Free Murder in Murray Hill (Gaslight Mystery) by Victoria Thompson

Holding him close, she savored the feel of his tiny arms locked around her neck. She had a son now. What an amazing miracle. Then she took Mrs. Malloy’s work-roughened hand in hers, glad to see her eyes no longer held the slightest hint of the fear she’d always had of Sarah. “Thank you for being willing to come live with us. I know it’s going to be a big adjustment for you, and I appreciate it so much.”
    Mrs. Malloy blinked her suspiciously moist eyes. “It’s what’s best for the boy.”
    “I think so, too. I’ll tell the girls to expect you on Saturday. I know they’ll be thrilled.”
    They were out on the street and lost among the throngs of pedestrians still enjoying the spring evening before Malloy finally exploded. “What did you do to her?”
    Sarah couldn’t help laughing at his disgruntled frown. “I didn’t do anything except not steal her son and her grandson away from her.”
    “What does that mean?”
    Sarah sighed, more than a little relieved that things had gone so well. She’d been hoping their decision to invite Mrs. Malloy to live with them would placate her a bit, but even Sarah had been surprised at Mrs. Malloy’s reaction. “It means that . . . Well, I’ve always suspected that her dislike of me was actually the fear that we would marry and take Brian and leave her all alone.”
    “Of course it was. But why does she suddenly . . . ?” He gestured vaguely.
    “Like me?”
    “It’s more than that. I never saw her be that nice to anybody.”
    “Certainly not to you,” Sarah had to admit.
    “Oh no. Wouldn’t want me to get a swelled head.”
    “In that case, it’s a good thing she’s coming to live with us, because with all the money, you’ll definitely be in danger of that.”
    “I just hope it lasts. Her being nice to you, I mean.”
    “It will. She knows it was my decision to invite her. But I just realized, we didn’t tell her you’d lost your job.”
    “Plenty of time for that.”
    “I suppose. Oh dear, I just remembered the poor girl you were looking for. What will happen with her?”
    His jaw tightened, and Sarah’s heart sank. “I had to give the case to Broghan.”
    “But surely—”
    “Surely, they’ll let me keep working on it? No, they won’t. They won’t even think it’s important.”
    “Didn’t you tell them Maeve is willing to—”
    “I told them everything, but it won’t make any difference.”
    “Is it because of you and the inheritance?” she asked, oblivious of the startled looks the word
inheritance
drew from the people walking nearby them.
    “Partly, and partly because it isn’t the kind of case anybody cares about.”
    “Her father cares!” Sarah said, outraged.
    He sighed with what sounded dangerously like despair. “Sarah, these cases never have a happy ending. Her father wants her back. The families always do, but they want the girl they know back. After something like this, the girl is never the same, though. Sometimes the family even blames her for what happened to her and for embarrassing them. And that’s if we find her at all. Sometimes these girls kill themselves because of the shame, or they end up on the street because they think they can’t go home. And that’s if the man doesn’t murder her when he’s done with her. However it ends, no one is happy, and even if we catch the man, the girl never wants to tell anyone what happened to her, so most of the time he isn’t even charged with a crime because the girl and her family don’t want anyone to know about it.”
    “That’s horrible!”
    “Of course it is, but that’s why the police don’t care about cases like this.” Malloy took her arm to guide her through the crush of wagons clogging the intersection, carefully dodging the piles of horse dung.
    “So are you saying
you
don’t care if they find her or not?” she asked when they reached the relative safety of the opposite curb.
    “Of course I care. I don’t want to find out she’s dead or