patted down his pockets, insuring that there were no telltale bulges, then resettled his bowler at a cockier angle. “Not since the proprietor slipped me one of his special cocktails and sold me to that skipper. Why? Thinkin’ of visiting your old friends?”
“Perhaps,” Deegan murmured noncommittally. Since Wooton had seen him in his Nob Hill finery, it wouldn’t do to give prior notice of his return to the Barbary Coast. Although Charlie tried to hide it, there had been a gleam of avarice in the man’s eye as he took in the elegant top hat, starched collar, silk cravat, tailor-made, dove-gray university jacket and charcoal trousers that proclaimed Deegan Galloway a gentleman rather than the rogue he knew himself still to be.
Rather than leave the grocer’s first, Deegan delayed, pretending to linger over the rolling of a cigarette. Wooton was barely out the door when he tossed the smoke away and trailed after the pickpocket, making sure that his former associate didn’t follow him to either his seldom-visited office or his posh bachelor’s quarters at the Palace Hotel. The fewer people who could connect Digger O’Rourke, boy songsmith and pickpocket, to Deegan Galloway, well-to-do society dandy, the better.
Seeing Wooton brought back memories of the old days. In particular, memories of Hannah McMillan and all Deegan owed her.
He would be risking his recently acquired respectability in visiting her; taking a chance that his former felonious associates would recognize him, or worse, that the more reckless of his newfound friends on the Hill would hail him as Galloway while looking for a dose of sin in the Coast. Digger O’Rourke might have been game for any adventure, but the Deegan Galloway he had become was a far steadier fellow.
Or so he hoped.
And yet an hour later Deegan stood in the heart of the Barbary Coast, admittedly prowling for trouble, the itch to encounter and best danger again too strong for him to ignore. He paused at the junction of Sansome and Jackson Streets to stare down the narrow gap between soot-stained buildings to the ill-kept house where Trusty O’Rourke, Hannah and he had kept rooms two decades earlier. The building where Hannah still lived.
Restlessness had brought him back to his roots, but now unease over how Hannah would greet him kept him cooling his heels in the street, leery of taking the steps needed to enter the building and climb the stairs to Hannah’s place. He had left without saying goodbye, simply stealing away one night, taking with him what cash Trusty hadn’t drunk or gambled away. A week later, Deegan was still considering where to go when he heard Trusty had taken a knife in the ribs, his sudden death leaving Hannah alone and unprotected. Deegan had pinched a banker’s weighty wallet and sent Hannah the funds the lift had provided. Then, rather than return to the Coast, he’d shaken the dust of San Francisco’s streets from his clothes. He’d provided more than enough money for her to follow his example fifteen years ago and leave, but Hannah had remained.
How would she look? As beautifully shaped and cheerful as he remembered her? Or worn and haggard like so many of the women who had been forced to sell their bodies to live? At least he’d given her the chance at a different kind of life, even if she hadn’t taken it.
Still hesitating, Deegan rocked back on his heels and nearly lost his balance as a whirlwind in brown wool rounded the corner and plowed into him.
The woman cast a frantic glance back over her shoulder, then turned, clutching at his forearm with one hand, her nails driving deep into the thick fabric of his sleeve. “Help me,” she gasped. “A man…”
His arm closed naturally around her small waist, steadying her as he looked down into a pair of eyes as luminous and bright as moon-washed waves. They searched his face, fearful and yet oddly trusting.
He’d probably regret this the rest of his life, Deegan decided, but he couldn’t resist the plea in her voice. Or the promise of a brush with danger that he sensed in her plight.
His eyes glinting with excitement, Deegan tightened his grip around her. “Hush, darlin’,” he cautioned, and swept her inside the narrow gap between the buildings.
Chapter Two
The image of Belle Tauber’s murderer’s face burned in Lilly’s mind, blinding her to all else. He had looked up, seen her watching in the shadows, and then…
Everything she had done since that frightening moment was a blur. She had no idea where her panicked flight had led her, only that the strong arm now encircling her was warm and comforting, as was the calm, sensible tone of her unknown rescuer’s voice.
She began questioning the wisdom of running trustingly into his care when he deftly tipped her off her feet, silencing her natural yelp of alarm by clasping his hand gently over her lips.
“Shh,” he ordered, his tone light.
The lilt in his voice made him sound amused, a reaction so foreign to her own that Lilly found herself gawking at him.
“Good girl,” he murmured, lowering her, and the awkward bulk of her camera, to the ground behind a rickety pile of shipping crates.
Fear alone kept her quiet. She knew Belle’s assailant had seen her. If he hadn’t been temporarily hobbled with the dead prostitute’s body, he would have caught up with her. As it was, she had heard the quick staccato of his running footsteps following almost before she was out of the alley.
Mere seconds had passed since then, and here she was in yet another alley, prone, breathless and more frightened than she had ever been before in her life. Only this man with the lilting voice stood between her and certain death.
Leaning casually back against the grimy brick building across from her refuge, the man ignored her presence and took the makings of a cigarette from the inner pocket of his coat.
A heartbeat later, Belle’s murderer skidded to a halt in the mouth of the alleyway. It would take only the edge of her skirt, the toe of her shoe, the end of a tripod leg left in view to tip him off to her present location. There hadn’t been enough time to guarantee that she was completely hidden. Peering between the packing crates, she had an excellent view of her stalker. Far too excellent. If she hadn’t recalled each of his features in detail already, they were certainly imprinted on her mind now as harsh, lean and dangerous.
Lilly’s rescuer barely glanced up at Belle’s murderer before returning to his occupation, creasing a tobacco paper with finicky care.
“Hey,” the killer called, turning away from Lilly’s blind to face the loitering man. “You see a woman run this way?”
“A woman, is it?” her rescuer asked, his voice thickened with an Irish brogue. “And would she be a pretty one?”
The killer’s eyebrows closed over the bridge of his nose in irritation. “Hell,” he spat, and glanced both ways along the outer street before peering deep into the dimness of the alleyway.
Lilly resisted the inclination to shrink back, fearing any movement on her part would draw his attention. With his eyes burning with fury, it was quite easy to believe him one of Satan’s soldiers sent to claim her soul.
“She had on dark-colored clothing,” he said, “and was probably carrying an unwieldy contraption of some kind. If she wasn’t running, she’d be breathing heavily.”
“Ah,” the Irishman sighed appreciatively. “That’s just the way I like a woman—breathing heavily.” He tapped tobacco
