I could have stayed down there forever. A few more seconds, and the last bit of air would have burst out of my lungs, out of my mouth, and water would have come rushing in. I could have just opened my lips and followed her to the black river floor. But I had lied—I wasn’t ready to die. Not yet. I kicked, and I rose, and I tasted the foul Westside air. The shadows were gone.

Seventeen

Cherub pulled me from the river. I flopped onto the dock, warmed by the burning ship, and spat out the taste of death and the Hudson, not sure where one flavor left off and the other began. The shadows were beaten back, and all was still.

The question of Juliette Copeland was settled. The solution had been vile, but solving tiny mysteries—I reminded myself as I coughed up a wad of river scum—is about finding the truth, whether or not it’s what the client wants to hear.

Before I could delve any further into those weighty questions, Cherub yanked me to my feet and wrapped me in a blessedly uncomplicated embrace.

“Would it be too sentimental to say that I’m glad you’re alive?” he said.

“Too much by half,” I said and pushed his face away before he could draw me into a kiss. He wanted to celebrate. I was not ready yet.

I freed myself from his arms and saw that I was not the only exhausted Westsider to be saved from the river.

Virgil stood over Eddie Thorne’s soaked hide, dripping blood onto his face.

“Clubber,” Thorne gibbered. “You came back.”

“You’re a disgrace,” said Virgil. “You’ve always been a disgrace, but what you’ve done here is monstrous.”

“It was for the sake of . . .”

“Of what?”

“Order.”

I tore Thorne’s shabby gold shield from his chest and dragged its pin across his cheek until his bloodshot eyes snapped open. I threw the badge in the river. Virgil pulled back to punch Thorne. I stopped him.

“The things he’s done,” said Virgil. “The children. He killed children. I’ll kill him, Gilda, I’ll be your hangman. I’ll keep your hands clean.”

“Do it,” said Thorne, head hung low like a humiliated dog. “Just end me. Just snap my neck and dump me in the river and let me be forgotten.”

“No,” I said, and Virgil looked faintly proud. “He’s right. He deserves much worse.”

“What do you have in mind?”

I reached inside Virgil’s jacket and found a pair of gleaming silver handcuffs. I twisted Thorne’s wrists behind his back, and the cuffs clicked as loud as any cocking pistol.

“He goes with you,” I said. “Take him back through Spuyten Duyvil and lose him in the Tombs.”

“On what charges?”