Bitter Spirits (23 page)

“Don't say her name.”

“Sorry.”

He lightly squeezed her hand. “It doesn't matter. I can't force Aida to stay.”

Maybe not exactly
force
her, but he could tip the scales. Talk to Velma behind her back and get her to extend her contract. Only, he'd already promised he wouldn't.

He could take a train to the speakeasy in New Orleans and threaten this new club owner to drop her. Tempting, but he nixed the idea almost immediately. She would see through that deception in a heartbeat.

No, he couldn't force her.

Why couldn't Aida just see what was right in front of her face? They were so good together. Great in bed. More than great: exceptional. Marvelous. And they got along famously. Honestly, she was one of the few women he'd enjoyed as much out of a bed as in one. Christ, he even enjoyed arguing with her.

And she loved it out West—she said as much all the time. So why shouldn't she put down roots and start her séance business here? Not only could he help her buy a place she could work out of, like she wanted, but he could help steer rich patrons her way. She could have what she'd dreamed about. And if anything ever did tear them apart, God forbid, she'd be set up to do what she wanted, instead of injuring herself every night for a roomful of drunken idiots.

And he'd be right here to take care of her if she needed anything.

It was a simple solution. Why was he the only one seeing it? Worse, if he tried to convince her, she'd probably just stubbornly argue her way around it.

“So you're just going to let her go?” Astrid said. “That doesn't seem like you at all.”

He let his head drop back against the chair. “What can I do? Lock her up? Threaten her?”

“Sure, that's what every girl dreams of, Winter.”

He gave her a cross look, then glanced out the window, watching golden light piercing through a blanket of fog. “What do you suggest, then? Since you're such an expert in these matters, what with your many years of experience.”

“At least I've got sense enough not to marry someone I didn't love.”

He couldn't disagree with that.

She stretched her legs out, releasing his hand, and stood to leave. “Pappa once told me that everything he did in life was something to please Mamma, and that he was only happy when she was happy.”

“Yes, so?”

“So if you want her to stay, maybe you should make her happy. What does she want?”

It sounded so simple, but what if the thing Aida wanted most was to leave?

“Figure that out,” Astrid said as she padded out of the room.

He shoved the photo of Paulina inside the bottom drawer of his desk. Maybe he'd eventually put it in storage or send it to her parents. If he forgot Paulina's face . . . well, then he just did. He'd flagellated himself for too long. It was time to let it go.

He exhaled wearily and headed back to his bedroom. Aida was lying facedown on his bed, a towel draped around her, hair wet. The contents of her handbag were strewn across the bedspread—some crumpled bills and change, a metal lipstick tin, a cheap pocket mirror, her lancet, a few opened letters.

He strode to the bed and lifted her up. “What's wrong, cheetah?”

“My locket,” she said, voice worn. “I thought I had it, but I took it off before bed.”

“I'm sorry.” He tried to pull her into his arms, to comfort her somehow, but he struggled with something to say. “It's just an object, not your brother himself.”

Tear-stung eyes narrowed in anger. “
Just
an object?”

Wrong choice of words.

“Nothing is ‘just an object,'” she said. “Possessions aren't meaningless—everything is connected. If it weren't for these things, I couldn't call spirits.”

“I spoke carelessly,” he said.

But she wasn't listening. “And now all my possessions are gone. I had so little, and now I have nothing.” She shoved at the contents of her purse. “My only photograph of Sam—the last remaining piece of my family, and I lost him.”

MIDDAY SUN WARMED THE TILE BENEATH AIDA'S FEET AS SHE
looked around Winter's big bathroom, mildly anxious. Her head throbbed and the injuries to her foot ached with each step. Someone had left her a robe. Kind, but it was a little on the small side, and she needed real clothes. She also needed to find out if anything in her apartment survived the fire.

And to find out where Winter was.

She remembered nodding off in his arms. He pulled the covers over her and left, and now his bedroom was empty. No indication of where he slept—
if
he slept.

Bending to drink from the tap, she rinsed last night's lingering tastes from her mouth and hunted for a comb, feeling out of sorts in the strange home. When she finally discovered Winter's toiletries inside a frosted glass cabinet, she stood in front of the sink and realized what was odd about the bathroom: no mirror—not a proper one, anyway. Just a small shaving mirror that extended from a scissored arm attached to the wall. No dressing mirror in the bedroom, either.

No mirrors, so he didn't have to see his scarred face every day?

“Oh, Winter,” she murmured on a sigh.

Low voices in the distance derailed her attention.

On the wall opposite the bathroom stood another door that accessed an adjoining room. Aida followed the voices here and peeked inside. A guest room, perhaps. A four-poster bed at the far end of the room was stripped of linens and pillows, in disuse, and covered with mounds of clothes.

Her eyes darted around the room.

