Sirens (21 page)

The Venus flytrap shook ever so little. I remembered the overheard conversation between Connor and Pops. The threat, the tremor in Pops’s voice, the fear in Ma’s eyes. Pops didn’t have Teddy’s journal; he didn’t know that I’d helped Teddy stage his suicide. There was nothing Pops could do to save us.

This was up to me.

“Wait.” My throat was thick. “I might have been mistaken.”

Connor’s eyebrows lifted, those eyes boring into me like blades.

My family might owe Connor nothing if I…if I…“The orchids are lovely.” Sweat dripped down my spine. The skin of my scar chafed and burned. “Your orchids. They are lovely.”

“Yes,” he whispered. “And?”

“I will…Let me think.”

He smiled. “Think, Miss Winter. But not for long. I need to know where Teddy is. I need whatever he may have left behind. The clock is ticking. And I like adding to my collections in a timely fashion.”

I put my hand back on the knob and turned it, and the door opened, revealing Louie on the other side.

“Danny!” Her eyes flew between us. “It’s lunchtime.”

His words came out a growl. “I’ve told you never to disturb me here.
Never
.”

She nodded, but looked back and forth from him to me, suspicious and hurt. “But sweetie, Cook made such a luscious lunch, and it was getting cold; I just wanted—”

The slap was so hard it sounded like the vase smacking onto the paving. My hand flew to my mouth; Louie’s hand flew to her cheek, and the tears started to her eyes. I could see her swallow. I pressed my fingers to my lips to keep from telling Connor what I thought of him.

Without a word Connor pulled me outside, turned, and locked the greenhouse door behind us. He pushed past Louie and walked up the grassy slope toward the house, gripping the lapel that held the orchid and pressing it to his nose.

Louie and I stood facing each other. I knew he’d slapped her because I’d made him angry. It made me feel sick. I took my hand from my mouth and reached for her.

“Don’t.” She stepped back, her eyes snapping. “Don’t you dare.”

I wished we could be friends. “But Louie…why do you stay with him?”

Her cheek was scarlet; mine throbbed in sympathy. She leaned her head toward me and said from between clenched teeth, “I love
him. I love him, okay? Fine with you? You just keep your mitts off him, sister.”

I shook my head, and spoke past the lump in my throat. “I have no intention—”

“Good. Fine. Then we’ll get along just fine.”

I watched her as she stared at her feet, then away at the ocean flashing sunlight beyond the edge of the lawn. The breeze riffled the grass, mowed to a perfect height. I wanted her to understand. I reached out to touch her arm. “I’m not going to take him from you, Lou. That’s a promise.”

She narrowed her eyes at me, suspicious, mouth stiff and accusatory.

I went on, “He wants something from me.”

She paused, glancing from my hand that rested on her arm to my face. “What?”

“Information. About my brother.”

Her eyes stayed narrowed, but I could sense her softening. “Teddy.”

“Yes. And I—I made Teddy a promise. Now I don’t know how I can keep it.”

She put her fingers up to her cheek and touched the bruise. “Listen. He knows you have something Teddy gave you. And he thinks you know what happened when Teddy disappeared. He thinks Teddy is still alive and hiding out. Or so he’s said. In moments when he doesn’t think I’m really listening.” She glanced sideways at me. “Do you? I mean, it was mysterious, the way Teddy just…”

I stepped back, leaning against the greenhouse frame for support, feeling weak. “How does he know?”

“He knows. Don’t ask me how; he has his ways.” She shrugged. “It’s only a matter of time. He’ll find a way to get to you. He always does.”

“Lou…”

She dropped her head, the dark, curling waves of her hair falling across her eyes. Then she lifted her face again. “Come on, doll. There’s a really nice spread in the dining room. Danny’ll just chuck it out if we don’t join him.”

It was all I could do to sit at the table and pick at the food; my stomach was in knots. Connor talked almost nonstop about a shipment of orchids due in from South America. Their color. Their rarity. How he’d made a deal to have them smuggled north, and how many people he’d had to bribe. Louie laughed at all of his jokes, oohed and aahed at each of his over-the-top comments, and fawned over him, even feeding him sardines with her fingers and licking them afterward. Disgust crawled over me.

