Grim Shadows (Roaring Twenties #2)(18)

“It’s going to rain. I can feel it in my knees.”

“Mr. Magnusson took the amulet with him?” She didn’t sense it anymore, so he must have.

“He’s going to arrange storage for it until the paperwork arrives from the Egyptian Ministry.” Her father fiddled with the radio dial, fine-tuning the signal until he was satisfied with the clarity of the music, some old-fashioned ragtime number.

“How did he get the thing out of the country without the paperwork?”

“Hmm? Oh, I don’t know. His uncle is a fast talker. The whole family’s filled with criminals and con artists.”

“Why do you trust him, then?”

“Because I made him an offer he can’t refuse, and people like him sell their loyalty to the highest bidder.”

She moved the curtain to get a better view of Lowe. He was tipping the brim of his cap at grumpy old Mrs. Beckett, who looked up at his face when she strolled into the building and smiled like he was St. Peter and she was trying to cheat her way into heaven.

“What will you do with the amulet once you have it?” she asked her father. “Donate it to the museum?”

“Not sure.”

A lie if she’d ever heard one. When Father had first insisted she meet Lowe at the train station, he told her he’d attempted to find it himself when he was younger, and that it was a lifelong dream to finally own it. He wouldn’t go to so much trouble if he didn’t have plans.

“By the way, I invited Mr. Magnusson to the party this weekend. Perhaps I’ll ask Miss Tilly to play escort.”

Her stomach tightened. “He’s interested in Miss Tillly?”

“She’s a lovely woman. Who wouldn’t be?”

Who, indeed. Why this bothered her so much now, she didn’t understand. Lowe had paid her a couple of rude comments and touched her hand, and now her brain was sending proprietary signals to her heart? Ridiculous. “I hardly think you’d want to offer up your favorite secretary like she’s some kind of prostitute.”

“Don’t be vulgar, Hadley. Jealousy isn’t becoming.”

“I’m not jealous.” But she was, stupidly. And before she could control her emotions, the Mori specters spied into her thoughts and rose up from the floorboards to childishly shove the radio off the desk. Static crackled through the speaker after it hit the floor.

Her father jumped. “What was that?”

“I bumped into it,” she said, quickly snatching up the radio as she counted internally and turned the dial to find the station again. “It’s nothing.”

His shoulders relaxed. “I just want to keep him close until the sale of the amulet goes through, and Miss Tilly can introduce him to all the curators. I don’t think she’ll mind. She mentioned he was quite tall and uniquely handsome.”

Oh, did she, now? Was that Miss Tilly’s polite way of accommodating his broken nose in her assessment? Admittedly, Hadley had been surprised to see him clean-shaven and wearing a decent suit, though the dramatic brown boots that laced up to his knees were a little much. He looked like he was dressed for cavalry duty or hunting quail on horseback.

And why had Father asked a secretary her opinion about his looks instead of asking Hadley? Well, she supposed that was typical. Half the time, she swore he still thought she was a ten-year-old girl. If she told him Lowe had pressed his body against her underclothes, he’d expire from shock.

What do you want, Hadley?

She took one last look out the window. Lowe had finished his chat and was now straddling a bright red motorcycle. Why didn’t this surprise her? Guess the riding boots were for a horse, after all—a mechanical one. The engine was so loud, it rattled the closed window.

He tugged his cap down and tapped the kickstand with his boot. My goodness, the man was nicely constructed. He took her breath away. Just a little.

Maybe a lot.

Because as he sped out of the parking lot, she felt unmoored.

And she wished she could’ve been on the back of that motorcycle, riding away with him.

• • •

Lowe took back roads from the museum to the Fillmore District and parked Lulu in an inconspicuous spot. Since the Great Fire, the neighborhood had become home to an eclectic mix of immigrants and working-class families. He’d spent the first ten years of his life in a row house here before his father’s fishing business moved them closer to the Embarcadero.

The block he headed down was the center of the city’s Jewish community; Russian Jews and Eastern Europeans owned most of the businesses here. He passed a Hebrew school, two kosher butchers, and several cigar shops before stepping into a movie theater alcove, where he stood in the shadow of the ticket booth for a minute—just to be safe.

No one was following.

The euphoric scent of freshly baked rye bread wafted from Waxman’s Bakery as he strode to the curb and waited to cross the busy street. Hopefully if any of Monk’s men were trailing him, they’d seen him enter the museum earlier and assumed he left the amulet there. He tried to relax, but his mind drifted back to Hadley, which distracted him from what he should’ve been watching: the place he was headed.

Out of the corner of his eye, a flash of yellow darted from the delicatessen sitting catercornered and across the street from him. He turned his head in time to see Stella Goldberg bounding down the sidewalk in a buttercup dress.