Olivia Twist(77)
“Regardless, the only way we’re going to have a hope of proving Monks set Olivia up for this crime is if we find the will, proving his motive.”
The old man stared at him for several long moments, unblinking, and then said, “I believe you are right. I will engage Mr. Appleton to investigate all documents left behind by Edwin Leeford, if you’ll do something for me.”
“Of course.” Jack’s muscles tensed, ready to do anything he could to help.
“Use whatever connections you have, whatever nefarious skill, to hunt down this bloody character Monks. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir!” Jack jumped to his feet and headed toward the door.
“And one more thing.”
Jack turned back and the old man’s watery eyes locked on his. “For what it’s worth, my boy, love never needs to be forgiven.”
Jack shuffled down the cobbled lane, aimless. A week had passed, and while Jack couldn’t be certain, he didn’t think he’d slept in at least forty-eight hours. He’d scoured the city searching for Francesca’s true killer, but no matter how many heads he’d banged together or how much money he’d thrown around, Monks eluded his reach. He hadn’t found a single lead or scrap of evidence.
If only he could find the bludger, he’d drag him in front of the magistrate and throttle a confession from his scrawny neck. But it was as if the thug’s entire operation had disappeared. The streets had gone silent. Everyone was so relieved that Monks had suspended his reign of terror that no matter what leverage Jack used, they refused to talk. The best he could figure, Monks had gone underground. It was what Jack would do.
He only hoped Mr. Brownlow was having better luck digging up Edwin Leeford’s will.
Reaching inside his coat pocket for his watch, he flipped open the cover and stared at hands that refused to stop ticking forward no matter how hard he willed it. The timepiece showed less than five hours until Olivia’s case was set to go before the judge. He was sorely tempted to throw the blasted thing to the ground and smash it into the cobbles. But it wouldn’t help.
Nothing would.
Jack suppressed a growl of frustration, raked the hair out of his face, and gripped the strands, pulling until the pain lifted the fog from his brain. There had to be something he could do to clear her name. He released his hair and glanced around, realizing he’d wandered into a part of town he’d avoided for years. The slum of his origins—Southwark.
Glancing up, he met the golden eyes of an angel. The stained glass image beckoned him to shelter, just as it had that long-ago night he’d run from his mother. Once again out of options, Jack trudged up the worn stone stairs to an arched door and entered the dim sanctuary. Immediately, he was cocooned in the warmth of wood polish and burnt incense, the combination a balm to his frazzled nerves. The small, pew-lined church was empty, so he walked down the center aisle toward the candlelit altar and sunk down on the front bench. Hunching over, he folded his hands and stared into emptiness.
Passivity had never been his forte. He fixed things, changed outcomes, but this time his inability to stop and see the big picture had mucked up everything. If he just could have put the pieces of Monks’s plan together a bit sooner, he could have saved Olivia.
Jack dropped his head into his hands. If he hadn’t been so dead set on completing that last job, stealing from the man who had everything—wealth, privilege, respect, even Olivia—none of this would’ve happened. If he’d just stuck by her side at the ball . . .
Jack leaned his elbows on his knees and stared at the crucifix above the altar, a brutal depiction of the Son of God nailed to the cross, bloody and dying. An image Jack had never understood, even after all those Sundays in church with Lois. Wasn’t life cruel enough without this glaring reminder?
Then he remembered what one of the nuns who’d taken him in had said when he’d become too old to stay in their care. You have a good soul, Jack. If you’re ever lost, look inside yourself for the answers you seek.
Air whooshed out of Jack’s lungs. Beseeching anyone who might listen, he whispered, “I’ve done everything in my power and it isn’t enough. I don’t know how—” His voice broke, so he cleared his throat and began again. “I’d do anything to save her.”
Jack’s thoughts stalled. The air around him felt heavy with significance, as if the answers he sought were just out of his grasp.
He straightened and stared at the altar and the cross, a truth settling deep into his soul—true love meant sacrifice. It meant putting that person above yourself. Jack had never known that kind of love. His own mother had not even been willing to give up her addiction for her only son. But what he felt for Olivia was vast, powerful; he loved her more than his own life.
The revelation flooded Jack’s veins, his heart hammering and his skin tingling . . . exactly how he felt just before a fight.
CHAPTER 23
Olivia was suffocating.
Her eyes popped open to impenetrable darkness, pressing down on her chest like a thousand anvils.
She sucked in rapid breaths only to choke on the stench of decades-old human filth ground into the floor and walls around her. The darkness seeped into the space between her bones, eating at her flesh. Draining her life.
She sat up and swung her feet over the side of the cot and gripped the icy metal bar under her legs, its solid mass grounding her and regulating the airflow to her lungs.