by Jenn Bennett
“Hadley!”
The office door flung open. White light poured in from the hallway as the two policemen rushed into the room. “What the—”
Chaos. Shouting. Banging. File cabinet doors crashed open, one by one—their contents gusting into the air, fluttering around Levin. A horrible scraping whine rocketed through the room as the specters shoved the enormous desk backward. Levin jumped in time. Barely. He was inches away from being crushed against the wall along with his chair.
A silhouette dove toward her. She was knocked sideways and fell. Her back hit the floor. Air whooshed out of her lungs.
Pain. Sharp pain. A terrible brightness swelled and faded. She forced her muscles to cooperate and finally sucked in air. Opened her eyes. She was crushed beneath something. Not a specter—warm, not cold. “Hadley!” Her name, repeated several times. Then numbers.
She blinked away confusion, struggling against an impossible weight.
“Ten, eleven, twelve . . .”
Above her, Lowe’s face materialized in the shadows. She saw his lips moving. Heard the counting. And when those two things merged, a horrible sob wracked her chest.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”
Anger leaked away with her tears. She felt the Mori weakening. Felt their anguished protest as the chaotic frenzy in the room began quieting. And one by one, the specters faded away.
She distantly heard angry shouting. Confusion. Acrid smoke—someone was swatting out a fire. But all of that muffled sound snapped to the foreground when Lowe cried out near her ear. His weight and warmth suddenly disappeared.
She raised her head to see the policemen hauling Lowe to his feet.
“Arrest him,” Levin was shouting angrily as he wiped his hands on the front of his disheveled tuxedo. Nearby, smoke curled from a pile of books beside the fireplace.
“What charge?” one of the cops asked, his skittish gaze jumping around the room, sweeping the shadows, taking in the mounds of book carcasses and scattered broken pottery. Lines creased his tight brow. He was clearly worried the invisible tornado might start whirling again.
“What the hell do I care?” Levin said. “Destruction of property? Theft?”
The second cop kicked away a book and picked up Monk’s gun from where it had landed on the floor. “How about brandishing an unregistered gun?”
Levin bent to help Monk. “Just take him in and make sure his bail is sky high.”
“What about her?”
“Touch her and I’ll strangle you,” Lowe said through gritted teeth, struggling against the policemen’s hold.
“He threatened me,” Levin said. “You all heard it.”
As Hadley rose up on one knee, Levin jerked back, eyeing her with fear and disbelief. She’d seen the same crazed uncertainty in other faces, a dozen times over. He knew she was responsible for all this, and yet, it made no rational sense. But he was too much of a coward to ask questions. Better to blame it on something ordinary, no matter how improbable.
“Let her go,” Levin said. “I’ll contact her father later.”
Anger pricked her cheeks, but before she could respond, footsteps thundered in the hallway outside the office. More people on their way. More questions. The press was already here for the gala; the last thing she needed was to be publicly identified in the middle of all this.
She stood on trembling legs and faced Lowe. In the shifting firelight, she could see cuts on his face. A splatter of blood, dark against the white of his shirt collar. A fresh wave of hurt threatened to take her under again. The pain of betrayal and loss crisscrossed over her heart like wild brambles.
She couldn’t be in the same room with him. Not now. If she lost control again, her Mori might burn the whole damn theater down.
TWENTY-NINE
WITHOUT ANOTHER WORD, SHE strode for the door and slipped past a small group of concerned employees clamoring to get inside the office. Down the staircase, she shouldered her way through chattering onlookers. Speculation volleyed past her ears as she descended: What’s going on? A fight? The police are arresting someone. When she stumbled her way out of the crowd, she ran into more theater employees. Police. And the front door was still being manned by the ass who’d reported them to Levin.
Where to go? She pulled her fur coat closed and ducked her head as she made her way to the opposite side of the lobby. Panic sharpened her senses. And though her mind urged her to flee, a queer feeling gave her pause, one that lifted the hairs on the arms. She took a few experimental steps down one of the side corridors and the feeling strengthened. Where?
