Читать книгу Bride On The Run - Elizabeth Lane - Страница 9

St. Joseph, Missouri

January 4, 1889

“Love, oh, love, oh careless love,

Love, oh, love, oh careless love,

Love, oh, love, oh careless love,

Just see what careless love has done….”

Anna DeCarlo sat on the edge of the tiny stage in a cross-legged pose that offered her audience a tantalizing glimpse of silk-stockinged ankle. Lamplight gleamed on her tawny, upswept hair and glittered on the paste-diamond choker that encircled her creamy throat. Her low, velvety voice flowed like dark honey through the smoky haze that filled the grand salon of the Jack of Diamonds, rising above the piano to mingle with the clink of crystal, the whir of roulette wheels and the low murmur of men’s voices.

From the ring of tables that surrounded the stage, she could feel hungry eyes on her, feel them devouring her small, voluptuous body through the clinging peacock satin gown. Go ahead and look, Anna thought fiercely. You’ll never get another chance!

“Love, oh, love, oh, careless love…”

Did she love Harry Solomon? Anna was not prepared to answer that question. She had stopped believing in love a long time ago. But she liked the dapper, silver-haired owner of the Jack of Diamonds. He was kind and generous and treated her like the lady she had always longed to be. Last week he had asked her to be his wife. Tonight he would get his answer. It would be yes.

“Just see what careless love has done…”

Anna lowered her gaze as the song ended, letting her head fall forward like a wilted blossom. For a long moment silence filled the lamplit circle. Then, as she lifted her face the audience burst into cheers. Smiling radiantly now, she took her bows. It was all over—the smoke-filled rooms, the leering eyes and pawing hands, the haggling over contracts and payment, the endless packing and unpacking. As Mrs. Harry Solomon, she would have a home. She would have the respect and security she had hungered for all her life.

As the applause died away she slipped backstage, pausing only to take up her white merino shawl from its hook on the wall. Wrapping the shawl around her bare shoulders, she hurried through the draughty corridor and up the back stairs. Harry would be in his sumptuous second-floor office now, waiting for her answer. She had kept him on tenterhooks long enough.

For all Anna’s resolve, doubts gnawed at her as she mounted the dark stairway. Harry Solomon was old enough to be her father. Was she doing the right thing by him and by herself? Could she be a loving wife to him? Share his bed? Even give him children?

But she was being foolish now, Anna lectured herself. Harry was the best thing that had ever come into her rough, miserable life. He had offered her the world of her dreams, and she would be generous with her gratitude. She would make him proud, and she would make him happy. Harry Solomon would never be sorry he had married her.

Lost in thought, Anna climbed upward. From the salon, the lusty chords of the grand piano, playing “Beautiful Dreamer,” echoed eerily up the stairwell. Above her, on the landing, she could see the thin crack of light beneath Harry’s door. He would be waiting for her, she knew, with iced champagne and two crystal goblets on the sideboard. Minutes from now they would be toasting their future together.

She was a half dozen steps short of the top when the door flew open and two dark figures burst out onto the landing. They were cloaked against the winter night, their low-brimmed hats shadowing their faces, but she recognized them both. The shorter of the two was Louis Caswell, chief of police in the riverfront precinct and a frequent patron of the Jack of Diamonds. Yes—she could see the black high-heeled boots he wore, custom-made to increase his height. The taller, darker man was little more than a stranger, a shadowy man known to her only as The Russian.

What business would Caswell have with Harry at this hour of the night? Anna was weighing the wisdom of asking when the two men pushed past her without a word and hurried on. Only the startled flash of Caswell’s eyes in his sharp little weasel face indicated that he had seen her at all.

Partway down the stairs she saw The Russian hesitate, glancing up at her. For an instant the light from the open doorway fell on his long, pockmarked face, and Anna felt her heart contract with a sudden, nameless fear. He turned, as if to start back toward her, but then Caswell seized his arm, said something in a low voice, and the two of them vanished into the dark corridor.

“Harry?” Anna’s elegant kidskin boots clicked across the landing as she hurried toward the open door. “Harry, what on earth—”

The words died in her throat as she stepped into the room. Harry Solomon was lying facedown in a spreading pool of blood, among the papers that had spilled from his open safe. A large, bone-handled butcher knife protruded from his back, right over the spot where his heart would be.