Constantine Capers: The Pennington Perplexity by Natalie Brianne (new ebook reader TXT) 📕

the room, and soon after threw her back into the small, dank cell. She sprung to her feet and ran for the door, but Joe closed and locked it before she reached it. She sat down beside the door and felt her hope disappear as fast as the door had closed. She took a few deep breaths and thought of the facts before her.

1. They used the airship cargo hold as a smuggling area.

2. These smugglers probably supplied the black market.

3. Killers and scoundrels surrounded her. It was only a matter of time before she tripped up, and then she’d be dead.

These thoughts didn’t offer much comfort, but it was a change to be thinking logically. She added another fact to her mental list.

4. She must escape if she didn’t want 3 to come to pass.

She stood and walked to the center of the room. She didn’t know when the smugglers might return, and her only tool was observation. She studied the room again. Even if the bars in the window gave way, the opening was too small for her. She already checked all the bricks for any openings. The crates were empty. The only other way in or out was the door. She blew a strand of hair out of her face and then tried to fix her hair by repositioning the pins in it. Pins. She grabbed one of them and her curls fell around her shoulders.

She slipped the pin into the lock and moved it around the way she saw Byron using his lockpicks. She moved the pin up and down, around in a circle, trying every way she could feasibly think of moving it. No matter what she tried the lock wouldn’t budge. Of course! She forgot the tension. She grabbed another hairpin and used the thick end to apply pressure at the bottom of the lock. She tried again, but still nothing happened. Her vision of freedom shrunk smaller and smaller with each turn of the hair pin. She felt a snap beneath her fingers and the tinkling of metal against the stones in front of her. She dropped the rest of the broken pin, hot tears rolling down her face.

She tried to compose herself again, but her thoughts kept slipping back to her situation. She was practically a prisoner on death row, waiting for an unknown execution date to sneak up on her. A death her parents had faced, probably for similar reasons. A hopelessness settled somewhere near her stomach, rising into her chest with each sob. She leaned up against the door and closed her eyes to stop her tears from escaping. And thinking of that, she opened them again so at least something could escape. If only Byron was coming.

But he wasn’t. His memory wouldn’t last, and he’d forget she even existed. She couldn’t count on him. If she did, she would be dead. She had to try again. It was useless to waste her tears when she had hardly tried. She’d only tried Byron’s way. She had to try her own. She needed an artist’s observation.

She placed her hand on the lock, feeling it. Closing her eyes, she imagined how the lock was built. Perhaps an old locksmith, doing well in his trade had made it. He probably had rough hands. She had seen the keys on Joe’s belt. She imagined them. Each prong had to fit within a mechanism within the lock. She opened her eyes and took out another hair pin, bending it to match her mental key. She placed her “tension wrench” at the base of the lock. Then she slipped her makeshift key into the keyhole.

She felt each peg in the lock scraping against the hairpin and listened for the clicks. After a half dozen tries, she got it. She slipped the hairpins into her pocket and quietly opened the door. She let out a breath. She had done it. No one was in the hall. This was her only chance. If she was caught now, it would be over. More questions would be asked, and she’d slip up somewhere. No, she had to get out now. She snuck past door after door, listening before continuing to make sure that she wasn’t caught. She stopped when she heard voices at one of them.

“Then why don’t we just kill her now?”

It was Joe’s voice. She felt herself paling. They must be talking about her. She was about to continue down the hall when the woman spoke.

“Joe, a murder is a convoluted thing. If we were to kill her now and, say, dump her in the river, there is every possibility that she will be found. It is possible that by some means she’ll have connections. If she does—”

“But you just said she wouldn’t be missed!” Joe interrupted.

“The problem is we don’t know one way or another. Imprisoning someone is fundamentally different from murdering someone. You remember Pennington? You remember how much planning went into that? How many unconnected people had to die and will continue to die until all of this is over? All that work, for whom? A worthless airship operator. She may not look like much, but killing her might cut the delicate thread that keeps us in this game. Always be careful about who you kill, Joe. Research. Plan. And if you can, consult. That’s what Circe is for. They bind us together into a grand criminal circle. And when we need it, they provide adequate distraction for the police and their bumbling private detective.” Mira heard the woman take a breath, calming down before continuing.

“Besides, murder is a dirty business. It takes much more planning and has more strings attached. More moving pieces. You must come up with alibis, fake accidents, frame others. It’s complicated. I’d much rather be in the smuggling business.”

“But the smuggling wouldn’t be nearly as successful without the airships. Didn’t all of this start because of a double homicide?”

“It certainly helped. And I suppose that inventor did have connections. That’s