Copper Visions Read Online Free Page A

purse and blushed as she did it. “Yes, thank you. You’ve certainly earned everything you’ve asked.”
    The driver took the fare from her and ran his thumb over the coins. “You seem like you’re in a tight spot, miss, and I don’t like seein’ folk in your condition bein’ takin’ advantage of. If you need a driver again, you send for George at the post and I’ll see you get where you need for a fair price.”
    “ Thank you, George,” Sophie said. “I’ll remember that.”
    He touched his whip to the brim of his hat and drove off. The neighborhood he’d left them in was considerably nicer than the one she lived in, nicer even than David’s, though there were shops mixed in unabashedly with the houses, with homes obviously occupying the floors above. Homes and businesses had doors that emptied into the close street the driver had directed them toward, with bins and boxes piled near them, waiting to be collected.
    David led the way, moving carefully in the narrow alley, and stopped beside the largest pile of boxes. A bunch of small wood planks were tied together and lined with a heavy fabric, looking slightly like the front part of a corset if it were made of wood instead of fabric. Half the sticks were broken, some clean through, in a straight line.
    “ I don’t think you killed him, Sophie.”

 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Chapter 5 – Alley Encounter
 
    “What's that? Do you think he was wearing it?” Sophie asked, pointing to the tied together sticks.
    “I think that's what you heard break. Which tells me that he went in there intent on causing a problem; either with you or with whoever was listening on the other end of the transmitter in your apartments.” David said.
    “And because I'm nobody, you think I'm stuck in the middle of a feud between, who? The doctors who gave me my arms and?”
    “I think that's what we're going to have to find out,” David said. “If only to get you out of the middle of it.”
    “Alright,” Sophie said. “So where are we going from here? He dropped this here and then what?”
    “I don't know. I doubt they would have turned around, this looks as though it was hastily discarded, probably because it was causing him problems getting away.'
    “Do you think this is why George said it looked like he was walking strangely?”
    “Probably,” David said, straightening. “The question is where they were walking to. It would be foolish to discard something like this near where they were hiding if they weren't certain they couldn't be found. Which either means they're nearby and secure or they're far away and just used this as a convenient place to leave anything that could give them away.”
    The door next to them burst open and caught David across his back, staggering him forward and cracking the door. A young man wearing livery tripped out of the doorway and looked around him. David turned to look at him and a surprised yelp greeted his attention. He steadied himself and stood up, trembling visibly from the shock, his eyes wide.
    “Uh,” He started, looking around desperately.
    David grabbed the front of the young man's shirt and pulled him forward. “You should be careful when you're opening this door,” he said. “Had I been someone else, you could have really hurt me.”
    The young man nodded, trying to dig in his heels to stop his forward progression. “I wasn't expecting anybody to be out here,” he gasped.
    “I see,” David said, his words becoming more clipped, his face less and less mobile. “This appears to be a fairly well used alley. Why weren't you expecting anybody to be out here.”
    The young man shook his head. “He was probably just sent to throw something away, David,” Sophie said, laying her hand gently on his shoulder but not getting in the way of how he was treating their guest. The young man nodded his head at her, his eyes going even wider as he saw her arms.
    “Yes,” he gasped. “I'm throwing something away.”
    “Well, then,”