DANNY HADN’T FARED WELL DURING THE TRIP BACK to Mulberry Street. He insisted on trying to escape, which meant the officers had to keep using their locusts on him. Frank was beginning to wonder if there’d be anything left to question. By the time he got the boy into an interrogation room, he was bloodied and more than a little groggy.

“Do you remember me, b’hoyo?” Frank asked him. “Your friend Billy cut me up so you could escape the last time we met.”

Danny gave him a pained grin, still cocky in spite of his condition. “You gave me whiskey the last time,” he remembered.

“Tell me what I want to know, and you could get some tonight, too.”

“I don’t know much,” he tried.

“I think you do. You started telling me about Dr. Tom Brandt. And don’t pretend you don’t know who I’m talking about.”

“I don’t gotta pretend,” the boy said. Even with the bruises, he managed to look innocent.

“The doctor who was murdered three years ago. You were telling me how somebody hired you to fetch the good doctor. Who was it?”

Danny no longer looked quite so cocky. He glanced over at the cop still holding his locust at the ready and measured his chances. He didn’t want to anger Frank, but he was afraid of someone else, too. “He finds out I ratted on him, he’ll kill me.”

“How could he find out?”

“You start asking him questions, what else he gonna think? Then he finds me and kills me.”

“Maybe you should be more worried about me right now,” Frank suggested.

But Danny wasn’t fooled. “You might beat me up, but you ain’t gonna kill me.”

“I’ll put him in jail and then he’ll meet up with Old Sparky,” Frank said, using the nickname for New York’s brand new electric chair. “You won’t have to worry about him again.”

Danny shook his head, his expression grim. “Swells like him don’t go to jail. You even talk to him, he’ll have your job.”

“Nobody’s that important,” Frank tried, knowing perfectly well it was a lie. “But if you’re that afraid, I’ll see you get out of the city safely. You can go someplace else, where you can start a new life.”

“Why would I want to get out of the city?” he asked in amazement. “This is the only place I’ve ever lived. This is where all my friends are.”

Frank sighed. He wasn’t getting anywhere with kindness. He could beat the boy, but Frank had an idea he’d hold up pretty well against brute force. He’d been taking beatings all his life, and he was right when he said Frank wouldn’t kill him. How else was he going to find out who killed Tom Brandt?

“I guess I’ll just keep you here overnight, then,” he said, rising.

“I could give you a nice reward for letting me go,” the boy offered.

Frank glared at him. “Now you’ve gone and made me mad, Danny.” He motioned for the guard to take him away.

Danny gave him no trouble, and Frank led them down to the cellar cells.

The night guard woke up at the sound of their footsteps. “You got another birdie for the cage, Detective Sergeant?” he asked sleepily.

“Yeah, but I want you to let one prisoner out and put this one in.”

Frank noticed Danny’s swagger had vanished at the sight of the cells and their inhabitants. He was still trying to put up a good front, but Frank could see the growing apprehension in his eyes.

“Who do you want to let out?” the night guard asked.

Frank pointed to the huddled figure in the comer of the nearest cell. Billy hadn’t moved, although Frank could see his eyes staring blankly at them.

The guard went in and pulled him to his feet, prodding him with his locust to get him to leave the cell. Frank had once seen some boys torture a dog to death. Billy’s expression reminded him of that dog.

“What’s the matter, Danny? Don’t you recognize your friend?” Frank asked, shoving Danny until the two were face to face.

He watched Danny’s eyes widen in recognition. Billy seemed incapable of a change of expression.

“What’re you doing here?” Danny demanded of his friend. “What happened to you?”

Billy just stared, as if he didn’t even comprehend the question.

“You’ll have to excuse Billy,” Frank said. “He’s been here for a while, and he’s not feeling too good right now.”

“Billy, say something!” Danny begged, his voice high with fear.

Frank figured the two had been through a lot together, but Danny had never seen his friend like this. It was an ugly thing to witness.

Billy’s mouth was moving, but it took him a minute to find his voice. “Danny?” he croaked.

“Billy! What happened to you? What’re you doing here?”

Billy couldn’t answer, and Frank decided Danny had seen enough. “Put him in the cell,” he told the guard.

Danny put up a fight this time, but he stood no chance against the burly guards. When the cell door slammed shut, Frank looked at Billy, who didn’t seem to comprehend what was happening.

“You can’t leave me here!” Danny was yelling. “I’ll tell you what you want to know! I’ll tell you everything!”

Frank ignored him. He knew better than to believe promises made in panic. “I’ll be back tomorrow, Danny,” he said. “We’ll have a long talk then.”

He took Billy’s arm. “Come on, b’hoyo.”

Billy went meekly, eyes lowered, steps shuffling. He stumbled on the stairs, and Frank had to hold his arm to keep him from falling.

If Frank had wanted revenge for being attacked by this boy, he would be savoring this moment. Instead he felt disgusted.

He took the boy upstairs to the lobby and out the front door. “You can go now,” Frank told him.

Billy’s blank gaze rose to him, not comprehending. “Go?”

“Yeah, go home, or wherever it is you go.”

“I thought…”

“You thought I’d send you to The Tombs,” Frank supplied. “You’re not worth the trouble. Get out of here, and if I ever arrest you again, you’ll wish I’d killed you tonight.”

For a second, the boy didn’t move. Maybe he thought it was a trick, that Frank would knock him down if he moved. So Frank stepped back and waited, slipping his fingers into his vest pockets.

Billy’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and Frank could see him gathering himself.

Before he could blink, the boy was gone, running as if for his life and disappearing into the darkness.

Frank rubbed his arm, which still itched, and walked off in the other direction.

Sarah’s mother introduced Richard Dennis who told briefly about his wife’s devotion to the mission and the work they did. Obviously ill at ease, he still made a moving speech, then introduced Mrs. Wells, who began to speak with a poise that must have impressed even the Deckers.

Sarah found herself mesmerized by Mrs. Wells’s presentation, even though she thought she’d already been thoroughly impressed by the work they were doing at the mission. She’d meant to watch the reactions of the other guests, but she forgot, caught up in the images Mrs. Wells painted of the lost children of the tenements.

Maeve and Gina stood beside her looking young and vulnerable, like the sacrificial virgins Sarah had imagined them to be earlier in the evening. They listened with rapt attention, their young faces fairly glowing with their devotion to the woman who had saved them.

Mrs. Wells told stories of some of the girls she had known. She gave no names, so Sarah could only guess which story was whose. But she had no trouble at all identifying the subject of her final story.

“I wish I could tell you we succeed with all of our girls. The truth is that some of them yield to temptation again when they leave us. One young woman came to us to escape a life of shame and degradation. She was ill and desperate, and we believed she had found a home with us and hope for the future.

“We were wrong, however. She stayed only until her health returned. When she was strong again, she left us, turning her back on God’s love and ours. We continued to pray for her. We pray for every girl who comes through our doors, in the hope that God will protect her and perhaps even bring her back before she is totally lost.