His steps slowed as he reached a brick building with the words Police Station painted in black on the sign that hung beneath the arched second-story windows. He wasn’t wearing his uniform, but since he wasn’t officially on duty, it wouldn’t matter too much.

He was getting close to completing his list for the superintendent. A little more sniffing around, and he’d figure out the last few officers involved in taking bribes from Rocky Roger Kenna, an alderman in the First Ward who owned numerous saloons and brothels and who regularly paid police officers to turn a blind eye toward his crimes.

Dylan clomped up the few stone steps. Of course with his own drinking and womanizing, no one suspected he was collaborating with the general superintendent of police to put an end to the corruption within the police department. That’s why the superintendent had picked him. Because he blended in with the riffraff easily enough. He wasn’t proud of that fact, but at least he was using his downfall for some good.

Straightening his back, Dylan yanked open the door. He might have sunk low, but there was a line he wouldn’t cross. He had to hang on to a measure of his integrity, or he wouldn’t be able to live with himself—a feat that was already hard enough.

As he entered the building, a waft of pastrami and rye met him. Constable Tipton, sitting behind his desk, paused with an overflowing sandwich in his mouth. He nodded at Dylan and hurried to finish his bite, his eyes rounding as though he wanted to speak.

With his head still throbbing, Dylan wasn’t in the mood for small talk and tipped his hat at the constable before he bypassed him, weaving through the maze of desks and chairs and cabinets. Without any lanterns lit, the place was dismal, the only light filtering through the front window.

“Hold on, McQuaid.” Tipton’s muffled call came around the mouthful of sandwich.

“Don’t mind me.” Dylan waved off the man.

“Got a letter for you.”

Dylan paused and glanced back at the constable. In his custodian helmet and tight navy-blue tunic with gleaming buttons, Tipton represented all that was good and worthy within the police department, one of the few untouched by the tendrils of vice woven all throughout the fabric of Chicago police and politics.

Tipton swallowed the pastrami and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “From Bliss.”

Dylan’s insides lurched. A letter from Bliss? Dylan hadn’t heard from his friend once over the past months. Yep, the mail was slow, especially when winter isolated the high country of the Rockies from the rest of the world. But Bliss could’ve written to him before now, instead of abandoning him so thoroughly.

“Bliss’s old man delivered the letter himself.” Tipton held out an envelope. “Said it was sitting around his house for months.”