A Fatal Journey Read online

  A Fatal Journey

  Blythe Baker

  Copyright © 2019 by Blythe Baker

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Description

  Newsletter Invitation

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  About the Author

  Perils and plots in British India...

  When Rose Beckingham’s pursuit of an international spy leads to the uncovering of an assassination plot, she’ll have to race against time to prevent a crime before it occurs. The dangerous investigation will threaten her relationship with Achilles Prideaux, while leading her from the dusty streets of Morocco to the deep jungles of India.

  With the roots of the mystery leading back to the deaths of the real Rose and her parents, the case is personal. Rose is drawn to the site of last summer’s explosion, where a ruthless murderer strikes again. Can she discover the terrible secrets behind the fate of the Beckinghams before it’s too late? Or will a mercenary killer escape and carry the truth away with him?

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  1

  The air felt dusty on my skin, and the sun beat down relentlessly from above. It had been hot even before I’d taken chase, but now that I was physically exerting myself, I poured sweat. I knew powdery makeup would be running down my cheek, exposing the scar I worked so diligently to disguise, but I couldn’t worry about that then. Not when I could see the shape of my target darting between stalls in the marketplace, trying to outrun me.

  “Excuse me, Miss? Persimmons?” A woman, taking no notice of my rush, stepped in front of me, holding out a small orange fruit. Her accent was thick, and I knew she was a local.

  I’d selected the wrong gown for a trip to the market. I had on a fine silk dress better suited for evening and cooler temperatures, and anyone with a keen eye for European fashions knew it marked me as wealthy. I couldn’t take two steps without being offered something from someone. As it was, I had no time to politely decline or smile. I side-stepped the woman and carried on at a healthy pace, the breeze between the white-washed buildings on either side blowing my short blonde curls back.

  Achilles had told me to never draw attention to myself. Discretion was a key part of our job, and sprinting through the city’s largest marketplace was far from being discrete. However, I had long ago given up earning any praise from Achilles.

  I paused in an archway, stretching onto the tips of my toes to try and find my target. Then, I saw his dark head and tan robes bob up and then dip below the crowd, like a coy fish in a pond. I took off after him once again, more determined than ever.

  People crowded around stalls of fresh meats and vegetables, blocking a clear path. If I allowed my eyes to wander from the man for even a minute, he could be gone. My thin slippers did little to protect my feet from the rocks in the road. Dust kicked up over my legs, coating my stockings and the hem of my dress, but a little dust hardly mattered. People were already turning to stare as I ran past, bumping into crates of produce and nearly pushing over women whose arms were weighed down with their purchases. Shoppers shouted as I rushed past, telling me to slow down in Arabic, Spanish, French, and English. There wasn’t a people group left whose ire I hadn’t caught.

  Thinking of ire made me remember Achilles Prideaux’s face as I’d left him in the hotel’s courtyard to give chase to the man who had just jumped from our employer’s window, the same man I was chasing now. If I returned without any useful information, Achilles would be even more upset. It seemed I always earned the anger of my French companion one way or another. I did not have his patience, as proven by the foot chase I was currently involved in, and Achilles had more than once described me as impulsive. He explored every possibility before making a decision, whereas I chose the nearest path and ran headlong, stopping only once I’d hit a roadblock.

  Thinking of a roadblock, I noticed the man’s bobbing head suddenly stop, and it wasn’t long before I saw the reason. As I closed the gap between us, I could see he was stalled at the corner of a street, wagons pulled by horses crossing in front of him like a river. He glanced over his shoulder, and I saw the pale tone of his skin. Though he wore traditional local garb, I did not suspect he was native to the area. As far as I knew, the man did not know me, but he understood I was following him, and he looked uncomfortable at how much distance I had gained.

  I had no plan in place for what I’d do when I caught up to him. He didn’t look to be a terribly large man, but it seemed safe to assume he could overpower me in a physical altercation. Was there a chance of a conversation? Could I convince him to release information to me willingly? Perhaps, but it seemed unlikely. The best I could hope for was to see his face closely and recognize him from among the many foreign friends we had made during our time investigating in the city or at least find out where in the city he was staying. Any scrap of information could help.

  A vendor cut me off, a man with bundles of fabrics folded over his arm. He said something in Arabic, and I shook my head, trying to move past him. He matched my steps and moved on to what was probably the same speech in French.

  “Please, sir,” I said, gesturing for him to move. I leaned around the man’s large frame and wares and could see my target shifting from foot to foot at the end of the road, just a few stalls away from me. The road was still too busy to cross, but it could clear any moment. Any delay could be the difference between success and failure.

  The two desperate words were enough to let the man know I spoke English. “Nice fabrics. Good Price. You like?”

