Bitter Spirits (18 page)

NOT AGAIN.

Winter stared at the bloated corpse of Arnie Brown standing several yards down the tunnel while his mind flashed back to the day he died. It was almost three years ago, right after he'd married Paulina and moved them into their Beaux Arts home on Russian Hill. He'd been fighting with her about Bo. Winter thought she was worried about Bo's character, as she complained that things were missing around the house, and the obvious culprit in her mind was a boy who'd been raised as a thief. But there was more to it. She didn't trust Bo because his mind and mouth were both sharp. She also didn't trust him because he was Chinese.

Winter and Bo had stayed out late one night making a deal at the pier—rather, trying to save a deal that Winter's father had nearly lost after berating a client during one of his manic fits. After the deal was salvaged, Bo was telling Winter he'd rather move out of the Russian Hill house than have Paulina insult him with accusations of stealing. Winter knew he hadn't stolen anything. Hell, he knew Bo's character better than he knew his own wife's. Spent more time with him, too. But Bo had his pride, and Winter was caught between it and the burden of having to placate his parochial wife.

That long-ago night, as Bo locked up the back door on the pier, Winter had walked the dock and came face-to-face with the man he'd just renegotiated the deal with—Arnie Brown. Arnie had a gun and was prepared to kill Winter so he could rob the booze being held at the pier. But the bullet grazed Winter's arm when Bo sneaked around and grabbed Arnie from behind. The three of them grappled, but it was actually Bo who shoved the man off the pier. He couldn't swim.

And now he was slowly shuffling down the tunnel toward Winter and Aida, bloated as he was the day the police found him floating a mile down the bay.

“Coins,” Aida said, already rummaging through his coat pockets.

As they backed away from Arnie's ghost, he checked all his inner pockets . . . pants pockets. Nothing.

“Nothing tasted funny at dinner, did it?” she asked. “You aren't poisoned again?”

“No, no—I felt strange almost immediately last time.”

Aida pulled off his hat and felt around under the band. “Shoes?”

“I've had those on the entire time we were in the room together.”

Arnie's ghost picked up speed, shuffling with greater intent.

They backed up several feet, but Winter realized now that they were trapped. Couldn't go back the way they came dragging a ghost with them into the middle of the raid. Couldn't go forward. He hand went to his gun holster. The last ghost was solid—if Arnie was, too, could he be shot?

“No,” Aida said when he withdrew his handgun. “You might slow him down at best, might not. Let me see if I can send him away.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Absolutely yes. It's a ghost, for God's sake. This is my territory, not yours. Let me try.”

He hesitated. Released the gun's safety. “I'll stay right behind you.”

“Don't shoot me.”

“I'll do my best.”

Aida stalked down the tunnel toward the ghost a little too fast for Winter's preference. The inexperienced woman in the hotel room was all confidence now. No fear. Winter supposed it was good that he had enough for both of them.

The ghost was grotesque, his face an unearthly color. No life behind his eyes, yet he walked. And unlike the brutal shock Winter had felt when he recognized the ghost of Dick Jepsen, he felt something different now: a slow-building anger.

A few feet from Arnie, Aida blew out a hard blast of cold air and charged forward with one hand extended. The slap of her mortal flesh against his ghostly chest echoed off the tunnel walls. White sparks shot through his form. The tunnel lights dimmed and popped on and off.

“Arghh!” Aida jerked her hand back like it was on fire and shook it out. “That hurt!”

Enough of this bullshit. Winter grabbed her around the waist and pulled her backward, away from the ghost.

“He won't budge,” she said, breathing hard as she twisted out of his grip and stood her ground. “Feels strange—solid, but unreal.”

“Move behind me or so help me God, I'll put you over my shoulder. And do not touch that thing again. It's dangerous, Aida. Jesus! Here he comes again. Move!”

