Bitter Spirits

TWENTY-FIVE

MIDDAY SUN WARMED THE TILE BENEATH AIDA’S FEET AS SHE looked around Winter’s big bathroom, mildly anxious. Her head throbbed and the injuries to her foot ached with each step. Someone had left her a robe. Kind, but it was a little on the small side, and she needed real clothes. She also needed to find out if anything in her apartment survived the fire.

And to find out where Winter was.

She remembered nodding off in his arms. He pulled the covers over her and left, and now his bedroom was empty. No indication of where he slept—if he slept.

Bending to drink from the tap, she rinsed last night’s lingering tastes from her mouth and hunted for a comb, feeling out of sorts in the strange home. When she finally discovered Winter’s toiletries inside a frosted glass cabinet, she stood in front of the sink and realized what was odd about the bathroom: no mirror—not a proper one, anyway. Just a small shaving mirror that extended from a scissored arm attached to the wall. No dressing mirror in the bedroom, either.

No mirrors, so he didn’t have to see his scarred face every day?

“Oh, Winter,” she murmured on a sigh.

Low voices in the distance derailed her attention.

On the wall opposite the bathroom stood another door that accessed an adjoining room. Aida followed the voices here and peeked inside. A guest room, perhaps. A four-poster bed at the far end of the room was stripped of linens and pillows, in disuse, and covered with mounds of clothes.

Her eyes darted around the room.

A dressing table was laden with new boxes of expensive cosmetics and shampoos, an electric curling iron and hair dryer—luxuries she couldn’t afford. Nearby, a large wooden steamer trunk stood open on its side, hangers slotted into place on one half, and six drawers lining the other. It looked like something a Hollywood star would own for traveling around the globe. Boxes of shoes were lined up next to it, brown and black leather peeking out from fluffs of tissue paper. Several evening gowns, glittering with beads and sequins, hung from the top of an open armoire door. Day coats, hats, handbags were spread across the bed, and sitting on a bureau, open boxes of jewelry sparkled under a slant of sunlight.

A pretty young servant stood with Astrid and her seamstress Benita, all three of them organizing the chaotic spread. It looked as if they might be planning to open a department store. Blond hair swung as Astrid turned and spotted her, eyes lighting up. “Oh, you’re up—excellent! How do you feel?”

“I’ve been better,” Aida admitted.

“Gee, I’m sorry about what happened. Bo said the wiring in those old apartments is always catching on fire.”

“Uh . . .”

“You’re lucky you got out. But on the bright side, you get all new things!” She spread her arms, showcasing her handiwork with a look of ecstasy on her face.

Aida choked. Astrid patted her on the back. “You okay, there? Need some water?” She rattled off several commands in Swedish to the maid, who scurried out of the room. “She’ll bring up some juice and breakfast. I bet you’re starving.”

“I—”

“Anyway, isn’t this all great? I’m so jealous. I told Bo I was going to set fire to my room so I could experience the thrill of a new wardrobe. But Winter said if I did, I’d be wearing a potato sack until I graduated. Anyway, come look at what we picked out. Some of it might not fit, but Benita will take care of that for you.”

“Astrid,” Aida complained, feeling mildly sick to her stomach. “I can’t possibly afford all this.”

“Don’t worry, Benita and I kept a tally,” Astrid said, scooping up a small ledger. “Winter said you insisted on paying everything back when you could. It’s all logged right here.”

Aida scanned the entries, pangs of worry accumulating with every subtotaled figure written in flowery feminine print at the bottom of each page, until she got to the latest running total: four hundred and fifty-eight dollars.

Her mouth fell open. “I could buy a car for this—my life savings was . . .” Half that. And it took her years of scrimping. “This is crazy. This is—”

Dimples appeared as Astrid grinned. “Guess that’ll teach you to take up with a Magnusson.”

“God middag.” Winter’s housekeeper breezed into the room wearing a dour day suit. “Here you go.”

Aida accepted a thick envelope. “What is this?”

“First-class tickets,” Greta said in her singsong voice. “Train leaves same day as your original ticket, late morning. Train company was sympathetic about your ticket being lost in fire. You only owe Winter the difference between ticket prices, and sleeping arrangements will be much more comfortable. Winter insisted.”

Good grief. She’d never traveled first-class. And Greta handled this? The woman probably cursed her name the entire way to the train station.

Aida was so confused—last night Winter had been shouting at her like an angry bull about going to New Orleans; now he was practically shoving her out the door. “I’m overwhelmed,” Aida admitted, gripping the train ticket.

