“We’re going the same place as your pal up there,” she said, a little out of breath and hoping he couldn’t hear it. Or maybe he’d think they were on the run and drive even faster.
The cabdriver gave her a skeptical look as Leo slammed the door shut behind them. “What’s the address?” he said gruffly.
“No idea,” Vivian replied, trying to sound cheerful and harmless. “You know how it goes. We’re just supposed to follow them. Better hurry.”
She held her breath, thinking for a moment that he would refuse. But then he shrugged. “Fare’s a fare,” he said gruffly, and pulled into the street.
“Are you sure it’s worth it?” Leo asked, one leg bouncing anxiously.
“I need that letter,” Vivian whispered, staring straight ahead, her eyes locked on Honor’s cab, worried their driver would miss a turn or lose sight of it.
“Looks like they’re going over the East River Bridge,” the cabbie said gruffly. “Still want me to follow?”
“Yeah. Yes. Thanks, mister.”
Leo didn’t say anything else as they drove over the impossibly long suspension bridge and turned into Brooklyn. Vivian started to feel lightheaded. She had read the letters. This was where Honor had grown up.
“Pull over here,” Leo told their driver quietly when Honor’s cabbegan to slow down. Vivian glanced at him; he gave her a brief, tight smile as he pulled a small roll of cash from his pocket and peeled off a few bills. He held them out. “Twice that, plus whatever the fare is, if you stick around, yeah? We might need to scram in a hurry.”
The cabbie took the cash—he’d have been crazy not to—but he scowled at them as he did it. “I ain’t sticking around for anything not on the up-and-up,” he said. “First sign of trouble, I’m off.”
“We’re not here for trouble,” Leo said, handing over another bill. “I just don’t want my gal to ruin her dancing shoes hoofing it back over that bridge.”
The cabbie snorted. “Sure, pal. Whatever you say. I’ll stay ’til I have a good reason to go, how ’bout that?”
“Works for us,” Leo said. “See you in a bit.”
Vivian was already heading down the street, not wanting to lose sight of Honor, on foot now and turning into a narrow alleyway. The street on the other side could barely be called that, hemmed in by buildings like teetering children’s blocks. The cabs certainly wouldn’t have fit down there.
Honor headed toward one of them. Laundry that someone had forgotten to bring in still fluttered from lines between its windows. A woman sat on the front stoop smoking, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Inside, a dog barked, then broke off with a yelp and a whimper.
Vivian stopped in the shadow of a building. If Honor was meeting someone inside there, they’d have to figure out how to sneak in. Maybe if they—
“Should I have been expecting you tonight?” The woman on the stoop blew out a long stream of smoke and leaned back on one hand, looking up at Honor.
“It’s morning,” Honor said quietly, stopping on the pavement without climbing the steps. “Sun’ll be up in a couple hours.”
“Not here it won’t,” the woman said, gesturing at the buildings thatsurrounded her. “Takes longer for it to make its way over this horizon. Though maybe you’ve been gone too long to remember that.”
She leaned forward as she spoke, and the light from a flickering streetlamp stuttered across her. Vivian grabbed Leo’s hand. She hadn’t been able to catch more than a glimpse of the maid’s face that day—Maggie Chambers had been too careful to keep her head down. But Vivian recognized the sandy-gray hair, the hoarse voice.
Honor had known exactly where to find her. In Brooklyn. Did that mean—
“Don’t act like you’re neglected,” Honor growled. “I’m here every week. You’re the one who’s refused to move.”
“I like it here,” the woman said. She chuckled, but the sound was lost in a fit of coughing. “But you don’t, so what brings you by?”
Honor pulled a paper from her pocket and held it out. Even from this distance, Vivian could see that her hands were shaking. “You said it wasn’t you.”
Maggie held her hand out for the paper, and her face twisted into a grimace as she read. She looked back up. “Well, and you clearly didn’t believe me. You knew I’d done it, or you wouldn’t have been trying so damn hard to get me to leave town this week. Nothing’s changed.”
“Nothing’s changed? If the cops had seen this—”
“But they didn’t,” Maggie snapped. “And they’re not going to, right?” Deliberately, she ripped the paper in half. Vivian couldn’t stop the whimpered gasp that escaped her. Honor started forward, one hand outstretched, but Maggie ripped it again, and again, then shoved the pieces into the pocket of her housedress. “They’re not going to,” she repeated.
Honor let her hand fall. “And Maggie Chambers?” she asked. “You just went ahead and used your real name? What if he’d recognized it? What if he’d recognizedyou?”
“He never bothered to learn my real name, the bastard. I was Margaret Diamond to him. And as far as recognizing me…” Maggiesnorted, gesturing angrily toward herself. “Even if he did bother to look closely at one of his maids, wouldthismake him think of the pretty dancer he used to know?”