“All right, I'm moving.” She ducked under his gun arm and started to shuffle past him, then grabbed his coat. “Buttons . . . Winter! Four of your buttons don't match. They're—”

He glanced down quickly, shifting his gaze back and forth from the coat to the approaching ghost. She was right—they didn't match. They weren't cabochon. In fact, they were embossed with dragon heads and looked as if they'd been hurriedly sewn, with loose threads sticking out like spider legs.

Four coins. Four buttons . . .

Some rat bastard had switched them out during dinner when he'd checked his coat. He'd been so desperate to get Aida's clothes off—and back
on
, when the raid started—that he hadn't noticed. That was careless and stupid.

Aida didn't wait for permission. Just ripped them off and spun around to face Arnie. “After these, are you?” She held the fisted buttons above her head.

The ghost's head tilted as dead eyes tracked the magic inside them.

“Ha!” she said triumphantly. “You want these, huh?” She shook the buttons in her hand like she was baiting a disobedient puppy.

Arnie's bloated body lunged for her. So fast! Winter's heart nearly exploded in shock.

She jerked away from the ghost but dropped one of the buttons. It bounced off a wall and skipped across the tunnel's uneven floor.

Winter froze.

The ghost stumbled against the wall, lumbering, then bent to pick up the fallen button.

“Goddammit, throw the rest of them, Aida!” Winter shouted.

As the ghost stood up and refocused his attention on her, she shifted her gaze to some sort of sawed-off drainage pipe jutting from the wall where it was embedded. Dirty water dripped from the pipe's hollow mouth. “If you want them, old man, you'll have to find them,” she said to the ghost, then clamped her hand over the pipe and forced the buttons inside. They made a horrible racket as they clanged through the pipe—first sideways, straight into the wall, then down. Yes, definitely down below the tunnel.

Pulse pounding, Winter snatched Aida backward, ignoring her protests. He brandished his gun at the ghost and they both watched him, waiting for a reaction.

Arnie Brown walked to the pipe. Turned to face the wall.

And walked right through it.

“Mother of God,” Winter whispered.

“Unbelievable. Did you see that?” Aida said, unmistakable awe in her voice.

Yes, he damn well did, and he wasn't sticking around to find out if the ghost was going to reappear. All he knew was that he didn't have the damn buttons to attract it back and that was enough for him. He whisked Aida through the tunnel's length, looking back over his shoulder a couple of times. It wasn't until they climbed the steps to the House of Shields' storage room and shut the tunnel door that he holstered his gun and allowed himself to relax.

He'd been stupid to let his guard down. Whoever wanted to scare him wasn't finished. Was he going to have to endure the sight of every person he'd killed? The list wasn't long, but he sure as hell didn't want to relive it.

It came back to him again, the memory of Arnie Brown's death. Winter hadn't killed him—Bo had. Was the ghost gone now that the buttons were sitting under the street? What if the sorcerer sent another set of four Bo's way?

“Did you know him?” Aida asked from his side. “Was he like the other ghost?”

Winter nodded as another dusty memory popped into his head. After Bo and Winter had watched Arnie Brown drown in the bay, they'd gone back home to his house on Russian Hill. The police were in his parlor, talking to Paulina as she stood in her robe and slippers while they hauled Mr. Johnson away in handcuffs. It was the cook. She'd blamed Bo, but it was the cook the whole time—one she'd brought with her from her mother's house.

“What?”

He glanced down at Aida's confused face. Had he said that out loud? Maybe seeing Arnie Brown had unnerved him more than he wanted to admit.

“Nothing,” he said. “I have to . . . I need to check on Bo.”

IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT WHEN THE TAXI DROPPED HER OFF AT
Golden Lotus and immediately sped Winter away to God knew where. To find Bo, he'd said after he'd briefly explained how Arnie Brown had come to his grisly end. And to warn his men about the raid.

She wanted to go with him, but he was a bull about refusing her. Said he wasn't dragging her into danger. When she protested, he kissed her soundly—an unfair trick. “I'm not going to sit around worrying about you,” she'd said grumpily when he left.

