at me like I was nuts, then the smaller one tugged on the other kid’s jacket, and they took off.
When I turned back it was to catch a fist with my cheek.
It hurt, but not as bad as the bastard must have expected, because I immediately kneed him in the balls.
He doubled over, gasping and cursing, and I yanked him upright to land another punch.
And another. He was going to hurt those boys.
He would have touched them, maybe killed them.
And the memory of every little kid I hadn’t been in time to save swam through my mind as I pummelled him over and over until strong arms wrapped around me and wrenched me off.
I fought them too at first until I recognized George’s voice in my ear. “Hell, Gus, what are you doing out here? You can’t just beat people up!”
I slumped in his grip, my vision fading in and out, finally focusing on the man I’d been hitting. He was shaking, bloody and staggering away with his hands up.
“Get out of here!” George shouted at him. “And if I was you, I’d keep this to myself.”
“Fuck,” I muttered as the guy lurched away, stumbling over his own feet. “You can’t just let him go. He was gonna hurt kids, George.”
“Can’t arrest someone on what they were gonna do if I can’t prove it, can I?” George replied bitterly. “Stand up. You weigh a ton.”
I wrenched myself away and teetered until I planted my legs wider and locked my knees. “Fuck, my hand hurts.” I shook it out and stared down at my torn knuckles.
“Yeah it hurts, you just used it to smash someone in the face. You’re lucky it was me that found you, or you’d be sitting in a cell tonight. What the blue blazes are you doing out here, Gus?”
A sick stab of emotion clogged my throat. “Kit’s leaving again. I hafta stop him.”
George rocked back on his heels. “He’s leaving? Why?”
“Whitman got him fired. And he came to tell me he was thinking about leaving, and I just froze.” Shame made me want to throw up. Or maybe that was the alcohol.
“That does sound like you.” It was a miracle he’d even made out what I was saying considering my words kept squishing together. “Look, buddy. You’re sauced. Ted’s place isn’t even down this way, and I doubt he’s there anyway.”
“He’s not at Ted’s. He’s at the hotel with Marion and Agnes.”
“A dollar says he’s not,” George disagreed.
“What do you mean?”
“Did you miss the riot going on? I’ll eat my hat if Kit Daring’s locked up tight in some hotel.
No way he doesn’t still got a line in with the Winnipeg Press, and he’ll be itching for a distraction, especially with his pride stinging.
Look around, Gus. You’re not gonna find him like this.
The best thing for you to do is head back home, sleep this off, and try again tomorrow. ”
Fear shivered up my spine. “But what if he’s gone by then?”
George’s eyes went soft and sympathetic.
“He won’t be. He’s got loose ends to wrap up even if he plans to take off, right?
He’d tell Ted before he went. And besides, I saw the way he looked at you at the hospital.
He might think he’s going somewhere, but he won’t get far, and he sure as hell won’t stay gone this time. ”
Hope lit in me, just a bit, so small it was hardly a single ember. My hands trembled as I scrubbed them through my hair. “Okay. You’re… yeah, you’re right. I should head home.”
George clapped me on the shoulder. “Good man. I’ve got to—Jesus, I don’t even know. We can’t contain this, and the military isn’t sending anyone out to help, but I can’t just sit by.”
Worry for George suddenly vaulted to the top of my list. “Need me to stay and help you?”
“Hell no, I don’t, you’re barely coherent. Go. Home.”
“You better be careful,” I said, grudgingly admitting to myself I wouldn’t be a whole lot of help. Not with adrenaline wearing off fast and dizziness taking its place. “The last thing I need is you getting wounded. Then who’s gonna go for breakfast with me and tell me their ridiculous stories?”
George flashed a bright and cocky grin. “I’ll be fine. Now get going before I haul you to the drunk tank like I ought to. And get some ice on those knuckles or that’ll hurt something fierce tomorrow.”
It wasn’t the only thing that would.