Vivian would have gone after him, but she was too busy staring as Honor stumbled into the lamplight.
“Are you all right?” Vivian asked, grabbing Honor’s arm to make sure she stayed upright. “Where did you come from?” She craned her neck to catch a glimpse of Honor’s face, trying to see if she was hurt.
“Am I all right?” Honor demanded, catching Vivian’s upper arms in a painful grip. Her hair was wild from the scuffle, and there was a mark on one cheekbone that was probably going to turn into a bruise. “Am I allright? What the hell, Vivian?”
Vivian tried to shrink back, but those furious hands didn’t let her go.
“Youliedto me.”
“I didn’t want to put you in any more danger—”
Honor didn’t wait for her to finish. “What were you thinking?” she demanded, shaking Vivian by the arms. “Don’t you have any idea how these things work? They’re sniffing out dozens of people’s secrets. That takes manpower. They got evidence removed from the coroner’s office. That takes connections. Whatever this operation is, it’s not just one person, and they’re not small time. They’ve killed two people.” Another shake, and just when Vivian was about to push herself away,Honor hauled her close, holding her so tightly she could barely breathe. “Goddamn it, Vivian, did youwantthem to get you next?”
“Better me alone than me and anyone else,” Vivian managed to say. It was the only thing she got out before Honor grabbed her face in both hands and kissed her.
Vivian’s mind stuttered to a halt. If she had been thinking, she might have come up with a word likeoverwhelmedorshocked,though neither of them came anywhere close to capturing how stunned she was. But she wasn’t thinking at all. The only thing she was aware of was the feel of Honor’s mouth on hers, the press of Honor’s fingers against her jaw, the smell of hot skin and night air around them.
And then, before she even fully realized what had happened, Honor let her go, her hands dropping abruptly as she turned away. Vivian stared at her back, which was ramrod straight and tense, as her mind struggled to catch up with what had just happened.
“Don’t say that.” Honor’s voice was cool and controlled as ever, as if her sudden burst of emotion had never happened. She ran a hand over her hair, smoothing her blond curls back into place, and gave each of her cuffs a little tug. “There are plenty of people who would be very sad to see anything happen to you, Vivian.”
Vivian’s fingers were on her lips, she realized, brushing back and forth as though trying to find a trace of Honor’s kiss, though she didn’t even remember raising them. She dropped them deliberately and turned away.
Something on the ground caught her eye, and she flinched away as she realized what it was. In the scuffle, the man had dropped his gun.
Honor saw where she was looking and stooped to pick it up. It was a short, snub-nosed little revolver, and Vivian saw Honor’s jaw tighten as she stared at it.
“I don’t know much about guns,” Vivian said slowly. “But isn’t that a little… little?”
“It’s a Fitz Special,” Honor said, and something that might have been a shiver chased over her shoulders. She tucked the stubby revolver into her pocket. “Come on, you’re not staying here tonight.”
She didn’t give Vivian a chance to protest. Grabbing her arm in a tight grip, she hurried them both in the opposite direction from where the two figures had disappeared. Vivian would have objected, but one look at Honor’s stony face was enough to make her close her mouth. There were times to argue, but this was definitely not one of them. She didn’t say anything as Honor whistled up a cab and bundled her inside.
“Where are we going?” she finally asked after Honor gave directions to the driver.
She received a narrow-eyed glance in return. “Somewhere I hope you won’t end up dead by the end of the night.”
It wasn’t a comforting answer. Vivian shivered and stared out the window, not asking any more.
The cab took them to a quiet little street farther uptown. It wasn’t more than a couple miles away, but it might as well have been a different world. The buildings here stood straight, their brick fronts smooth and clean, with window boxes of flowers on the first floors and the sidewalks swept mostly clear of trash.
The apartment Honor eventually hustled her into was on the third floor, a clean, unadorned little room with electric lights and barely any furniture. There were curtains at the windows but no pictures on the walls. Vivian looked around as Honor threw the deadbolt behind them.
Vivian drifted across the floor a little aimlessly, not sure what she was supposed to say or do. She stopped next to the neatly made bed. It was only a few steps away from the stove and sink, not even roomenough between them for a table and chair, though there was a small chest of three drawers next to the bed. “So this is where you live when you’re not at the Nightingale?” Vivian asked, the first thing she had said since they got into the cab.
Honor’s laugh was short. “It’s where I stay sometimes when things are a little too hot for me downtown. I’d hardly call it a place to live.”
“You didn’t have to push me around to get me here,” Vivian pointed out, rubbing her arm. “I wasn’t arguing.”
The look Honor gave her was withering. “Excuse me if I’m feeling a little sour on trusting you at the moment. Do I need to tell you why that was a stupid thing to do?”
Vivian shivered, trying not to remember the shot that had just barely missed her. “No. Are you going to tell me what a Fitz Special is?”
Honor sighed as she took the gun from her pocket. She turned it over, eyeing it warily, before setting it carefully on the chest of drawers. “A man named Fitzgerald makes them out of a regular Colt revolver. The barrel is shorter, and… well, there are a lot of changes to make them work. But the point is, he makes them so officers can carry a gun more easily when they go undercover. The smaller the barrel, the easier it is to hide.”
Vivian felt cold all over, and her legs suddenly seemed to stop working. She sat down abruptly on the bed before they gave way completely. “So you’re saying that second fella was a cop.” Honor nodded. “And he was there to make sure no one followed or caught the other fella, the one who scooped up the dress.” Honor nodded again, still standing, her arms crossed.
Vivian wished she would come closer, would offer her arm like she had in the cab after they left the dress shop. She wished Honor would kiss her again, even if she was still angry. Anything to chase away the fear that was creeping through her. But Honor seemed determined to keep some distance between them. Vivian tucked her knees underher chin, wrapping her arms around her legs, needing comfort from someone, even if it was just from herself. “That other fella, the one we talked to after Pearlie died. He said he tried to catch the letter writer and got knocked out for his trouble. He didn’t say anything about someone trying to shoot him.”
