Grave Phantoms (Roaring Twenties #3)(10)

As he strode away, Nurse Dupree picked up a wooden clipboard and jotted down notes on Astrid’s medical form. “Feeling better?”

“Much. I don’t think I need to see a doctor, especially since the hospital is so busy with the survivors. Have you seen them yourself?”

“Yes, and if you want my opinion, that poor woman is being taken for a ride.”

“Mrs. Cushing?” Astrid asked.

The nurse nodded. “One of the survivors she identified as her former maid, Mary Richards. Mrs. Cushing reported her missing last year, apparently. She’d given Miss Richards permission to use the boat over the weekend, so I understand wanting to help the girl out, but the rest of them are strangers. If you ask me, offering to let them all stay in her home is just begging for trouble. I need to take your pulse again, sweetheart.”

Astrid gave the nurse her arm. “Does Miss Richards remember who the rest of the survivors are and what happened?”

“No. She doesn’t even remember her own name.” The nurse pushed up Astrid’s sleeve and looked at a watch pinned to her apron. “Just between you and me, I don’t think all of the survivors have memory loss. I overheard two of them talking when Mary was being interrogated, and they sounded mighty familiar with each other.”

Astrid perked up. “You don’t say?”

“One of the detectives told me he thinks they stole the boat and had no intention of bringing it back—that the engine died and the storm swept them to shore, and now they’re playing innocent. That widow believes she’s being a Good Samaritan, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they rob her blind in the middle of the night.”

Astrid spoke in a hushed voice. “You didn’t happen to hear if there were others on the boat who are still missing, did you?”

“Mrs. Cushing doesn’t know who went out on the boat with Miss Richards last year. You were there when the yacht crashed, right? Did you see other people?”

“No,” Astrid said. She didn’t actually see them, so it wasn’t a lie. But it felt like one, because all her instincts told her that she wasn’t wrong.

“Your pulse is too high,” the nurse said. “So I think you should stop worrying about all this chaos and get a good night’s rest at home. You’ll feel better when all the excitement has died down. My advice is to forget it even happened and not make a habit of drinking so much grape juice,” the nurse said with a pat on her arm and a wink.

Astrid’s thoughts returned to her vision. Twelve people around the ritual circle . . . and the priestess in the middle made thirteen. Thirteen people were on that boat, and only six walked off. She wasn’t sure that was something she could easily forget.

—

And she didn’t.

Not when she was released from the hospital half an hour later, and not when Bo drove them back to Pacific Heights while the rain-soaked city slept. The grand homes in this neighborhood sat shoulder to shoulder on tiered streets that belted a steep hill and provided a commanding view of the Bay. Astrid grew up in an immigrant neighborhood across town, but her father moved them here after Prohibition. His decision to take up bootlegging had dramatically changed their lives.

The neighbors had mixed feelings about their living here. Her family was new money, her brother a well-known criminal. They didn’t hide their success. Their turreted Queen Anne mansion took up two lots to most of the other homes’ one, and several fine cars lined their gated driveway, including Winter’s black-and-red Pierce-Arrow limousine. They kept a sizable staff, mostly Swedish immigrants, and Winter employed several hundred workers across the city.

They were not poor, and they were not humble. But whatever the neighbors said about her family behind their closed doors, they were all smiles in public. Astrid had learned the value of holding her head high. And as the silhouette of their imposing home came into view through the light-falling rain, a rush of relief made her shoulders relax and gave her a brief respite from the evening’s odd events.

On the car ride here, Bo had told Astrid about his brief talk outside the hospital with the widow, Mrs. Cushing. He said she was polite when he approached her, promising she’d have someone move the yacht in the morning. The police chief, on the other hand, was insistent that no one touch the boat until they’d had a chance to look through it in the daylight.

“And she didn’t seem happy about this, not at all,” Bo said. “Went from gracious to frosty”—he snapped his fingers—“just like that. Definitely someone who is used to getting her way.”

Astrid didn’t know what to make of this. She’d told Bo what she’d learned from the nurse, but by the time they’d made it home, she was weary of thinking about all of it.

Bo parked his car behind the others in the driveway, and they quietly entered the house through a side porch. Inside, the Queen Anne was dark. Astrid took off her ruined wet pumps and carried them by the heels as she padded down a chevron-patterned runner. Bo followed. After a dozen steps, a narrow hallway opened up to a large foyer that smelled of orange oil and lilies. Home.

A dog as big as a small horse shuffled across the floor, claws clicking on the hardwood, and greeted her with a wagging tail.

“Hello, Sam,” she said, bending to scratch his ear. The brindled mastiff officially belonged to Winter’s wife—though Winter treated it like a second child—and was an excellent guard dog. He nuzzled Astrid’s hand and then rubbed his head against Bo’s leg and left a trail of wiry hair, which Bo complained about beneath his breath—but not without giving the dog an affectionate pat on the rump. Then the mastiff shuffled back the way he came and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Bo and Astrid alone in the empty foyer.