Maggie Bright by Tracy Groot Read Free Book Online

friend. You got bail bondsmen here, right? They do that in England?”
    “Your . . . friend?” she dared to ask.
    “Father Fitz. Came all the way here to get him, and now . . . Well, it’s not lookin’ too good. They won’t let him out ’cause he won’t talk. Maybe I can talk for him. I can straighten it out, like he always done for me. Who do I gotta talk to? The bobby behind the desk?” He looked around the room. “Someone else high up?”
    “Talk about what?” she asked innocently, hoping to catch him off balance for a few more details. Oh, she was shameless!
    “Well, see   —” But he closed his mouth. “Well done, the padre said. He saves it for when he’s really impressed, and he’d be impressed to know that for once, I shut my mouth.” He grasped his lapels, now looking very pleased with himself. “I don’t gotta lay all my cards on the table. It’s been a pleasure, miss. You’re a real inspiration. I hope you get to the Grand Canyon someday. If you do, give it my regards.” He lifted and replaced his fedora, and turned his attention to the front.
    She couldn’t contrive a single reason to keep standing there, so she murmured, “Likewise,” and walked out the door.

    “Daft?” she asked herself outside the police station, thinking furiously, pacing three steps to, three steps back. “Don’t think so. There is something odd and peculiar about him, but not in a criminal way. He’s certainly gabby. Reminds me of Giles Wentworth.”
    I hope you get to the Grand Canyon someday? Give it my regards?
    “Well, that was certainly sweet. And he meant it.” Something about him was very much like the dear BV.
    What did G. K. Chesterton say about the talkative man? He doesn’t have anything to hide. Or maybe it was that the talkativeman has no pride. He is not so careful , he doesn’t watch himself, not like someone with pride. Or someone with a guilty conscience. Something like that.
    The chatty American was not a criminal. She had a feeling for criminals. Well   —she had a feeling for malice, and neither of these men had malice within.
    Not like her uncle, the Privately Amused.
    They were quite different from him.
    Clare stopped pacing. The dark American reminded her of the BV in the same way that he reminded her of   —but, really   —two, at the same time?
    “Oh, you are being foolish,” she told herself fiercely, and wondered if she had indeed developed a dreaded fixation .
    She realized her hand was pressed upon her heart. She felt for the locket.
    “I miss you,” she whispered, tears suddenly stinging. “More than ever. I haven’t had anyone to remind me of you. And now there are two.”
    The American emerged from the police station, carrying a suitcase. He looked very unhappy. The intense look had come back, very dark and inward.
    He stood quite still for a rather awkward amount of time while people passed. He simply stared at the street, didn’t move an inch. Then he looked left and right, as if trying to decide which way to go.
    “Oh dear,” she said.
    Cards, said he?
    Put them all on the table, she told herself.
    She walked up the steps, murmuring, “Courage. Vision. Singularity of purpose.” She produced a cheerful smile. “Hello again. I’m   —waiting for my bus.”
    He nodded. “Hello.”
    “Listen   —wherever you’re staying in London, I’ve got a better place. It’s quiet, and it’s just outside this poisonous city.”
    “Poisonous?”
    “I can only take so much of it. Then I want to get back to . . .”
    She went all electric, felt lifted to her toes.
    “Look,” she said quickly, “I own a boat on the Thames, and I’m raising money to be the first woman to singlehandedly circumnavigate the globe in a ketch-rigged yacht. It’s currently a bed and breakfast. Your friend paid a visit a few weeks ago in the form of a foiled burglary. I came today to find out what he was looking for. I have one cabin available, and you can stay in it if