Thieftaker by D. B. Jackson Read Free Book Online

tempted. But only the night before he had decided to keep out of sight for a while, to live off the money he had gotten from Ezra Corbett. More to the point, in all the time he had been working as a thieftaker he had tried to avoid taking jobs involving murders. They were far more dangerous, and he could never justify sparing the life of a thief who also killed, which meant that he himself might have to take a life. He had vowed long ago never to do that again.
    “I’m afraid I can’t help you,” he said, meeting the stranger’s gaze once more.
    “If it’s a matter o’ more money…”
    Ethan shook his head. “It’s not. I don’t work murders.” He stood. “Please thank Mister Berson for his offer.”
    “He asked for ya specifically,” the man said quickly. “And he doesna like bein’ refused. Ya might wan’ t’ consider if Abner Berson is someone ya want as an enemy.”
    It wasn’t the threat that stopped him. He had heard far worse in his years as a thieftaker in this city. But the other part … He asked for you specifically.
    “Why would he want me?” Ethan asked.
    The man shrugged; the expression on his face didn’t change at all. “It’s no’ my place t’ ask. But he did.”
    Now that he thought about it, Ethan realized that this should have been his first question. He usually worked for men of middling means—merchants like Corbett, craftsmen like Henry, for whom he had recovered a valuable set of tools before taking the room above his cooperage. Men as wealthy as Berson didn’t come to him. They went to Sephira Pryce. Pryce was better known; she was as wealthy and influential as they were. If word got around Boston that Berson had come to Ethan instead of going to the Empress of the South End, as many called Pryce, both Ethan and the merchant could expect visits from her and her toughs—never an appealing prospect.
    Kannice would have told Ethan that this was all the more reason to send the silver-haired stranger away, to follow through on his plan to avoid the streets for a time. But that had never been his way.
    “Have you approached Sephira Pryce about this?” he asked.
    For the first time, Berson’s man seemed unnerved. His face paled, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “No,” he said. “Mister Berson sent me here.”
    “Has he had dealings with Miss Pryce in the past?”
    “It’s no’ my place t’ say,” the man said. He seemed unsettled by the question. “Mister Berson sent me here.”
    “You already said that.”
    “An’ will ya accept his offer?” He shifted in his chair, then straightened, regaining some measure of his composure. “Most men o’ yar … station would leap at th’ chance t’ work for Mister Berson.”
    “Most men of my station wouldn’t be offered the opportunity.”
    “Ya make my point for me, Mister Kaille.”
    “Right, but what I’m wondering…” He stopped in midsentence, staring at the man.
    “Yes?”
    Of course. It came to him in a rush, along with his memory of the conjuring he had felt the night before. He should have understood immediately. If he was going to risk angering Pryce, he couldn’t afford to be this slow-witted.
    “All right,” Ethan said. “I’ll do it.”
    The stranger looked genuinely surprised. “Ya will?”
    “Aye. I’ll need a description of the brooch and some information about Mister Berson’s daughter—where she was killed, and exactly when; where she had been, and where she was going. If possible I’d like to see her corpse.”
    He had expected that this would trouble the man, but the stranger merely nodded, as if he had expected Ethan to request as much. What did it say about the streets of Boston that a merchant’s man should be more disturbed by the mention of Sephira Pryce than by the dead body of his employer’s daughter?
    “She’s a’ King’s Chapel,” the man said, “downstairs in th’ crypt.”
    “The crypt? She’s already been buried?”
    “No. Tha’s where her body was