It was already dark when Joe parked outside the Met’s front entrance. Headlamps flashed in Joe’s rearview mirror from a Buick idling behind him. Was the driver waiting to pick someone up from the museum, or was this a tail Joe would have to shake? If Connor’s concerns were justified, Joe’s investigation had likely attracted the attention of those who’d want to stop it.
Someone could be watching him. Or they could be watching for Lauren. She was the key to his entire investigation, a walking library full of clues. If she was taken out of play, he wouldn’t easily be able to continue.
Sleet pinged the windshield. Lauren exited the museum and trotted down the steps, turning her collar up. She spotted him and waved.
Great. If anyone wondered which woman was Dr. Westlake, she’d just advertised herself by hailing the only cop car at the curb. Grabbing an umbrella from under the seat, he left the car and marched toward her, ready to shelter her from the elements and anything—or anyone—else.
A man in a trench coat headed straight for her from behind. A fedora obscured his face, but his movements were too quick, even for one dashing to get out of the weather.
Joe quickened his pace.
So did the man in the trench coat. He reached for her without calling her name.
Joe took the steps three at a time until he gained her position, one hand locked around the still-closed umbrella, the other ready to go for his revolver.
The man sailed past them both and tapped a different woman on the shoulder. “Miss,” Joe heard him say, “I thought I saw you drop this on your way out.”
Shaking his head, Joe tried to flush adrenaline from his system on a long exhale.
“Eager to see me?” Lauren smiled. “That was quite the sprint up those stairs. For a minute there I almost thought you were going to offer me the use of your umbrella.” Laughter danced in eyes framed by lashes spiked with rain and sleet.
Dash it all. He snapped open the umbrella, held it over her, and linked her arm through his. “I thought...” What could he say? He thought a man was going to attack her? Abduct her? With all these witnesses? Nah. “I thought you’d be hungry.”
She gave his arm the slightest squeeze. “You thought right. I’m starved.”
“Oyster Bar?” The restaurant was inside Grand Central Terminal, a few blocks from Thomas Sanderson’s home on Madison Avenue.
She agreed.
The drive down Fifth Avenue took them past the twenty-one-story Plaza Hotel presiding over the corner of Central Park. A few blocks later, they drove by the nearly-as-tall St. Regis Hotel, then St. Thomas Church, and the twin-spired St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It was only two miles from the Met to the terminal, but with the weather slowing traffic, twenty minutes passed before they rolled into a parking spot.
They entered the terminal from 42nd Street and walked right into Vanderbilt Hall. While Joe kept an eye out for suspicious characters, Lauren looked up.
One hundred twenty feet above the pink marble floor, the ceiling boasted twelve constellations painted in gold on a background that had originally been sea-green but had been stained darker by cigarette smoke since then.
“First time here?” he teased.
“Do I look like a tourist?” She laughed, but her gaze never left the barrel-vaulted ceiling. At dozens of points in the constellations, light bulbs shone through, completing the effect of the night sky. “Did you know this was painted upside down and backward? But it was too late to do anything about it by the time they realized the mistake.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Joe said without examining it for himself. Stargazing would supply the perfect opportunity for anyone following them to slip into position undetected. “Let’s eat.” With a touch to her elbow, he guided her to the ramp that took them to the cellar level.
Beneath the main concourse, the Oyster Bar opened wide its arms with arched and vaulted ceilings covered in creamy terra-cotta tiles interlocked in a herringbone pattern. Lauren started toward the long counter, where they could see chefs shucking oysters at a dizzying speed. It was a marvel to behold, but Joe didn’t want his back to the entire restaurant.
“I can see more from one of the tables,” he told her. “Do you mind?”
Thankfully, she didn’t, and they found one from which he could keep an eye on all doorways.
Red-and-white-checked tablecloths draped the tables. After placing their orders, Lauren folded her long fingers. They were smooth and fair, so different from his mother’s work-roughened hands.
Different from his own.
He could still hear her aunt’s voice, that day he’d gone to the Reisner mansion when he hadn’t found Lauren at the museum. Lauren had been in mourning for her mother, but Joe didn’t know that yet.“You’re the young man she’s been meeting at the museum?”With naked disdain, she looked at his hands. They were clean but chapped redfrom working at the boardinghouse and scabbed from delivering thorny-stemmed flowers for Doreen. Joe’s response had revealed an accent Mrs. Reisner didn’t like, either.“You stay away from her. Stay with your own people, your own kind.”She’d made it clear that Lauren was better than Joe. But he knew that already.
Picking up a lemon wedge, he squeezed too much juice into his goblet and took a sour drink. “How’s the Napoleon Society coming along?” She’d told him about the fire over the phone.
“Ialmostfeel sorry for my father. The fire damaged more than the roof. Newport society—which is really New York society in a different location—associates him with what they see as gross negligence for ‘allowing’ a fire to harm one of their historic homes. He feels like he’s been branded a failure even before the doors opened.”
Joe leaned forward. “If it’s image they care about so much, they’ll come around again once the Napoleon House is restored and polished to a shine.”