A dressing table was laden with new boxes of expensive cosmetics and shampoos, an electric curling iron and hair dryer—luxuries she couldn't afford. Nearby, a large wooden steamer trunk stood open on its side, hangers slotted into place on one half, and six drawers lining the other. It looked like something a Hollywood star would own for traveling around the globe. Boxes of shoes were lined up next to it, brown and black leather peeking out from fluffs of tissue paper. Several evening gowns, glittering with beads and sequins, hung from the top of an open armoire door. Day coats, hats, handbags were spread across the bed, and sitting on a bureau, open boxes of jewelry sparkled under a slant of sunlight.

A pretty young servant stood with Astrid and her seamstress Benita, all three of them organizing the chaotic spread. It looked as if they might be planning to open a department store. Blond hair swung as Astrid turned and spotted her, eyes lighting up. “Oh, you're up—excellent! How do you feel?”

“I've been better,” Aida admitted.

“Gee, I'm sorry about what happened. Bo said the wiring in those old apartments is always catching on fire.”

“Uh . . .”

“You're lucky you got out. But on the bright side, you get all new things!” She spread her arms, showcasing her handiwork with a look of ecstasy on her face.

Aida choked. Astrid patted her on the back. “You okay, there? Need some water?” She rattled off several commands in Swedish to the maid, who scurried out of the room. “She'll bring up some juice and breakfast. I bet you're starving.”

“I—”

“Anyway, isn't this all great? I'm so jealous. I told Bo I was going to set fire to my room so I could experience the thrill of a new wardrobe. But Winter said if I did, I'd be wearing a potato sack until I graduated. Anyway, come look at what we picked out. Some of it might not fit, but Benita will take care of that for you.”

“Astrid,” Aida complained, feeling mildly sick to her stomach. “I can't possibly afford all this.”

“Don't worry, Benita and I kept a tally,” Astrid said, scooping up a small ledger. “Winter said you insisted on paying everything back when you could. It's all logged right here.”

Aida scanned the entries, pangs of worry accumulating with every subtotaled figure written in flowery feminine print at the bottom of each page, until she got to the latest running total: four hundred and fifty-eight dollars.

Her mouth fell open. “I could buy a car for this—my life savings was . . .” Half that. And it took her years of scrimping. “This is crazy. This is—”

Dimples appeared as Astrid grinned. “Guess that'll teach you to take up with a Magnusson.”

“God middag.”
Winter's housekeeper breezed into the room wearing a dour day suit. “Here you go.”

Aida accepted a thick envelope. “What is this?”

“First-class tickets,” Greta said in her singsong voice. “Train leaves same day as your original ticket, late morning. Train company was sympathetic about your ticket being lost in fire. You only owe Winter the difference between ticket prices, and sleeping arrangements will be much more comfortable. Winter insisted.”

Good grief. She'd never traveled first-class. And Greta handled this? The woman probably cursed her name the entire way to the train station.

Aida was so confused—last night Winter had been shouting at her like an angry bull about going to New Orleans; now he was practically shoving her out the door. “I'm overwhelmed,” Aida admitted, gripping the train ticket.

“
Ja
, I can imagine,” Greta said. “But consider that all you lost were material things, easily replaced, and you now have comfortable, safe place to stay for the remainder of your time in city.”

“I suppose you're right. Where is Winter?”

“Hunting down people who did this to you.”

Aida's stomach twisted.

“Enough of all that, let's get on with the fun stuff,” Astrid said brightly. “Changing screen's in the corner.”

“Yes, by all means,” Greta said, crossing her arms beneath her breasts. “Astrid will now demonstrate what a girl with no sense and an open charge account can do.”

 • • • 

Winter stood in the hallway looking through the burned-out hole where Aida's apartment door once stood. Nothing was salvageable: clothes and luggage, charred; hiding place for her savings, nothing but ashes; and the locket, now melted into her bedside table.

“That was kind of you to arrange repairs,” Velma said at his side as she looked on.

How they'd ever get rid of the acrid burnt stench was beyond him. “Both Aida and Bo are fond of the owners. Can you do anything?”

Velma surveyed the damage for a long moment, the picture of poise in an elegant chartreuse coat. The brim of her matching hat hid her eyes from him. “What did you have in mind?”

“Some sort of tracking spell?”

“To lead you to the men who did this?” She shook her head. “I'm not sure I'm that good. You'd have a better chance finding them by chasing leads.”

“The witnesses saw a truck and two men. One of them said the men were Chinese, the other said they were white. Neither could identify the truck model.”

“So no leads, is what you're saying.”

“No leads, and I already talked to the police. They've got nothing, either. There's nothing you can try?”

Velma tugged the cuffs of her cream-colored gloves, tightening the fit. “I don't know a spell that can track them and return logical information concerning their whereabouts. I can, however, light a fuse from this point that will burn until it finds them.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I can work a curse on them. Punish them. But before you agree, hear me out. This is nothing to play around with. A curse deals out the same amount of punishment as the wrong they did. Eye for an eye. And once I set it in motion, there's no stopping it. I might end up killing these two men, and frankly, that's not something I want on my conscience.”

