Sirens (15 page)

Charlie was a sweet guy. Danny Connor, he was…something else again.

“There is no one else but you….”

Louie slid from the booth. “Charlie. Come with me. I gotta talk to you about something.” She turned to Connor. “Be right back, honey.” Then she glanced from Connor to me as she grabbed Charlie’s arm and dragged him away.

“So long!” Charlie called over his shoulder.

Melody was deep in conversation with Ryan and Neil, flirting, giggling, touching. The men were mesmerized. She tossed her head and dropped her eyes and pouted her lips, and left them no doubt as to her intentions. I couldn’t watch. I stared at my still-untouched drink, at the table, at my fingernails, at anything except Melody—and the only other man at the table, whose steel eyes were now fixed on me, boring holes right through me.

Glasses clinked with ice; smoke drifted overhead; chatter and laughter filled every corner. I wouldn’t meet his eyes, because I feared what I’d see there. I feared him, and what he wanted from me, because I wasn’t about to give him Teddy, even if it would help save Pops. Even if he offered me all my dreams on a silver plate.

The ice in the glass in front of me slipped and melted, sending waves of water through the alcohol. I wouldn’t look, no, not into those mesmerizing eyes.

“Miss Winter, it is truly a pleasure,” he repeated, and I couldn’t help it.

I looked.

CHAPTER 19

Lou

I hated Danny when he started eyeballing her. I hated her, too, but I can be forgiven for that because I didn’t know what was really going on. I guess I didn’t have any of my tingly feelings at the time because I was too busy having other ones.

Like a movie star already, that’s what she looked like. And I was sure I knew how she felt. I’m not an idiot. And gosh, I could hardly blame her.

I pulled Charlie aside to talk to him about his rent money, to make sure he had enough and all, but I was stuck on what was happening back at the table. “You see that girl? That Jo Winter?”

He grinned. “You bet I did. She’s the bee’s knees.”

“Yeah? Well, she better keep her mitts off Danny.”

Charlie looked like he’d swallowed something big. “Why would she be interested in Danny?”

“Look at him.”

Charlie looked. He nodded, real slow. “She’s real pretty.”

I stuck my elbow into his ribs so hard he wheezed. “Not her. Him.”

It took him a second. “Lou, I know he’s a charmer. Everyone knows that. Gosh, I’ve been trying to be like Danny Connor since I was fourteen years old.”

That shook me. “You don’t want to be like Danny. You don’t.” I looked back at the table and found my eyes stinging. “You think she’s pretty enough to steal him?”

Charlie put his arm around my shoulder. “Sis, I think you are too pretty and wonderful to even worry about stuff like that.”

Charlie’s a saint, I’ll give him that. But me?

I was ready to kill someone when I thought something started happening between Jo and Danny. I wanted to find a way to make him suffer. Or make her suffer. Sure, why not? I thought about that. Thinking, Detective, is not a crime.

But one thing for sure: I’m no saint. And no, that is not a confession.

CHAPTER 20

MAY 22, 1925

I lean to the belief that these [psychic] effects are produced by an intelligent force, which can manifest itself mentally and physically to some people under certain circumstances…. I do believe in spiritualism.

—Letter from Howard Thurston to Harry Houdini, 1922

Jo

Daniel Connor leaned toward me. “Neil may be brash, but he is correct in his assessment.” He took a sip of his drink, moistening his lips with his tongue. “That’s a most attractive new look, which I neglected to remark on this morning. Your new hairstyle is quite becoming.”

I had a hard time breathing. And it was impossible for me to look away. Daniel Connor’s steel eyes had hooked me again.

“You know, Josephine, I was a friend to your brother. To Teddy.”

I stopped breathing altogether. “You? A friend?” Connor had come to the memorial, but I’d thought that was because he and Pops were in business together. First Rushton, now Connor. It seemed that Teddy had a number of surprising friends.

