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The teahouse was, unfortunately, filled to the brim with wives and their mothers and the widows who’d ventured out for the day, and Patrick was loathe to step into their henhouse.

There was no quicker way to stir gossip than to step into a teahouse.

But Nina looked weary. She limped slightly as she walked, no doubt suffering in shoes that did not quite fit. There was a purpling in the corners of her eyes that Patrick suspected came from the clobbering Scottie had given her. He ground his teeth.

“Stay,” he said to Isaiah, and the dog sat heavily by a lamppost.

Patrick thought it unlikely Nina would allow him to take her to a doctor. She’d evidently missed the one he’d sent to her room that morning. But he supposed he could offer her a chair, a warm drink, some fucking tea cake.

He sighed internally and stepped inside.

The moment he crossed the threshold, he was accosted. A widow named Mrs. Hedley stood from her wicker-backed chair, ignoring her tea, the pleas of her companion, and took two tight steps toward him.

Her hot hand collided with Patrick’s cheek, and he bore it with good grace, blinking back the reverberations. “Hello, Mrs. Hedley,” he greeted her.

Patrick was aware the shop had fallen quiet, all conversations halted.The entire place seemed to hold its breath in wait for Mrs. Hedley’s repercussions.

Colson & Sons were famous for their repercussions. But they weren’t in the habit of dragging widows down Main Street by their housecoats.

“You cut my son lose, you hear me?” Mrs. Hedley spluttered, nostrils flaring. She was raised up on her toes to better raze him down. “Turn him out. I won’t have him workin’ for you!” A hairpin sprung free, making her look altogether unhinged.

Nina moved closer to Patrick’s side, clearly mystified. He wondered how insulted she’d be if he pushed her back out the door and out of harm’s way.

Deciding against it, Patrick sighed. “Sam is his own man. If he no longer wishes to work for me, all he has to do is say so.”

Spit collected on the woman’s lips. “He’s achild!”

“He’s eighteen now, Donna,” Patrick said, quieter now. He nodded his head politely and stepped around her. “He ain’t a kid.”

Mrs. Hedley reared up, her hand raising of its own accord. “You’ll have him go into the ground alongside his father!” she screamed, but before she could land a second slap, her friend had wrapped her arms around Mrs. Hedley’s middle. In a tangle of handbags and hats, they wrestled out of the teahouse and into the street. Mrs. Hedley kept bellowing, one swollen finger jabbing the air in Patrick’s direction, “Fuckin’ Colsons took my husband! You’re not havin’ my boy. You hear me, Pat?”

He heard her. Every bloody word.

And so did Nina.

She stared through the windows, confusion on her face. “What does she mean?” Nina asked. “What happened to her husband?”

Patrick bit down a curse. This foray into Kenton was meant to charm her.

“We should sit,” he said, leading her through tiny spaces between patrons, to a table crowded by a pink-papered wall and a mounted cabinet filled to the brim with figurines and decades of dust.

Nina took her seat without protest. She even waited for Patrick to take his before demanding answers. “Where is her husband?” she repeated tersely.

“Dead,” he sighed. The rest of the teahouse had resumed conversation at half-volume; he felt their eyes on the back of his neck.

Nina paid them no mind. She seemed to be trying to thread a bolt into his forehead, with the aim to crack it open and see inside. A pause, and then, “Did youkillhim? Is that what the Colsons do?”

“This is hardly the place to discuss murder. I brought you here for tea.”

“I’d rather know the man I’m agreeing to work for,” she said. “You can keep the tea.”

It was hot in the enclosed space. Her ringlets curled tighter in the humidity, falling from the clasp at her neck into her face. They made her look more herself.

Patrick flexed his fingers. “All right,” he said slowly. “Did I kill Mrs. Hedley’s husband? Sam’s father? The answer is yes, and no.”

She sat back, seeming to take Patrick in anew. Perhaps she was reshaping that image of a twelve-year-old kid in her mind, carving out space for more. “What happened to him?”

Patrick shrugged. “Went into the tunnels,” he said. “Didn’t come out.”