Daring Time

"I wouldn't bother trying to get up if I was you," a woman said from somewhere to the left of the bed, her tone smug and contemptuous. "I've got you tied down good, see?

'Sides, for what Diamond Jack's got planned for ya, lying on the bed with your legs spread wide is the only position you'll be needin' to take anyhow," the woman finished with a self-satisfied laugh.

At the mention of Diamond Jack Fletcher's name Hope's heartbeat escalated until it beat frantically in her chest like a bird trying to escape a cage. She subtly flexed her arms and legs, not wanting the woman to notice her struggling. Sure enough, her wrists and ankles were bound with what felt like snugly knotted velvet cord. The woman's voice struck a familiar resonance in Hope's memory but pain and vertigo prevented her from focusing too hard on anything.

Very cautiously and slowly, Hope opened her eyes. Thankfully the sharp pain seemed to have abated for the moment. Sadie Hol-crum looked down at her with a satisfied smirk on her pretty face.

"Ain't so high and mighty now, are ya?" she taunted. "Welcoming League, my dimpled arse. Pretty soon you'll be no better'n the likes of me, missy. Good sight worse, I'd say."

"Miss Holcrum? I don't understand .. ."

"Don't ya, Miss Stillwater?" Sadie grinned, her gold eyetooth gleaming. She seemed to be enjoying herself immensely. Her sharp-featured, sneering face didn't look so pretty now, Hope realized. She recalled Sadie's wide-eyed wonder at the size of the train shed and gaping mouth as she looked at Central Station's enormous bay windows on Lake Michigan.

Sadie Holcrum would have made a fine actress.

"What's the last thing ya remember?" Sadie asked.

Hope tried her best to focus her thoughts. "I. . . at the train station. We .. . went to the ladies' lounge and .. . and .. ."

"Crack" Sadie finished happily as she mimed someone striking downward forcefully. "I did my part and got ya somewhere secluded and ol' Marvin did his as well. Used his pistol to do it. Knocked ya out cold."

"May I have some water, please?" Hope whispered, biological imperatives taking the forefront in her consciousness before she could even begin to consider her bizarre predicament. Besides, focusing on the basics helped keep panic at bay. Sadie curled her lip in disdain and Hope thought sure she'd refuse her request. Suddenly the willowy brunette turned away, however. When she once again came into Hope's sight she carried a green glass. Sadie lifted it to her lips.

Hope sighed shakily and rested her head back in the pillow after she'd taken several huge swallows of the deliciously cool water.

"Where am I?" she managed hoarsely.

"Why, your new home, o' course, the Sweet Lash. An' when you ain't servin' Diamond Jack and the men, you're gonna fetch and clean fer me, I think. I always fancied having a lady fer a slave."

"Shut your mouth, you good-for-nothing whore."

Although Hope was already stunned into silence by Sadie's proclamations, she blinked in even more profound shock at the sound of a man's cutting words being delivered with the smooth, beguiling accent of the south.

Diamond Jack Fletcher himself entered her range of vision.

"I let you leave this house for two hours to go on a special mission for me and even in that little bit of time you managed to get juiced up. What was it? Did you and that fool Evercrumb actually stop in the alley and do business with those damn cookies while you had Jacob Stillwater's unconscious daughter in the carriage? Or have you two just been hitting the bottle?"

He grabbed Sadie's hand and pushed back her sleeve, checking her forearms. Hope knew very well from her social reform activities that the term cookies referred to the panderers and lowlifes that both supported and sustained an underground traffic in cocaine and morphine in the Levee District.

She jumped when Jack slapped the woman's face with a big, meaty hand. He must

not have liked what he'd seen on the woman's arm. Sadie's chin flung around hard at the impact, causing several ringlets to dislodge from her upswept hair. She sobbed.

"What're ya mad at me for, Jack? Me and Marvin ... we did . whatcha asked, didn't we?"

Sadie whined. "We brought ya Miss High and Mighty Stillwater. If me and Marvin did make a quick stop on the way home, no harm come of it. Ain't I right, Jack?"

Hope's heart seemed to stop in her chest when Diamond Jack Fletcher's small, dark brown eyes shifted and settled on her. She'd seen Jack on several occasions around the first ward. He was rather a hard man to miss, large, charismatic and infamous as he was.

Everyone—including Hope and every shop boy, minister, prostitute, Prairie Avenue matriarch and panderer in the neighborhood—knew Diamond Jack.

She'd been unfortunate enough to be the object of his notice on a few occasions, but he'd never stood as close to her as he did presently. Near as he was now Hope saw that fat had swelled the angular features of his large face, making them seem to pop out from the flesh, the result being almost caricature-like.

Jack still possessed the cold, calculating gaze of a predator, however, even though he regarded her through puffy eyelids. It was most unpleasant to have him pin her in his sights while she lay spread-eagle and naked on a bed, a thin sheet her only covering. She shivered uncontrollably when his beady eyes ran slowly over the outline of her body.

"What lies have you been telling this young lady, Sadie?" Jack shook his head as though saddened. His voice had once again slowed and softened, reminding Hope of sweet, flowing syrup. "My apologies, Miss Stillwater, for my employees' mistreatment of you."

"Then untie me from this bed and give me my clothes so that I can leave."