She spotted a sign—LADIES’ OASIS—and quickly darted through the swinging door into an elegant lounge. Potted palms, sofas, and stuffed chairs. Beyond the small room, bright lights lit up the washroom. All was quiet and calm. Deceptively normal.
But across the powder room, a long gilded mirror hung on the wall, embossed with papyrus. And below, sitting innocently on a narrow marble makeup table, was the falcon-headed canopic jar.
She quelled her frazzled nerves as a toilet flushed in the next room, and then she waited, listening as heels clicked and water ran. A middle-aged woman finally walked through the powder room, smiling stiffly at Hadley as she passed. As soon as the door swung shut, Hadley rushed for the urn, hoisted it in the air over her head, and brought it down violently over the marble table.
Gold glinted. The crossbar bounced across the table. Hadley grabbed it, ignoring the foul energy it radiated, and slipped it into her coat pocket.
“My goodness!” a woman said behind her. “Are you all right, dear?”
Hadley pushed through the swinging door without an answer. Her head was clearer than it had been in weeks. If love was a thick fog, then heartbreak was the cold winter rain that washed it all away. For all the deceptions she’d stumbled upon over the last few weeks—her father’s secrets about her mother’s affair, Oliver Ginn’s hidden agenda—this was the last thing she expected to face. But she would, no matter how much it hurt.
And she knew there was one person who could give her the whole truth.
A blond head bobbed above the crowd on the balcony’s landing. Gala attendees swarmed around the staircase, watching the police forcibly haul Lowe down the stairs. He could rot in a jail cell for all she cared. Hadley moved quickly, slipping past the roped-off area housing Levin’s ramshackle collection, and snagged the last thing she needed.
• • •
She didn’t sleep that night, having spent half of it crying and the other half pushing back the Mori so that Number Four wasn’t caught in the cross fire. At one point, the emotional pain had been so intense that she’d tried to rationalize a path to forgiving him.
But would this be the last time?
She couldn’t help but picture a bumpy future with Lowe, filled with lies and deceit that never ended. Imagined herself sitting at home pining for him while he was halfway across the globe, betraying her in other ways . . . maybe even with other women.
Perhaps her original assessment of him had been right. He was too handsome, too quick with false words and easy deceptions. He had a way of making all of that seem charming, but it was a false front. Nothing charming about building your life around lies. And when did it stop? She wouldn’t be surprised to discover other deceptions—ones she just hadn’t caught yet.
How big a fool was she, anyway?
Focusing on her self-appointed task gave her the motivation she needed to seek an answer to that question. And the following morning, she brushed aside tears and set out alone.
It wasn’t hard to find Adam Goldberg. Lowe might’ve claimed his friend was merely a dragon guarding his treasure, but she was quite certain he was something much more. A friendly chat with an eager young telephone operator got her a list of Fillmore District businesses with Goldberg in the name, and when the word “watchmaker
” crackled over the line, she knew it had to be him.
Heading out into gray drizzle, she wore a hat with a broad brim that was several years out of fashion to hide her face and took two taxis—to shake anyone who might be trailing her. Convinced she hadn’t been followed, she paid the driver to wait at the curb and stepped inside a small shop.
A bell rang above the door to announce her entrance. She tugged at her gloves and glanced around at the small, warm room as the scents of solder flux and coppery metal filled her nostrils. A wooden counter stood between a narrow area and the back workspace, where saws and ball-peen hammers lined the wall near a forge and buffing machines. Across the room, a bright swing-arm lamp shone over a desk lined with neat trays of wire, cogs, and screws. And tucked in the corner near the desk was a smaller table, where Stella bent over a colorful drawing. Lowe’s windup black cat sat near her elbow.
Hadley’s chest tightened as she watched the girl, who was oblivious to her entry. Was she really Lowe’s child? And how many times had he gazed at the girl’s curling hair and wondered the same thing? She could only imagine how painful it must be for Lowe to stand aside and watch her grow up with the burden of guilt and a yawning unknown hanging over his head.