“I believe he would be happy if he could see us, right now.” Our
eyes were locked; I couldn’t look away. “Perhaps he can. What do you think, Miss Winter?”

“I…”

“As I said earlier, I believe he is still with us in the flesh. I don’t believe in the spirit world, myself.” He smiled. “But then, Teddy was exceptional in so many ways.” He leaned back again, then pulled out a cigarette case, opened it, and extended it toward me. I shook my head. He took a rolled cigarette from the case and lit it with his lighter, turning his head, exhaling. “I’d like you to come see my greenhouse out on Long Island, Miss Winter.”

“Your greenhouse?”

“Yes. Not at the moment, of course.” He laughed, a smooth and satiny laugh that matched his slick hair. “Sometime soon.”

I had to speak, because it was the only thing that afforded me a breath. “What do you grow?”

“Orchids,” he said, and smoothed the napkin on the table between us, a delicate gesture.

“Orchids.” I hesitated. “I know what they are, of course. But I’ve never seen one other than in a corsage.”

“We will remedy that.” He watched me with narrowed eyes. “I have a passion for them—their smell, their form. Orchids are difficult to grow. Tricky. They must be kept at the perfect temperature, perfect humidity. They won’t bloom under any but the most auspicious conditions.” Connor leaned across the table toward me again, and his eyes shone in the reflected light from the stage, from the candles. “I’m fascinated by puzzles. By things that are tricky to handle. Orchids are puzzles, and must be treated with a delicate hand.” He paused again. “You are a puzzle, Miss Winter.”

I froze, my fingers curved onto the table, fingernails resting, ready. “Really.”

“You like books. You like intellectual endeavors. You like solitude.” He paused. “I believe you like mysteries, as well.”

How did he know so much about me?

“Ah, mysteries,” he went on, gazing toward the stage, where the musicians were gathering again. He stretched out his hand, taking in the room. “But you don’t care for this, this kind of a place. Do you, Miss Winter?”

I held still.

“You don’t like all this, and yet”—he leaned closer to me, across the table, his arms resting between us—“you are not your brother, are you? You are not perfect Theodore Winter. If, that is, Theodore Winter was—is—actually perfect, which I believe is debatable. You have some quirks of your own. As I said, you are a puzzle.”

Connor was close enough to me now that I caught the brilliantine shine on his hair, smelled his expensive cologne. “Remember what I said this morning. I’m looking for Teddy, or for something he might have left. It’s most important to me. I can make all your dreams come true, Miss Winter. And help your family in the bargain. Or rather, keep your family from harm. All you need to do is say the word.” His lips curled up in a smile that showed his teeth. “Two weeks, Josephine. You have two weeks.”

“Hey.” It was Louie. She looked from me to Connor, and for the second time since meeting her, I sensed her vulnerability. She sat down next to Connor as he made room for her. But her eyes were on me, accusing.

He offered Louie a cigarette, and when he lit it, the lighter flashed. I jumped, and Lou saw my reaction.

“Don’t like fire?” she asked, inhaling, the tip of her cigarette a red dot.

“I don’t care for smoke,” I lied. My back burned, and the scar chafed.

From the darkness behind me a man grabbed my shoulder, and I jumped again. “Wanna dance, sweetie?”

Connor bristled.

I shook my head. “No. Thanks anyway.”

“Aw, come on, honey. Just one!”

In one swift and leonine movement Connor was out of his seat and had dragged the man to the other side of the room, placing him in the clutches of the doorkeep; Connor returned before I could blink.

“My apologies,” Connor said, adjusting his jacket and tie.

“Thanks.” I sat back in the chair, flattened.

“Well,” said Louie. Her eyes looked bruised now as she watched me. “How noble of you, hon.”

I breathed hard; I stood. I wanted out of there. I had to get away from him, from her. I felt as though I was sinking into a pit. I abandoned my promise to my aunt; Melody, drowning in the liquor and the men, was on her own. I’d lost all curiosity about speakeasies.

