A Deadly Fortune by Stacie Murphy

Author:Stacie Murphy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2021-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

26

The following evening, Jonas arrived at the asylum in a black humor, bearing bad news. “There’s no way I’m going to be able to check all the names against the files in a month,” he told Amelia as they neared Cavanaugh’s office. “If I spend every possible hour at the courthouse, I might be able to get through half the list.”

“Half?” Amelia echoed. In her dismay, her voice emerged more loudly than she intended, echoing through the corridor. She winced and cast a furtive look around them, relieved to see no one near enough to have heard her outburst. Nonetheless, she lowered her voice and went on, “But you found the sale records for Elizabeth’s property in an afternoon.”

“I found them in an hour.” Jonas rapped on Cavanaugh’s door, then opened it without waiting for a reply.

The doctor looked up as they entered.

Jonas flung himself into a chair with a sigh and went on. “This is something completely different. It turns out there are only a handful of records clerks, and there’s a constant flood of documents coming down from the courtrooms. They’re all supposed to be sorted and filed at once. Wills and lawsuits—anything involving money or property, anything someone would be likely to need again—actually do get filed. That’s why it was so easy to find the property records.

“But everything else? It sits in stacks, and every once in a while, when a stack gets too tall, someone comes along and shovels it into a pasteboard box. Then the box goes onto a shelf—wherever there’s space.

“At least they write the date on the side of the box, so you can tell roughly when those records came from,” Jonas added. He rubbed his forehead and sighed. “I’m going to have to go through every one of those boxes, sort out the asylum admissions, and mark each name off the list. In theory, the names left when I’m done will be those of our hidden women. Or it might just mean they’re in a box I haven’t found yet. Getting through half the list is a best-case scenario.”

Cavanaugh was frowning. “We need more help.”

“Indeed.” Jonas gave him a withering look. “Why didn’t I think of that? If you have an army of clerks you’ve neglected to mention, now would be an excellent time.”

Cavanaugh didn’t reply, though his expression was frosty.

Amelia suppressed a sigh. Jonas always grew snide when he was frustrated, but Cavanaugh didn’t know him well enough not to take it personally.

“Well,” she said, deliberately stepping into the silence, “it’s true there’s no one we can trust outside the asylum. But there is someone we can trust inside it.”

Both men turned to look at her.

“I’m quite certain Elizabeth will be willing to help search the wards, if we ask,” Amelia went on. “I didn’t get a chance to tell her what was happening before I left the isolation ward, but she’s as involved in this as any of us. More, even.”

“Perhaps.” Cavanaugh’s voice was thoughtful. “But she doesn’t have your gift.

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