Chapter One

DEPUTY MARSHAL RACKLEY spit a brown wad onto the wood floor. "Time to see if you're as good as you're cracked up to be." His voice dripped doubt.

Oliver Redcastle folded his jacket over a chair stacked with ladies undergarments. He knocked a stack of corsets off another chair and positioned it at an angle to the window. He took the Remington-Beals Single Shot out of its deer hide case. It's curly maple stock, well-polished by years of use, glowed in the dim light.

He ran a finger down its barrel to check its convertible front site, then peered through the rear site. He manipulated its action to see if it was still smooth as cold satin. It was. He slid in a .32 rimfire cartridge. With an effort, because his knee had been paining him all day, he knelt in front of the open window and rested his bent elbow on the edge of the chair. Slowly, he leaned his weight on it and worked the rifle's butt into his shoulder.

Rackley and Lieutenant Krooth of the Eastern District had commandeered this third floor bedroom atop a corset shop opposite Hiram Flatt's tin emporium. Flatt was holed up with an eight-year-old girl he'd kidnapped hours earlier.

Since two other city children of a similar age had been kidnapped, molested, and murdered, the Baltimore police assumed Flatt intended the same fate for his present victim. This time, however, the tin man had made an error.

The other hapless children had been the offspring of immigrant cannery workers. The police had not exerted themselves. This child, Annie Bailey, was the pampered daughter of a prominent banker. Soon after she'd disappeared, lawmen scoured the city. Now, they'd cordoned off the cobblestone block on either side of Flatt's house. Around the barriers neighbors and curiosity seekers pressed against the officers grimly standing guard in the dusk.

"Light's mighty poor. Think you can get him, Redcastle?"

"Depends if he shows himself at the window before dark. If he stays out of sight, you may have to rush the house." Oliver passed a hand over his forehead. If Flatt didn't show himself, he might be harming the child. If, on the other hand, the tinsmith did poke his fool head out, Oliver would kill him. He'd hoped he wouldn't have to kill a man again.

Rackley tugged at his muttonchop whiskers, then took another cut of tobacco and thrust it into the corner of his mouth. He was beefy, with a ruddy complexion that suggested a quick temper. "Flatt's a cornered rat," he said between chews. "If we rush him, he'll kill the child. Lord knows what he's done to the poor kiddie already."

Oliver understood what it meant to be a father with a child at risk. He shifted some of his weight off his right elbow. Concentration was everything these situations. Let your mind wander and you'd lose your chance. Nevertheless, it was a chore to ignore Rackley spitting as his square-toed shoes paced a groove in the floor.

Rackley said, "I only made such a fuss to get you here because my man, Gloger, is down sick. Gloger's the best shot in fifty miles."

"That so?"

"During the war he went sesesh. Shot blue coats out of the trees like ripe fruit."

Oliver wished Rackley would shut up. The reek coming off him suggested that his monthly bath was inadequate.

"How'd you get to be a marksman, Redcastle?"

"Shooting rattlesnakes for dinner."

"Ain't no rattlesnakes in Baltimore."

"I grew up in Kansas." His gaze flickered over the street below. Flatt appeared to be quite an accomplished tinsmith. His shop windows were stuffed with pans, kettles, buckets, squirrel cages, and the small tin horns used by garbage cart drivers and fish peddlers.

Some of the neighbors shouting jeers at Flatt's upper windows had doubtless patronized his business never guessing his sick obsession with children.

Copyright © 2004 Louise Titchener