Bitter Spirits (Roaring Twenties #1)(85)

The telephone rang. He let someone else answer. After a few moments, Bo slipped inside the kitchen. Winter prepared himself for the speech, but to Bo’s credit, it didn’t come.

“I know you might not want to hear this right now, but that was Velma on the line.”

Winter grunted. It was all he could manage.

“She was calling to say that they’re reporting on the radio that two unidentified men in Chinatown were burned alive inside a black truck that misfired outside a grocer’s shop. Witnesses said a couple of folks tried to help the men when the truck started burning, but the locks were stuck on both doors, and they were afraid it would explode—which it did.”

Christ alive. The curse worked.

“No identification on the bodies. No registration plates on the truck,” Bo added. “Cops think it might’ve been stolen. I’ll check in with one of our guys on the inside and see if I can get any other information.”

After Winter muttered his thanks, Bo retreated, leaving him alone in the kitchen with nothing but his incoherent thoughts. His world was breaking apart. He was numb on the inside, worn down on the outside. He couldn’t move or think properly. Could barely focus his eyes on Greta when her silver head appeared in the doorway.

“Are you all right, gulleplutten?” she asked.

He stood up and pulled the front of his suit into place, trying to wrestle some control over his feelings, and heard the crinkle of paper from his inner suit pocket. Emmett Lane’s check to Aida. He could’ve handed it over, given her the chance to make an informed choice, but he wanted her to choose to stay for him, not money.

He’d put his heart on a plate for her, and she wouldn’t say the words back. Maybe he’d been fooling himself to believe she felt the same way.

He glanced up at Greta. “Have her things packed and brought down to the foyer.”

• • •

Aida’s last performance at Gris-Gris was her all-time worst. Unable to call spirits for not one, not two, but three audience members—and unwilling to fake it—she was booed off the stage.

A career first.

Maybe a career last, if word got back to her future employer down South.

“It happens to the best of us,” Velma said generously, patting her on the back as she handed over the last of her wages. “Maybe you’re distracted by something you want to talk about?”

Aida shook her head. She would only start crying again.

After Hezekiah and Daniels both hugged her, after she’d said all her good-byes, she left in disgrace, heading through the back delivery door.

Pausing under the doorway light, she pulled her gloves from her handbag and stared up at the fog tenting the narrow alleyway. Well. What now? All her new things were at Winter’s house.

And so was Winter.

She closed her eyes and exhaled heavily, then slipped her hand into a glove. “Okay, Palmer,” she muttered to herself. “Let’s think about this rationally.”

Maybe he’d been right that no one would care about their affair. She wasn’t leading a Girl Scout troop, after all. And how could she argue that they didn’t know their own feelings well enough after a month, but insist that he make a public demonstration to last a lifetime?

Right or wrong, it didn’t mean she had to leave the state to prove her argument, stomping off like a petulant child. Yes, she loved this city, and some insistent part of her did feel like it was home. So he was right about two things.

And really, when she considered, she could get a bank loan—he was right about that, too, damn him! Just a small one, enough to pay for a few months’ rent at a cheap place, perhaps one with an apartment attached, so she could live and work out of the same place to save money.

He’s come between me and the woman I love.

Did Winter mean that? Did he really love her?

On a sigh, she let her arms flop to her sides. Her handbag slipped off her wrist, dropping to the pavement. The contents of her handbag scattered. She bent to collect them all.

“You all right, Miss Palmer?”

She looked up. One of the club’s guards, Manny, was leaning out of the back door.

“I’m fine,” she lied as she scooped everything back into her handbag. “Thank you.”

“Miss Palmer!” A new voice called to her several yards away, at the mouth of the alley. A man stood next to a car with the door open, waving to her. Clouds of exhaust pumped from the tailpipe as the engine rumbled. It took her a second to recognize the man’s face.

“Doctor Yip,” she said with a smile, standing to greet him. “What brings you out to North Beach?”

“A long story,” he said as she approached. “Would you have time to listen to it, over tea perhaps?”

She hesitated, wanting to get back to Winter and talk. But the herbalist’s face was friendly, and perhaps he had some information they needed. “Is this about Mr. Magnusson?”

“Yes, in fact it is.” He gestured toward the backseat of the waiting car. “Please.”

“You all right, Miss Palmer?” Manny repeated from behind her.

She lifted a hand in answer. “It’s okay.”

“Please,” Doctor Yip said again, encouraging her into the car. “Won’t take long. I think you will be quite interested in what I have to tell you. We can drive across the street to the Automat.”