Free Murder on Sisters' Row by Victoria Thompson

O’Brien’s desk. The chief didn’t invite him to sit down.
    The woman glared up at him from where she sat, as if she held him personally responsible for whatever she was so angry about. He thought she looked familiar, but maybe she just looked like every other madam in the city—a bit past her prime, more than a bit plump, and wearing expensive clothes that still looked cheap. Her hat had probably cost more than Frank made in a month, but the bird perched on it and staring at him with beady glass eyes was orange. Not a color found in nature.
    “Mrs. Walker, this is the detective sergeant I told you about,” O’Brien was saying.
    “The one who knows this Mrs. Brandt?” she asked sharply.
    Frank’s stomach knotted, and he managed not to swear aloud, although the curses were roaring in his head. In the one second that ticked by, he saw in his mind’s eye exactly what had happened. Sarah had ignored his advice and done a very stupid thing. He wasn’t going to let on that he knew, though. Things were already bad enough. Frank just clamped his teeth shut and waited, knowing anything he said would be wrong.
    “You do know Mrs. Brandt, don’t you, Malloy? The midwife?” O’Brien prompted.
    What had happened to Sarah? Was she all right? “We’ve met,” he allowed.
    O’Brien wasn’t amused. “Met? Hasn’t she been involved in some of your cases?”
    “A few.”
    “Involved in your cases?” Mrs. Walker echoed. “Does she work for the police?”
    “Of course not,” O’Brien assured her. Frank noticed his face was a dangerous shade of scarlet. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
    “I’m not being ridiculous,” Mrs. Walker informed him. If possible, she was even more furious than O’Brien. “I’ve been robbed, and I want you to do something about it.”
    “Did Mrs. Brandt rob you?” Frank asked before he could stop himself.
    Mrs. Walker hadn’t missed the sarcasm in his voice, but she squared her shoulders righteously. “As a matter of fact, she did. She kidnapped a baby.”
    Frank wanted to groan. He could easily imagine Sarah kidnapping a baby if she thought that was the right thing to do. He wasn’t going to admit that, though. “What were you doing with a baby? What kind of a place do you run anyway?” he asked, pretending to be shocked.
    Now her face was a dangerous shade of scarlet, but she turned to O’Brien. “I don’t have to sit here and be insulted. I pay good money for the police to protect me, and I expect you to earn it!”
    “Malloy, what do you know about this?” O’Brien demanded.
    “I know Mrs. Brandt isn’t a kidnapper. She’s a respectable lady, and she never would’ve gone into a brothel voluntarily. Maybe she was the one who was kidnapped.”
    “Nobody did anything to her,” Mrs. Walker said indignantly. “She got away scot-free.”
    The knot in Frank’s stomach loosened a bit. At least she was all right. For now. “With this baby?”
    “Yes, with the baby, and his mother, too.”
    Frank gaped at her. “She took a woman and a baby out of your house, and nobody stopped her?”
    Mrs. Walker made an exasperated noise. “Of course not! I told you, she took the baby. Then some other people came and took the woman. Kidnapped her! Carried her out of there against her will.”
    Frank remembered what Sarah had told her about those rich do-gooders who rescued prostitutes. Apparently, they’d succeeded. “Don’t you have a bouncer in the place?”
    “Of course I do, but your Mrs. Brandt asked him to take her and the baby in the carriage, so he wasn’t there when the rest of them showed up.”
    “She’s not my Mrs. Brandt,” was all Frank could think to say to that.
    “Do you know anything about this, Malloy?” O’Brien asked.
    “No,” Frank lied. “And if I did, Mrs. Brandt wouldn’t be involved in it.”
    “Well, she is involved in it, and I want you to get her in here so she can tell us where they’ve taken this woman.”
    Fury welled up in Frank, almost