Sirens (33 page)

He nodded, then took my wrist. “Don’t be long.”

“No,” I said. “No.” I tried not to let on that my mind was racing.

In the ladies’ I splashed water on my face. Danny Connor frightened and repulsed me. I couldn’t go with him, not ever. I prayed that what I did next would not make everything worse for those I loved.

I was in the alley inside of three minutes, made a fast loop to the nearest street, and hailed a cab. I looked back as we pulled away, and a figure stood on the curb, a man, staring after us.

I thought for a moment it was one of Connor’s men, but I’d moved like lightning. Or was it Teddy? Blond, with that stance…I almost stopped the cab, but we lurched away from the light and he was gone.

Teddy and I, together we could maybe take on Connor. But alone, I was not prepared for this. I pressed my fingers to my forehead. Maybe, like Teddy, I would have to disappear.

When I woke up, the sun was streaming through the windows of my safe room in my hotel. As I washed and dressed, I tried to figure out what to do next. Charlie would be worried sick about me, so I needed to let him know where I was right away.

I remembered the exchange number at Charlie’s building. I told
Mrs. Daly that I was his sister Lou since I couldn’t play the Irish country cousin over the phone. When Charlie picked up, I could hear the relief in his voice, even as he whispered. I pictured Mrs. Daly hovering behind her partly open door.

“Where are you? I’ve been out of my mind.”

“I’m at my residence. I’m fine. Thanks to you and the ten bucks and the escape route you showed me.”

“Thank heavens. Can you meet me at five at the Algonquin?”

“I’ll be there.”

“What happened?”

“I’ll tell you when I see you.”

After I dressed I went downstairs to the lobby and sat for a few minutes, gathering my thoughts. I watched the other girls—not much older than me, most of them—heading out to work. They seemed ready to take on the world, some in neat, pressed, and belted suits; some in dropped-waist dresses with slouchy sweaters, neat-as-a-pin hats, gloves, clutches, hose, heeled shoes. All with an air of responsibility and livelihood. Maybe they had boyfriends. Maybe not. It didn’t matter—they had lives.

That could be me. I could be a working girl in New York City. And why not? I just had to slip into a new life, away from Danny Connor. The way Teddy had managed to do.

I returned to my room and packed my valise and gave the scowling matron a healthy tip to make up for my sudden change in plans.

I had tons of time before I’d meet Charlie, so I left the hotel and walked. And walked. New York on a fine day in early June was alive, stretching, growling, hissing, and belching; steam rising from holes in the street; the ground rumbling under my feet as the
trucks and buses thundered past. I window-shopped and stopped for coffee and a doughnut at a cafeteria. I watched the passersby and tried to find myself in the crowd.

Tried to discover who I was. Tried to discover who I could be.

Josephine Winter, teacher.

Josephine Winter, secretary.

Josephine Winter, scribe.

In the few weeks I’d been in New York, I’d adopted a new style of dress, a new set of friends, and a couple of new addresses. But what about me, inside? My own journey had been lost in a flurry of confusion and danger surrounding my family, all because of something that began with Teddy.

Because of Teddy and his journal, and maybe what he’d done, everyone he cared about was in some kind of peril.

I bit my lip. I’d never thought about Teddy that way before. Like he’d been haunting me, but not in a good way.

No, I didn’t mean it. Thinking that Teddy might not be my guardian but my plague, as if the thoughts alone would bring down evil. No. Teddy had always been there for me.

I’d always have Teddy.

“Miss?”

“Oh, excuse me!” I’d stopped walking, was standing still in the middle of a crowded sidewalk, halting traffic, stopping the progress of one pleasant young man, who tipped his hat. I searched his face, thinking for a moment that I saw Teddy there, in such similar blue eyes, such a similar swatch of blond hair, such a similar expression. I knew I must’ve looked startled, to say the least.

“You all right, then?”

“I’m fine.” The color crept up my cheeks. “Thanks.”

He tipped his hat again and went on his way, that not-Teddy, as I moved to the nearest shop window, where a flapper ensemble was displayed, from dress to cloche to bobbed hair to full red lips. She was carrying a valise.

And then I realized. It was my reflection I saw, not a mannequin.

Who are you, Josephine Winter? Where are you going?

I walked farther until I was at the corner of Madison and Forty-second. Suddenly, I knew. It was written not in but underneath the stars. The stars!

I was going to see the stars.

CHAPTER 43

Lou

She could’ve been a star. Another Clara Bow. She had the looks for it. And the smarts.

That’s what scared me, that with those looks and brains and long legs and that sweet innocence she was Danny’s type. Younger, prettier. If Charlie was in the way of Danny, God help him. If I was in the way…

Danny didn’t know that I’d taken the other car that night. That I’d followed him. That I saw them together. Saw him smile at her. Saw him touch her arm. Saw that look in his eye.

