To Live and To Breathe (Could Be #2)

Chapter 50

Dank. That was the word—it was what Timothy had always associated with the dungeons in fairytales, not a word that applied to modern prisons. Mr. Bradley's cell was much colder and wetter than Mr. Webb's had been, located so far below street level that only a sliver of light ventured down the musty hole that had been drilled for it by way of a window.

Timothy shivered, watching the turnkey hang his lantern on a hook nearby before settling into an attitude of stolid watchfulness. He hoped Mr. Bradley wouldn't try to garner the public's favor with the interview. He certainly didn't deserve it.

"Mr. Jack Bradley?" Sam asked, stepping boldly to the bars.

"Aye." The darkish, human-shaped form sitting in the back of the cell shifted, chains clinking. He sounded rough—as though he were ready to comply, but unrepentant. Timothy got out his notebook.

"Mr. Bradley, we are here to hear your side of the story," Sam announced.

"I should've clubbed you both like the dogs you are!" the harsh voice ground out, and spat. "But no—Phillip wanted you alive. Then I wouldn't have to suffer you to drag my name in the dirt before I'm even tried."

"You have done that yourself," Sam retorted. "I want to know how long you've known Mr. Astor."

"I met him first in 1888—my wife introduced us. He'd long thought he'd have need of a man of my skills, so he'd stationed the missus in his brother-in-law's house, in case Mr. Wright needed silencing."

Timothy stopped writing. "What did you say?"

Something like amusement glimmered in his voice. "Shocking, isn't it? Perhaps not so shocking as the fact that I was never needed to take care of Mr. Wright. Instead, I was hired to dispatch an old woman with a tell-tale parrot. Foolish bird, you thought he was only ill-mannered."

The rage nearly choked Timothy. "You killed Aunt Wright?" he exclaimed, forgotten pencil clenched tight in his hand. He'd been living with the key to Aunt Wright's death for four years now, and had gone about his days as if nothing so foul as murder soiled his family's name. And now look! How many others had died because of their ignorance?

"Mr. Astor needed his inheritance to fund an expansion to his business at the time," Mr. Bradley said, as if killing off relatives were the accepted way to do it. "Making a mockery of her indignation by repeating her final words with every job has been a joy to me. How dare I! As if there was anything any of us wouldn't do for the right compensation."

"And Mrs. Bradley was spying on us." Timothy suddenly felt light-headed. The notes, the dismissals of the maids—everything made sense now. Would his father still be among the living if he hadn't quit the family business? Oh, Lord.

"You sit there in your righteous anger and forget how dependent you are on people like me to make the world go round." Mr. Bradley's voice was laced with iron. "You turn a blind eye to the suffering of children in factories like your uncle's, and sing blithely about freedom in your churches on Sunday."

Timothy hurled his pencil through the bars and both Sam and the turnkey leaped to hold him back. "You have no idea what we've done!" he growled. "My uncle holds so tight to his thalers that he hires murderers like you to cut down any opposition, but my father quit his job because he couldn't watch children being maimed any longer. It took us two years after the fact to find a stable place to live, and you dare to imply that we sit by without doing anything just because we aren't wrapped so deeply in the injustice as you."

"And I suppose you think you know suffering," Mr. Bradley said, quietly.

Timothy took a step back, feeling as if he'd been slapped. Breathe. In, out. He could hear his heartbeat roaring in his ears, trying to drown out anything rational. "Thank God I don't." He straightened. "I can't imagine what it must be like to have a conscience like yours."

"Timothy," Sam whispered, gripping his arm a little tighter in warning. "It has just occurred to me that you are much too close to this subject to write about it properly."

Timothy looked at Sam as if seeing him for the first time, then wrenched out of his grasp and lurched back a step or two. His ears were ringing. "Give me a moment, that's all—"

"No," Sam repeated, pointing firmly back down the hall. "I want you to go back to the lobby and wait. I'll finish, and then we'll see what we've got."

Timothy tried to make sense of what Sam was saying, but his head was too muddled by anger and pain to admit that he needed help. And yet, deep down, he knew he was right. When Sam nodded in the direction of the hallway, he went.

Timothy sat down in the one lonely chair next to the counter, feeling as if he'd been shivered to pieces. He propped his elbows on his knees and head in his hands, and chewed his lip in an agony of silence. As his anger cooled his head cleared, and with it came the horrible assurance that his family had almost been another casualty of his uncle's business practices.

Now the Astors' would crumble. His heart ached for his cousins.

When Sam reappeared they left the prison without a word, but after trying to catch several cabs unsuccessfully, Timothy asked Sam what he'd learned while they waited for another to appear.

Sam looked at Timothy with an unidentifiable expression, then handed him his notebook. "Read it for yourself. I don't think I like being right this time."

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The most frightening villains are the ones that are understandable.

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