Grave Phantoms (Roaring Twenties #3)(12)

Her breath hitched. Joy flooded her chest. She gingerly picked up the dainty watch and traced the long, rectangular face and the mesh bracelet-style band. The pad of her fingertip felt something on the back plating. She flipped it over and held it up to the thin moonlight that filtered in from the window. Elongated script slanted over the metal. The engraving read:

One day, three autumns.

A Chinese idiom that Bo had taught her years ago. It meant, When you miss someone, one day apart feels as long as three years.

Astrid pressed the watch to her breast and promptly fell apart.

FOUR

Bo didn’t sleep well that night. He’d kept the door to his room cracked for an hour after he left Astrid on the staircase, listening to the rain on the narrow window above his bed, half hoping she’d come down after she found the gift. In the past, she’d occasionally sneaked down the servants’ stairwell to talk to him at night. There were six private rooms along this corridor, as well as a community room and dining area. And though his room wasn’t the biggest—the head housekeeper, Greta, claimed that one—it was, by far, the most secluded, around a sharp corner from the stairwell, away from everyone else. Easy enough for Astrid to manage without getting the attention of other ears.

But she never came down.

Stupid of him to be wounded by that. Hours ago, he’d worried she might be dead or cursed. Well, he still wasn’t sure about the cursed part, to be honest. But as for the other, she was exhausted. She probably just went to bed. It didn’t mean she hated the wristwatch.

He’d spent too much money on it. His car had used up most of his savings, so he needed to be careful. A difficult task when Astrid was involved.

When he’d felt certain she wasn’t coming, he’d shut the door and sat up in bed, staring at the bookcase across the room. It was jam-packed with old magazines and books. Forty-two books, to be exact, and one ragged, ancient copy of Webster’s International Dictionary that he often consulted to improve his vocabulary. Apart from that one, he’d read all the books several times over. Some were missing covers or their spines were broken. Water damaged and dog-eared. It didn’t matter. They were his, bought with hard-earned money.

On the top shelf, bookending his five most cherished tomes, was one of the few things he’d salvaged from his childhood in Chinatown: a chipped ceramic white rabbit. His cheap bastard of an uncle said it once belonged to Bo’s grandmother, who’d illegally emigrated from Hong Kong at the turn of the century as a bride for sale. She’d given it to Bo’s mother, who’d died in the Spanish influenza epidemic ten years back, leaving him orphaned at the ripe old age of eleven—three years before he first spied Winter at a boxing club and picked the big man’s pocket.

The day his life changed.

He didn’t have any photographs of his mother. Only the rabbit remained. But he did have memories of her recounting old Chinese fables of animal spirits that played tricks on men. He loved those stories. After she died, he used to pretend that her spirit watched him from the rabbit’s shiny black eyes. Perhaps he’d pretended so much that he actually believed it now.

“Do not look at me like that, Ah-Ma,” he said to the rabbit now, turning it around to face the wall so that it couldn’t watch him being miserable. “I know I can’t have the girl.”

Of course he knew this. He couldn’t sit with Astrid in all but a handful of restaurants around town. He couldn’t walk into a movie theater with her on his arm. Statewide anti-miscegenation laws said it was outright illegal for him to marry her. Hell, he could be thrown in jail for even so much as holding her hand in public.

So, no.

Bo knew he shouldn’t want her. Knew he couldn’t have her.

But his rebellious heart refused to acknowledge any of this. It tormented him with whispered provocations, urging him to action and kindling hope.

His heart said: when have you ever given a damn about laws?

—

By some miracle, he finally fell asleep and woke much too late, rushing to bathe and dress at half past nine. His schedule was often nocturnal, but he was accustomed to being up early, no matter how much sleep he’d failed to get. But he especially wanted to be up early today because of Astrid.

And to deal with the yacht. Not Astrid at all, only the yacht. Though, he supposed he needed to tell Winter about Astrid’s hospital trip . . . something he relished about as much as a hole in the head.

After shaving and combing back his damp hair with a touch of pomade, carefully arranging an elegant swoop in the front, he grabbed a fresh suit jacket off a wooden valet stand in the corner and raced upstairs to the main floor.

Clinking plates and chatter sounded from the dining room. He made his way there, slipping into his suit jacket as he strained to pick out the female voices. No Astrid. He strode through the arched doorway, half disappointed. The head housekeeper, Greta, was setting a plate of breakfast in front of Winter’s wife, Aida, who tended to her wriggling baby in a high chair.

“Morning, Bo.” Aida smiled up at him with a sleepy, freckled face. As she held a tiny pewter spoon out of the baby’s reach, the wide sleeve of her oriental silk robe fluttering around her elbow. Aida’s shop was on the edge of Chinatown, and she often channeled spirits for the women who worked for one of Chinatown’s tong leaders—Ju Wong, who owned a sewing factory and ran a small prostitution business on the side; his seamstresses often paid Aida in clothes.