I would’ve killed her right there, if I’d had a gun in my hand.

So you can see why I did what I did. I made up my mind that I was going to hang on to Danny one way or the other. Charlie, he didn’t know I’d turn snitch when he mentioned the journal. But then again, he didn’t see that look.

If that Jo Winter proved to be a problem, well, honey, as I said to Danny when we first met, I’m willing to manage anything.

Including making someone disappear.

But hang on. Don’t go thinking the wrong thing, Detective. The story ain’t over yet.

CHAPTER 44

JUNE 9, 1925

Apparently the diagram was placed on the floor and thence copied to the ceiling. It might have been better if the artist had held the diagram over his head and transferred it, as it were, by looking through it.

—”Constellations Reversed,”
The New York Times
, March 23, 1913

Jo

I stood there, looking up at Grand Central’s ceiling, trying to puzzle it out.

Okay, so the constellations were backward; that didn’t tell me a thing. I tried to recall our conversation, Teddy’s and mine, but that meant nothing to me, either. I walked from one end of the station to the other, lugging the valise, thankful that I hadn’t tried to bring any of my books, but nothing I could discern about these stars made any sense.

Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps these weren’t the stars Teddy meant. Maybe it didn’t even matter now that Connor had the rest of the journal.

But no. Something in my gut told me that this was just what he meant and that I needed to find those pages if I could. I set
the valise down and looked up at Orion with his three-star belt, shading my eyes with my hand.

Bang!

The noise made me jump out of my skin. It echoed through the high-ceilinged hall, a shattering gunshot.

I froze, expecting to see chaos, to hear screaming. Looked down at my own body as if I expected to see my lifeblood oozing from a wound.

That’s when I realized that no one else was disturbed by the noise, and then I saw why. It wasn’t a gunshot: a man had just slammed the door to a locker, one of those metal lockers that lined the walls of the station to hold travelers’ parcels and suitcases while they waited for their trains.

A locker. Words from his journal: “not in but underneath the stars.”

If Teddy had put his final pages in a locker…

But which one? And where was the key? Where would Teddy hide something meant for me?

A train had arrived at the platform behind me, and passengers streamed past where I stood. Women with flowery dresses; flappers giggling and clutching at one another; men in business suits; a young man in uniform. A young man with blond hair and blue eyes who reminded me so much of Teddy that my heart stood still for a moment.

As he passed me, he smiled, and I smiled back, a frozen smile, my hand reaching for his arm, and I said, “Teddy?”

His smile broadened. “Sorry, miss. Name’s David. But Teddy’s one lucky fellow.” And he saluted and moved on past, as I caught a glimpse of the medals on his chest.

One was shaped like a star.

I practically ran to the ladies’ bathroom, where there were benches and I could open my valise without displaying the contents to the world. I found the scarlet poppies and unfolded the scarf to expose three small boxes.

In one of the boxes was a Silver Star.

I wrestled the medal out of the box; it was attached to felt wrapped over cardboard. As the medal and the cardboard popped out of the box, something else fell out and hit the floor with a metallic ring.

A key. I had to smile, though it was a sad smile. A key with the number 77. Of course, Teddy’s “lucky” number.

It took me a few minutes to find the locker and a few fumbling tries with the key, for the lock was stiff and hard to work, but then it was open, and the smell hit me first. I stepped back, and that’s when I could see it.

There were no pages inside this locker. Only a decaying blossom, putrid, oozing. The blossom of a Venus flytrap.

I entered the Algonquin lobby a full hour before my rendezvous with Charlie, so I sat in the corner, trying to make myself disappear.

The shadows were long. A tired bellhop pushed a luggage cart, one wheel squeaking. Someone at the front desk argued with the manager. A harsh laugh erupted from the dining room. I was drained and frightened.

Connor had gotten to the locker ahead of me.

He’d pieced the puzzle out from the journal, and he’d figured out which locker to open. Danny surely knew Teddy’s military
history. He would’ve known about the Seventy-seventh. He was a far better sleuth than I was. And he’d forced the locker—probably why I’d struggled with it—and he had Teddy’s last pages. I did not.

That dying flower in the locker was a message meant for me.

My entire plan had collapsed. My family would not be safe, not until I solved the problem of Danny Connor. Or until Teddy came back and helped me take care of our family.

A shadow fell across me, and I looked up, thinking it had to be Charlie. I started to reach for him, except it wasn’t Charlie.

It was Danny Connor.

“Let’s go,” Connor said.

About five years ago on a hot July afternoon, Pops had taken Ma and me on an excursion down to Coney Island, where Teddy joined us. It was one of the last times we were all together as a family, and happy. It took Teddy a full hour to persuade me to take a ride with him on the Wonder Wheel, which had just opened. As we went around the Ferris wheel and then stopped with our basket swaying from the highest point on the turn, I felt as if I’d left my stomach somewhere on the ground 150 feet below.