  Frustrated, I ducked under his arm and jumped over a wooden crate of apples. People gasped and moved out of my way, looking at me like I might be crazy, and in that moment, I was half-crazed. I had one aim. With my path to the end of the road now clear, I realized I could no longer see the man. He’d disappeared.

  I spun on the spot, searching to see where he could have gone. I looked back down the way I’d just come to see if he had somehow slipped past me while I’d been distracted by the man selling fabrics. Then I heard the scream.

  A woman at the end of the read, just a few paces away from where the man had been standing, had her hand over her open mouth, shocked sobs wracking her shoulders. She pointed towards the wagons in the road. As the last wagon finally passed by and the dust began to settle, I saw a tan shape lying on the ground. The woman was pointing at a body.

  Once again, I ran. I pushed past people as they began to crowd inward, flocking to the man’s crumpled body like they expected it to stand up and put on a show. I knew before I was close enough to see his face who I would find. The man. My target.

  His end had not been pleasant. Blood coated the right side of his face where a horse hoof had partly crushed his skull, and his limbs stuck out at unsuitable angles from being run over by the wagon wheels. Apparently, my rapid approach had made him desperate, and he’d tried his luck crossing the road.

  “Someone should help,” an English-speaking woman in a gr
ay tea dress and matching hat cried, averting her eyes but waving her arm in the air, drawing even more attention.

  A man nearby, who might have been accompanying the English woman, shook his head. “Poor devil is beyond help.”

  There could be a clue on the dead man’s person. Something in his pockets, hiding in his robe. I needed to search him, but people would think I was looting his body for money.

  “I’ll check for a pulse,” I said loudly, thinking of the idea all at once.

  The same man who had given up hope grumbled under his breath and looked around, as if searching for someone who could take care of the mess the man’s body was making in the road.

  I knelt beside the body, avoiding the blood pooling under it, my knees pressing into the warm, dusty ground. The victim’s face was long but young. Very young. I paused for a moment just to wonder at how someone with so little life could have found themselves in so much trouble. Then, I remembered my own situation and mentally put the question away.

  My fingers inched towards his neck while my other hand slipped between a fold in his robes. I searched blindly for no more than a few seconds before I felt soft leather. It was even easier than I’d expected. I frowned in frustration, pretending I couldn’t find a good position to access his neck, and stepped over the man, moving to his other side. As my dress draped over him, one leg on either side of his body, I pulled the leather pouch from his robe and slipped it beneath my arm.

  “Is he alive?” the English woman asked.

  The same man huffed. “I’m telling you, he is dead. No one survives that kind of trauma.”

  I lightly touched the spot on the victim’s neck where his pulse should have been and felt nothing. I shook my head. “He is gone.”

  More people gathered, and I slipped back into the crowd before turning down a side road and heading back towards the hotel where Achilles would be.

  When I was far enough away to no longer attract any suspicion, I leaned against a mud brick wall and opened the leather pouch. It was simple and worn with use, and inside was a bundle of local currency and a single letter. It was written in English, confirming my suspicions that the man was not a native. I read the vaguely-worded letter three times before deciding further read throughs would offer no additional information.

  I trust you to destroy this letter upon your first reading. I’ve named your target in previous correspondence and will not repeat it here. Kill him and I will send the money and name of another minister. Unlike your counterpart in Simla, use discretion. We do not need the attention now. Good luck. I will be in touch.

  There was no address at the beginning, no signature at the end, and no mention of who should be murdered, but it was clear the man I’d been chasing was more than a spy in the espionage case Achilles had brought me to Tangier to investigate. I’d been chasing an assassin for hire. An international agent killing government officials for pay.

  If that weren’t surprising enough, the mention of Simla drew an inordinate amount of my attention. I couldn’t help but let my mind flash to the last day I’d spent in Simla eight months prior, the day the car I was in exploded, killing my employers, the Beckinghams, and their daughter Rose. It was the day I’d died to my old name and claimed Rose’s as my own. The day the trajectory of my life had been altered forever.

  Could that all have been because of an assassin connected to the man I’d been chasing? Everyone suspected it was an incident of local terrorism—an extremist hurling a bomb at a random British official—but perhaps there was more to it. Perhaps, it hadn’t been random.

  I tucked the letter away and walked back towards the hotel, knowing the letter would do little to pacify Achilles. The man’s death by wagon had led to a literal dead-end. Even with the letter and its possible connections to the bombing in Simla, it told us nothing about the man’s identity or who his employer could be. I’d ruined my feet running through the city and it had all been for nothing.

  2

  Police swarmed outside the hotel, talking to one another in French, so I couldn’t determine what had brought them to the scene. Whatever it was, I assumed Achilles would fill me in soon. In the moment, despite the excitement and mystery, I wanted nothing more than to blot the sweat from my brow and freshen up my makeup.