And she
didn't
worry about him . . . not much, anyway. She actually meant to, no matter what she'd said, and she stayed up for an hour or so, in case he called needing her for another ghost. But as soon as her back hit the creaking Murphy bed, she was out. Probably Winter's erotic exertions in the hotel room that did it. That was certainly what she was dreaming about when the telephone rang the following morning.

She almost never got calls. Especially not before noon, and the little pink Westclox by her bed said it wasn't quite ten, so the call couldn't be for her. But as she laid her head back down, it rang again. She snatched the earpiece off the hook.

“Hello?”

“Were you sleeping?” Winter. His low voice hummed through the line.

“No, no . . . not sleeping.”

“You were.”

“Yes,” she admitted with a laugh. “Wait—is everything okay? You're not calling from a shady doctor after some gangster pumped a few bullets into your legs, are you?”

“Nothing that dramatic.”

“Bo is okay?”

“Yes, fine. I'll tell you everything that happened over breakfast, if you'll join me.”

“For breakfast?”

“You
have
heard of this meal, yes? The one served before lunch?”

“I'm usually too busy sleeping to bother.”

“Well, you've done yourself a great disservice, because breakfast is the best meal of the day. My absolute favorite meal. There are few things I like more than breakfast. Very few.”

Aida twirled the telephone cord around her finger and smiled to herself. “You don't say?”

“Pancakes. Bacon. Eggs.”

“All right. I might be able to crawl out of bed for bacon.”

“That's my girl. You work tonight?”

“Eight o'clock show.”

“Did you have plans this afternoon?”

“Not a single one.”

“How about breakfast first, then we spend the afternoon having spectacular sex.”

She dropped the earpiece and fumbled around in the sheets to retrieve it.

“Aida?”

“I'm here,” she said as her racing pulse tripped.

“I'm going crazy for you. Please don't say no.”

“Okay. Yes.”

He made a small, satisfied noise. “I'm at the Fairmont in Nob Hill. California and Mason. I had a long night, so I just got a room here rather than go home. I'll call Jonte to come pick you up—”

And have the driver gossip to the rest of the Magnusson staff that he took Aida to Winter's hotel room? “I can take a streetcar,” she said quickly.

“Are you sure?”

“I take them every day.”

“Be careful and keep an eye open for—”

“Ghosts?”

He grunted. “That's a smart mouth you have, young lady.”

“You liked kissing it well enough last night.”

“Mmm, I liked kissing all of you last night.”

Aida flopped back on her pillow and grinned wildly at the ceiling.

He gave her the suite number. “Just come straight up. No need to stop at the desk.”

An hour later, stomach somersaulting with nervous energy, Aida was stepping off a streetcar into a terrible storm that came out of nowhere. The skies were perfect and blue when she left her apartment—a genuine summer day, for a change—and now she was dashing through puddles as a black sky opened up and hurtled torrents of rain. By the time she'd skidded onto the marble floor of the Fairmont's column-lined lobby, she was drenched from head to toe and completely miserable. Her reflection in the glass door was not kind. What in the world was she doing here, anyway? Racing across town to meet a man in a hotel . . . it was disgraceful.

She considered going back home, but the lure of promised spectacular sex overrode both her pride and shame. She shook rain off her thin coat and cloche hat, ran fingers through her dripping hair, and marched past staring eyes to the elevator.
Everyone knows what I'm doing here
. A few minutes later, she was standing in front of his room, teetering somewhere between a mild nervousness and a raging panic. She knocked on the door, prepared to flee if he didn't answer in five seconds, four seconds, three—

The door swung open.

Winter's big body filled the doorway. His hair was wet and neatly combed back, dark as rich soil, and he was wearing nothing but a white damask hotel towel wrapped around his hips.

Smelling of soap and shampoo, he propped his forearm on the doorframe. Everything below was all long, ropy arm muscles, bunching shoulders, and that massive chest of his, covered in damp hair. Her gaze dropped to admire impossibly thick thighs. The towel was
just
big enough to tuck around all . . . that.

This certainly didn't look like breakfast.