“Well,
my
conscience is happy to take responsibility.”

“Not that simple,” the conjurer said, squinting up at him with sharp eyes. “Curses have a way of causing new rifts. If this is connected to the secret tong you're talking about, and they have a powerful sorcerer on their side, it might make some waves. You might be setting something in motion that won't stop until someone else gets hurt—or killed. So if I do this, either you or Aida have to bear the blood-debt. Anything I send out will come back to one of you, not me. Do you understand?”

He didn't, exactly. But if cursing them sparked a war, then at least all this bullshit would be out in the open. He was tired of shadowboxing. “I take full responsibility—not Aida. She's a bystander. All the blame should fall on my shoulders.”

Velma nodded. “So be it. I'll need to collect some ashes.”

 • • • 

Between shuffling in and out of clothes for the better part of the day, Aida unabashedly gobbled down a mid-afternoon breakfast of toast triangles piled with soft, buttery scrambled eggs, dill, and smoked salmon—Magnusson fish, Astrid proudly clarified. Fresh orange juice and strong coffee washed it all down.

And when all her new belongings had been sorted into piles—keep, return, alter—she settled on a raisin-colored casual dress to wear. Astrid took her on a tour of the house, traipsing through dozens of rooms brimming with objets d'art collected from exotic places—including a sitting area dubbed the Sheik Room, outfitted to look like something out of
Arabian Nights
.

She met Winter's mostly Swedish staff: a cook; three maids; a woman whose entire job was handling the laundry,who she later found out was Benita's mother; a handyman; the driver she'd seen before, Jonte; and keeping watch over all of them was Greta. They eyed Aida with great curiosity. Some spoke little English, and Aida listened in amazement as Astrid vacillated between English and Swedish with ease.

Under Greta's supervision, Astrid also showed Aida how to operate the elevator and the intercom system installed on each floor. Led her through the kitchen, formal dining room, and downstairs library. Walked her out to see Winter's cars, where Greta asked her to write down her work schedule for Jonte, who assured her he'd be ready to chauffeur her back and forth from Gris-Gris.

Astrid talked a mile a minute to Greta as the three of them stood in the driveway next to a cream two-seater Packard coupe with its convertible canvas top down. A beautiful car. Far more feminine than Winter's hell-colored Pierce-Arrow. Aida gazed at her reflection in one of the car's side mirrors and tuned out Astrid's chattering.

Aida was bone-weary. Her foot ached. She wanted comfort. Wanted Winter. It was strange to be peeking behind the scenes of his home without him there. Over the past couple of weeks she'd gotten too used to him . . . the way he smelled, the way he laughed. How the mattress sank when he crawled into bed. How he sounded when he came inside her.

Their routine at the Fairmont had been nothing short of bliss, and now it was over. Now she was back to her normal life, where every day was different and nothing could be counted on. Because now that she'd had the entire day to mourn the loss of her possessions—and the locket, in particular—she reasoned that maybe she'd been so devastated to lose them because before Winter came along,
they
had been her routine. Things. They'd been the only constant in her life. City to city, job to job, stranger to stranger, she could always count on the comfort that her dependable pink Westclox and Sam's old photograph provided.

The locket had grounded her. But now it was gone, and there was nothing she could do to bring it back. She had to hold her shoulders high and keep going. Besides, Sam would've hated that he'd become her crutch, after he'd spent years encouraging her to live fearlessly.

She was good at being fearless. Damn good. That was something. And she wasn't destitute like she'd been when Emmett Lane had shoved her into the orphanage. Her possessions had been replaced. She was surrounded by nice things and nice people. Lots to be thankful about.

If she only had Winter by her side, she might even be
more
than thankful—she might be happy. After all she'd been through over the last twenty-four hours, imagine that. If Winter could make her happy on a dismal day like this, how could he make her feel on a good day?

“Do you require anything else?” Greta asked, breaking into Aida's thoughts.

“What's that?”

“Anything else?”

After everything they'd already done for her? Aida couldn't possibly have any other needs. If anything, she should be asking what
she
could do for
them
. Then inspiration came to her. A whim. “I would like someone to hang a mirror over Winter's bathroom sink.”

Greta and Astrid stared at her. “Oh, he won't like that,” Astrid finally said.

“I know. But I'd like to have a mirror in there for grooming, and Winter needs to stop feeling sorry for himself. Sometimes people require a little push.”

“I do not—” Greta started.

“Blame it on me,” Aida said firmly. “And while you're at it, have someone bring the full-length dressing mirror into his bedroom. How he dresses without help is beyond me.”

“He had the dressing mirror in his closet lowered so that he only sees himself from the neck down,” Astrid volunteered.