Kicking It(62)

—

“Tell me the story,” he said, when he’d gotten permission from Ethan for Rachel’s temporary residence at the House and we were on the road, skirting Lake Michigan as we drove north.

I hesitated. My past wasn’t exactly clean and shiny, and I didn’t like to talk about it. Rehashing the history wouldn’t do any good for anyone, as that magazine proved.

“It still affects you,” Luc said, with his uncanny ability to understand what I was thinking, what worried me. The skill was as irritating as it was relieving.

“It shouldn’t affect me,” I said.

Luc snorted. “That’s all well and good, sunshine, but I’ve got a glossy, paint-spattered magazine that says otherwise. Explain, or I’ll have to call Helen and ask for your personnel file and get all the gory details. And you know she’ll give it to me.”

Helen was Cadogan’s warden, a woman who had very specific taste in vamps. Luc was on her good side; I never had been. That made him right about my personnel file.

I nodded, keeping an eye on the road—and on Rachel’s taillights in front of us. “The first line of the note—‘Madmen know nothing’—is from ‘The Tell-Tale Heart.’”

“The Poe short story?”

“The same. It was also the password for our favorite speakeasy.”

Luc nodded. “The Sapphire. That was you and the flower girls, right?” He’d taken to calling them that, the vampires I ran with. Violet, Daisy, Iris, and me, Rose.

“This has something to do with them?”

“They died,” I quietly said after a moment. “They got caught in the cross fire of a gangland feud.”

“Bullets don’t kill vampires,” Luc said.

“A couple of bullets? No. That’s not what this was. It was excessive. It was the first real violence I’d seen, and there was so much of it.”

“That’s when you came to Chicago,” he said.

I nodded. “Took a train and started over. And with your gentle and modest instruction, I learned discipline. I learned self-respect. I tried to put the past behind me. I guess that was naive.”

“Thank you for telling me that,” he said. “For letting me know.”

He sounded sincere, and he felt sincere. He hadn’t given me any reason to doubt him. But trust was a funny thing, and not something I knew much about. Not something I was ready for.

The question was, Would I ever be ready?

—

The girls’ house looked like most of the others on the block. Two short stories and a front porch held up by thick square columns. It had probably been built during World War II, when families lived here. Now it was home to three college-aged girls and, on one side of the porch, a well-used gingham couch.

We got out of the car and followed Rachel up the steps and into the living room, which had wooden floors, mismatched furniture, and plants that looked like they received as little sunlight as I did. The house smelled of age and fruity perfume.

“My room’s back here,” she said, leading us through a narrow hallway.

Rachel’s room, unlike the rest of the house, was spotless. Small bed. Nightstand. Bookshelf. Large chest of drawers with a mirror on top in a style that matched the rest of the furniture. Wicker baskets held well-organized odds and ends, and the bed was neatly made.

“Where did you find the magazine?” I asked.

“It was on the bed. I grabbed it, saw what it said, and got in the car.”

“Good head on your shoulders,” Luc said. He walked to the bureau, perused a few frames. “And what do we have here?” he asked contemplatively, then turned the photograph so we all could see.

There, in a faded black-and-white print that had seen better days, stood the four of us. I walked to him to get a closer look.

“You are a constant surprise,” he whispered, his eyes wide as he looked over the image.

I wore a sleeveless dress that hit my knees, covered in fringe that shimmied and shook whenever I sauntered in it, which I did with aplomb. The string of pearls, long enough to graze my abdomen, had been a gift from a particularly generous gangster. My hair was short and carefully curled into perfect finger waves that framed my face.

A trio of women stood with me. These were the flower girls: Daisy, Iris, and Violet. Our arms were around one another’s waists, our gartered right legs canted for the camera, Mary Jane heels on our feet.

“Where did you get this?” I asked, glancing back at her.

She flushed, just a little. “It was in a box of stuff I got from Mom—old family photos.”

“It’s definitely old,” I said. “It was a long time ago. And we should hurry.”