When Charlie appeared at the door, ready to accompany me back to Manhattan, I was so relieved I could hardly move fast enough. Connor and Louie walked me to the door, arm in arm, Connor bending over my hand in farewell.

At his touch I felt ill.

Just as Charlie helped me into the backseat of the limousine, Connor called out.

“Miss Winter! Please give my warm regards to your father. Oh, and to your mother as well.”

His words were weighted. I knew they contained a warning.

All the way home I fretted. So much so that, when I entered the apartment and saw Pops standing in the foyer with my uncle, I leaped into his arms.

CHAPTER 27

Lou

After lunch, after she left, I went up to my room. Headache, I said. Splitting, I told him.

I took off my diamond bracelet, laid it out on the table in the square of sunlight until the reflection was ready to give me that headache I’d complained of.

How much? I wondered. How much would it be worth? Would it buy my freedom? Maybe I could hop on a train, head west. If only I could open that safe, get the necklace, the earrings—those diamonds would be enough—and then I’d be free…. Or maybe some of that weird stuff in the museum, those big gaudy jewels…

Ah, but then I thought about it again. Charlie. I couldn’t leave Charlie. Not in the same town with Danny, if I jilted him and stole his jewels. Especially not if I took something from his precious museum. He’d take it
all out on Charlie. Believe you me, Danny would’ve given the business to everyone I cared about.

Okay, so Charlie’d go with me. He could play his music for a bit of dough, for when the money ran out. Yeah, him and me, on the lam, that’s what I considered. I even had an okay singing voice, so maybe we could go together, him playing backup; maybe that’s how we could make it….

That’s when that one big tear rolled down my cheek and landed on the table, reflecting the light like those diamonds.

There was nothing I could do. I was, pure and simple, nuts about Danny. Crazy nuts. So nuts I knew I’d never disappear on him. You don’t have to believe me. But I didn’t leave him, did I?

I turned my attention to other matters. It was okay for me to hate Jo for bending Danny’s wandering eye. That gave me something to chew on, all right, no matter what you might think of me. I didn’t care for all her weak protests, that nonsense about her brother; she couldn’t fool me. She was dying for my Danny. So what would you expect me to think?

Get rid of her, and Danny would forget her soon enough. Put her in a box and make her disappear, like that Thurston fellow did. Then I’d be the levitating girl.

Yeah. Put that Jo Winter in a box, and make her disappear.

CHAPTER 28

MAY 24, 1925

The darkness was rising, but much was still hidden by the shadows.

—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
The Hound of the Baskervilles
, 1901

Jo

“You’re early!” I said, my voice muffled against his shoulder. “You said a couple of weeks. I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Now, Josephine, no need for such a display.” Pops hugged me and then pushed me away. Then he held me farther back, at arm’s length. “What in heaven’s name have you done to yourself?” Anger mingled with his surprise. “Only a few days, and look at you. What have you done?” His gaze drifted over my hair and then settled on my knees, exposed beneath my silk slip dress.

I tried to keep tears from forming as I touched the nape of my bare neck. I’d been so happy to see him; now my joy was squashed by his condemnation. Even though I’d known he never would have approved of my hair and clothes, I murmured, “I really hoped you’d like it.”

Silence filled the air, thick and unpleasant. My uncle came to my
rescue. “It’s all the rage, Billy. My daughter bobbed her hair, too. I guess it’s easier for the girls to deal with.” He gave a halfhearted chuckle.

Pops remained silent. Then he shook his head. “You look like one of those floozie types. I’m disappointed in you, Josephine.”

I sucked in air. I shouldn’t be surprised; I’d never please him. I wasn’t Teddy. “Did you bring Ma with you?”

He glanced at my uncle, his eyes dark. “No. Your ma has left to visit her aunt.”

“Why? Is Aunt Elizabeth sick?” My great-aunt Lizzy was as tough as a warhorse, having lived alone on the Montana plains all her life. After Teddy spent that summer working for her, he’d maintained I’d inherited her tough and stubborn nature. “Is something wrong?”

“Not exactly.”

My nerves tingled. Pops was hiding something. “Pops. What’s going on?”

“What’s going on is that you’ve clearly been disobeying me.” His harsh voice cut right through me.

