Vivian didn’t know how to respond to that, so instead she turned to glance out the window. “We’re almost there,” she said, shimmying out from under Honor’s arm. “You can head on home after you drop me off.”
Honor blinked at her, clearly caught off guard. “What?”
“You can head home,” Vivian repeated, giving her a smile as harmless and friendly as Honor’s own had been a moment before.Nothing to see here,her smile lied.Nothing at all.“And yes, I know, I owe you a favor. I’ll be ready whenever you want to call that in.”
“Vivian…” Honor shook her head. “I can’t just leave you on the corner.”
“Sure you can,” Vivian said. She glanced toward the front of the cab and chose her words carefully. “I’m just going to put it where I’m supposed to and go to bed. It’s not like that’s something I need company for.”
“You sure?” Honor crossed her arms, watching Vivian with skeptical brows.
Vivian swallowed, her smile still in place. “Honest. I don’t need to be on anyone’s bad side, and neither does my sister. I just want tonight to be done.”
The trickle of sweat making its way down her back wasn’t just from the summer heat. She was lying through her teeth, and she could only hope that Honor didn’t realize it.
Honor didn’t look convinced. But she didn’t protest when Vivian told the cabbie to pull over and hopped out alone. As the cab drove away, Vivian felt a pang of hurt that Honor had left her so easily. But she told herself it was stupid to be upset when she had gotten what she wanted.
For what she was planning, it was better to be alone. No need to put anyone else in danger. There had already been enough of that for one night.
The note had said to leave the dress wrapped up and under the front stoop of her building. Vivian, after a quick glance up and down the street to make sure there was no one else there, did just that before going inside.
But instead of climbing the stairs to her own home, Vivian headed toward the door to Mrs. Kaminski’s empty apartment.
To her relief, the door was still propped open to let out any lingering gas. With one more nervous check over her shoulder to make sure there was no one else in the hall, Vivian slipped inside.
She didn’t close it all the way behind her, afraid it might lock or that not all the gas had been let out. She tried not to breathe deeply. The room still had a heavy, musty, animal smell to it. Vivian told herself it was just the scent of a home that needed to be cleaned and not the lingering smell of death.
Navigating around the crowded room mostly by feel—barely any light filtered through the curtains—Vivian made her way to the window. On the way she nearly knocked over a stool, and she grabbed it to keep it from toppling over. Pausing, she listened, ears and eyes straining in the dark, to make sure no one had been alerted by the sound. Then she carefully tucked the stool under one arm and brought it with her to the window.
Mrs. Kaminski’s curtains were heavy old things, but it was easy enough to tuck back a single corner, one that hopefully wouldn’t benoticed from the outside. As dark as it was inside, Vivian hoped she would be invisible to anyone who glanced her way from the street. Setting the stool down, she inched closer to the tiny gap until she could just see the corner of the stairs where she had left the dress. She settled in to wait.
At first Vivian’s mind couldn’t settle, filled with worry over what she was doing, what she was risking. She was being careful, as careful as she could be, but it could still go wrong. And if it did, she wasn’t going to be the only one who suffered. Florence was the one who had received the letter. She was the one who would be most in danger. But Vivian couldn’t convince herself to go upstairs. She could let the letter writer—or whoever worked for them—take the dress. If she did that, she would probably never hear from them again. Unless, of course, she and Florence came in the path of some other money and ended up in the letter writer’s sights again.
Or if not them, someone else. The thought made Vivian’s fury gather into a bitter weight in her chest, even as sweat prickled her skin in the hot, still room. Whoever was writing those letters was coming after desperate people, families with so little that a necklace counted as wealth. Then there was Pearlie. Whatever shady business had brought him his money, he hadn’t deserved to be killed for it. And Florence… with her, the letter writer had expanded their awful business into forcing other people to take on the danger of theft and crime for them.
The anger inside Vivian twisted, becoming something more complicated as her thoughts turned toward Florence. She closed her eyes for a moment as if that could hold those thoughts back, pressing her forehead against the windowpane that was the only cool thing in the room.
If she could keep Florence safe, they could go back to their quiet life together, the two of them against the world, just like it had always been. Nothing needed to change.
The sound of quick, deliberate footsteps broke into her thoughts. Vivian started, her head bumping the glass as she realized she had dozed off. She winced, shrinking back behind the curtain and hoping that no one had seen her there. When the footsteps outside paused, she risked a glance.
There weren’t many streetlights in this part of the city, and the shadows between them looked even darker when compared to those pools of golden light. But there was enough of a glow reflected off the steps for her to see a dark figure, hat pulled far forward to shadow his face, retrieve the bag from where she had left it.
Vivian’s heart was pounding like it would come out of her chest as she watched the figure check the bag, glance around—she shrank behind the curtain again but didn’t take her eyes off him—and then walk briskly away.
Vivian, after only a moment of hesitation, stumbled her way back to the door and into the hall. She peered out the front door just in time to see the figure disappear around the corner.
This time she didn’t hesitate. Closing the door as softly behind her as possible, she hurried after.
She had nearly reached the end of the block when she realized the strange thumping noise she could hear was the sound of heavy feet behind her. Vivian turned in time to see a second figure, moving toward her at a pace that was almost a run. She had enough time to see that he was tall and heavyset, but he dodged around the pools of yellow lamplight so that his face never caught the light.
Vivian froze, and then it seemed like everything happened at once.
The figure raised a hand, and the streetlight glinted off something metallic pointed right at her. There was a clicking noise, so faint she could barely hear it. Before she had fully realized what was happening, before she could do anything to react, a third figure, this one slim and quick, had barreled into the man, knocking him off balance just as the bursting sound of a gun firing tore through the night air.
The shot went wide, striking the side of the building Vivian was next to and spraying chips of stone into the air. She didn’t even flinch as one caught her shoulder, slicing through her sleeve. She just stared at the hole the bullet had made, her mind refusing to understand what had almost happened.
She was shaken out of her stupor by the sound of cursing. The heavier, larger figure wasn’t putting up nearly as much of a fight as he could have. Instead, he swore loudly, pushing away and holding up one hand, as though wanting to make sure his face wouldn’t be seen. The slim figure tried to catch him, but he shook her off, shoving her away before dashing across the street and disappearing into the warren of alleys.
