TWELVE

LATE AFTERNOON SUNSHINE BROKE THROUGH THE DRIZZLE A couple of hours after Winter left Aida at Gris-Gris, happy as a clam. The taxi dropped him off at his house. He returned a couple phone calls, made a couple more, then stepped out onto the side porch and waited for Bo to return. They needed to recalibrate the search for this Black Star sorcerer and focus on fortune-tellers at the Chinatown temples.

The Queen Anne didn’t have much of a yard, but what little grass they had stretched out from the driveway to the tall wooden fence that separated his property from the Victorian on one side and the Italianate on the other. A fragrant bay laurel tree stood in the corner near a wooden swing. Winter used to sit there and watch the boats glide across the bay until the neighbor across the street added a wing to his house last year and blocked the view, the bastard.

He leaned against the spindled porch railing, thinking of Aida. It was hard to keep his mind on anything else, truthfully. The way she looked up at him in the taxi with those big, haunting eyes of hers, the surprise he’d felt when she kissed him. How warm and plump her backside felt in his palm. How she’d lustily rocked against his lap.

Thank you, God.

But what he was thinking about now was the feel of her slender fingers tracing his tender knuckles. They were sore as hell, and though she’d been careful to use a light touch, her explorations had caused jolts of pain to shoot up his arm. He’d refrained from telling her this, because . . . well, because she was touching him, unafraid, and nothing else mattered.

And when she’d turned her face up to him and he saw the longing blossoming there, he was gone. Despite promising himself that he would try to be a gentleman around her, if she hadn’t kissed him then, he probably would’ve instigated it himself.

She was just too irresistible. So beautiful. So full of life.

Christ. He was crazy about her.

The Pierce-Arrow’s maroon and black body pulled through the open iron gate near the sidewalk and squeezed into the driveway next to his mother’s old Packard. Jonte, a middle-aged first-generation Swedish immigrant who did most of the driving for the household, called out to Winter as he climbed out of the car. “You want the gate closed?”

“Leave it,” Winter answered. “Bo and I are going out to the pier when he comes back with the truck.” He leaned over the railing while the back door of the car opened. His sister’s lemon blond hair bounced into sight.

At seventeen, Astrid Magnusson was thirteen years younger—a surprise, his mother had said when she was conceived. And she was the spitting image of their mother, which was painful for Winter at times. But where their mother had been soft-spoken, Astrid was loud and opinionated. She acted like the world was hers, carrying herself with a defiant tilt to her chin and a fearlessness behind her eyes. And for that, he was eternally grateful. He already had enough to worry about, raising her. Knowing she could stand her ground was a small comfort.

God bless the modern female.

Astrid strode toward him in a striped blue dress that cost him more than the monthly grocery bill for the entire household. But it made her happy, and he was a pushover when it came to anything that did. “How was school?”

“A waste of my good looks and devastating charm. Why are you in such a good mood?”

Aida’s freckled face popped into his mind. Was it that obvious? It couldn’t be. He narrowed his eyes at Astrid in challenge. She lifted one blond brow. Too observant for her own damn good.

“The sun’s shining,” he answered.

“Fine. Don’t tell me. I’ll assume you just made some unseemly amount of cash, and I’ll be dreaming of ways I can spend it. Speaking of, I need new art supplies. Can Bo take me to Hale Brothers on Market tomorrow after school?”

“Why didn’t you ask Jonte to take you on the way home?”

She hefted her book satchel and smacked a mouthful of gum. “I forgot.”

“Then he can take you tomorrow.”

“I don’t like the way he sits in the car at the curb waiting. Bo goes inside with me.”

“Bo’s not being paid to be your nanny.”

Astrid gave him a cross look. “I just feel safer when he’s around.”

“That better be all you’re feeling.”

She tucked a blond strand of her bobbed hair behind one ear and leveled him with a look so tragically bored, he almost believed it. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The screen door creaked open. Greta poked her white head outside. “Telephone, Vinter. It’s some man named Ju with heavy Chinese accent. Very polite.”

“Coming.” Winter urged Astrid ahead of him. She flashed him her middle finger. When he pretended to chase after her into the house, she ran, laughing. The screen door banged against the wood frame behind him as her blond bob disappeared into the hallway.

“Is this man Ju responsible for the ghost trickery?” Greta whispered as she held the mouthpiece of the downstairs telephone against her stomach.

Winter’s good mood darkened. “I sure hope not.”

• • •

Aida finished her happy hour show and took a streetcar back to Golden Lotus, returning home before nine. The early slot hadn’t drawn the same crowd that her usual ten o’clock show did, but it was successful enough to make Velma happy. In turn, Aida was happy to be home at a decent hour.

When she passed by the counter, Mrs. Lin leaned around a paying customer to flag her down. “A note for you was dropped off.”