“Ginny.”
“Yes…Ginny.”
“But how? When?”
Nathan’s palms turned up in a gesture of confusion, and he leaned back against the velvet upholstery. “Sometime after I last left her with Charlotte and the baby and sometime before I returned last night with the gown you borrowed.”
“She was dead then? You saw her?”
“I think I was probably the first to discover her body.” Because the blood was so fresh, he remembered, and her flesh was still warm. He did not tell Lydia these things, but he saw in her expression a certain understanding. Her imagination had filled in the gaps.
In her lap, Lydia’s hands were trembling. Ginny. Ginny dead. Murdered. Why would anyone want to hurt Ginny? “You alerted the others? Went for the police?”
“No.”
“No? I don’t understand.”
“I don’t expect you to.” And he couldn’t explain. How could she possibly understand what had gone through his mind when he’d seen Ginny’s slashed wrists, the rope burns the wounds could not quite hide, a suicide that wasn’t one at all. It mightn’t have been Ginny he saw, but another woman all together, in another place, at an earlier time. Nathan had reacted with less presence of mind than he had at fourteen. He had so much more to lose now, and that thought guided his actions more than common sense.
The entry hall of Ida Bailey’s brothel had been deserted when he came in. He did not find that unusual given the lateness of the hour. Even prostitutes eventually retired for the night, and he abandoned the idea that he might find some small comfort in the arms and thighs of a whore. He did look around for someone, but in the end no one saw him climb the stairs to Ginny’s room to return the gown. He had rapped lightly on her door, and when there wasn’t an answer he assumed she was on the floor above, keeping vigil in Charlotte’s room. Opening the door quietly, he had walked in…and seen her.
She was dead. He knew it immediately. There was too much blood for it to be otherwise. The long, angry slashes on her wrists were fatal ones, yet Nathan found himself touching her, feeling for a pulse, some meager sign of beating life, before he allowed himself the luxury of panic.
There were voices on the stairs then, either above or below him—he couldn’t tell—and the door to Ginny’s room was not completely closed now. In mere seconds someone might come upon him, and their conclusion would be the obvious one. Dropping the borrowed gown, Nathan threw open the window sash and unhesitatingly made his second leap of the night.
He might have broken his neck, or at least injured an arm or leg, but the full hedgerow below him cushioned his fall. He walked away with nothing more serious than a few scratches on the back of his hands.
“No one except you knows I was there,” he told her. “Not yet. Perhaps you can understand why I would rather not be connected with any of this. Being linked to a murder—anyone’s murder—will play hell with my business alliances.”
“And that’s important to you.”
“As your reputation is to you. If you tell anyone I was there, I’ll be forced to tell them the whole of our evening.”
Lydia blanched. “All right,” she said finally. “But Ida may say something.”
“Ida Bailey has herself to protect—her business and her reputation. She’s not going to say a word about her customers or anyone else who visited her house that night—including both of us. You saw for yourself how indifferent she was to Charlotte’s death. I expect Ginny’s murder is being observed with only slightly less callousness.”
It was cold in the carriage now, although Lydia didn’t think the temperature had dropped at all. The chill she was feeling worked its way from the inside out, finally prickling her skin so that even pulling her cape more closely about her shoulders didn’t help. “Why tell me you went back there at all?” she asked. “I only told you to get rid of the gown, not to return it. I might never have known you were there.”
“Yes, you would have. I dropped the gown on Ginny’s bed before I left. The reporter mentions it lying there in his description of the murder scene, but he doesn’t know what to make of it. It will be identified as Ginny’s gown, but only you and I know why it’s wet and soiled. Just as only you and I know which of us had it last.” He leaned forward now, resting his forearms on his knees as the carriage swayed gently over the Point Lobos toll road. “When I saw the account in the paper I realized you might see it as well. The conclusion you would leap to was too obvious for me to ignore. You must know this: I didnotmurder Ginny Flynt.”
Lydia’s mouth was dry and her throat ached so that she could barely swallow. She wished it were darker so that she could not see Nathan’s face quite so clearly, not feel the cool silver eyes cornering her as if she were indeed the wolf’s prey. “Of course you didn’t,” she said at last.
And her tone convinced neither one of them that she believed he wasn’t capable of it.
The Cliff Housewas built six years earlier not far from the western end of Golden Gate Park. Overlooking the ocean and a white sand beach, the tavern was a popular place with many of San Francisco’s prominent citizens. Even the route to the Cliff house was considered a fashionable journey. The toll road was the sight of expensively tooled carriages making the circuit from the city to the Cliff House and back again. Style dictated that a Dalmatian dog follow the carriage, making the drive seem more of a procession than a mere pastime. A mile-and-a-quarter-long speedway ran parallel to Point Lobos for use by horseback riders who still preferred speed to being seen.
Nathan and Lydia were seated in one corner of the tavern, and Nathan chose the chair at a right angle to Lydia instead of across the table from her. Her mood was quiet, more withdrawn than thoughtful. They spoke very little until their order was taken, and then only about the merits of the roast beef versus the lamb.
Nathan drank cold beer from a pewter mug. “I admit I was surprised to find you ready this evening.”
“That’s not a compliment, Mr. Hunter. I gave my word. And it’s only for this evening, isn’t it? I’m not obligated to go anywhere with you ever again.”
“Nathan,” he said, reminding her. “My name is Nathan, Lydia.”
That was that, she thought. He wasn’t going to respond to anything else she’d said. Did he want to see her again or not? Conversation with him was so much more difficult than with Brigham. She felt as if Nathan only ever said the smallest part of what he was thinking.
“My mother didn’t want me to come with you tonight,” she said.
