Bitter Spirits (Roaring Twenties #1)(15)

“Impressive.”

They gazed out over the rooftops for a moment until Winter spoke again. “Velma said you’re booked at Gris-Gris through July. What do you do, just go from club to club?”

“Sometimes theaters, but speakeasies pay better. I’ve worked six of them over the past couple of years up and down the East Coast. This is the first time I’ve been out West since I was a small child. I’m originally from here—my parents were killed in the Great Fire.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I was only seven, so my memories are limited. Our apartment building initially survived the quake. It was one of the gas pipe explosions that brought it down. I got separated from my parents when we were trying to escape. One of the neighbors got me out, but my parents never made it. To this day, I’m a little phobic of fire.”

“Understandable. I was nine when it happened, but I still dream about the city burning.”

God, so did she.

“What happened to you after the fire?” Winter asked.

“I was shuffled off to a temporary camp, then an orphanage. I lived with three families before a couple, the Lanes, took me in later that year. They were moving out east, so I went with them.” She glanced out the window. “I have a few memories of living here before the quake, but I definitely don’t remember it looking like this. It’s going to spoil me. I won’t want to leave.”

“How do you live like that, moving around all the time? Do you travel with someone?”

“Just me and myself.”

Two deep lines etched his brow. “Doesn’t seem safe for a single woman to be running around the country.”

If she had a penny for every time she’d heard that . . . “I’ve managed just fine.”

“Sounds lonely.”

It was lonely at times—terribly lonely. But she did what she had to in order to survive, and she wasn’t embarrassed about it. A certain pride came with the kind of independence she had. If you didn’t rely on anyone but yourself, you had fewer chances of being disappointed—that’s what Sam always told her. Out of habit, her fingers reached for the locket hanging near her heart.

“I live for the moment, not the past or future,” she said. Another Sam mantra. “But if you must know, I do prefer private séances to work onstage. They pay better for less work. Building up a client list takes more time than—”

A loud brring-brring startled her out of her memories.

“Hold that thought.” Winter excused himself and strode across the room to answer the telephone. She was a little relieved to drop the subject of her career choice. It was none of his business, really. And she’d already said more than she probably should. A bad habit of hers, not controlling the things that exited her mouth.

While he spoke in a hushed voice on the phone, she strolled past the windows and looked around, glancing at the book spines on a bay of shelves, mostly commerce and fishing titles. Her gaze fell upon a couple of long books sitting on a nearby lamp table. Scrapbooks? Photos?

Leather cracked when she opened the top book. Not photographs, but postcards attached to black pages with adhesive mounting corners. Postcards from Cairo. Postcards from France. The Eiffel Tower. The Arc de Triomphe. The Louvre. Two French maids wearing nothing but aprons. A girl falling off a bike, her skirt lifted, wearing only rolled-down stockings underneath. A woman sitting on a sofa reading a French copy of Ulysses with her legs spread—

Dear Lord.

Erotic postcards. Dozens and dozens. She glanced in Winter’s direction. He was quiet, listening to the earpiece receiver while pacing around the fireplace, toting the candlestick base as a black telephone cord snaked around the floor, trailing his footsteps.

She hurriedly leafed through the pages, which seemed to get progressively worse—or better, depending on your view. A fully dressed man kissing a nude woman on his lap. A man fondling a woman beneath her chemise.

Flipping toward the back of the book, Aida stopped on a page with only one postcard affixed to the center—not a photograph, but a colored illustration. It featured a naked woman with bobbed hair. She sat upon the lap of a naked man, who was propped up against a pile of cushions. His cock was drawn to fantastical proportions, and the artist had managed to include an impressive amount of detail in rendering every vein, ridge, and hair as it slid into the woman’s exposed sex. She rode him, mouth open, with a look of ecstasy on her face.

And she was freckled.

Aida’s pulse pounded. She stared at the shocking postcard, transfixed. It was surely only a coincidence the illustrated woman looked like her—artists often added freckles to make females look younger, after all, and—

“Find something interesting?” Winter’s low voice rumbled near her ear.

She jumped in surprise and attempted to shut the book, but his palm slapped down on the pages. When she tried to step away, another hand planted on the other side of the book, pinning her inside his arms. His chest against her back was warm and solid.

Her breathing faltered. Embarrassment created a fog that rolled over her brain. “They were sitting out,” she argued dumbly.

“My study. My books. I can leave them where I like.”

Her heart pattered like a frightened animal. “You should take more care when you invite guests over.”

“I didn’t know my guest would be so curious.”