With his free hand, Daniel dug into his trousers pocket and pulled out the list he and Genevieve had compiled, the one that cross-listed the names of the mayoral committee with those of the people who had invested in Lexington Industries. Genevieve explained about the shell company.
Her editor looked at the list and sighed deeply. Placing his half-eaten muffin on the corner of his desk, he picked up a telegram and wordlessly handed it to her. Genevieve gasped as she read the contents, passing it to Daniel.
“That arrived just before you did,” Arthur said, his eyebrows rising. “The suicide death of one of our leaders of industry is major news.”
Genevieve and Daniel exchanged a look. The telegram stated that Andrew Huffington had shot himself that morning, but Genevieve wondered.
Who got to him first? Tommy or Sarah?
“Give me everything else you have,” Arthur ordered. Daniel willingly handed over the rest of their notes, which he had buried deep in various pockets. One was water-stained, and blood had seeped through his shirt onto the corner of another. Arthur took them all with a fussy expression, smoothing out wrinkled pages and arranging them around his desk. Genevieve stood, anxious to be of use.
He waved her off. “Let me have a look first. I’ll need to confirm all this. Now,” he continued, peering at her from behind his glasses, “when I write this up, you’ll share the byline?”
Something hot burst in the center of Genevieve’s chest. “You’ll give me credit?”
Arthur frowned. “Of course. I’d prefer to do the writing for a story this big—my, my, Giles Manfort, the deputy mayor,” he murmured, looking at their notes, “but it’s your research.”
The hot thing fluttered, and she could barely stop herself from jumping up and down and clapping her hands like a child. “I … I get to keep my job?” she breathed.
“What? Oh yes. Yes. That talk will die down soon. Besides, I’ve heard from several reliable sources that Mr. McCaffrey was in the gaming room until the wee hours.” He fixed Daniel with a beady look. “Is that not correct, sir?”
Daniel nodded mutely, looking as surprised as Genevieve felt.
“Then that’s settled,” Arthur said. “Let me get started, and the two of you get some rest. You both look dead on your feet. You may be able to find a cushion or two in someone’s office, but stay within my sight.” Arthur eyed them both sternly. “I’m your chaperone, I suppose. The last thing we want is a resurgence of the unseemly rumors we’re about to put to bed. Here, Genevieve, take my coat.” He handed over a thick wool coat, redolent of pipe smoke and snow.
The exhaustion she had been fighting for hours came flooding back in a rush, and she had to clasp Daniel’s arm to keep from falling down. They arranged themselves on the floor outside the glass windows encasing Arthur’s office. Daniel hunted around and found her someone’s shawl to use as a pillow and spread Arthur’s heavy coat over her body. Along with weariness, her aches and pains came roaring back, and she had to fight to keep her eyes open. Still, the overwhelming emotion she felt was gratitude: she was grateful to be safe, she was grateful to be warm, and she was grateful to be prone, even if it was on the hard wooden floor of her office.
Through heavy eyelids, she watched Daniel set up about ten feet across from her, using his own coat as a pillow. He lay on his side, facing her. She felt herself slipping toward sleep but smiled in his direction, a secret smile, one she hoped conveyed the gratitude she felt toward him as well. No matter what happened next, they were connected now, forever. He smiled back, blue eyes twinkling at her from across the wood floor. It was the last thing she saw before sleep overtook her.
When she woke up hours later, the worst of the storm had passed and the space on the wooden floor ten feet away was empty. Genevieve pushed herself up and blinked around the still-empty newsroom.
“He’s gone,” Arthur said, emerging from his office and handing her a steaming mug.
The cold air assaulted Genevieve’s shoulders as Arthur’s heavy coat slid down and pooled in her lap. She sipped at the mug, wondering why the short statement was causing such a pain in her heart.
“Is he coming back?” she asked, attempting to sound casual.
Her editor leaned against the doorframe of his office and looked at her with sympathy. “I don’t believe so. He left when the winds quieted. Frankly, I was surprised he got out of the building at all. I can see drifts as high as third-story windows out there.”
Genevieve nodded.
“Come,” Arthur said, approaching and holding out his hand to help her stand. “Let’s get to work.”
Work. Genevieve applied herself to the task, reading what Arthur had written, making corrections, adding sentences. The sun emerged and shone through the large rectangular windows that lined the room, warming the space, its bright light glinting off the piles of blinding white snow without. It was satisfying in a deep, primal way, this work, this ordering of weeks of toil and investigation into an orderly, neat narrative.
Genevieve’s pleasure in the task, though, did not keep her from glancing toward the doors into the room every few moments, hoping that one of the times she looked up, a tall, dark-haired figure would frame the empty space.
But it never did, not that day, nor the next. She didn’t see Daniel again for almost a year.
EPILOGUEOne Year Later
June 1889
It was a fine day to set sail.
The sky overhead was that cocky blue unique to early summer, with barely a cloud in the sky. The spring winds had passed—thankfully without another blizzard this year—and the dog days of July and August had yet to trap the city in their oppressive