He’d betrayed Adam—his best friend. Why was it such a shock that he’d do the same to her?
Footsteps marched down a narrow set of stairs, ones that looked as though they might lead to an apartment above the shop, and Adam stepped into view. Wiping his hands on a work towel, he glanced toward the door. His face brightened momentarily as he recognized her, but quickly tightened with anxiety and wariness.
“Good morning, Mr. Goldberg,” she said crisply.
“Hadley—”
Stella glanced up from her drawing and blinked. A grin spread over her plump face. She dropped her crayon and started toward Hadley, but stopped halfway, unsure, and backtracked to the safety of her father’s legs.
Adam glanced over her shoulder. “Is Lowe here, too?”
“When we parted last night, Lowe was on his way to jail,” Hadley said.
“Good grief, what’s happened?”
Hadley reached inside her coat pocket and placed the golden crocodile on the glass top of the counter, beneath which laid rows of gold and silver pocket watches on a burgundy strip of velvet. “This has happened. We ran into Monk Morales last night. I’m assuming you’re intimately familiar with this statue.”
Adam swore softly in Yiddish.
She turned the crocodile to face her. “Extraordinary work, I must say. It fooled me, and that’s saying a lot. But it appears that the buyer, Mr. Samuel Levin, is quite angry that Lowe deceived him, so he had him arrested.”
Adam put a protective hand on Stella’s head and drew her closer. “Does he know I made the forgery?”
“No, I figured that out myself.” She pulled out the small golden crossbar. “I should’ve known it was strange that you were merely hiding the pieces for Lowe, especially after he told me that Velma Toussaint had warded the safe where you kept valuables. If the safe was protected by magic, why didn’t Lowe just keep it himself at his own house?”
Adam’s shoulders dropped. “Why, indeed.” After settling Stella back down at her tiny table, he locked the shop door, pulled down the window shade, and disappeared through a door. A minute later, he returned with a box shaped like a miniature trunk, whose painted black surface was covered in red symbols. “Can you lay that down over the glass, please?” he asked, arms straining.
Hadley unfolded a scrap of soft brown leather and spread it upon the glass countertop. She soon understood why: the box was rough enough to scratch the glass. “Cast iron,” he explained. “Keeps things hidden, according to Velma. Seems to work, so no reason to doubt her, I suppose.”
The moment he unlocked the box and swung open the lid, Hadley grimaced and turned her head away. Dark energy rose from the box, so strong, it was nearly palpable.
Adam made a low noise in the back of his throat. “You can feel it, too? Lowe says he does. Stella and I can’t, thank goodness.” He lifted two items from the box and laid them down side by side on the leather. “This is the original, and this one’s mine.”
Bracing herself against the bad energy, Hadley leaned over the counter. Her mouth dropped open. Two identical amulets, each assembled with the Osiris base and two crossbars. “Good lord,” she murmured. “You’ve been copying it as we’ve found the pieces?”
He nodded. “Lowe wanted to replicate it so he could . . .” Brown eyes shifted and lowered as he cleared his throat.
“Yes, he told me,” she said. “He’d planned to cheat my father out of a hundred thousand dollars and sell the original to someone else.”
“Not sell—it was to pay off Monk for the crocodile forgery. Monk’s got no qualms about putting a bullet in your head.”
“Yes, he nearly did just that last night.” She picked up the copy of the amulet and tested its weight in her palm against the real thing. Aside from the intense energy emanating from the artifact, she could detect no difference between the two. Even the reddish hue to the gold was right. And Lowe intended to use the real amulet to pay off his debt to Monk? A fair chunk of cash, she had no doubt, but surely Lowe could’ve asked his bootlegger brother for it. Hell, if he would’ve just been honest and asked her, she would’ve gladly given it.
