Page 17 of A Lady's Handbook of Espionage
Only a handful of people knew what had happened on the Praya. And none of them were the sort to gossip idly about the Crown’s business, not if they valued their lives. Which left only one possibility: Alexandra had bribed a colleague. Or perhaps wheedled the story out of them with her wiles and charms. She collected secrets like a magpie hoarded shiny baubles – the darker and more scandalous, the better.
“How did you hear about that?” he demanded.
He’d spend the rest of the day plotting someone’s murder.
Alexandra’s grin widened. “You’re not my only source of information. Now let us in.”
Better to get it over with.
With a long-suffering sigh from the weary depths of his soul, Callahan opened the door just wide enough to admit them. Alexandra made herself at home perched on the edge of his desk while her companion took in his flat with wide eyes. He fought the urge to wince as her gaze settled on the detritus of his current existence – the empty bottles, the scattered papers, the piles of books. He’d been drinking himself stupid since his return from Hong Kong.
“Now then, Mr Callahan,” Alexandra said. “What might you tell us about finding missing persons?”
“Depends on who you’re looking for, what information you have, and whether I’d get shanked for tracking them.”
Missing persons could mean any number of things in his line of work, from runaway heiresses to political dissidents in hiding. The people he was hired to find often didn’t want to be found.
Alexandra waved a hand dismissively. “We need to find my friend’s sister. Surely you can handle one missing woman without getting knifed.”
Callahan’s flat stare conveyed precisely what he thought of that assertion. In his experience, women could be just as deadly as men – often more so because people underestimated them. He’d learned that lesson the hard way.
In fucking Hong Kong.
“It always depends on the woman,” he said, thinking of green eyes and a blade pressed to his throat.
The blonde spoke up. “Her name is Isabel Dumont. Last seen in Paris before she beat a rather hasty retreat. Presumably across the Channel here to London.”
Paris. He should have known. That blasted city brought him nothing but trouble. He decided to hate Paris.
“Have you considered the possibility that your sister isn’t interested in being found? Wherever she’s landed, chances are she’s started a tidy new life free of meddling siblings.”
“Pay that no heed,” Alexandra interrupted. “He’s incapable of grasping familial affection.”
Miss Dumont drew in a deep breath. There was a quiet determination in her eyes.
“Do you have siblings, Mr Callahan?” she asked. “Anyone whose safety concerns you?”
Memories flashed of the other lads in Whelan’s gang huddled together for warmth on cold nights. Not related by blood, but the closest thing he’d had to family after his mother died.
At his silence, she pressed on. “If you cared for someone, and they disappeared after sending what amounted to a farewell, are you telling me you wouldn’t move heaven and earth to ensure their safety?”
Something tightened in Callahan’s chest. “Sometimes the trouble isn’t that they don’t wish to be found. It’s the danger in finding them.”
He’d told himself that a thousand times over the years, late at night when the whiskey flowed a bit too freely and memories clawed at him. There was a reason he kept to himself these days.
“If my sister is in danger, I want to know,” Miss Dumont said quietly. “I won’t sit idle imagining her lost or dead without at least trying to learn the truth.”
Every instinct screamed at him to walk away, to wash his hands of this. Get back to drinking. But when he noticed the determined set of her jaw and the desperate hope in her eyes, he felt something splinter.
Damn it. Bugger. Shite.
With a sigh, Callahan dragged a hand through his hair. “What does she look like? What’s her occupation? What are her interests?”
Miss Dumont hesitated. “Darker hair. More petite. She has something of a knack for languages. And assuming identities.”
Callahan’s eyebrows rose at that last bit.
The woman cleared her throat, a faint blush creeping up her neck. “And employing legally ambiguous methods for acquiring funds.”
