☆ ᴡᴀᴛᴛʏꜱ 2024 SHORTLISTER!! ☆
A tragic misunderstanding. A murder. A secret. An unlikely partnership. A spirited countess and an enterprising racketeer.
~~~
Manchester, England. May 1925.
The Roarin' 20s. An era of glamor, decadent parties, jazz mus...
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The door to Liam's office stood slightly ajar. Kitty sauntered through without knocking, as was her common practice, a small stack of papers clutched in one hand.
Liam sat at his desk sifting through a pile of documents, a cigarette dangling from his lips. “Mornin', Kitty,” he greeted her in his typical brusque manner as he exhaled the smoke in a white plume.
“Mornin', too right you are. You have a pile of messages from yesterday,” she informed him, sorting through the notes. “Serves you right, comin' in late and takin' off early. What were ya up to?”
“Does it matter?” he asked. “You run me office, Kitty. It's all smooth so's long as you're here.”
“Be smoother still if the boss were here,” Kitty retorted, her empty hand on her hip. She set the messages on the desk in front of him. “Good for morale, and all that jazz.”
“D'ya ever knock? Eh?” He moved to grab the messages that she'd set down and started flipping through them with obvious disinterest, his cigarette held between two fingers.
Kitty sniffed, bemused. “Door was open. And I knocked the other night, didn't I?”
“Ya sure did,” he agreed. “And ya got a reward for it, too, as I recall.”
“A reward? That's what you're callin' it?” Kitty asked. “As I recall, you wanted a ‘distraction,’ and I provided one. Good one, too, if memory serves.”
Liam gave her a thin smile. “It serves.”
“Good, glad to hear it,” she said. “Yet barely a cursory glance since. What is that, Will? Are ya tellin' me that if I want a fuck I gotta knock on your door?”
“Couldn't hurt,” he said with a little shrug. Taking a drag from his cigarette, he dropped the messages back onto the surface of the desk. “This everythin'? Nothin' more from Gallagher?”
“Nothin' more from that employee poachin' prick, no,” Kitty replied. “But there was one other message yesterday. Well, after a fashion.”
“That so?”
“Aye. A visitor. Some hoity-toity little toff. Blonde girl. Pretty, I s'pose, in a prudent sorta way. Said she knew you and that you'd ‘want to see her.’ Can ya imagine? She couldn't be bothered to leave a name, o'course.”
Liam took his time snubbing out the cigarette butt, his eyes on the ashtray rather than on her. “I see.”
Kitty raised her eyebrows at Liam's indifference. “It ain't like you to show no interest in a pretty girl, Liam,” she said. There was an edge to her voice that she didn't like, but she plunged on. “Was she tellin' the truth? D'ya know her?”
“Aye. I know her.”
“You know her.” The edge in Kitty's voice became more pronounced. “Who is she, then?”
