“Does it mean anything?” Florence asked.
Danny took her suitcase out of her hand over her mild protest, then scooped up Vivian’s as well. “All names mean something, don’t they?” he said, his voice teasing. “My parents picked mine to mean that every day with me is like a precious gem. Which is true.” He gave her a wink, which made Florence look away, though she smiled as she did so.
The upstairs apartment where Danny led them wasn’t fancy, but it was nicer and more spacious than their own home, filled with the sort of cozy clutter that collected over years and that Vivian assumed was part of belonging to a family. Danny led them up a second flight of stairs to a small room that was half storage but had enough space for both of them to sleep. “I’d offer you girls my own room, but I share it with my cousin Lucky, and he’d throw a fit if I kicked him out.”
“This is swell, Danny, really,” Vivian said, looking around. “You’re a peach, and you’ve got the nicest parents I’ve ever met.”
“I’m glad to help you out,” Danny said softly, but his eyes were onFlorence, who was running a hand over the gauzy material of the curtains. When she turned and found him watching her, she fell still, a shy smile creeping over her face.
Vivian, who had finally begun to relax for the first time in hours, felt as though someone had squeezed her heart. She might as well not have been there, so focused were they on each other for that brief moment. Vivian found herself remembering her argument with Honor the night before, and loneliness began to prickle behind her eyelids.
She turned away quickly, not wanting to let the feeling linger, and cleared her throat. “Well, we’re glad to help out in return. Which means we should probably get downstairs and do our part in the kitchen. Come on, Flo.”
“Of course.” Florence glanced around, on edge once more, but her smile returned when her eyes met Danny’s. “Are you coming, Mr. Chin?”
“Danny,” he suggested.
Florence hesitated, then nodded. “Danny.”
“Come on,” Vivian said, yanking the door open, angry that she could feel anything other than relief and gratitude. Florence was safe, and that should have been all that mattered. “Let’s go down.”
It was late—after the dinner rush—and Vivian’s hands were wrinkled from hours spent washing dishes when she finally started dressing for work. Florence was already sitting on the room’s only bed, which they would be sharing, her knees drawn close and tucked under her chin. She watched as Vivian shimmied into one of her dancing dresses and rubbed Mrs. Chin’s lotion into her hands to soften them.
“Are you sure it’s safe for you to go to work tonight?” Florence asked quietly, fiddling with the hairbrush that was lying on the bed next to her. “If it’s not safe for us to be home, then shouldn’t… shouldn’t we just stay here?”
“No one’s going to get me at the Nightingale,” Vivian said with more confidence than she felt. “And anyway, I don’t think whoever wrote that letter will be coming after me yet. They want that dress, right? They’ll be waiting for us to hand it over.”
“But the note said tonight,” Florence reminded her. “So after today—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Vivian said quickly, sliding the brush out of her sister’s nervous fingers and using her reflection in the window as a mirror to style her hair. Sliding a pin decorated with feathers and beads into place, she gave Florence a smile, trying to reassure herself as much as her sister. “By tomorrow, Leo should have things in motion for us. And then it should just be a little while until whoever is doing this is either caught or slinks back into the shadows.”
“I’m glad you have a plan,” Florence said, easing herself down onto the pillows, still curled into a tight ball. “I’m still angry with you, by the way. For keeping this from me.”
“I didn’t have a good reason to share it,” Vivian protested.
“I just thought we were telling each other everything now,” Florence said quietly, her words a forlorn accusation that made Vivian flinch. “No more keeping secrets.”
“Are we?” Vivian asked, thinking of the way Danny and Florence had kept sneaking glances at each other as Danny went in and out of the kitchen that night. “Do you tell me everything, Flo?” Her sister didn’t answer, and Vivian sighed as she picked up her shoes. “Anyway, I’ve got work. Danny’s off tonight, so he’ll be sticking around here to keep an eye on things. And no one but Honor knows we’re here, so you don’t need to worry, okay?”
“And you’ll be careful?” Florence asked as Vivian turned to leave.
Vivian gave her a quick smile over her shoulder. It was a pretend smile, the kind that she gave customers who wanted someone to flirt with, a girl with no worries so they could forget about the worries in their own lives, too. She hoped Florence couldn’t tell the difference. “I’m always careful. I’m just not always good.”
Florence shook her head. “That’s not funny.”
Vivian relaxed into a real smile. “Sure it was. Cheer up, Flo. I’m taking care of it. I promise.”
Danny’s parents hadn’t wanted her walking through the restaurant to head to work—which Vivian couldn’t blame them for—so Danny had promised to show her the trick for getting out the back and down the fire escape. She wasn’t surprised to find him waiting for her in the family’s common room.
But the man waiting with him did catch her off guard. The last she had told Leo, she had expected they would be staying at the Nightingale; if he was standing there now, hat in hand while he met her eyes, that had to mean he had gone there looking for her and Honor had sent him downtown. Which meant…
Vivian caught her breath. “Did you already see the medical examiner?”
“I did—” Leo began, but he didn’t get any further than that before she threw herself forward, wrapping her arms around him. Leo, completely caught off guard, just managed to catch her; his answering embrace was not nearly as enthusiastic as she expected, but that didn’t dim her relief. Stepping back to catch her breath, she didn’t let go of his arms as she asked, “You did it, then? Already? Thank you, thank you. What did he say?”
“What were you up to, pal?” Danny asked from behind her. “Whatever it is, you don’t look happy about it.”
Danny was right, Vivian noticed, her relief beginning to seep away like cold water trickling down a drain. “Leo? If you talked to him already, what’s got you looking so flat-footed?”
