I daresay my education here has been more than a little enlightening. You cannot fathom the benefits I have reaped here in Maryland. Sometimes riches are bestowed upon me whether I want them or not.
“Yet again, we owe our gratitude to the fine young ladies of Miss Preston’s,” says Mayor Carr, once everyone at the table has calmed down. “While I do wish they were perhaps a bit more discreet in their work . . . I can’t deny that this is twice this month that they’ve saved us from a rather rare and unfortunate accident.” He pulls the napkin from where it’s tucked into his collar, folds it, and places it next to his plate. “Well, I think we can officially consider the dinner portion of our evening concluded, no?” At this, he smiles, and his guests give a tentative laugh. “Let’s allow my house staff to tidy up in here. Gentlemen, I invite you to join me for cigars and brandy—prewar, of course.”
Despite this fine invitation, not everyone remains; a fair few people quietly make their excuses and leave. Maybe it’s due to my thrilling knife-throwing skills, but I get the feeling it has more to do with seeing one of their friends turn shambler before their very eyes. He couldn’t have been that popular, though. Most of the mayor’s cronies and their wives remain, and Katherine and I are informed by Miss Anderson that we are to join the women in the salon while they partake of sherry, fruit, and cheese.
“Are you serious?” I whisper, for the sake of decorum. “A man just turned shambler in the middle of Baltimore County and nobody cares how it happened?”
“What are you suggesting, Miss McKeene?” Miss Anderson smiles tightly to a passing party guest before turning her attention back to me. “That there’s a pack of shamblers here in the city? The man was probably bitten on the road coming here and failed to disclose it. A terrible breach of decorum, but nothing more. A rogue shambler slipping through the county line patrols and bothering a pony near the city walls is not unheard of.”
“But it’s not just one shambler, Miss Anderson,” I shoot back. “The Edgars were attacked inside the county line, and the—” I catch myself before letting the Spencers’ name slip. “I’ve heard rumors other families have gone missing as well.”
Miss Anderson straightens and adjusts her gloves. When she speaks, her words are straight razors. “I don’t know where you have heard this gossip, but I can assure you we’re quite well-protected here. Now, unless you two want to find yourselves expelled from Miss Preston’s this very evening, I suggest you freshen yourselves up and get into that parlor.”
Rather than continue to argue, I nod and curtsy. As Miss Anderson walks away, I ask a servant where the comfort room is and hurry off down the hall. I’ve heard enough from Baltimore’s upper crust, and I aim to find my own answers. But Katherine is hot on my heels.
“Where are you going?” she whispers.
“Anywhere but in there,” I say.
“Jane, you threw a Bowie knife at one of the mayor’s guests. That man, by the way, was an editor for the Sun. His death is going to be all over the front page tomorrow, and the mayor’s wife is distraught.”
“Katherine, can you hear how ridiculous that sounds? We could’ve died. Who cares what the newspaper thinks? Half the city can’t read it, anyway.”
Katherine stops. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, Jane McKeene.”
“What?”
“I agree with you. Something is very, very rotten here. But you’re not going to get what you want from them, especially after throwing a knife into a man’s face at the dinner table. All they care about is how it will look in the papers. Now think for a moment. The man could have gotten bit out on the roads, but that’s unlikely, don’t you think?”
I shift from foot to foot. The fact Katherine is on my side is as much a surprise as her cool logic. The bite takes anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or so to change a person. We were on the last course. How long ago had the man been bitten? Could he have somehow gotten the bite here, at the mayor’s estate?
“I don’t know, Kate, but I do know that I need to find the comfort room in a hurry or I am going to embarrass myself yet again.”
Katherine makes a face. “Look, we need to get to the bottom of all this. If neither of us are in that parlor, they’re going to come looking. I’ll cover for you as long as I can.”
