Murder on Sisters' Row Read Online Free PDF

her instructions to say it was from Mrs. Keller. Sarah didn’t really expect Malloy to be available, but she’d wait until the girl got back, just in case they knew when to expect him. She was too tired to wait long, however. She’d either have to go home soon or ask Mrs. Keller if she had a spare bed.
    To her surprise, however, the girl returned in short order with Malloy on her heels. He pulled off his hat as he entered the foyer, looking around for her. She’d been waiting in the parlor, and she went to meet him.
    “Malloy,” she said, absurdly glad to see him, and she felt her fatigue falling away. His solid figure seemed to dominate the foyer.
    “Mrs. Brandt,” he replied, as he always did. His dark eyes examined her critically.
    She touched her hair self-consciously. She must look a fright after being up all night.
    “Your note said you needed to see me,” he said, mindful of the girl still standing there, hanging on every word, and Mrs. Keller, who’d followed Sarah out of the parlor.
    “Yes, I have some questions I need to ask you, if you have a few minutes.”
    “Hilda and I will get you some coffee,” Mrs. Keller said tactfully, ushering the reluctant girl down the hallway toward the kitchen and leaving them alone.
    Sarah led him into the parlor and closed the pocket doors behind them.
    When she turned toward him, he was frowning in apparent disapproval. “And where have you been all night?”
    “In a whorehouse,” Sarah replied baldly, in no mood to be disapproved of.
    If she’d hoped to shock him, she’d more than succeeded. “My God, are you serious?”
    “Perfectly. I was called to a birth yesterday, and the mother happens to live in a brothel.” She took a seat on the horsehair sofa that someone had donated to the Mission long after its usefulness was over.
    Malloy plopped down beside her as if his knees had suddenly come unhinged. “Where?”
    “In the Tenderloin,” she said, naming the triangular neighborhood north of Twenty-third Street between Ninth Avenue and Broadway whose northern portion was Longacre Square.
    “My God,” he said again, looking at her in utter amazement. “Why did you let them take you there?” Now he sounded outraged.
    “The young man picked me up in a carriage. All the curtains were drawn, and I enjoyed the privacy and didn’t pay much attention to where we were going. We stopped in the alley behind the house, and they took me in through the kitchen and up the servants’ stairs to the girl’s bedroom. I thought it was a boardinghouse.”
    He rubbed a hand over his face and muttered something that was either a prayer or a curse.
    She pretended not to hear. “As you can see, I emerged unscathed, but I do have something I want to ask you about.”
    His dark eyes were nearly black when he turned to her. “You’re not going back there. And you’re going to start paying attention to where people are taking you when you go to deliver babies. And furthermore—”
    “Stop it, Malloy,” she snapped. “I already have a father whose opinions I have to ignore. I don’t need another one. Now stop lecturing me and listen. I’m very tired and my patience is wearing thin.”
    He didn’t like it, but he pressed his lips together into a thin line and just glared.
    “Good,” she said, seeing his compliance. “The girl whose baby I delivered asked me to help her escape.”
    This time he did curse, making Sarah jump. “Are you crazy ?” he almost roared. “Do you know what happens to people who try to get girls out of places like that?”
    “Yes, they get killed.”
    He’d already opened his mouth to continue, but her reply stopped him dead. “What?”
    “You were going to tell me that I could get killed. I know that. Amy told me.”
    “Who’s Amy?”
    “The girl who had the baby. It’s a little boy, Malloy, and they’re going to take him from her.”
    “Of course they are. A brothel is no place for a baby.”
    “I’m sure it isn’t,” Sarah