“Oh, boy.” Adam sighed and scratched the back of his neck. “I wonder if he’s called his brother to bail him out?”
“As of an hour ago, no,” she said. “I called the precinct and they said he hasn’t made a telephone call.”
“Probably because Winter will skin him alive if he finds out. And Lowe’s pride is bigger than the Golden Gate, in case you haven’t noticed.”
How a liar and a fraud had any pride at all, Hadley couldn’t comprehend. She wished she had brawn enough to punch him repeatedly and knock some sense into his stupid male brain. To make him see how ridiculous all of this was. How boneheaded he was to lose what they had over something as meaningless as money and as useless as pride.
“This is beautiful,” she said softly, placing it back on the leather. “I don’t know how you did it, but it’s an exact match. All my expertise, and I can’t tell it’s a fake. Your work is exquisite.”
He shrugged and waved a dismissive hand. A few quiet seconds ticked by before he said softly, “He’s in love with you, you know.”
Fresh grief made her sore, tear-weary eyes well up again. “People in love don’t lie to each other.”
“You’re wrong. They lie the most.”
She couldn’t stop her gaze from flicking to Stella. He noticed. Whether or not he guessed that Lowe had told her about their past, she didn’t know. But the sadness behind his eyes was too much for her to endure.
“If the museum finds out what Lowe’s been up to, and that I’ve been seeing him, my career is ruined. And he knows how important that is to me. It’s everything. My life’s blood is wrapped up in the antiquities wing, and . . .” No use in explaining further. It didn’t change the reality of the matter. “I guess I underestimated his carelessness.”
“I don’t think Lowe’s problem is a lack of feelings,” Adam said carefully. “Just the opposite, in fact. When he makes mistakes, he’s so focused on righting the wrong, and so overconfident about his ability to fix it all, that he loses sight of the big picture and ends up making things worse.”
She looked away to gain some control over her wayward emotions and dug an envelope out of her pocket. “Here,” she said, handing it to Adam. “For his bail. He’s being held at the Richmond precinct station. I wrote down the captain’s direct telephone line inside.”
He tried to give back the envelope. “You do it. Go talk to him.”
“Did he tell you why my father wants the amulet?” she asked in a rough voice. “Did he tell you . . . about me?”
Adam seemed
genuinely confused. “I know the amulet pieces are hidden around the city, and I know how much your father is willing to pay Lowe to find them.”
“My father is very ill, and that amulet might save his life.”
Adam blew out a long breath. “You know how Lowe’s parents died?”
She nodded. “Car accident. That is, I only know from the newspapers. Lowe never talks about it.”
“Not surprising. It was a bad time. But you do know that his brother, Winter, was the one driving the car?”
She nodded once.
“Winter took it hard. Blamed himself. Lowe, on the other hand, spent a couple weeks grieving before taking off to Egypt. Thought he could outrun it, you know. And maybe he did, for a while.” He shrugged. ‘But I guess my point is that Lowe would not under any circumstances choose money over your father’s life. He may be a lot of things, but he’s not a monster.”
She ducked her head and twisted her jaw to stop from crying.
After a few moments, Adam slid the third crossbar toward her along with the real amulet, affixed with the first two crossbars. “Take it. If you sort out things with Lowe and still want to copy the rest of it, you know where to find me. And if not?” He gave her a wry smile. “Well, let’s just say he owes me.”
“Are you sure?”
He made a shooing gesture with his hand. “Take it,” he insisted, placing the amulet’s copy inside the box.
“Then you keep the crocodile. After all, you made it.” She pocketed the amulet. “That is, if you want to risk holding on to the thing. I made sure I wasn’t followed here, but Monk Morales might have ears to the ground.”
He slipped the crocodile inside the box before closing it and rapping his knuckles on the lid. “This old gal will keep it hidden. Velma said the iron alone would probably do the trick—people have hidden things in iron for centuries. But her magic makes it doubly safe.”
Hadley smiled tightly as she pulled on her gloves. A thought stilled her hands.