Without another word I turned and marched across the room, now throbbing with the beat of a new tune, Charlie’s cornet gracing the high notes and keeping synchrony with the singer. Then I pushed past the beefy doorkeep and shoved into the gloomy, dank hallway and straight on out into the night.

The street was black as pitch as my eyes tried to adjust.

I feared that he—Daniel Connor—would follow me. I had the
feeling that, in the same swift and leonine fashion he had dealt with the stranger in the speakeasy, he would follow me, his prey, out into the dark.

I pulled the caplet tighter around my shoulders and looked up the street. There. At the far end, close to the avenue with its noise and lights, I saw our limo waiting. I started down the sidewalk, the
click, click
of my heels on concrete the only sound.

But then I heard another, a different sound. Footsteps, heavy, behind me. Connor? I stepped a little faster, my heart keeping time, and clutched my arms tight around my chest. The sound behind me drew closer, the footsteps faster.

The limo was far down the street; it seemed a million miles away, and I walked as fast as I could walk without running, hearing the footsteps behind me, gaining.

I broke into a trot.

I reached the limo, found it locked, pounded on the window, praying that Sam hadn’t gone off to his own joint; but he was sleeping at the wheel, and I saw his wide eyes as he started and turned toward me, just as a hand grabbed my arm.

I yelled, surprise and fear mingled.

And then came chaos. Sirens blared, and police cars, paddy wagons—a whole string of them—roared from around the corner. As the lights swept over the limo and me, the hand that gripped my arm let go. I turned to see the back of a man sprinting into the darkness away from me, while the noise of the raid—the shouts and slamming doors—swelled around me. I looked at the brownstone, and it was as if rats were abandoning a sinking ship. People poured from windows and doors, running in all directions away from the speakeasy while the police shouted orders and grabbed whoever
came within reach, which really meant whoever was drunk enough to stagger within reach.

Sam came around the car. “Get in, miss. Now.”

I sat in the car and stared out the window. The hand on my arm hadn’t been Daniel Connor’s. I knew that grip.

It had been Teddy, I was certain. Like Connor, I didn’t believe in spirits, either. I believed in Teddy.

I huddled, shaking all over, in the backseat while Sam waited with the engine running. The door popped open and Melody and Louie tumbled in, laughing hysterically, followed by Daniel Connor, silent and slick.

Connor rapped on the inside window of the limo. “Not too fast, Sam. We don’t want to draw attention.”

We pulled away from the curb, slow, and I looked out the back, at the street teeming with drunken people, police, lights fanning the building, and I let myself shake, now, still feeling the grip of a hand on my arm.

“Such a shame,” Melody said with a pout. “That was a swell joint.”

I remembered the fire, the flames reaching for me and me helpless to stop them, my voice choked with smoke as I tried to scream but could not. It had been Teddy, Teddy’s hand on my arm that had pulled me to safety from the flames that afternoon. He’d rescued me, had been my hero.

Teddy’s hand on my arm.

I locked the door to my room and turned on a light. The quiet was deep, even the city noises hushed. We’d arrived home a few
minutes earlier; Melody had stumbled off to bed, while I knew what I had to do now.

I had to find out what Teddy had to say about all of it. Maybe I could intervene for Pops. Save my family from Danny Connor by giving him Teddy’s journal entries, without giving him Teddy.

I threw my wrap and clutch on the bed and dug into the bottom drawer, and pulled out the journal. I sat cross-legged on my bed with the journal in my lap. I untied it, fumbling with the leather cord. But before I could open it, a frightening new idea took shape in my mind.

I could save my family another way, couldn’t I? Make myself attractive to Danny Connor, make him like me. He already did; I wasn’t stupid. And then, when he liked me enough—what? Beg? Or not give him Teddy at all, but give him me.

I shuddered. Goose bumps freckled my skin, and a sour taste rose into my mouth.

This personal sacrifice would be my last resort. I’d have to uncover as much information as I could, but in the end…