He squeezed her hand.
“So you’re looking for whoever was meeting with that actress the morning she was murdered?” he asked, pointedly dropping her hand, and the subject.
Grace’s hopes fell another notch. “We have this image of her, in the newspaper,” she said, trying to mask her disappointment. She pulled out the picture. “If that helps jog a memory.”
“I’ll ask around,” Walt said. “They’re more likely to talk to me.”
She swallowed, and reluctantly handed over the newspaper. She didn’t want him descending into the Tunnels again, not for any reason. But she knew that he had to make his own choices. Even the ones that broke her heart without her permission.
“Bye, Gracie,” he said. He kissed her cheek with his dry lips, and she could see the part of his eyes that were still him, his gaze lingering on her like she was Christmas morning. Her chest ached.
“Can we meet again to hear your updates?” she asked, grabbing out for him in a desperate attempt to keep him there, safe, with her. “Back here for lunch? Tomorrow?”
“I’ll need a bit longer than that,” he said.
“Two days’ time?”
He nodded. And then he slipped into the bustling crowd and disappeared, just one more face among thousands, in a body that held part of her heart.
She bit her lip, staring down at the table, mortified that Theo had seen this part of her when he already had so much more power, commanded so much more respect from everyone in their world than she did. She looked for the waiter.
“Let’s get the bill,” she said briskly. “I’ll pay for me and Walt.”
He waved her off. “I already took care of it,” he said. She began to protest, but he cut her off by saying, “What’s the plan now?”
They stood, and she was secretly grateful she didn’t have to ask him for a loan. “I’d like to talk to Lillie’s doctor friend this evening,” Grace said. “About strychnine, and where it might have come from.” She thought of Walt, rejecting her offer of help. Tonight could have turned out so differently. It made her eyes prick and sting. As if he had rejected her, too.
“How long had it been?” Theo asked quietly. “Since you’d seen your brother?”
She shrugged. “About a year. He wasn’t always like this,” she said defensively, her voice betraying her with the slightest shake. She heard the drone of bees around them in the sunken gardens, could smell the hyacinths as they made their way toward the fairgrounds exit. It made her head pound to think about all the people whose depths were shallowed out to only be what others saw. The sheen of Wealth. The cracks of Pain. A shadow of people, not ever their true essence.
Theo paused. “What was he like before?” he asked. His voice was interested but rough, uncertain, as though he were making his way down a path he’d never been before.
“When we were younger,” she said, “my parents were working late at the restaurant. Walt couldn’t have been more than ten, and we were home alone. We heard some drunk, jangling the doorknob, trying to get in the house. And Walt hid me, sheltering me with his own body.” Her voice dropped into a whisper. “I’ll never forget the way hislittle-boy heart was beating, so fast.” It had been a light and frantic thing. Like hummingbird wings. “He was so little himself, but he was determined to protect me.” She scrunched up her nose, determined not to cry in front of Theodore Parker. When that failed, she tried turning the prick of tears to anger. “There is nothing more painful than watching someone you love drown in front of you,” she said fiercely, “in an invisible water that you can’t stop.”
And yet the tears were rising, threatening to spill out. There were three safe places for Grace to cry—with her mother, with Lillie, and with her pillow—and she feared she wasn’t going to make it to any of them. Theodore Parker was the very last person she wanted to cry in front of.
Thankfully, they passed beneath the fairgrounds gate and she quickened her pace.
“Please go,” she said. “I’ll meet you tomorrow.”
He hesitated, seeing her blotchy face. Then he tipped his hat with a stiff bow and obeyed, striding away from her.
She crossed the street and ducked into an alley, feeling the sobs rise. She wasn’t going to make it to her safe place.
She cried, covering her face with her hands. And then she felt someone’s strong arms wrap around her.
She knew it was him by the scent. Cinnamon and smoke. He didn’t say a word, because she would die of embarrassment, and he knew it.
But in that moment the last thing she wanted was for him to leave. This realization was made infinitely easier because she couldn’t see his jaunty, arrogant face. Instead she melted into him, and he instinctively tightened his arms around her. She nestled in closer. She had no pride left. She just wanted someone to hold her.
“You’re going to be okay, Covington,” he whispered roughly against her temple. She felt his voice on her skin, sending a spray of sparks down her spine.
She took a deep breath.
By the time she opened her eyes, he was gone.
That night she was dressed in her nightgown, wrapped in a blanket, when there was a knock on the artist’s studio door.
