YOU’RE the only one who can do it!!” Millicent had me backed up against a wall. Literally. We were in a narrow alley about a hundred feet up the street from the jail. She wasn’t begging in a flirty way. She was too desperate for that. And I was glad for it—if she’d tried to be flirty, I would have seen right through it and gotten angry. The desperation was more effective, anyway. I couldn’t stand to see her in that kind of distress. But I wasn’t sure I had it in me to do what she was asking. “Please!” “Can’t we just avoid her?” “No! If she happens on us, she’ll blow up the whole plan! And I can’t have her worrying so—did you see the way she looked when she left the jail? It was heartbreaking!” Millicent was right. The brief glimpse I’d gotten, from our hiding spot in the alley, of Edith Pembroke in tears as she walked out of the jail after learning that the daughter she’d come to fetch had vanished . . .