“Ja, I can imagine,” Greta said. “But consider that all you lost were material things, easily replaced, and you now have comfortable, safe place to stay for the remainder of your time in city.”

“I suppose you’re right. Where is Winter?”

“Hunting down people who did this to you.”

Aida’s stomach twisted.

“Enough of all that, let’s get on with the fun stuff,” Astrid said brightly. “Changing screen’s in the corner.”

“Yes, by all means,” Greta said, crossing her arms beneath her breasts. “Astrid will now demonstrate what a girl with no sense and an open charge account can do.”

Winter stood in the hallway looking through the burned-out hole where Aida’s apartment door once stood. Nothing was salvageable: clothes and luggage, charred; hiding place for her savings, nothing but ashes; and the locket, now melted into her bedside table.

“That was kind of you to arrange repairs,” Velma said at his side as she looked on.

How they’d ever get rid of the acrid burnt stench was beyond him. “Both Aida and Bo are fond of the owners. Can you do anything?”

Velma surveyed the damage for a long moment, the picture of poise in an elegant chartreuse coat. The brim of her matching hat hid her eyes from him. “What did you have in mind?”

“Some sort of tracking spell?”

“To lead you to the men who did this?” She shook her head. “I’m not sure I’m that good. You’d have a better chance finding them by chasing leads.”

“The witnesses saw a truck and two men. One of them said the men were Chinese, the other said they were white. Neither could identify the truck model.”

“So no leads, is what you’re saying.”

“No leads, and I already talked to the police. They’ve got nothing, either. There’s nothing you can try?”

Velma tugged the cuffs of her cream-colored gloves, tightening the fit. “I don’t know a spell that can track them and return logical information concerning their whereabouts. I can, however, light a fuse from this point that will burn until it finds them.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I can work a curse on them. Punish them. But before you agree, hear me out. This is nothing to play around with. A curse deals out the same amount of punishment as the wrong they did. Eye for an eye. And once I set it in motion, there’s no stopping it. I might end up killing these two men, and frankly, that’s not something I want on my conscience.”

“Well, my conscience is happy to take responsibility.”

“Not that simple,” the conjurer said, squinting up at him with sharp eyes. “Curses have a way of causing new rifts. If this is connected to the secret tong you’re talking about, and they have a powerful sorcerer on their side, it might make some waves. You might be setting something in motion that won’t stop until someone else gets hurt—or killed. So if I do this, either you or Aida have to bear the blood-debt. Anything I send out will come back to one of you, not me. Do you understand?”

He didn’t, exactly. But if cursing them sparked a war, then at least all this bullshit would be out in the open. He was tired of shadowboxing. “I take full responsibility—not Aida. She’s a bystander. All the blame should fall on my shoulders.”

Velma nodded. “So be it. I’ll need to collect some ashes.”

Between shuffling in and out of clothes for the better part of the day, Aida unabashedly gobbled down a mid-afternoon breakfast of toast triangles piled with soft, buttery scrambled eggs, dill, and smoked salmon—Magnusson fish, Astrid proudly clarified. Fresh orange juice and strong coffee washed it all down.

And when all her new belongings had been sorted into piles—keep, return, alter—she settled on a raisin-colored casual dress to wear. Astrid took her on a tour of the house, traipsing through dozens of rooms brimming with objets d’art collected from exotic places—including a sitting area dubbed the Sheik Room, outfitted to look like something out of Arabian Nights.

She met Winter’s mostly Swedish staff: a cook; three maids; a woman whose entire job was handling the laundry,who she later found out was Benita’s mother; a handyman; the driver she’d seen before, Jonte; and keeping watch over all of them was Greta. They eyed Aida with great curiosity. Some spoke little English, and Aida listened in amazement as Astrid vacillated between English and Swedish with ease.

Under Greta’s supervision, Astrid also showed Aida how to operate the elevator and the intercom system installed on each floor. Led her through the kitchen, formal dining room, and downstairs library. Walked her out to see Winter’s cars, where Greta asked her to write down her work schedule for Jonte, who assured her he’d be ready to chauffeur her back and forth from Gris-Gris.

Astrid talked a mile a minute to Greta as the three of them stood in the driveway next to a cream two-seater Packard coupe with its convertible canvas top down. A beautiful car. Far more feminine than Winter’s hell-colored Pierce-Arrow. Aida gazed at her reflection in one of the car’s side mirrors and tuned out Astrid’s chattering.

