“You don’t come near her,” Vivian snapped.
“No, I think that ship has sailed.” He sighed, then shrugged. “Shame. But now that we have all that unpleasantness sorted out, you should get going before you end up arrested for assaulting me in my own home. It really is time to put this behind us.”
Vivian stared at him, horrified by his pleasant tone. He was going to get away with it all. And she had to let him.
Slowly, she lowered the gun.
“I knew you were a smart girl,” Dr. Harris said warmly, almost as if they were having a friendly conversation. He even smiled at her, but there was a cruel edge to it. “So you can go back to serving liquor to drunks and socialites. And I can go back to helping out folks who might die without me.”
“Keep telling yourself whatever helps you sleep at night,” Leo said. “Come on, girls. We’ve gotta get out of here.”
Vivian glanced over her shoulder; Arthur had stepped to one side, gesturing toward the door with one hand in a motion that was almost abow. The smile on his face was mocking. Leo still had one arm around Bea’s waist and was hustling her out the door. Vivian looked back at Dr. Harris one more time. He raised his brows, an expression that was half question, half challenge.
The gun hanging by her side and her finger still on the trigger, Vivian backed up and followed her friends out the door.
TWENTY-EIGHT
They didn’t stop moving until they were half a dozen blocks away, Leo and Vivian half carrying Bea to put as much distance between themselves and Dr. Harris’s office as quickly as they could.
“I’m going to throw up,” Bea suddenly announced, and Leo steered them into a gap between buildings where Bea sank to her knees, her hands braced against the wall. He politely averted his eyes, shielding them from view with his body. But Vivian held her friend’s head between her hands as she emptied everything out of her stomach.
“Are you sure she’s going to be okay?” Vivian asked, wiping Bea’s face and mouth with her handkerchief and helping her stand. Bea was shaking, her eyes glazed and unfocused, but she didn’t seem like she was about to collapse again.
“She should be, yeah. It might take a while to wear off, and she’s probably going to want to spend the rest of the day sleeping. But I don’t think we need to worry.” Leo put one arm around Bea’s waist. “Whistle us up a cab, Viv. She needs to get home, and if we carry her all the way there we’re going to get attention we don’t want.”
“We can’t just let him go,” Bea insisted, her anger clear in spite of theslur to her voice. “We’ve got no reason to trust him. He could change his mind. He could be planning to get rid of us all to keep his secret.”
“Don’t worry, this isn’t done,” Leo said firmly. “I’ve got people I can talk to. I’ll figure out a way to nail him. I can talk to the coroner again. And if I need to, I’ll drag his name into it next time my uncle asks me to look into something.” He reached out to give Vivian’s hand a squeeze. “I’m not going to let anything happen to either of you.”
“He’s already got the cops on his side,” Bea pointed out as a cab pulled over for them.
“Yeah, but his dad’s leaving the city. And I know the commissioner,” Leo quipped as he opened the door.
“Not her,” the cabbie said, glaring suspiciously as they were about to help Bea slide in. “I’m not taking her if she’s going to be sick all over my car.”
“She just fainted is all,” Vivian said quickly. “Too hot out here.”
“Not my problem,” the cabbie sniffed.
Leo wordlessly handed over a few bills. The cabbie counted the money, sniffed again, and shrugged. “Fine then, load her up.”
“Guess I’ll have to start liking you after this,” Bea mumbled once they were all in the back seat, leaning unsteadily against Leo’s side, her eyelids drooping. She glanced at Vivian. “And I guess maybe you and Florence can head home.”
Vivian sat with her purse in her lap, heavy with the weight of the gun. She didn’t want to live with the guilt of killing a man in cold blood. But now she had to live with the guilt of letting him get away with what he had done. And he would always be there, a threat hanging over their lives.
She stared out the window as the buildings began to slide by. “We’ll need to keep our eyes out,” she said slowly. “But I think you’re right. Tomorrow, it’ll be time to go home.”
She knew she couldn’t have shot him. But part of her still wished that she had.
Vivian was on edge when she got to the Nightingale for her shift that night.
Abraham had been at the Henrys’ house, waiting to talk to Bea, when Vivian and Leo hauled her up the stairs. Whatever had been said between them before, he hadn’t asked questions or hesitated before swooping in to carry her to her room and sit anxiously by her side as she slept for the rest of the afternoon.
When she woke up at last, she was still woozy, but there were no other lingering effects from what Dr. Harris had given her. Luckily, Mrs. Henry had been at work all day, otherwise Vivian would have had to decide how much to tell her, and that was a call she didn’t want to make on her own. It had been hard enough choosing to tell Abraham, but he wouldn’t be satisfied with less than the full story. And as worried as he was, Vivian didn’t feel right keeping him in the dark.
Alba, whose pregnancy was just beginning to show, had alternated being sick and caring for Bea all day, and she announced that neither of them were coming to work that night. “But Abraham will drive you, Viv,” she said, giving him a pointed glance. “I don’t know what you girls got up to today, but you should maybe not be wandering around at night by yourself.”
“Sure thing,” Abraham agreed, though he didn’t look happy about it. Vivian wondered if he would ever forgive her for her suspicions, justified though they had been.
