Chicagoland by Gail Martin (important books to read TXT) 📕

it hard to know if they’ve really gone missing or if they just up and left. Of course, we hope they left on their own. But their sort is hard to trace, even for the police.” He licked his lips, a sure tell that he was nervous.

Sarah sighed. “And here I thought I was going to hear a ghost story.” Her acting skills were excellent, and I knew that she was enjoying herself.

Kirkpatrick relaxed a bit, and the fondness in his eyes warred with his set jaw. In the end, not wanting to disappoint her won out over his reluctance to discuss the situation. “This can’t be repeated,” he said, dropping his voice even though we were in a private room and the servers had gone elsewhere.

Sarah leaned in, favoring him with a conspiratorial smile. “Our lips are sealed,” she said, pantomiming locking her mouth and tossing away a key.

“We think there may be some kind of feral animal down there. Maybe a big dog or some exotic pet someone let loose, like those alligators in the New York sewers,” Kirkpatrick said. “A body turned up, one of the maintenance men. Clawed apart. Awful. But the strangest thing…whatever killed him didn’t gnaw on the bones. It just took his heart.”

Sarah gasped in horrified fascination. I bit my lip to keep from laughing because I’d seen her in a fight and knew that blood didn’t faze her at all. I sometimes suspected she had the potential to be the most ruthless of the three of us, hidden beneath Paris fashions and a perfect manicure.

“His heart? Are you sure?”

Kirkpatrick nodded gravely, but I could see how much he relished her attention. Does he have a crush on her? If so, he was doomed to disappointment because now that Sarah had both wealth and freedom, I knew she would never trade it for marriage again.

“We took pains to keep it out of the papers, of course, which is why you mustn’t say anything to anyone,” he replied. “But it’s not the only strange thing down there. They didn’t find the others who went missing, but now and again, there’ve been bloodstains, too much to be a rat or a raccoon. The police, however, didn’t seem worried.”

Of course not, since they work for Capone.

“Are there ghosts? You know I’ve always loved ghost stories.” Sarah played to a willing audience, and Kirkpatrick grew more talkative. I wondered if anyone listened to the man outside of his work.

“I’m not sure about ghosts, but there’s a stretch of tunnel under the Lexington Hotel that the men go out of their way to avoid. Of course, they don’t think I know, but I run a tight ship,” he said with a tentative smile like he was out of practice. “Now you have to take what they say with a grain of salt. They’re a superstitious lot.”

Probably recently come over from the Old Country, where people still believe in the supernatural. Where they know that fairy tales are based on ancient warnings, and the stories definitely aren’t meant for children.

Kirkpatrick’s gaze flicked to the side, giving me to suspect that he paid more attention to the tales than he wanted to let on.

“And then there’s the secret chamber.” He stopped as if perhaps he had said too much.

“Secret chamber?” Sarah’s eyes widened. “Kirk, you can’t leave me hanging. Go on!”

I could see the instant when vanity won out over common sense. “It’s probably nothing,” Kirkpatrick said. “But one of the maintenance teams accidentally broke through an old wall that went into some sub-basement of the hotel, I guess. A workman stuck his head inside with a lantern and said it was covered with scribbling. Strange marks painted on the walls, nonsense words scrawled everywhere.”

“What did the police say?” Sarah asked, doing a good impression of being breathless.

“It wasn’t a matter for the police,” Kirkpatrick assured her. “Since it was on private property and there was no lasting harm done. I arranged to have it plastered over, and that was the last of it. Probably vandals or some nutter off his rocker with a can of paint. But it gave everyone a bit of a scare until we got things calmed down.”

Charming as Kirkpatrick was to someone of his class, I knew how his kind operated in the wild. I didn’t doubt that the workmen had been ordered to secrecy, threatened with losing their jobs or worse. The fact that word hadn’t reached Ness told me that the CEO’s threats must have been dire enough to gain full obedience.

My gut tightened, and suddenly that fine steak and cheesecake didn’t set as well.

“Oh my,” Sarah replied. “Do you think it might have been a witch’s workplace?”

Kirkpatrick chuckled, but this time his humor had a condescending edge that rankled me. “You’ve been reading Poe again, haven’t you? He always was your favorite.” He shook his head. “A witch might make for an exciting explanation, but I imagine that a madman on the loose explains both the violence and the odd room.”

We lingered over coffee while dessert settled. Just as we were about to take our leave, Kirkpatrick leaned in and met Sarah’s gaze. His expression was open and vulnerable. Scared.

“I heard a rumor that you helped stop a dangerous problem in Reading a few months ago.” He took in West and me with a glance before returning his focus to Sarah. “I won’t ask you to confirm that, but if you did, and you have some way of knowing what’s really going on in the tunnels, I would be very grateful to find out how to make it stop. I don’t believe the police report. I saw the body. The workers down there deserve better, but I don’t know who else to ask.”

I wanted to dislike Kirkpatrick. I wanted to believe his concern was merely posturing to impress Sarah. I had experienced the disregard industrial barons had for the lives of “replaceable” workers. Hell, I’d been killed by them. But my instincts