He put a finger to her lips. “Hush. We’re all in shock, but you actually knew someone aboard the train. It’s natural to want to blame somebody.”
Resisting the compulsion to suck his finger into her mouth, she blinked back tears. “I can’t imagine the terror…”
He tightened his hold on her as she wept. “I promise to do everything in my power to bring the murderers to justice.”
Guilt surged in Samantha’s heart. Brock had died a gruesome death and all she could think of was filling her nostrils with the reassuring male scent of a man she barely knew.
“I didn’t get a chance to tell him,” she wailed.
“It’s not your fault, Samantha.”
“But who would do such a diabolical thing?” she asked.
“I have a hunch.”
A memory surfaced from the maelstrom of hideous images—Parker yelling, dragging her away from danger. “You knew. Even before it happened, you knew.”
* * *
Obviously, Parker couldn’t tell Samantha a mysterious voice in a fog bank had warned of disaster and promised he would find his heart’s desire. Nor was it the time to tell her he had a kind of sixth sense about criminal intent. “I suppose my uncle’s nervousness rubbed off on me,” he lied, suddenly worried about Judson’s safety. If people thought his design of the bridge was to blame…
He put his hands on Samantha’s shoulders and held her away. “I don’t want to leave you,” he said, “but all hell has probably broken loose at the station. I need to discuss my hunch with the chief constable.”
A meeting he didn’t look forward to. The man tended to be obtuse about the simplest things.
“You should make sure your uncle is all right,” she said. “He must be devastated. He wasn’t on the train, was he?”
Parker’s gut tightened. He had assumed his uncle wasn’t going to ride the train, but… “Forgive me,” he said, pecking a kiss on her forehead. “I have to go.”
“Will I see you again?” she said as he turned to leave.
“You can count on it,” he replied with a smile. “Though I can’t promise when.”
He hurried away as quickly as his protesting leg allowed, filled with a sense of urgent purpose. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t think of himself as a cripple. Samantha’s easy acceptance of him just the way he was had brushed that chip off his shoulder.
Hailing a hansom proved to be impossible. He was close to frenzied exhaustion by the time he limped into the police station after a twenty-minute walk through streets filled with crowds of angry people. Every minute lost was a chance for the Irishman to escape.
Chief Constable Moore greeted him sternly. “Sergeant. A word.”
The hope his superior would invite him to sit once they gained his tiny office was a forlorn one. More red in the face than usual and sweating profusely, Moore slammed the door and announced, “Your uncle has been arrested.”
Seething inwardly, Parker raked fingers through his hair, attempting to bring order. Halfway to the station, he’d realized his bowler had been lost somewhere along the line. It was important he appear unruffled and in control when he told of his suspicions. “This was no accident, sir. I heard explosions just before the bridge collapsed.”
His superior raised a bushy eyebrow. “You were there?”
“On the ferry, sir. Below the bridge.”
“No one else has said anything about explosions.”
“I know what I heard, sir. This was sabotage.”
“You’re suggesting mass murder? Who would plot such a foul deed?”
“Who blew up the cloakrooms at Victoria Station and the wall of Clerkenwell Prison, sir?”
“Well,” the man blustered, “they claim it was the Fenians, but nothing was ever proven.”
Parker realized he was treading on shifting sands. Like him, Moore was of Irish descent. “The dynamite used in London came from America.”