I nod, and hurry down the hall, my brain turning over the possibilities of a shambler being in Mayor Carr’s house. The mayor doesn’t strike me as a foolish man, so I can’t imagine he would tolerate the kind of incompetence that would allow the undead on his property. So does that mean he has them here purposefully? Why would a man like him keep the dead around?
It’s such a ridiculous line of thought that I shake my head. There has to be a reasonable explanation, one that doesn’t involve Baltimore’s mayor keeping shamblers as pets. I just got to figure out what it is.
Despite a head full of questions and suppositions, I still manage to find the latrine, but before I can make use of the mayor’s very fancy water closet I see Jackson, waving at me from a doorway at the end of the hall. A quick glance reveals that no one is around to see me, and I sprint down the hallway and duck into the room.
“What are you doing?” I whisper, my eyes adjusting to the low light. There are gas lamps on the walls but they ain’t lit, and even though a bit of light filters in through the windows, it is too dark to see anything other than the vague outline of bookshelves and a massive square that I take to be a desk.
“I need your help,” Jackson says, striking a match and lighting a kerosene lantern. “I’m supposed to be in the cellar bringing up a couple of bottles of port for the men, but I saw you duck out and figured you were looking for evidence of where Lily is.”
“Please. I was trying to use the water closet. Now if you’ll excuse me.” Even if I am looking for answers, Red Jack is only going to get me caught. I make to leave but he grabs my arm. “Jackson—”
“Jane, you know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to.” I cross my arms and he sighs. “I know things ended badly between us, and you’ve always been more accommodating than I got any right to expect, but you know I can’t read a damn word of the files the mayor’s got in here. I don’t know what’s the household accounting and what might be dastardly. So, I’m asking you, with a whole heap of consideration I don’t deserve: Will you please help me?”
The lamplight plays across Jackson’s features, but somehow I don’t think he’s acting. If he’s desperate enough to mention our falling-out, then I know he’s worried something fierce.
Even so, nowhere in that speech did I hear an apology.
“I just want you to know that I’m doing this for Lily, not you. As far as I’m concerned, you can rot in hell.” Relief relaxes his features and he nods. I purse my lips, taking in the desk and accompanying drawers. “Here, hold the light so I can see.”
The mayor’s desk is well organized, and there are enough cost sheets and file folders that my head spins. I open the drawers beside the desk, but there’s nothing unusual, just the normal ledger keeping and invoices you’d expect for a tobacco farm.
I try to pull out the bottom drawer and it refuses to budge. I wave Jackson over and point to the drawer. “Can you get it open?”
He sets the lantern on the desk. “You got a hairpin?”
I touch my hair and pull one out, thankful when the weight and mass of my hair stays put. Jackson starts to work on the lock, glancing up at me, his expression nearly unreadable in the dark. “You look real pretty tonight.”
I don’t say anything, my heart thumping in my chest. Never once did Jackson ever tell me I was pretty before things went bad. I think he always took me for granted. Even when I was throwing bottles at his head and telling him what a louse he was he still seemed surprised, as though he never thought I’d get mad enough to tell him things between us were over.
“That getup really does something for you, Janey-Jane. I can see why you take your training and all that so serious. You belong to this life. You’ll be a brilliant Attendant.”
The drawer pops open, saving me from having to answer him. Jackson reaches in and pulls out a thick ledger book.
“Look,” I say, tapping the front. SUMMERLAND is written there in gold embossed letters. “What’s ‘Summerland’?”
“I have no idea.”
I open the book, but before I get very far there’s the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking. “Summerland is a town in Kansas. Nice place, bit of a work in progress, like most frontier towns. And I get the feeling you’re going to get to see it firsthand.”
The room brightens, Miss Anderson lighting a gas lamp on the wall, a macabre grin on her face. The light reveals Mr. Redfern in the doorway, a nice pair of six-shooters leveled at me and Jackson.
“Miss McKeene, Red Jack,” he says, drawing room–polite. “I do believe the mayor is expecting you.”