“—and innocent—” added Rhoda.
“—and kind and intelligent,” Clem finished.
Pretty words, but they weren’t answers. None of that would cause the unflappable Emil Anderson to become, well, flappable. Seemed she would never know—it wasn’t as if she could ask him herself.
“You’ll have to tell us all about it later,” Rhoda said. “But right now, I need to concentrate. Something is happening.”
Clem sat forward, frowning. “There are far, far more people here than we expected.” She checked her pocket watch. “I don’t know how we’ll get through in time.”
Olive glanced around and noted with a sinking feeling that Clem was right. The sheer volume of people pressing in on all sides was staggering. Pedestrians streamed out of curbside businesses to see what was happening. Overflowing sidewalks forced people into the street. A group of men near the corner gestured heatedly, their voices sharp, their words indistinct.
“Ignore them,” Clem called. “Keep your head held high!”
“We’re at the turn,” Rhoda shouted above the crowd. “I’ve got it!”
Olive’s heart thudded against her breastbone, her gaze skittering over the masses flooding the train station drive. Her knuckles were white on the veil, but she forced herself to look ahead. To obey Clem’s command.
“Oh no, the Reverend is already on the stage,” Winnie cried.
Olive craned her neck and spotted the wooden platform in front of the train station entrance. A rotund man with an enormous handlebar mustache was arranging his materials on the pulpit, nodding his head at someone below him. Not someone.
The scary man with the silver-tipped cane.
She gasped. “What’s he doing here?”
“Who?” Clem demanded.
“The man who wants to know who wrote the suffrage anthem.” The words poured from Olive’s mouth without effort. “The man who hired Emil to find me!”
A trio of gasps alerted her to what she’d just done, but she couldn’t focus on that right now. A man who spoke with an anti-suffragist wanted her.
“You’re the anthem writer?”
“Who is after you?”
“Rhoda, look out,” Winnie shouted at that moment.
Olive barely had time to turn before a sailor danced into the street directly before them, a rapturous look on his face as he flung his arms wide. Rhoda gasped, jerking at the wheel. Maybe they were too close, or maybe Rhoda’s panicked foot hit the wrong pedal, but the car jolted violently forward. The barricade loomed for one brief moment, and then came the jarring impact and the sickening crunch of steel and glass. Olive was thrown forward, her breath vanishing in a shocked gasp. Instinct kicked in, and she flung up her arms to brace herself.
Then she cried out in pain.
Chapter 15
Danger was imminent.
Emil knew it deep in his gut. Had known it when Mack asked him to attend the suffrage procession just in case. When he’d found it impossible to refuse, despite his decision to stay away from Olive ever since kissing her had tempted him into cuddling. When that sweet, funny, distracting woman poleaxed him with her doe eyes while wearing a hat large enough to host afternoon tea for a party of five. All of that was danger enough, but it didn’t account for the shift of energy currently taking place.
He scanned the procession with narrowed eyes. Both the suffragists and antis were quickly dismissed. They wouldn’t be the ones to turn the peaceful demonstration into a disaster. Where was it? There—on the corner, a swarm of drunken sailors spilled from a saloon, drawn to the spectacle like crabs caught in a tide. Their laughter was raucous, their steps unsteady. As Emil watched, one careened into a delivery boy on a bicycle, sending both him and an innocent woman sprawling. Her companion reacted instantly, his face turning crimson as he bellowed into the sailor’s face. Those nearest edged backward, only to spill past the barricades and add to the growing disarray.
And Olive and her friends were riding a tin can straight into the thick of it.
“I don’t like this.’
“Neither do I,” Mack replied.
One shove became another, the unrest leaping from person to person like embers in the wind. Then a bottle arced past, smashing against a storefront behind them. A ripple of silence followed, the kind that made the hair on the back of Emil’s neck stand up. Then the shouting resumed, sharper, wilder. Something was happening up ahead.
A man in a sailor’s hat lurched into the street, flapping his arms like a broken marionette. The nearest automobile—Olive’s—veered sharply. Emil watched in horror as its tires skidded forward. A barricade splintered beneath its weight, shards of wood flying like shrapnel. The women inside were tossed around like rag dolls, and Emil’s stomach dropped.
