Grim Shadows (Roaring Twenties) (23 page)

LO
WE WOULD’VE BEEN HAPPY
to never leave Hadley’s bed, but his need for a change of clothes finally spurred him out of her apartment the next day. They’d made plans to regroup in the afternoon to hunt the third crossbar. But at this point, Lowe almost didn’t care if they were hunting rabbits, as long as he got to see her.

He rode Lulu down Mason like a madman, buzzing with bright satisfaction; when he came to a stop sign, he had to force himself not to stupidly grin at the passengers in the nearby car. A single night with Hadley and he was euphoric. Drunk on sex and the deep contentment of holding her in his arms. Nothing was better than feeling all her hard angles and sharp edges soften beneath his fingertips. Or collapsing on her breast after they’d come together and listening to her crazed heartbeat slow to a fierce, strong pulse that matched his. As if they were both sinking underwater, slowly drowning in pleasure.

But it wasn’t just that. It was everything. Her company. Her sharp wit. The way those dark eyes squinted when she smiled, with their upturned corners creating a shadowed line that seemed to go on forever. The way one slim brow lifted critically as she upbraided his wild ideas in that acerbic, posh accent of hers.

He had prepared himself for rebuke when he told her about Stella. He certainly wouldn’t have blamed her if it were too much for her to deal with. He’d never forget how his mother had wept uncontrollably when he told her. Disappointed in him, devastated by the impossible nature of the situation—no joy of grandchildren running around her home or even watching Stella from afar. Adam refused; he didn’t want to confuse the girl. And rightly so.

But Hadley accepted it. He’d watched her carefully later, sure that once she’d had time to think about it, she’d start pulling away from his touch again. But no. A small miracle. He’d never been so thankful.

As he urged Lulu toward Pacific Heights, the city became a blur, a little like the lazy thoughts streaming through his head. His world felt as if it had been tipped over, then righted. Like he hadn’t known how unbalanced he’d been until he experienced how much better it felt to be standing straight.

Every worry he’d had since he’d returned home seemed a little less hopeless. Every problem, fixable. His mind raced the motorcycle, churning out images of a shiny future with Hadley. A big house. A family. Her running the antiquities department. Him . . . well, he hadn’t figured that out yet. Traveling with his uncle wasn’t looking as exciting as it once did. Bad food, sweaty clothes, hard labor, illness, and no sleep. All of that was tolerable when you were running away from something. But not when you had something to run to. Or someone.

Maybe going back to dig in the wretched sun wouldn’t be so bad if she was at his side. He pictured her walking around the desert in a traditional Egyptian
galabiya
dress and smiled. Maybe she’d have an easier time than he did. Maybe it would be worth it to see the look on her face when she strolled around the temple ruins.

He was considering all this as he galloped up the side steps of his family home. And after swinging open the screen door, he nearly slammed into Winter, who stood unmoving and icier than a side of beef in a cooler.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“And a fine fucking day to you,” Lowe said, shouldering around him.

Winter held out a hand. “Out all night and you come in looking like this? What were you out doing? Whoring?”

Lowe angled his face inches away from his brother’s. “Say that again. I dare you.”

“Defensive about that curator, aren’t you?” Mismatched eyes narrowed over a dark, stilted smile. “Oh, yes. I know. Greta told me you brought the woman here.”

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.

A waste of choice vaudeville, as all names led to dead ends.

Utterly vexing.

Still, the week wasn’t without merit. Her father’s health improved, and even though he couldn’t confirm the existence of Noel/Oliver, they saw not hide nor hair of Oliver and no magical chimeras pecked at their heads.

But, best of all, they buried their failures in consolatory rounds of increasingly daring sexual athletics: in the passenger seat of the silver Packard, darkened hallways, a public restroom, and—during a particularly blasphemous afternoon—on the back steps of an empty church when they were investigating a crumbling graveyard.

Every time he saw her was a gift. Even so, a mounting frustration dogged him that had nothing to do with the crossbars. Winter’s words echoed in his head.
You want to see a woman like that, you do it properly.
Why did his brother have to be right? Because damned if Lowe didn’t spend half his time trying to keep their affair quiet: tiptoeing around her father and her coworkers; sneaking around her apartment building at odd hours, while he trudged up a million flights of stairs to avoid the elevator man; parking Lulu across the street at the Fairmont Hotel.

It was demeaning to both of them.

And almost a week after their first night together, here he was at ten in the evening, lurking around the cypress trees at the base of the museum’s front tower while he waited for Mr. Hill to take his break—the same guard who’d caught them in Dr. Bacall’s office when this whole thing started. When the man’s car sped around the side of the building, the museum door cracked open and Hadley’s face popped out.

“All clear!” she whispered cheerfully before ushering him inside the door and bolting it.

His eyes darted around the museum’s shadowed front lobby. Eerie to be in here alone. “Another guard is definitely not going to waltz in here, right?” he asked.

“The other two are stationed outside.”

“And Mr. Hill—”

“Won’t be back until after midnight.”

“If the wrong person knew this, you could be robbed blind.”

“We’ve only had two break-in attempts in ten years. And it’s not as if someone could pull up a truck to the front door and bust it down without someone hearing. Where’s your sense of adventure, Mr. Treasure Hunter?”

“Hmph. I think it got trampled beneath the wheels of our failure this week.” He bumped into a stanchion and gritted his teeth as the sound of grating metal bounced off the walls. “Jesus, Hadley. I feel like a misbehaving boy, sneaking into a building on a dare.”

“Well, hopefully the elevator in my apartment building will be repaired tomorrow. Then you can use your misbehaving ways to sneak up the stairwell without bumping into every tenant on the way up.”

“Oh, joy.”

She placed flattened palms on his chest and tilted her face up to his. “Grumpy.”

“Frustrated.” But now that he caught the scent of her hair, a part of him relaxed. He dipped his head to press his forehead against hers for a moment, and then kissed the tip of her nose.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” she whispered. “I had trouble sleeping without you last night.”

“I hate being away from you. It makes me physically ill,” he whispered back. “I want this hunt to be over, so we can stop hiding and lying.”

“I thought you lived for lying,” she teased.

“You’re ruining me, Miss Bacall,” he said against her lips.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever ruined anyone before.”

“Best make it good, because I don’t want you ruining anyone else ever again.”

She arched into him, smiling a delightfully silly smile that he promptly kissed away. And just when he was warming up, she broke the kiss and wound her fingers through his. “We can hear Mr. Hill’s car in the antiquities wing. And there’s something there I want you to see.”