Red Dog Conspiracy: A Noir Future Steampunk Crime Family Saga

Tony raged at everyone: Morton, Gardena, her brothers, and above all, at me. I told him of the letter Pearson gave me as I was leaving, how I persuaded Gardena to let me see Anastasia off, how Morton followed us (as Tony asked him to). How Morton protected me when the blast happened.

None of it mattered. Tony didn't know where I was, I was hurt (a small piece of glass in my leg), and I had been in terrible danger. Worse yet, I had appeared in public with a bachelor gentleman (and without a female companion), and it had been noted in the papers. He drew his revolver to kill Honor and my driver, but I begged him not to. I told him I disguised myself, evading them on purpose in order to see Anastasia.

He didn't speak to me or come to my bed.

For several days, I didn’t leave my room. I suppose Jane Pearson took care of the household; to this day, I don’t know. Nothing seemed real. Ma was dead.

Jane planned the outing. Madame Biltcliffe sent her mourning garb to me without my asking. We went to the memorial. I stood as the names of the uppers were read. No one mentioned the hundreds of Pot rags in the hold.

Ma was dead.

Anastasia was dead.

Marja was dead.

Tony didn't speak to me. After the memorial, I went to him. "I'm sorry for whatever I did to make you hate me."

He pulled me to him with a cry, squeezing me so tightly it hurt. "I don't hate you, no, no, oh gods no. I came so close to losing you. I don't know what to say or do. I can't sleep or eat, thinking of how you might have died."

I put my arms round him. "But I'm here. Why do you not speak to me?" His grip loosened and I took a breath. "Anastasia was my friend, one of the few I had here." It was then the tears finally came for her.

"Dame Anastasia defrauded many," Tony said. "The papers are full of it." He let go and turned away. "Yet she came to my home, sat at my table. I exposed the three Families here at that table to scorn and speculation."

I said numbly, "It's not your fault she did those things. We knew nothing of her crimes. No one blames you."

He rounded on me. "You think not? Look at my mail. My verified mail. Look at the papers!" He held one up, shook it at me.

The headline read:

Families Conspire To Defraud The City?

Scam Artist Welcomed At Spadros Manor

Three of four Families present at secret dinner

"We're all being implicated by association. Except, of course, the Harts. No one's made the connection with Master Rainbow being at your side in the station, which I suppose is fortunate for them." He paused. "Merchants across the city who bought her gems and are unable to sell them are ruined. Gentlemen have gone bankrupt." His face turned fierce. "Bankrupt! They want someone to blame, and she's dead. Who else do they have to turn to but her associates for vengeance?"

I leaned against a chair, feeling faint. "Are we in danger?"

"My father's men have rounded up anyone in the quadrant speaking against our Family. And Mr. Durak no longer is editor of the Bridges Daily."

What? "Mr. Durak was a good man! Why —?"

Tony shook his head. "He let Pike's editorial pass. He let the financial speculators on his paper whip the people into buying these things. Then he let this filth," he threw the paper down, "about us conspiring to ruin the city pass as well. He's no use to us. It's good he's dead."

I took a step back. It was as if I no longer knew him. "Tony! How can you speak in this way?"

His face turned sad. "I can't always be your Tony. These days, I must be Anthony, heir to the Spadros Family. And that man must be cruel if we're to survive."

***

The next day, Tony and I went to the bank to retrieve Anastasia's gems. Mr. Roman confirmed what I feared: the necklace she made decades ago and passed off as worth thousands was a forgery, with clear "miracle" gems inside. "Worthless," Mr. Roman said. "But cleverly done; only a jeweler might know. That must be why she never met with us. Even the settings are steel, colored to resemble the patina of old silver."

I had the smaller gems tinted black, then made into necklaces for each of our servant women. The rest I had cut, tinted, and placed into pins for our servant men to wear on their collars. At our outing, I presented them to our servants after I promoted Jane Pearson to housekeeper. Many of the servants wept in gratitude at the gifts and swore their allegiance to us again. That made Tony smile.

When I presented little Pip with his pin, he hugged me. "Thank you."

"Is the bed better than the stair?"

"Yes, mum, much better. And the men are kind to me."

I hoped Pip never learned he was Roy's son. But to me he was family. "I'm so glad you're happy."

***

The lock-box also held an envelope with the deed to a small boarding apartment in the artists' area of Spadros quadrant, made out in my name. It was half of a duplex, about to be sold for back taxes, but I asked Tony if I might keep it.

It was on a strange street: long, narrow, and winding. All the buildings on one side of the street were duplexes, separated front to back. Some called the road my apartment faced 33 1/3 Street, others called it Artists' Alley. It had a kitchen, a dining room, four lower rooms, and one large upper room with picture windows. A shirtless, mustachioed man with his suspenders around his waist watered a rooftop garden across the way.

