Read Online Jessie's War (Civil War Steam) by Meggan Connors - Free Book Online Page B

spilled into the street. Not the typical raucous crowd usually
gathered outside The Globe , this
gathering was largely quiet. A man in a black suit opened up the doors at the
back of the carriage.
    Luke recognized an undertaker
when he saw one.
    Ignoring the discomfort in
his chest and the small voice of alarm nagging him, Luke moved to pass a knot
of bystanders speaking in hushed tones. Something about them caught his
attention—not what they said, but in the way they spoke—and he
paused.
    He caught the attention of
the man standing next to him, and nodded up at the building in front of him.
The loose saloon doors hung open at an odd angle, and broken shutters with
peeling paint did little to conceal the cracked windows beneath. “You know who
it was?”
    His companion shook his head.
“No. Heard it was somebody famous, though. And that he’d been tortured before
he was finally done in.”
    Anxiety set his heart
disturbingly out of rhythm with the ore crushers. “Tortured how?”
    “Dunno. Gal inside said his
hands been broke before he was shot.”
    Luke had seen the deputy the
sheriff had put in charge of this murder. Young. Inept. A man the army had
turned down. There were no suspects and never would be, but he had to ask
anyway.
    “Got any suspects?”
    “Nope.”
    Jessie.
    At that moment, the doors
swung open, and the undertaker walked out with two attendants, carrying a
stretcher upon which rested a sheet-draped body. A hand dangled limply from
beneath the sheet, swollen and blue, the fingers bent at unnatural angles.
    He stepped back from the knot
of the crowd to survey it. In the windows of the hotel across the street, he
saw a few faces framed in the windowpanes, bright and curious. Nothing to
indicate that this was anything more than just another murder in the seediest
hotel in Virginia City.
    Yet something told him it
was.
    At that moment, fingers
traipsed across his back. He turned, and the small woman behind him flinched
before her features settled into a coquettish smile. “Hiya, handsome.” Her
voice was throaty and suggestive.
    He scowled and turned back to
the crowd, searching for someone who didn’t belong. Looking and hoping for a
different woman. “I’m not interested.”
    The woman inserted herself
between Luke and his companion, looping her arm through his. “You don’t
remember me, do you, Luke?”
    He stiffened. “No.”
    The woman was just a little
bit of a thing, with pale brown hair and cornflower blue eyes. Pretty, in a
tired, used up sort of way.
    She gave him a sad, weary
smile. “I’m one of Vivian Flannigan’s girls. She sent me to find you. Told me
all I had to do was follow trouble, and I’d find you. I found trouble, and here
you are. Recognized you straightaway.”
    Luke studied the scene in
front of him, dismissing her, yet she didn’t take the hint in his silence and
go. “Well, it was nice catching up with you, but I have work to do.”
    The girl tightened her grasp
on his arm as he tried to move away. She gestured to the body with her head. “You
know who’s underneath that sheet?”
    His body tensed, and his
fingers twitched near his pistol until he clenched his fists. “No. Do you?”
    The girl awarded him with a
long, slow blink. “I’m told it’s Hiram Andersen.”
    He wanted to explode into
motion, to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until every last bit of
information spilled from her lips. But he didn’t. His immediate reactions were
all wrong, and had been since he first set foot in this town. Willing his body
to relax, he attempted a convivial expression and smiled down at the girl.
    She took a step back.
    “Is that so?” His voice was
calm.
    “Mm. If you want to know
more, you’ll have to come with me.” She ran her hands along the lapel of his
jacket and met his eyes. With a gentle tug, she pulled him close, and he bent
down. Her lips moved against his ear. “Pretend you enjoy my company, Luke.
There are eyes everywhere in this