“The maid?” Levinsky looked surprised by the question. “She’ll have a trial, same as you would have. Press’ll love it. Lotta dirt in this one.”
“I’ll bet,” Vivian said faintly. “I guess…”
So many times in the last few days, she had felt like she was in themiddle of a dream, hoping she would wake up and find that her only worries were paying rent and keeping the new boys at the Nightingale from getting too fresh.
But now that it had happened, she didn’t know what to do with herself.
“I guess I’ll go home,” she said.
She thought about splurging on a cab ride home to celebrate. But she didn’t really feel like celebrating yet. Not until she could see Honor, face-to-face, and find out what had changed in those dawn hours. Not until she could demand an explanation for everything she’d been through in the last seven days.
And anyway, she hadn’t brought any money with her to the station, not trusting that it would make its way back to Florence after they booked her. She didn’t even have a nickel for the subway.
So she walked. The sky had been bright and sunny when she was too dazed to appreciate it. Now there were clouds and a sullen drizzle beginning to fall. Soon, her hat and shoes would be soaked through. She didn’t care.
Vivian dodged through the crowds that thronged the sidewalks, around piles of trash and puddles. The smell of something cooking made her stomach growl; she hadn’t been able to eat anything that morning.
Coffee, she decided as she pounded on the front door of her building and waited for someone to open it, unable to get in on her own without her keys. She wasn’t great at keeping food around, but she had coffee tucked in a cabinet. She’d start with that. And then—
“What’s the matter with you?” Mr. Brown growled as he yanked the building’s creaky front door open and scowled at her. “Ain’t you got no respect for folks who might be sleeping?”
“It’s coming up on noon,” Vivian pointed out. But even his angry face, violet circles under his eyes and cheeks crisscrossed with a drunk’s red veins, was a welcome sight. She pressed a kiss against his cheek and slipped past him. “Thanks for letting me in.”
“You been drinking, girl?” he called after her.
She hadn’t felt the rain when she was outside, too caught up in her own thoughts. But she was shivering by the time she made it to her front door, hoping that Leo hadn’t bothered to lock it when he left. She let out a sigh of relief when it swung open.
He stood in the middle of the room, dressed and ready to leave, hat already on his head. But he wasn’t moving, just staring down at the key she had left on the table.
Vivian let the door swing shut behind her, and the crash made Leo jump. He spun around, his hand going to the back of his waistband, before it fell away.
“Vivian.”
“Hey, Leo.”
The silence stretched between them as they stared at each other. Neither of them knew what to say.
“You’re shivering,” Leo said at last.
“I—yes.” Vivian glanced down, then wrapped her arms around herself. “It’s raining out. And I didn’t have any money with me for the subway.”
“What are… What happened? Why aren’t you…” He pulled off his hat and ran a hand through his hair.
“They let me go,” Vivian said, her thoughts tumbling over themselves. How could she explain what Honor had done? “She was there already. Maggie Chambers. She’d already confessed, and your uncle told me I could go.” She swallowed, then repeated in a small voice, “They let me go.”
“Goddamn, Viv, I thought—I can’t believe—” He let his hands fall to his sides. “You left without saying good-bye.”
“What would the point have been?” Vivian asked. His arms should have been around her, she should have been reaching for him. They should have been giddy with relief. But neither of them moved. “You could have said something, too.”
“What would the point have been?” His voice cracked as he echoed her. “What happened? Why’d they let you go?”
“Honor.” Vivian sounded bewildered even to her own ears. “Maggie had already confessed when I got there. Honor turned her in. Even though it means she’ll lose…” She was crying, she realized. “She said she wouldn’t help, and after last night I knew—I think I’d have done the same if it had been me, I can’t blame her for—But she knew what would happen to me, Leo, she knew and she didn’t say a word, and ithurts—And then God knows why, but she changed her mind and—”
Then Leo did cross the distance between them, his arms going around her, holding her so close that she could feel his heart pounding against her chest. He didn’t say anything while she sobbed into his jacket.
When she pulled away at last, he offered her a handkerchief, and Vivian choked out a laugh at the boring, everyday gesture. She wiped her cheeks.
“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m all a mess. I don’t even know what to do with myself now.”
