Grim Shadows (Roaring Twenties #2)(78)

Damn the staff and their wagging tongues.

“Not the first time you’ve been keeping graveyard hours,” Winter said. “A week ago Jonte told me you rolled home inside the Packard in the dregs of the night. You with the curator then, too?”

“She’s none of your goddamn business.”

“She’s a gold heiress—a society girl. Dammit, Lowe. You want to see a woman like that, you do it properly. If everyone here is talking, don’t you think her people are talking, too?”

Lowe started to protest that she didn’t have a maid, but thought better of it. And Winter wasn’t wrong, exactly. Hadley seemed friendly with the elevator man, who gave Lowe a frigid look today during the trip downstairs. Not to mention all the other apartment tenants—they would definitely talk if they saw him skulking around at odd hours. He wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.

“Antiquities business isn’t all that big in San Francisco. Word gets out you’re seeing her, everyone in that museum’s going to talk. Patrons, donors . . . You need to be careful you don’t hurt that lady’s reputation.”

“I’m careful.”

“And you’ve also got a habit of making promises you don’t keep and leaving by the bedroom window. Don’t salt the ground under her feet.”

“Always good to know the strength of your faith in me,” Lowe said sourly.

“Why were you bothering Velma?”

Was there anyone he could trust to keep their damn mouth shut? “Not that it’s any of your concern, but Hadley and I are working together on something for the museum. At the request of her father.”

Winter’s scarred brow lifted. “Please tell me it doesn’t involve Goldberg.”

“Of course not.” Well, not in Hadley’s eyes. Not in the way she believed, at least. But he didn’t want to think about that right now. Or ever. Jesus, it was hot in the house. Lowe loosened his necktie as sweat bloomed on his brow.

A tense pause stretched between them before Winter seemed to give up the fight, sighing heavily. “Lowe,” he pleaded, using the Old World pronunciation, Low-va. He continued in Swedish. “You can’t go on like this. I know you want to make your own way, but you can’t spend your life running around the globe with Uncle, or you’ll end up like him: alone.”

“I hate Egypt,” Lowe admitted angrily in Swedish. “I hate digging.”

“Then don’t! Come work for me. You can run the new warehouse. Wine and dine clients.”

“Nej.” Lowe shook his head. “I can’t do that. I’m so close to a big break, if I can just . . .” He trailed off. “I don’t want to do it forever, but I have to see this last thing through.”

Winter stared at him for a long moment, as if he wanted to say more, but thought better of it. He switched back to English when he finally said, “The shipping company called. The crates you sent from Egypt will be delivered next week. Greta has the details.”

Lowe mumbled his thanks and sidled around his brother.

“You square things with Monk yet?”

For the love of God. Winter was worse than a mother. Lowe had to get out of this house before he went crazy. Maybe get an apartment downtown. It wasn’t part of his bigger plan, which was to buy a comfortable house and make sure Adam and Stella were taken care of. But that wasn’t going to happen tomorrow, and there were other things at the top of his to-do list. The most pressing of which was to secure enough cash to pay off Monk—sooner rather than later.

And the closest funding within his reach was tied up in the crossbars hunt, something that was turning out to be much more complicated than he’d originally hoped, what with Dr. Bacall’s health, Noel Irving, Oliver, magic . . . Hadley.

Hadley.

Lowe could get by without the flock of servants and all the luxuries. Better to live free and poor. But what he’d told Winter was true—the crossbars had to be his last forgery, and that’s all there was to it. Hadley would never tolerate it, not in a million years. And he wanted her more than the money. As long as Adam and Stella had what they needed, Lowe could take his share and retire, so to speak.

All he had to do was find the rest of the crossbars, sell the real amulet to Dr. Bacall, and hand off the forgery to Monk to pay for the crocodile statue forgery—he’d just talk Bacall into giving him the original bill of sale for the crossbars. Give Monk that along with his official documentation for the amulet base. Bacall didn’t care about reselling the damned thing. He wanted it to get rid of Noel Irving.

Simple, really. No one gets hurt; everyone’s happy. And Hadley would never have to know that he’d intended to cheat her father in the first place. But in order for everything to work, he needed to find the last two crossbars.

And in order to do that, he first needed a shave and another bath.

The hunt awaited him, along with his raven-haired hunting partner.

• • •

The joy of seeing Hadley again didn’t disappoint. In the space of one night, everything had changed between them. Her boundaries were felled. She now greeted him with open arms. He scooped her up with a racing heart and no intention of ever letting her go. He’d never been so happy.

And yet, so anxious at the same time . . .

Because the easy luck they’d experienced tracking the first two crossbars seemed to have dissipated. They plowed through two addresses over the weekend, then two more at the beginning of the following week, sneaking out during Hadley’s lunch break and after she got off work. Each time they used Velma’s charmed bags to hide their trail. They posed as charity workers, door-to-door sales representatives, long-lost relatives, and their finest bit of acting: country preacher and demure wife.