“Placeholders. Those are the reversed pictograms, and the only ones repeated. See this one that looks like a stick with a lump on the side? The mirror-image version is on the other painting I have. I’m guessing some of the other placeholders are on your paintings.”
Hadley retrieved her share of the watercolors from her handbag and spread them out next to his. They studied the symbols together and identified all the reversed ones.
“Now we know the exact number of letters in each of the remaining three names. That helps. But it would help even more if we could compile a single list of the symbols along with any and all possible words associated with them. Because this symbol here looks like a moon, but is it ‘moon’ or ‘crescent’ or ‘boomerang?’”
Now she understood the difficulty in translating the names. While he redrew all the pictograms in his notebook, she helped brainstorm. Working with him was pleasant and natural, and she found herself laughing at his jokes and stealing glimpses of him. The faint impression his fedora had pressed into his blond hair, and the bump in his crooked nose. The way his eyes squinted into long blue triangles when he was thinking. The masculine grace in his corded hands as he unconsciously seesawed his pencil between two fingers while he thought.
It wasn’t until she marveled at the steely comfort of his shoulder butted against hers that she realized they were pressed against one another from shoulder to knee.
And to her surprise, she didn’t mind. Not one bit.
In fact, she idly wished other parts of them were pressed together.
• • •
Lowe was having trouble concentrating on the pictograms. Every instinct he had was shouting at him to pull Hadley into his lap and kiss the bejesus out of her. He doodled spirals on the page’s border and analyzed the logistics of having sex with her, right there on the bench. Would require balance, but he’d already run through three different positions and a couple of variations. As he was debating the possibility of bringing the table into it, she made a small noise.
“Trotter.”
“What?”
She stared at his list of dead people. “Henrietta Trotter. That’s one of Hugo Trotter’s sisters. The funeral director who was rumored to have killed his siblings.”
Lowe vaguely remembered the legend of Hugo Trotter. Police never could find evidence that he’d done anything wrong, but the man had made several jokes at dinner parties that he was planning to kill and cremate two sisters and one brother, and all three siblings died suspiciously, one by one, over a yearlong period.
“People said he talked to their urns as if they could hear him,” Hadley said. “This must’ve been the last sister, because he moved out of town after the earthquake. Which canopic jar has seven unique pictograms? Ah—the baboon. See if the symbols could possibly spell Trotter.”
“That’s . . .” Crazy, he was going to say, but after sorting through their word list, he picked out the letters with ease. “T-r-o-t-t-e-r. Helvete, Hadley—you think it’s possible?”
“He was known for having a strange sense of humor. Maybe he didn’t really kill them, but I definitely remember stories in college about him talking to the urns. Just to be sure, we should try to match up other seven-letter names, see if anything else fits.”
And they did, for nearly an hour. One name was off by only one letter, but nothing else matched exactly. They finally gave up and decided to investigate Trotter. “I’ll make a few calls and come up with a plan,” he said as he stacked the papers into a neat pile.
“Do I get half of the list?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at his busy hands.
Part of him didn’t want to let it go. The sensible part. The part that was slightly worried about Monk asking around for him at the wharf.
But another part of his brain—the part that had filled her up with bread and chowder just so he could lull her into letting him feel her thigh against his—remembered George goddamn Houston saying Hadley needed to be in control. And really, what was she going to do? Run off and track down the amulet crossbars without him and disappear to Mexico? She had as much of a right to be on this godforsaken quest as he did—it was her mother’s doing, after all. And if she was correct about this Trotter fellow, then that would make her instincts two for two. She definitely knew the macabre underbelly of the city better than he did.
He tore out his scribbled key to the pictograms and slid it in front of her, along with the list and the paintings. “All yours,” he said, grabbing his leather gloves off the table and tugging them on. “Just make sure you keep it all safe and locked up. No desk drawers, no obvious places your maid might find while cleaning. We can switch up every few days. Two pairs of eyes are better than one.”
She didn’t reply, just stared at the packet of papers like they might self-combust. Brown eyes widened as they flicked up to meet his. A faint thrill warmed his chest. God, he was a sucker, because there was nothing better than her features softening. He liked her unguarded. He liked her guarded, too. Hell, he just liked her.
It was past time for her to head back to work, so they bid the Aliotos good-bye and left Taylor Street, heading back up to where the streetcar had dropped her off. Half a block before they got there, the bottom fell out of the sky.
“Oh, no—my mink collar!” she cried as rain began beading on their coats.
Lowe hurried her toward the dry stoop of a nearby warehouse and squeezed into the alcove with her. The smell of wet pavement and Hadley surrounded him. A man could get used to that. He even thought he caught the grassy scent of lily—perfume, perhaps. Or maybe his memory of the night by the gazing pool was shifting things around in his head.
Just relax and enjoy being close to her, he told himself. Don’t get carried away and do anything stupid. Deep breath. Keep your coat buttoned and your hands to yourself. Do not think about sex gymnastics on a bench.
“Thank God you put the papers inside your coat,” he said, shaking rain off his hat.
She didn’t answer. Something gripped his arm. He glanced down to find her gloved hand there. When he looked back up, she was a moving blur—one that erased the small space between them. He staggered back against the alcove wall in surprise as her mouth clamped on his. Suddenly there was nothing but her wet lips on his and warm softness pressing against his chest.
Dear God, she was kissing him.
Wake up, idiot! Kiss her back!
He grabbed fistfuls of fur and wool and crushed her body to his, returning the kiss with equal ferocity. This wasn’t a repeat of the kiss in her father’s office; she actually wanted him. The difference was staggering.
A joyful pleasure rushed toward the base of his spine as slender arms wrapped around his neck. Closer? Gladly, yes. He pushed her against the alcove wall. She moaned, and he swore his heart shuddered. And as he sank against her, the kiss deepened from tight and frantic to open and slow and ardent.
Nothing existed but their warm bodies and the sound of the rain outside their shadowed alcove.
His tongue slipped between her lips, just once. Testing. Then he kissed the corner of her mouth. Slid his tongue in again. Kissed the other corner. Licked the salt from her bottom lip. And, Gods above, her tongue finally joined in, rolling with his. Dancing, exploring. Tasting.
And he wanted more.
He kissed her chin, her jaw, nuzzling his way into the soft ebony hair beneath the edge of her cloche, smelling both the citrusy brightness of her shampoo and the scent of her skin. Another moan. Fingers grasped the back of his neck. One hand ghosted down the front of his coat, planting on his chest. She was touching him! Glorious, absolutely glorious. He wanted that hand inside his coat, under his shirt.