Sixteen

"Vivian!"

The sound of someone calling her name made her spin around.

Leo stopped a few steps away, his hands raised defensively. "Whoa there, sweetheart. You look ready for a fight."

"Where did you come from?" Vivian demanded, her heart still racing.

"I've been waiting for you to get home. I've got some news to share." He glanced back at the street. "Want to tell me the deal with the fancy car dropping you off? I thought you were doing deliveries today."

"I…" Vivian bit her lip, trying to decide what to tell him. Leo didn't entirely trust Honor as it was. What would he say if he learned she was Huxley Buchanan's daughter?

Or did he already know? Leo had some unexpected connections with folks in high places—along with low ones—courtesy of the commissioner. What if Hattie wasn't the only one who knew Honor Huxley had been keeping more secrets than usual?

"Viv?" Leo asked. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Vivian shook her head. "Sorry. Yes, it's fine. I'm fine," she said, thinking about Eddie driving straight to her front door without a word from her. "Let's go inside. I'm feeling jittery just standing out here."

"Tell you what," Leo said. He was watching her like he was worried she might bolt at any second. "How about I take you out to dinner? You've gotta eat at some point," he insisted when she was about to object. Vivian scowled at him, but she couldn't really argue with that. "And you can tell me what's got you looking so spooked."

"All right," Vivian agreed, trying not to sound too reluctant as he slid his arm around her waist. He was being sweet, there was no call to be acting surly in response, no matter how much she had to think over. "There's two things. One of them is Hattie Wilson."

She felt Leo's arm tense. He'd had his own encounters with Mrs. Wilson's bruisers. "What's she got to do with things?"

"I don't know, and that's part of the problem. The other thing…" She hesitated. "The other is Honor."

Leo's steps slowed long enough for him to turn and study her face. "Let's find somewhere to eat," he suggested. "And then you can tell me everything."

The Automat wasn't crowded, but Vivian still kept her voice down as she told him about her run-in with Hattie Wilson. He hadn't looked happy through that, his hands clenching and unclenching, as if he wanted to be swinging at someone instead of sitting there facing a problem he couldn't fix. But when she got to what Mrs. Wilson had said about Honor, he fell still, his expression growing stony.

Leo and Honor had crossed paths enough to develop a grudging respect, and they'd had to work together a couple of times in the past. But Leo had never really trusted her. Maybe he had been right not to. Vivian didn't want to believe it, but suddenly, she wasn't so sure.

"Did you know?" she asked. "That Honor was his… had the commissioner said anything?"

"I had no idea." Leo shook his head. "Do you think Mrs. Wilson's right about her?"

"No," Vivian said too quickly. "I mean… I'm just all shaken up, you know? Those bruisers scare the hell out of me. And she's even worse. On top of everything else—I don't have that much time. And everything just keeps getting more confusing, not less…"

Leo's expression softened. "But you're okay," he said, leaning forward to take her hands. "And that's what matters, right? We'll figure the rest of it out."

"Yeah, I'm swell," Vivian said, smiling weakly. She wanted to believe him—they would figure the rest of it out, right? She couldn't bring herself to think about the alternative.

Vivian pulled her hands out of his, cupping them instead around the mug of coffee to try to warm them. But it was already cooling off, so she gulped it down quickly. It made her nearly empty stomach churn, but she had a long night ahead of her, and she needed whatever energy she could get. "Have you heard anything back from your pal at Bellevue?"

Leo had frowned when she pulled her hands away, but he didn't reach for them again. At her question, he perked up. "Hell, I can't believe I forgot to say. That's why I was waiting for you to get home. Norris gave me a call today." He glanced at his wristwatch, then gave her an encouraging smile. "What d'you say we hustle over there to hear what he has to say? You've got enough time, right?"

Vivian reached out to turn his wrist toward her and check the time for herself, feeling better at the thought of taking some kind of action. "Yeah. Yes, we should do that. I'll just need to change clothes after. I can't show up at the Nightingale like this."

"You'd look smashing even if you did," he said, looking relieved when she agreed. "I'm sorry I can't stay for your whole shift, though—I've actually got a job of my own to take care of."

Vivian couldn't help the sharp look she gave him. "For your uncle?"

"Nope," he said, holding one hand palm up. "It's strictly illegal, I promise."

That made her snort with laughter, in spite of how she was feeling. "That's what every girl wants to hear from her fella."

"I know what you like," he said with a wink. Vivian shook her head and went back to her coffee. "But I'll be able to meet up with you after and bring you home." He hesitated, then added firmly, "And then I'm staying the night."

Vivian's head shot up, her mug hitting the table with a thump. "Oh you are?"