Between the greeting he gave me and the terrible experience I’d had at Connor’s I had no patience left. And here I’d thought to defend Pops against Connor, by giving up Teddy—by giving up myself. I folded my arms across my chest, my anger yielding to defiance.

My uncle, still trying to lighten the mood, clapped his hands together. “Well! I guess that’s fine then. Jo, your father’s here to see me. You’ll see him before he leaves. You can run along now.”

Distant street noise filled the silence, the honking, rumbling cacophony of New York. Yesterday those noises had gotten on
my nerves, frayed as they were from my experiences of the night before. Today New York’s glamour shone like a beacon signaling my way to escape from Pops’s stifling demands.

Pops turned away from me to stare, down the hallway toward the spare, white living room. “Sure, Uncle Bert. I’ll be in my room.” Then I paused. “Mr. Daniel Connor just had me out to his estate on the island. It was a pretty swell place. He sent his best wishes.”

Pops turned around, sharp. “Connor!”

My uncle’s face was fixed in a thin smile, his eyes flitting between Pops and me.

Pops flared. “What have you been doing with Danny Connor?”

Trying to save you and Ma, I thought. Pops had let me down hard, and I was not about to forgive him. “You said I should meet people. He’s one of the people I’ve met.”

“Connor is not someone I want you mixed up with, Josephine. I want you to stay away from the likes of him. Bert, I thought you understood that.”

“Ah!” My uncle opened and closed his mouth. “Gosh, Billy, I honestly didn’t know anything about it. It must have been something Melody cooked up.” He blinked and licked his lips. “But after all, Daniel Connor knows a lot of important people in this town. It’s hard to get around New York without running into people he knows.”

“People he knows?” Pops’s voice rose. “I didn’t have the likes of Danny Connor in mind when I sent Jo here. Just the opposite. I want to keep her away from…Here, Bert, I thought we had an understanding.”

An understanding? “Pops…”

Uncle Bert’s hands flapped. “Jo’s a smart girl. She sees right through stuff. I know she can take care of—”

“I want her to find a match.
A good match
. Get her out of this situation. Not find herself in one of Connor’s speakeasies with the other floozies.” He waved his hand in my direction. “Already looking like one.”

“Now, Billy, don’t talk that way. Jo’s been out with Melody.”

“Then tell your daughter not to take my daughter out anywhere she can run into Danny Connor.”

My impatience swelled. Pops and Uncle Bert were talking about me as if I wasn’t there. My voice shook. “Pops—”

He held up his hand to silence me.

Uncle Bert rocked on his heels and sucked in his cheeks. “Mary and I have been thinking about having a party. We’d host all the best people. None of the lowlifes, I promise you. I can introduce Jo to the best folks in town, cream of the crop, real high-society stuff. Even some of those types who hang out at the Algonquin—those artists and writers. Hey? How about it?” He looked at me. “What about it, Jo?”

I folded my arms, pursing my lips, finally able to get a word in. “Gee. That would be swell.”

My uncle beamed, not hearing my sarcasm. “And Billy, I almost forgot! She’s already met John Rushton.”

Pops nodded, approving. “Now, that Rushton’s the kind of man I was talking about. He’d keep her safe and sound.”

What was I, invisible? Pops seemed to think I was an object to be bartered over. And Rushton. My anger swelled. “I’m not interested in John Rushton,” I said, my tone defiant.

Pops looked at me, his eyes flashing. “You’d be lucky to have someone like John Rushton even pay you the smallest bit of attention. He’s from one of New York’s oldest families.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“He’s smart. And he has connections. He’s got a big house and a bigger bank account. And he can keep you away from the likes of Connor.”

I dropped my arms to my sides, rigid, my fists clenched. “I really don’t care. I do not want to be talked about like I have no choices. I told you this before, and I’ll say it again: I am not ready to get married, Pops.”

He leaned toward me. “You will do as I tell you.”

“No, Pops, I won’t. That’s not what this is about anyway. You didn’t send me here to find a match. You wanted me out of the house.” I watched the astonishment cover his face. “I’m betting you sent Ma out to Montana for the same reason.” I straightened my back. One obnoxious male in my day was enough, and Connor had tried my patience. “And what about Teddy? Connor wants a piece of him. That’s the real problem, isn’t it? You can take your schemes about my future and toss them in the Hudson River for all I care.”