She couldn’t stop rehashing how wonderful it had been to float down the streets, Emil ten feet behind her, as promised, and feel that, for once, she wasn’t alone. How he’d shooed her inside Bartell Drugs with a wink, and she hadn’t doubted he’d still be there when she emerged. Except…he wasn’t.
She’d stood on the corner of First and Pike, finger smarting from a fresh application of antiseptic, until she spotted him conversing with two well-dressed men standing before a shiny automobile. He was particularly deferential to the older of the two, a balding, sharp-featured gentleman who twirled a silver-tipped cane as he spoke. She’d waited, shifting from foot to foot, until Emil cast a brief, apologetic glance her way and climbed into the automobile. As she’d watched it rumble away, its polished body flashing in the morning light, she’d finally, finally understood that she was indeed alone.
It was a harsh—but necessary—reminder that Emil Anderson would always put himself first.
“You cannot be serious.”
She startled at the familiar baritone somewhere to her left, and she angled her body that way. “Mr. Anderson, I presume?”
“Obviously.” There was a lengthy pause. “What on earth are you thinking?”
That she had no intention of ever looking him in the face again—obviously. But since he didn’t know that was her intent, she owed him an explanation.
“I think my disguise is rather clever,” she said haughtily, squinting through her mother’s mourning veil that had been heavily reinforced with extra layers of black lace. “Now you don’t have to walk ten feet behind me.”
Another pause. “That’s not as reassuring as you may think.”
She pivoted—he was more to her right than she’d first thought. “It’s only an issue if widows are more likely than wallflowers to send you leaping into strangers’ vehicles.”
Drat. She hadn’t meant to say that. Why did he encourage such recklessness?
A deep sigh ruffled the lace. “I’m over here, Olive.” A hand nudged her back the other way. “And I already apologized for that.”
She bristled. “You most certainly did not.”
“It was in my note.”
“The note agreeing to meet me here?”
“The one that also sent my regrets over the unfortunate circumstances of our last encounter.”
“That was not an apology.”
“It conveyed remorse.”
“It conveyed vagueness. An apology requires specificity.”
“All right, Olive. I apologize for leaping into a stranger’s vehicle when I had agreed to attend those dreadful talks with you. How were they, by the way?”
“Scintillating.” She hadn’t gone, of course. Why would she when her victim had fled the scene?
“Hmm,” he rumbled, and she suspected he was trying not to laugh. “If you must know, the man you saw was the one who hired me. I assumed you wouldn’t care to meet him.”
She blinked. “The one with the cane?”
“Yes.”
Her blood chilled at the memory of him swinging that silver cane around and around. It had given her a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. That was the man who wanted to know her identity so badly? And Emil hadn’t pointed her out at once? Had even led the man away from her?
“Did you tell him about me?”
“No. Only that I was working a lead.”
She chewed her lip, mulling over his words. “Why?”
“I suppose I was feeling protective.” He hummed deep in his throat. “All that caterwauling in the library must have preyed on my better nature.”
“You—I—you?—”
