Bitter Spirits
Page 24

“Hers, too,” he added, guiding Aida toward the entryway as guests scattered around other rooms—some whispering in corners, others looking for another drink. He helped Aida into her coat and instructed the maid to tell Florie that he was leaving and to call them a taxi.
Outside, he followed Aida down winding steps, then continued up the sidewalk. Packards and Cadillacs lined the curb, some with drivers asleep at the wheel, napping until their employers stumbled out after the party. The Magnusson family driver, Jonte, would normally be here as well, but he had the night off and Bo had dropped Winter off before heading to Chinatown.
“Where are you going?” he asked Aida.
She stopped in front of a nearby lot with a half-constructed house. Cement steps built into the hill were still framed in timber, flanked by two freshly bricked posts on either side.
“Let’s wait for the taxi here,” he suggested.
She didn’t turn around to look at him. Her silence was confusing. Maybe he was wrong, but the way she’d reacted to Florie’s obnoxious chattering was as if—well, that couldn’t be right. She wasn’t jealous, was she? Because that’s damn well what it seemed like in the heat of the moment, but maybe it was only what he wanted to believe.
Frustrated, he stared at the fog clinging to the trees and the roofs of houses across the street. “That was interesting.”
“I’m not sure what got into me. I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.”
“Florie’s smashed. She won’t even remember it in the morning. She never does.” He reached in his tuxedo pocket and held out the silver knife in his palm. “What is this?”
Her fingers brushed his as she took it. They looked at each other for a moment, then her gaze broke away. She rummaged around in her bag, retrieving a small silver cap. “It’s a military snake bite kit. I think it once belonged to a British pilot.” She screwed the cap over the blade. “Lancet is here and the other end holds medicated salve.”
“A lancet,” he repeated, still confused. “Why were you holding it when you called up Florie’s husband?”
“Because even though I can send ghosts away without help, I need to enter a trance state in order to call a spirit who’s left this plane.”
“Wait. If they leave this ‘plane’ after death, where do they go?”
“Across the veil to the beyond.” She made a vague sweeping gesture. “Look, don’t ask me to tell you the meaning of life or the one true religion or what happens to souls once they’ve crossed over, because I don’t know. They won’t tell you if you ask them, either. All I know is that I can call most of them back from wherever they are to communicate with their loved ones, as long as they haven’t been dead too long.”
“So you need to be in a trance to do that, but what’s the lancet got to do with it?”
“Lots of ways to enter a trance, but since I don’t usually have time to meditate, the fastest way for me is pain.” She twirled the lancet in her fingers, then palmed it, showing him. “I can hold it onstage without anyone noticing it.” Her big eyes blinked up at him. She pointed the capped lancet at her thigh. “I prick myself here.”
“Jesus! You injure yourself every time you call up a spirit?”
“It’s not bad, and I like helping people. Provides some resolution to the past.” She slipped the lancet into her coat pocket and retrieved her gloves. “Besides, it pays the rent, you know?”
She was tougher than he imagined. He studied the silhouette of her face beneath the brim of her cloche. The upturned tilt of her nose echoed the curved front of her bob, curling ever so slightly against her cheeks. She caught him staring and turned away, testing out the concrete steps. Finding them solid, she ascended one step, then another. She toed the wooden board housing the third step.
“This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I was telling you about wanting to do séances,” she said with her back to him. “I’m sure you feel like you’re doing me some big favor by getting me this high-paying gig, but I don’t need help arranging work. And it doesn’t matter how much money people throw my way—if they don’t take me seriously, I might as well be dressing up in a jester suit and tap-dancing.”
Why was she so agitated? “Look, I wasn’t trying to do you a favor—”
“And I didn’t mean to upset your lover, but maybe if you would’ve just explained the situation to me instead of having her summon me out here—”
“Whoa! Florie and I are not lovers. Haven’t been since college. And it wasn’t as if we were sweethearts then, it was just . . .”
She turned around and crossed her arms over her middle. “Just what?”
“Convenient,” he finally said. “I’m sure that’s shocking.”
“Shocking?” Her laugh was mean and hard. “Like your silly postcard collection?”
“I believe you called me a deviant and a pervert, not silly.”
“You are. That doesn’t mean I’m prudish. I may not be as loose and free as Mrs. Beecham, or however many other flappers with whom you’ve had ‘convenient’ affairs, but I’m no virgin.”
Oh, she was a big talker, wasn’t she? Aida might be tough and independent, and she might not be a virgin, but Winter wasn’t convinced she was carefree and modern when it came to sex. He could tell by the nervous defensiveness in her speech—the way she blinked rapidly and wouldn’t look him in the eyes. The way she’d reacted when she’d discovered the postcards in his study, and how she’d acted in the dressing room. He’d been so worried about his own feelings that afternoon, he’d confused himself in regards to her motives.