  My third floor room had a window overlooking the street below, so I could look down on the officers as they paced back and forth across the grass and conferred with one another, making vague gestures towards the wing of the building where our employer had been staying. I watched them for no more than a second, thinking they looked like ants, striking out to gather a bit of information and then returning to the larger group, before I walked to the water basin in the corner.

  The room lacked basic modern conveniences like an in-room sink with running water, but right now I didn’t care about that. The cool water from the basin was a gift against my feverish skin, and I pressed my palms against my cheeks, hoping to absorb the coolness and carry it with me. Then, I washed what little remained of my makeup away with a dry towel and turned to the cracked oval-shaped mirror hanging on the opposite wall to reapply.

  Few people asked me outright about the dent in my left cheek or the scar that stretched out from it like a spider’s web, but I felt their eyes on it when they spoke to me. They looked at me like I was a ruined painting. A once beautiful thing that had been unfortunately marred. Such a shame. The makeup helped. It softened the harshness of the injury, forcing people to be close before they could see the full extent of it.

  As I dusted on a thick layer of powder, blending out the edges, I could almost feel the pain of the explosion. The heat as everything around me evaporated in flames and smoke. With each brush stroke across my cheek, I could feel the searing warmth as the hot shrapnel burned against my skin. I rarely allowed myself to look back to that day, but when I slipped back into the memory, I could see the scene as if it was playing out in front of me all over again. Rose’s mischievous smile, her hands folded in her lap, a man running towards the car, stopping traffic. And then chaos. Before I lost consciousness, I saw Rose’s hand lying next to me, no longer attached to Rose. The thought gave me chills whenever I dwelt on it.

  I packed away the makeup and with it, the memories. I’d had enough of death and destruction for one day. Then came a knock at the door.

  Three firm raps in quick succession followed by the tapping of a foot against the thinly-carpeted hallway floor. Achilles’ habits had become like an old friend to me, familiar and expected.

  He pushed the door open and stepped into my room as soon as I turned the knob. Anger rolled off of him like steam, filling the room with a thick tension that made my ears burn.

  “An officer outside informed me that he saw a disheveled blonde with a scar come through the front door only a few minutes ago. I only wonder how long you planned to wait before visiting me?” Achilles marched to the window and then spun back towards me, thin arms crossed over his thin chest. Everything about him, from his body to his mustache to his patience was stretched thin.

  “I’m glad he informed you I looked disheveled,” I said, brushing a stray curl behind my ear. “That detail hardly seems necessary.”

  “At least it meant you were alive,” Achilles snapped. “Do you know you were chasing a killer? A hired assassin?”

  “Yes, actually—” I started, reaching for the letter hiding in the waist of my dress.

  “Our employer is dead.” He said the words with a serious tone that let me know I was meant to be surprised.

  Truthfully, when I’d seen the robed figure jump from our employer’s first-story window as Achilles and I had crossed the courtyard to his room, my hopes had not been high for our employer’s survival. I’d wished for better news upon my return to the hotel, but nonetheless, I wasn’t surprised.

  “I found him murdered in his room, and then realized you had gone after the killer alone and undefended,” he continued.

  “You seem to forget this is not my first time i
nvestigating a murder, Monsieur Prideaux.”

  He flinched at the formal greeting, but I didn’t feel anything. At one time, we’d become more comfortable with one another, but that time suddenly seemed too long ago to remember.

  “You also appear to forget that I’ve saved your life more than once,” he responded sharply. “You jump into action without thought. You put yourself and others at risk by acting impulsively. And you hinder my investigation.”

  I wanted to argue with him—the last point especially—but the image of the assassin bloody and crushed on the ground rose to the forefront of my mind. Achilles already believed I’d damaged his investigation, and he didn’t even know the mystery man was dead yet.

  Achilles ran a frustrated finger over his thin mustache, twisting the end of it in habit. “I hate to ask and encourage your behavior, but were you able to learn anything by following the man?”

  I fixed my eyes on a tear in the carpet, too nervous to look him in the eyes and admit the truth. “I learned the man was an assassin hired to kill high-ranking British officials, and that he may have had some slender connection to the bombing in Simla.”

  Achilles drew his brows together, thoughtful. “He told you this?”

  I let out a breath and shook my head. “No, I found a letter hidden in his robes.”

  “Hidden in his—” Achilles’ voice cut off. “Is he dead?”

  I glanced up at him long enough to see the color rise in his cheeks, to see his thoughtful brows turn dark and frustrated, and then looked back to the floor. “Not by any doing of my own, but yes, he is dead. A cart ran him over as he attempted to cross the street.”