Aida was bone-weary. Her foot ached. She wanted comfort. Wanted Winter. It was strange to be peeking behind the scenes of his home without him there. Over the past couple of weeks she’d gotten too used to him . . . the way he smelled, the way he laughed. How the mattress sank when he crawled into bed. How he sounded when he came inside her.

Their routine at the Fairmont had been nothing short of bliss, and now it was over. Now she was back to her normal life, where every day was different and nothing could be counted on. Because now that she’d had the entire day to mourn the loss of her possessions—and the locket, in particular—she reasoned that maybe she’d been so devastated to lose them because before Winter came along, they had been her routine. Things. They’d been the only constant in her life. City to city, job to job, stranger to stranger, she could always count on the comfort that her dependable pink Westclox and Sam’s old photograph provided.

The locket had grounded her. But now it was gone, and there was nothing she could do to bring it back. She had to hold her shoulders high and keep going. Besides, Sam would’ve hated that he’d become her crutch, after he’d spent years encouraging her to live fearlessly.

She was good at being fearless. Damn good. That was something. And she wasn’t destitute like she’d been when Emmett Lane had shoved her into the orphanage. Her possessions had been replaced. She was surrounded by nice things and nice people. Lots to be thankful about.

If she only had Winter by her side, she might even be more than thankful—she might be happy. After all she’d been through over the last twenty-four hours, imagine that. If Winter could make her happy on a dismal day like this, how could he make her feel on a good day?

“Do you require anything else?” Greta asked, breaking into Aida’s thoughts.

“What’s that?”

“Anything else?”

After everything they’d already done for her? Aida couldn’t possibly have any other needs. If anything, she should be asking what she could do for them. Then inspiration came to her. A whim. “I would like someone to hang a mirror over Winter’s bathroom sink.”

Greta and Astrid stared at her. “Oh, he won’t like that,” Astrid finally said.

“I know. But I’d like to have a mirror in there for grooming, and Winter needs to stop feeling sorry for himself. Sometimes people require a little push.”

“I do not—” Greta started.

“Blame it on me,” Aida said firmly. “And while you’re at it, have someone bring the full-length dressing mirror into his bedroom. How he dresses without help is beyond me.”

“He had the dressing mirror in his closet lowered so that he only sees himself from the neck down,” Astrid volunteered.

“Astrid Margaret Magnusson!” Greta chastised.

“Well, he did. And Aida’s right. It’s time for some changes.”

Aida smiled. “Good, it’s settled then.”

“Anything else?” Greta said, her voice thick with annoyance.

Aida looked at Astrid. “You said you’ve never driven a car, not even once?”

She shook her head. “Winter won’t allow it.”

“And this coupe just sits here collecting dust? Shame, don’t you think?”

“It was my mother’s.”

“It’s lovely. Does it run?”

“All the cars run. Jonte takes them out around the block every Wednesday.”

Aida caressed the curve of the spare whitewalled wheel attached to the side of the car above the running board. “Someone taught me how to drive in Baltimore a few years ago. I think I still remember. Want to learn? My treat for everything you’ve done for me today.”

“Nej, nej!” Greta protested. “He will be very angry.”

“Just around the block,” Aida assured her. “You can stand here and watch us.”

“Really?” Astrid said, suddenly swept up in the idea of it. “Bo showed me how to shift gears once. I think I could do it.”

“Of course you can. Duck soup. Easy as pie.”

Greta mumbled a string of Swedish words under her breath.

“Greta!” Astrid said with a grin.

The housekeeper’s pink cheeks darkened. “I will not fetch the automobile key. If you are planning mutiny against your brother’s rules, you can ask Jonte to help you.”

After dropping Velma off at Gris-Gris, Winter spent the day in his Embarcadero office making calls. When dinnertime rolled around, he asked Bo to take him to Russian Hill. He hated driving by the house he’d shared with Paulina; though it had been sold more than a year ago, the sight of it still filled him with guilt and gloom. But what brought him here this time didn’t have anything to do with his past. It concerned Aida’s past, and it had taken him all day and a shameful amount of money in long-distance calls and lawyer fees to find it.

Worth every goddamn penny.

The address he was hunting ended up being down the street from his old house, two blocks from Lombard. Small world. Winter asked Bo to park the Pierce-Arrow right in front of a three-story Spanish Colonial attached home. Well kept. Cypress trees flanking the crooked steps. Shiny white Duesenberg behind an elaborate metal gate in the driveway.

“I’ll be right back. Shouldn’t take long.” Winter buttoned his coat and marched up the steps to the entrance. A bored maid answered his knock and blanched at the sight of him.