"Don't look at me like that, Viv," he said quietly. "I'm not trying to get frisky, I'm trying to keep you safe. I'll sleep on the floor, if you like, but you shouldn't be alone. Not with Mrs. Wilson and her boys getting involved."

Vivian felt like a heel. Of course he just wanted to make sure she was safe. She wished he'd asked, instead of telling her what he was going to do. But he wasn't wrong about Mrs. Wilson and her bruisers. And now that she knew they had already tracked down where she lived… Vivian shivered.

"All right," she said, looking away. "But Bellevue first, yeah?"

"Absolutely," Leo agreed, standing and holding out his hand. "Let's shake a leg."

Vivian took it, giving him a sideways glance as they left the restaurant. "So you're saying you're not interested in getting frisky?" she said, trying to force a playful note into her voice.

Leo laughed. "I don't think that's what I said, was it?" he asked, pretending to frown like he couldn't remember.

"Just don't get your hopes up, pal," Vivian said, rolling her eyes at him, hoping he wouldn't notice that her heart wasn't quite in it.

As they paused at the edge of the sidewalk, waiting for traffic to clear so they could dash across to the streetcar stop, Leo glanced down, catching her eye. There was so much heat and tenderness in his that Vivian wanted to look away. "Any fella who knows you, Viv, has got nothing but hopes," he whispered. "But they'll keep until we're out of this mess."

Vivian gripped his fingers tightly, trying to anchor herself in the moment. They were heading to Bellevue. They were going to figure this out. "Five days now," she said with forced lightness, as though it was a hope and not a countdown. "Come on."

Pulling him after her, she dashed across the road, ignoring the drivers honking at them. They made it just before the streetcar pulled away.

"Well, so. You're back." The man across the desk from Vivian shook his head. "I thought the next time I saw you would be because I had good news about your mother."

"My…" Vivian let out a short laugh.

Last summer, she and Florence had discovered their mother was not, as they had always believed, buried with the other poor and unclaimed dead on Hart Island. She had asked, through Leo, whether the coroner's office had records that might help her uncover who had claimed her mother's body. The medical examiner had agreed to have his assistant look into it, when the young man wasn't busy with other work.

"To be honest, Doc, that's not much on my mind right now," Vivian said, trying to smile but not really succeeding. "Though I don't suppose your assistant has found anything?"

"Not yet." Dr. Norris cleared his throat. "I looked at the police report Mr. Green mentioned."

Vivian glanced over her shoulder to where Leo leaned against the door, arms crossed over his chest. He looked vaguely menacing standing there, though Vivian didn't think it was on purpose. He and the medical examiner had been trading favors back and forth ever since Leo came back to New York—though this time, Vivian knew the favor would be all on her shoulders, since Leo was fresh out.

And anyway, there was only one extra chair in the office, and she was sitting in it.

She turned back as the medical examiner added, "You live a dangerous life, young lady."

He had a habit, which Vivian appreciated, of not using names during their discussions. Not the names of the people they were talking about, and not her name either, even though he knew it ever since she asked for his help tracking down where her mother had been buried.

"Seems that way," she agreed. "I didn't do it."

He laced his fingers together, elbows resting on the desk and his chin tucked down as he eyed her. "I'm still not letting you anywhere near that report."

"I wasn't gonna ask you to," Vivian said sharply.

Leo shifted behind her, and Norris's eyebrows climbed toward his thinning hairline. The medical examiner made her nervous, with his office full of medical tools and dead bodies just down the hall. But he was upstanding as they came. She'd heard from Leo that he never touched a drop of alcohol, even before Prohibition. And judging by the political enemies he'd made during his investigations, he seemed to care about getting at the truth in his work.

Vivian took a deep breath. He was giving her the benefit of the doubt, just letting her be there without telling the police she was poking around. There was no reason not to be polite.

"I know you have to keep me out of it. But you know me and Leo, mister. Doctor, I mean." She grimaced at the slipup, but the medical examiner didn't look cross, so she barreled on. "And you know… you know what can happen to a girl who's in the wrong place at the wrong time in a case like this." He nodded grimly, and Vivian felt something hopeful unfurling in her chest. "The commissioner let me go, at least for now. I just want to make sure I don't get snatched up again. If there's anything you can tell me, anything that might have been odd or…" She trailed off. "Well, honestly, I don't know what it would be. I don't know enough about folks getting killed to know what to ask about. But you do, Doc. You'd know if something was strange. Wouldn't you? That's all I'm asking about. Please. I'll owe you big."

She finished in a rush, cutting herself off before she could get too carried away. She glanced over her shoulder at Leo again and was relieved to see him nodding.