I said, "I've thought one day to be a patroness, and own property. Perhaps with this, I can do both. We can rent the rooms downstairs to artists, and rent this room out by the hour as a studio for photographers and artists to take portraits. It would show our dedication to making this quadrant more refined."

"I like this idea," Tony said. "Choose a housekeeper and put an advertisement for rentals."

And so it was done. But nothing mattered. Ma was dead.

From that day, I went nowhere without Amelia, not even into my own garden, and extra men followed every move I made.

My cage tightened around me more with each day.

***

Molly came to visit, and when I saw her, I wept in her arms. Amelia curtsied and left us alone.

When I calmed, Molly said, "I'm sorry about your friend."

I nodded, feeling numb.

"Your Ma is perfectly safe," Molly whispered. "I made sure of it myself. She never left the Cathedral."

Ma was alive?

The room turned gray and Molly took my hands as I half sat, half fell into the chair behind me. "You poor dear." She put my feet up, then smoothed my hair.

I stared at Molly through the haze, mind racing.

Tony didn't know. I never said a word to him, hoping against hope Roy never learned I contacted Ma. But now even that hope was lost. "How did you find out?"

Molly gazed back at me with a slight smile.

Gardena didn't know my Ma, nor did Cesare, nor Lance, and even if they did ... they would never have spoken about her, least of all to Molly Spadros.

Cesare didn't know it was a person. Lance didn't know who it was.

I gasped. There was one other person who knew Ma was going to be on that zeppelin.

Molly clamped her hand over my mouth, her voice stern. "Outside. Now."

Frightened, I followed her past the maids in the hallway out into the garden. We sat on a bench where no one else might hear.

I whispered, "Rachel Diamond. How ... why?"

Why would she spend her life pretending to be incapacitated?

"Rachel is ill," Molly said, "but not as ill as people think."

Molly and Acevedo, Julius and Rachel. They had been friends, in spite of the old hatreds between their Families. Julius and Rachel were there for Molly after Acevedo's murder. She was there for Julius after Hector and Rachel's terrible accident.

For some time after the accident, Rachel seemed lost, but little by little, her mind returned. "She began listening, trying to understand what happened. But people said things around her they never would have before, and she began to spy." Molly glanced away. "We've had difficult times over the years, but then ... they came to me with a small problem, and we realized we had more in common than we thought."

Molly spoke more to herself, it seemed, but then she straightened and faced me. "Rachel took an awful risk getting a message to me. She's weak and slow-moving, and if anyone knew she was in her right mind she would be a tempting target. She was an Apprentice once, and knows the secrets of both the Apprentices and the Diamond Family. But she's incredibly brave. You have Rachel Diamond to thank for your Ma's life."

Why would Mrs. Diamond help me? I never said a dozen words to the woman.

I remembered Gardena's tears at our Queen's Day dinner. "Why doesn't she tell her daughter?"

Molly's face darkened. "Gardena is a spoiled, willful child, who may get us all killed before this is over."

Gardena's own mother doesn't trust her. "Does Julius know?"

Molly smiled fondly. "Of course he knows. He's not as terrible a man as most make him out to be."

I didn't think I would get another chance to ask, so I did. "Why does Mr. Diamond hate my husband so?"

"That's for Tony to tell ... I'm sorry, I promised him I wouldn't speak of it, no matter how much you entreated."

"Something terrible's happening to him. He doesn't sleep, he hardly eats. I want to help him. Why does he keep this from me?" Why did he trust me so little?

Molly laid her hands on mine. "When it's safe for you to know, you'll understand."

I stared at our hands. Who would decide that? Tony? Nothing would ever be safe enough for him, I saw that now.

"My Ma. What's to become of her now? Is Roy going to kill us? I didn't go into the Pot, I swear." I didn't know if his threats reached to contacting her. "Joseph Kerr's housekeeper sent word that whoever attacked Tony wanted to kill her too."

Molly gave me a smile meant to be soothing. "Never fear. There's no way we would ever let her fall into his hands."

We. Who was we?

Then I realized: whoever they were, they needed Ma alive.

She was their only hold on me.

I stumbled back to the veranda and sat at the table, staring at my garden. Molly spoke, and Pearson spoke, then Tony spoke. But I heard none of it, even when Tony carried me up to my room as my little bird chirped in the darkness.

Dame Anastasia was dead by Frank Pagliacci's hand. Frank Pagliacci was loose, Jack Diamond was loose, and Gardena's blackmailer was as well. The more I thought about it, the more I came to believe that Joe was right: we were not like these people.

Poor sad Mr. Durak's death was the final straw.

I couldn't live like this anymore. I needed to get me and Ma out of Bridges before we both ended up dead.

~This ends Chapter Two of the Red Dog Conspiracy~