He removed his hat. “Winter Magnusson to see Mr. Emmett Lane.”

“Oh . . . yes, well, Mr. and Mrs. Lane are entertaining clients for dinner right now.”

“This will only take a second.”

“Can I tell him what this is in regards to?”

“Yes, you may. You tell your boss that we can discuss the inheritance of his deceased brother’s child alone or in front of his guests—his choice.”

The maid hesitated for a beat before opening the door wider. “Please come in, Mr. Magnusson. Drawing room is to your left. I’ll bring him straight in.”

And to her credit, she did just that, for Winter only waited a handful of seconds before a tall man with gray hair and shrewd eyes sauntered into a slice of lamplight illuminating the front room. “Mr. Magnusson, is it?”

“It is.”

“State your business. I’m engaged with a dinner party.”

Winter removed a folded telegram from his suit pocket. “Have a look at this.”

Mr. Lane’s scowl deflated as his eyes scanned the brief message.

“You’ll note that was wired to my attorney two hours ago from Baltimore. See, when Miss Palmer told me the story about her foster parents dying, something stuck with me that I didn’t quite understand. Why, I asked myself, would a well-to-do couple raise two children for ten years without ensuring the adoption paperwork was in order? After all, their will was thorough. Seems to me their lawyer would’ve made sure everything was up to snuff.”

“What business—”

“So I did some poking around. And as you see on that telegram there, the adoption was legal, and the state of Maryland is happy to provide a notarized letter stating that the documents are on file. The lawyer we’re working with in Baltimore is taking care of that tomorrow.”

Mr. Lane’s hand dropped. “It’s been ten years.”

“Eleven.”

“There’s no money left from that estate. It’s long been sold, the gains lost in the stock market.”

“Not my concern that you can’t manage money.”

“Whatever scam that girl’s running on you, I can assure you that my lawyer will investigate every possible legal angle to prevent—”

Winter stepped closer and spoke in a lower voice. “Do you know who I am, Mr. Lane?”

The question hung between them for a moment. “Yes, I believe I do.”

“Then you know I don’t really have a great deal of love for the law. I’m also an extremely impatient man. So we can either handle things with grace and dignity, and you can prove to me that you aren’t the conniving prick I suspect you are, or I can come back later with my men and convince you in other ways.”

The man stared at him, nostrils flaring. “What do you want?”

“I want Sam Palmer’s army footlocker. I know it was sent to you, so don’t tell me it wasn’t. The army still has a record of the shipment—military efficiency is a thing of beauty.”

Mr. Lane stared at him, mouth agape, then brushed away invisible crumbs from his suit lapels. “It’s in storage. I’ll have to dig it out.”

“I want it delivered to my place of business by Friday.” He handed Mr. Lane a business card and took back the telegram, folding it as he talked. “If it isn’t delivered by five o’clock sharp in the afternoon, I will break a finger for every minute it’s late. If I run out of fingers . . . I’ll just have to get creative. Do we have an understanding?”

The man’s face was puce with rage. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to find inside.”

“Not everything is profit fodder, Mr. Lane. It is simply of sentimental value to the boy’s sister, and I want it.”

“Fine. Are we done?”

Winter’s gaze fell upon a photograph on the mantel. The man’s wife, he presumed. “One more thing. Your brother’s estate in Baltimore was appraised at twenty thousand dollars.”

“Now, you look here—I have no way of getting my hands on that kind of money. The estate was sold off for far less than it was worth, and that was a decade ago.”

“I know exactly how much you’re worth, Mr. Lane. I also know you have $5,607.02 in your account at Hibernia Savings and Loan. I want a check made out to Aida Palmer for that exact amount to be sent along with the footlocker.”

Sweat glistened across Mr. Lane’s forehead.

Winter picked up the picture frame on the mantel, removed the photograph, and handed the frame to Mr. Lane. An idle threat, but the man was a piece of shit who deserved to squirm. “Five o’clock on Friday. Enjoy your dinner.”

Winter knew something was wrong when Bo pulled into the driveway. The gate was standing open, the day’s last rays casting long shadows over the empty space where his mother’s Packard should’ve been sitting. But it was his staff lined up on the side porch that made his heart rate shift from flustered to panicked.

“What’s happened?” he said, slamming the car door behind him.

The maids fled, retreating through the screened door. Only Greta and Benita remained, and their dueling looks of worry versus titillation did nothing to calm his nerves.

“I warned her not to,” Greta said, shaking her head. “I told her you’d skin her alive.”

