Page 100 of A Treacherous Trade

“Then give them here.” This was where she and I differed, where I differed from many people. I wanted to see. Ihadto see. Not looking was impossibly more frightening to me.

Amelia surrendered the book of matches, and I folded the flap over the head of one and struck.

The devil’s work in a dark room.

I was on my knees before it, looking on in horror, silent and still until the flame bit my fingers. I dropped the match and lit another.

I should have known it would be dead women.

Trapped in photographs strung wall to wall, their faces unearthly pale, their eyes and lips tinged with shadows. Some staring. Some eyes closed. All in variations of nudity.

Amelia averted her face and sobbed quietly.

I couldn’t look away. Instead, I pushed myself to my feet and examined every single photograph.

I’d seen plenty of the dead, but not like this. Not arranged in seductive poses, or worse, submission. Some were tied with ropes; others had whip marks on their backs or backsides. A few were presented like supplicant angels on their knees, hands tied together. Still more with their legs open or bent over.

I recognized faces. Jane’s. Izzy’s. Indira’s. I’d bet my life that if I’d ever met Alys, I’d recognize her as well.

But Indira wasn’t dead.

I struck another match and studied a photograph of her strung over a bed, her dark hair a swath of ink on the white sheets, her breasts beaded against the cold, her eyes open and staring. Blank. Around her neck was a rope, and a dark substance trickled from the corner of her slightly parted mouth.

Even I couldn’t tell the difference from blood.

Thiswas where she and Izzy were coming from the night I was attacked in the alley.Thiswas why they looked like ghosts in the insubstantial light. Because they’d been made up to appear dead.

Not for a theater.

But for pleasure.

Was this what some men wanted? Sex with death? A corpse was cold, yes. But she was still. Silent. She had no opinions or emotions or needs. No objections. She was just an inanimate object now. A dead plaything.

I swallowed the bile crawling up the back of my throat, thinking this was the worst thing I might ever see in my life.

Then I looked down at the table.

I was wrong.

ChapterTwenty-Three

Iwasn’t at all surprised to see Charles Hartigan standing there when a niche opened in the wall. Because he was most definitely the long-limbed but unimpressive man doing such dastardly things to the women in the photographs strewn about the table. He’d been careful to keep his face out of shot, but his form was unmistakable.

As I stood there and stared into his beady eyes, so alarmingly close together, I actively hated that I now knew what his cock looked like.

It was knowledge I’d happily submit to a lobotomy to erase.

“We can charge more for those,” he said mildly, holding his lantern aloft to get a better look at his handiwork. “They’re not pretending.”

I leapt away from the table as if it might bite me. I’d dropped the matches, but it didn’t matter now; his lantern illuminated every corner of the small, dark room.

He’d saidwe.

No sooner had I latched on to the thought than Beatrice swept into the room behind him, her evening gown covered with a simple, dark frock coat.

“Bea!” Amelia choked out, taking a few unintentional steps forward before stopping herself. “What is this? What have you gotten yourself tangled into?”

The older woman wiped at exhausted eyes as she took us in. Beyond that, I read in her features something I hadn’t expected to find.