The medical examiner sighed, leaning back in his chair, his hands clasped across his stomach. "Well, here's the thing, young lady. I do believe that you had nothing to do with this man's death."

Vivian sucked in a sharp breath. "There was something strange about it."

It hadn't been a question, but Dr. Norris still nodded. Vivian could feel her heart speeding up, an ache of relief in the center of her chest. Strange was good. Strange could prove that the whole thing had nothing to do with her.

"He was stabbed in the neck with what seems to be one of the kitchen knives," the medical examiner said, grimacing with distaste. Vivian liked him better for it. He probably saw far worse than a stabbing in the course of his work; it said good things about his humanity that it still bothered him. "That itself isn't particularly strange. Lots of people come and go in that kitchen every day. I think you even did, according to the report, hmm?" Vivian nodded reluctantly. "And a knife is an easy thing to grab and carry with you without anyone noticing."

"But whoever it was would have had to plan on it," Leo pointed out. "No one's going to decide to murder a fella on the spur of the moment, run down to the kitchen, snatch up a knife, run back up, and stab him."

"Well, there you go," Vivian said, her voice rising in something that was half excitement, half outrage as she slapped her hands down on the desk. "Those damn cops were trying to make it out like I got so upset by him coming on to me—like any girl is going to be surprised by that sort of thing—and hauled off and stabbed him to death. That proves I couldn't have, right?" she said hopefully, looking between Leo and the doctor.

Her face fell when neither of them mirrored her eagerness. "If they need to, they're just going to say it was something else," Leo said quietly. "An affair gone wrong, or one of his enemies paying you to get close."

"He had them, of course," Dr. Norris said, nodding in agreement. "Men in his position always do." Seeing Vivian's face fall, though, he cleared his throat. "That wasn't all. The knife didn't narrow things down much, but I noticed a few… oddities about the body. So I performed some tests."

Vivian swallowed, trying not to look too nervous. She'd heard about the sort of tests he and his team did, grinding up organs like sausage meat and worse. It helped catch killers, sure, but it was gruesome to think about. "And you found something?" she said, more warily this time. She couldn't get her hopes up. She needed to think of the worst if she wanted to be prepared.

"I did." The medical examiner leaned forward. "Our victim had also been poisoned."

For a moment, the room was so silent that Vivian could hear the squeak of someone's shoes hurrying down the hall. "But then… what the hell does that mean? You're saying someone poisoned him, and then stabbed him for good measure? Just to, what, make sure he was really dead?" She shuddered at the thought.

"No." Dr. Norris shook his head. "The poison didn't kill him. It would have; those metals build up in the body over time. But if they're administered slowly, it doesn't look like a poisoning. It looks like someone getting gradually sicker, and then, after a long illness, dying."

"So…" Vivian glanced at Leo. "Someone was trying to kill him slowly. But they got impatient and killed him fast instead."

"Right now, that's how it looks." The medical examiner steepled his fingers under his chin, watching her.

"But that means it had to be someone close to him," Vivian said, sitting up straighter. "Someone who could get poison into, what, his dinner? His breakfast? Someone who could do it easily. Meaning not me." When the doctor opened his mouth to say something, Vivian held up her hand. "I know, I know. They could tie it to me still. Say I was hired, or something like that. If he liked pretty girls, it's easy to say I knew I'd be able to get close to him. But it's something."

"It is something," Dr. Norris agreed, standing up. "Do with it what you will."

Vivian, taking the hint, stood too. "Can I ask one more thing?"

The doctor raised his brows. "You can always ask."

"It's about… about my mother again." Vivian took a deep breath. She didn't want to think about what might happen to her. But she couldn't afford not to. "Would you send anything you find to my sister? I can give you her address. Just in case I…"

His expression had softened as she spoke. "I see. Yes, of course." He gestured to the pad of paper on his desk. "Would you like to write it down for me?"

Vivian quickly scribbled down Florence's name and the address of the restaurant on Spring Street, telling herself it wouldn't actually matter. When she straightened, she held out her hand. "Thanks for your help. With everything."

Dr. Norris smiled grimly. "Can't say it was a pleasure, young lady, but it certainly was interesting. And it will be even more interesting to see what you do with it," he said, shaking her hand. "And then next time you're in a position to do me a favor, you can be sure I'll be in touch."

Vivian swallowed, her stomach fluttering. She couldn't imagine what sort of favor she could do for someone like him. But that was how this worked—and he was a decent man, as far as she could tell. So she gave her hair a flip and him a smile that was only half bravado. "Anytime, Doc. You just let me know."