“What are—”

Excited shouting exploded from the street in front of the house. Bo was already jogging out front. By the time Winter raced to catch up with him, the source of the shouting revealed itself as Jonte. The reserved old bastard was running down the sidewalk, long arms akimbo as he signaled wildly to a car puttering down the street. Winter had never seen him so animated. What the devil was going on?

“Oh my God,” Bo muttered as he tore off his cap and stared at the spectacle.

Winter’s mind finally grasped what was happening. Jonte was running alongside Winter’s mother’s car, which lurched fast, then slow, then fast again. “Brakes!” the old Swede shouted. “Use the brakes before you turn, not after!”

The blood all but drained from Winter’s body when he spotted the Packard’s driver. Astrid? Mother of God, it was. His sister was squealing with either terror or delight—he couldn’t tell which—as she shifted gears and the car’s transmission made a sound that no one should ever, ever hear their car make. And Aida was perched in the passenger seat, cheering her on.

“Shit,” he murmured. “Shit, shit, shit.”

He scanned the street and saw a couple of other cars pulled over to the side, their drivers probably in fear for their lives—and he didn’t blame them. His sister was on a mad path of destruction that flattened a flower bed when she made a jerky, sharp turn into the driveway, veered erratically to the right, nearly smashing the car’s mirrors against the open gate, then came to a screeching halt a mere inch away from plowing into the back of the Pierce-Arrow.

Jonte stopped in the middle of the driveway and bent over, clutching his heaving chest. Bo ran to check on him, but the man was only winded. Probably the most exercise he’d had in years. Winter breezed past them and made a beeline for the Packard.

Astrid saw him coming and flattened herself against Aida on the car’s seat. “I only took it around the block a couple of times.”

His gaze skidded over the length of the Packard, looking for damage as he approached. He could hear the staff tittering on the porch behind him, all of them now back outside to witness Astrid’s exhibition.

“I didn’t hit anything!” she said, then something caught fire behind her eyes. “And guess what—I loved every second of it.”

A goddamn challenge. Wicked little girl . . . he wanted to . . . Christ alive, he didn’t know what he wanted. He looked at Aida.

“Go on and be mad at me,” she said, just as defiant. “It was my idea, and I don’t regret it. She did just fine. Might’ve scared a few of your neighbors, but some of them looked like they needed a little excitement.”

He counted breaths, staring down at them while the staff grew quiet.

For a moment, he didn’t know what he was thinking or how he felt. A strange numbness took root inside his chest. Looking on the scene in front of him, he expected to be reminded of the accident . . . to feel the same fear he’d felt during the weeks after, every time Bo drove him somewhere, every time Astrid got in a car. Sometimes he’d wait outside for Jonte to return with her, making himself sick with worry while he remembered the sounds of the accident . . . remembered how he’d been pinned by the steering wheel, unable to move as he called out to Paulina and his parents and no one answered.

But forcing himself to think about those things was different than the memories coming without warning. And he was forcing it, wasn’t he? As if he were testing himself.

He stared at his baby sister, trying to will his mother’s face in place of hers, but all he saw was Astrid’s rebellion. Behind her, Aida offered him a patient smile that made his insides quiver. He wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her; he wanted to scream at her. For God’s sake, didn’t she understand what he’d been through today? He’d been fighting for her—threatening people, pushing his lawyer, ordering up black magic from Velma to get revenge on the people who nearly killed her . . . ringing the house every few hours to check on her like a nervous mother bird.

He felt raw on the inside. Overwhelmed. Defeated.

“Did you see me?” Astrid asked Bo, a little breathless and puffed up with pride.

Winter cut a sharp look Bo’s way. If he said one single word of encouragement to her, he’d pummel the boy’s head into the pavement for pulling a Judas and siding with the girls. But his assistant just stuffed his hands into his pockets and rocked on his heels as he locked gazes with Astrid. He didn’t give her a verbal approval, but he might as well have applauded—anyone could tell he was fighting back that damned smart grin of his.

“I wasn’t great, but I think I’ll manage it better next time,” Astrid said proudly.

“Not bad,” Aida agreed, poking his sister affectionately on her arm. “Not bad at all.”

Christ. They were all teamed up against him, and witnessing Astrid’s burst of self-confidence, Winter had the sinking feeling he was on the wrong side of this argument. His own guilt and fear had prevented his sister from experiencing this moment of happiness.

And in one day, after losing everything she owned—after nearly being burned alive in her own bed—Aida had done what he was never able to do: she’d stepped into his home and swept away two years of melancholia hanging over the household.

Winter tried to say something, failed, and headed into his home.