Best Left in the Shadows Read Free Page A

her.”
    Blacktide Harry leaned forward in his throne of crates. “Nothing
in the rules about justice, Inspector. Your job here is to tidy things up.
Clean up the mess that someone made. Whoever that message was intended for? Let
them do their business.”
    “That message was once a person, and finding out what
happened to her is exactly my job, Harry. And I do not intend to leave
Prionside till I have accomplished it.”
    Blacktide Harry pursed his lips and looked Dax up and down
with cold, unblinking eyes. Despite his convictions, Dax wondered if he had
overstepped. But the Blacktide merely shook his head. “You’ve grown up a bit
from that lost little pup that used to chase our Alys around.”
    “Yes, I suppose I have.” Dax took a step forward and the
skiff rocked a bit. “The girl was Lydia Ashdown.” He saw the recognition in
Blacktide Harry’s eyes. “I have no doubt that her family will be eternally
grateful to any who would bring justice to their daughter and their family
name.”
    The Blacktide smirked, his teeth sharp and white beneath
the black of his mustache. “And here I thought you were a crusader, Inspector.
But clearly this would be quite a feather in your cap.”
    “Not mine, Harry. Yours. If you give us free rein in
Prionside until this matter is done, I will be sure your name is brought to the
attention of Lord Ashdown himself. Discreetly, of course.”
    There was a long, tension-filled silence, made all
the more profound given the amount of rough men and women who lined the walls
and walkways. Then, suddenly, the Blacktide began to laugh. The sound was rough
and barking. “You’ve been teaching him well,” he said through his laughter.
    “Who thought he was actually listening?” Alys remarked.
    The Blacktide chucked a few more times. “Blacktide Harry,
friend of the noble houses,” he said. “I find I do like the ring of that. Very
well, Inspector, you and my dear Alys have my permission to poke your nose
under every rock in this district. But I cannot guarantee what you might find
hiding under those rocks,” he added menacingly. “Since your success might even
benefit me now, I have something that might get you started.”
    A scrawny, rough-looking man with the stylized hook
and rat tattoo of the Stevedore Rats on the side of his neck came down the
scaffold. “I’s seen the twist earlier,” he said with a vigorous nod. “Had a
black cloak on, skulking around like she up to no good.” He laughed at what Dax
assumed was his brilliantly ironic statement, and around the room, other harsh
laughter came back.
    Alys put a hand up and gave Dax a sharp look indicating he
should let her do the talking. She stepped to the bow of the skiff. “Not
everyone can be as respectable as you, Master Hookworm,” Alys said with a
mocking bow, and the coarse crowd erupted in laughter once more. “But
thankfully your keen abilities for detection saw through her subterfuge, so why
don’t you tell me where you saw her?”
    The Rat leaned forward, his hands gripping the walkway, and
he leered down at Alys. “The Blacktide says the information is mine, broker.
Information is your trade. You want mine, you offer me a deal, sweet-like,
then, maybe I’ll tell you what I saw,” he said as the other Stevedore Rats
around on the scaffolding laughed and cheered him on.
    Alys locked eyes with the man, and her lips peeled back
into a cruel grin. “Oh dear Master Hookworm. A deal, you say? Well then, here
is my offer. I offer silence, Hookworm,” she said, her voice shifting from the
playful lightness of her previous conversation to a cold, edged tone. “I offer
my continued silence, Hookworm, about that night with you and the bucket of
fish,” she said.
    Hookworm reacted as if she had stuck him in the nethers
with a sharpened blade.
    “T—Tigress,” Hookworm stammered out. “Saw her going to the
Tigress!”
    “You’re sure?”
    “That’s where she went when I spied her. It was just