She smiled back at him. “And everyone tells me you’re the luckiest man alive.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the porter helping Hadley onto the platform, like she was an invalid, or . . . Oh, that’s right. She was still officially on the run from her fictional husband. Better put the kibosh on that, as his friend, Adam, would say, before the story spread to his family’s ears. “Excuse me,” he told Aida, before rushing back to the porter. “Thank you for everything. I’ve got her now,” he told the young man, quickly taking her arm.
Just as quickly, she pulled away. “I can walk,” she muttered.
After giving the porter another five-dollar bill—his last—Lowe turned to find his family staring. Expectantly.
He cleared his throat. “Hadley Bacall, meet the Magnusson clan.” He hastily rattled off everyone’s names. “Miss Bacall and I met on the train.”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Hadley muttered to herself.
“Her father works for the de Young Museum.”
“As do I,” she added.
“Right, of course,” he said, mildly flustered. Why didn’t he just say that to begin with? It’s not like anything scandalous had happened between them. Well, minus the ripped the dress; his eyes instantly angled toward her coat while his brain remembered the stitched peacock feathers curving over her luscious backside for the umpteenth time.
For the love of God, wake up, man!
“She’s a curator,” he managed to spit out. “The museum is interested in what I uncovered in the desert.”
There. That seemed to make sense to everyone. He struck his hands in his pockets and exhaled while Hadley politely elaborated on her undying love of mummies and the stories they told about the Egyptians’ diet and way of life . . . talk, talk. And his family acted impressed . . . Yes, yes. Good. Everything was normal and fine.
Until Bo spoke up.
“Do you have a car picking you up, or would you like a ride home?”
“I’ll just take a taxi, thank you,” she answered.
Then Winter had to insert himself into the conversation. “Bo will take your luggage to the cab stand, then.”
Luggage. Right. Time to invent another story. But Hadley was faster.
“Actually, your brother knocked my suitcase out of my hands in Salt Lake City during a knife fight, so God only knows if Union Pacific will find it.”
Lowe cringed. “It wasn’t exactly a ‘knife fight,’ per se.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” she said, her voice tarter than a Michigan cherry. “But during dinner on the train last night, when we were discussing you stabbing one of the thugs, I believe your exact quip was, ‘That’s what they get for bringing guns to a knife fight.’”
Oh, boy.
“A day in the life of a Magnusson,” Aida murmured as Winter’s face darkened.
Lowe wanted to drag Hadley aside. What happened to his partner in crime? She’d done so well in front of the porter this morning, and they’d spent the day chatting. He’d thought they were getting along. Now she was generating arctic winds strong enough to bury him under a snowy drift of resentment. What had changed?
He faked a smile in an attempt to charm his way back into her good graces. Or at least somewhere closer to her good graces than where he stood at the moment. “But, hey—I got us home in one piece. Mostly. Sorry about your luggage. And your dress.”
She stared at him for a long moment, and then said, “You have my father’s check. He’ll contact you about meeting up with him.” She bid a polite good-bye to his family, nodded to him, then strolled away as if he were the last person she ever wanted to see again.
Even then, he was unable to tear his gaze from the hypnotic sway of her hips as she threaded her way through the boisterous travelers thronging the platform.
“Christ alive,” Winter mumbled. “What on earth did you do to that lady?”
“Nothing,” he protested.
Nothing he wanted to, that is.
A slow-walking group of elderly nuns split up their group and obscured his view of Hadley. As they shuffled by, Winter whispered in his ear, “Monk Morales has been sniffing around the pier, looking for you. Word is you sold him a forgery. Some kind of miniature golden statue. An animal.”
Lowe scratched the back of his neck. “A crocodile.”
“You been working with Adam Goldberg again?”
Lowe grunted.
“Goddammit, Lowe.”
“It wasn’t Adam’s fault—his reproduction was spotless. It was the fucking paperwork. Monk didn’t even notice the error. It was the person he sold it to.”
Winter’s eyes briefly closed. “Which is who?”
“No idea. It was a silent sale.”
“So what does Monk want from you now?”
“I think he wants his money back, but he might want my head, as well.”
“Why don’t you compromise and give him the real statue.”
Impossible to give what he didn’t have. The whole purpose of the forgery was to generate two sales. Lowe gave a polite nod to one of the nosier nuns as she passed. Yes, Sister, he thought, you aren’t wrong to suspect the Magnusson boys of vice and lies. We are the reason people need to purge themselves in your confessional booths. Nothing to see. Move along.
Winter flexed his hand like he might be thinking about taking Monk’s side. “How much do you owe him?”
“I’ve got a plan, don’t worry.”
“One that doesn’t involve begging me for money?”
“Never begged you before. Don’t plan to start now.”
“Good, because my liquid assets this month are tied up in a new warehouse in Marin County, and I recently paid out Christmas bonuses to my people and—”
“Ja, ja! I said I wasn’t asking.” Not that he hadn’t considered it, but still.
The last nun passed by. Winter gripped the back of Lowe’s neck and whispered hotly into his ear, “Fix it with Morales. I’ve got a baby on the way. Don’t bring that shit to our doorstep.”
• • •
After leaving Lowe, Hadley spent several minutes calming her erratic feelings. Why she’d gotten so upset in front his family, she didn’t really know. But once they were gone, she put Lowe out of her mind and waited nearly two hours in the Twin Peaks lobby, hoping her lost luggage was on the 127. It wasn’t. So she filed a claim with the manager, listening to his secondhand account of the events at the Salt Lake City station. No one knew why the incident had happened and the police weren’t able to apprehend the gunmen. Maybe they’d follow Lowe here to finish the job.
It was dark when the taxi took her through the Castro and the Mission District, and finally down the steep bend of California Street to her Nob Hill apartment building at Mason. The elegant nine-story high-rise was only a year old and very exclusive. Only the best, her father had encouraged when she’d decided to move out of the family home.
Tendrils of nighttime fog clung to French columns flanking the driveway. She paid the taxi driver and breezed through the small lobby, waving at an attendant who barely lifted his head—did he even know her name?—before stepping onto the elevator.
“Miss Bacall.” Finally, a friendly face. The graying elevator operator greeted her with his usual broad smile. “How was your trip?”
“Hectic, Mr. Walter. Very hectic. I’m relieved to be home.”
“No luggage?”
She wilted against the elevator wall. “No luggage. It’s a long story, I’m afraid. Hopefully it will be delivered tomorrow.”
He shut the scissor gate and engaged the elevator. “You’re deliberately trying to intrigue me, I think. But I won’t press. How about your class at the university? Did they like what you had to say about Egyptian cats?”