She shivered, whether from cold or anticipation or fear, she didn't know.

“Christ alive, Aida. You're shivering.”

“I don't own an umbrella.”

He pulled her inside the room with a firm hand on her shoulder. “Get in here before you catch pneumonia.”

This room was just as exquisite and decadent as the Palace's, filled with heavy brocade draperies and beautiful furniture, and what might have been one of the finest views of the city if not for the storm. “You have a balcony?”

“Unless you want to get electrocuted, I'd advise that you wait until the storm's over before venturing out there.” After helping her out of her coat and cloche, he pulled her through the sitting room and into a small bedroom. A second set of glass doors on the far wall opened up to the same balcony, only the doors were wide open there, letting in a cool, damp breeze that sent another shiver through her. She caught another glimpse of the storm-wracked cityscape before Winter made a sharp right and urged her into a brightly lit bathroom. “Get your shoes off,” he said, reaching for a stack of thin towels that matched the one around his waist.

She obeyed without thinking, toeing off her Mary Janes at the heels, leaning on a gold-fauceted vanity for balance. Her hand touched metal. A small round tin stamped with the words
MERRY WIDOWS
and a quantity: 3. It took her a moment to realize what was inside.

She wrinkled her nose, half embarrassed, half offended. “I'm not disease ridden.”

“Neither am I. What's the matter?”

“It makes me feel cheap.”

“I don't know why. They aren't just for disease. I'm not exactly the best candidate for fatherhood at the moment. What precautions have you previously taken?”

“I guess I got lucky,” she admitted. “It was only the two times.”

“I suppose if your lovers were incompetent enough to fail you in other ways, it should come as no surprise that they didn't care enough to see to this, either.”

She'd never thought of it that way, but it made her feel both grateful and ashamed at the same time. Her brain searched for a witty retort, but she was too frazzled to fight.

“One thing at a time, okay?” He slid the tin out of her reach, kicked her shoes aside, and began toweling off her hair. “You look like a homeless beggar,” he said with amusement in his voice.

“I feel like one.” She was relieved to change subjects.

He tossed the damp towel on the tiled floor and picked up another, then stopped to look at her. “I know you're not going to be happy about this, but there's really no way around it, so this is what's going to happen. I'm going to take off your wet clothes, and I'm going to look at the scars on your hips.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, groaning under her breath.

Winter pushed back her damp bangs with one swooping, warm palm and dropped a gentle kiss on her forehead. “I scare children on the street.” His fingers reached for the hem of her striped top. “If you are black and blue and grossly disfigured, I will not even blink.”

She raised her arms as he pulled her top over her head. “It's not that bad,” she mumbled.

“Has your skin turned green and putrid?” he said in a teasing voice as he slipped his hands around her back to unfasten her bandeau brassiere.

“No.”

“Does it look like you've been run over by a lawn mower?”

“No.”

Winter paused to look at her as cool air breezed across her bare breasts. The front of his towel expanded, temporarily distracting her from his fingers, which were unbuttoning and sliding off her skirt. When she stood in nothing but stockings and lacy-edged silk tap pants, her anxiety ramped back up. She stared at the wall as he tugged her stockings down.

“Aida,” he commanded as he stood. “Look at my face.”

The bright light from the bathroom vanity made his good pupil constrict to a fine black point—a drastic contrast to his dilated eye. He pressed a kiss between her brows and slowly rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “It's only me.”

“I know,” she replied as her muscles began relaxing under his petting hands. “That's what makes it worse.”

“Why?”

“Because—” She lost her train of thought when his hands moved from her arms to her waist. Before she could protest, warm palms slipped beneath the waist of her tap pants and ran down her hips.

“I can barely feel them.” A moment later, silk slid down her legs, and there was nothing she could do but endure his inspection. Dense patches of toughened, bumpy skin started at the outer curve of her lower hips and spread down, mid-thigh, each patch about the size of her hand. The freckles both hid the scars and made them more noticeable in places.

“This is what you're worried about?” he said, running the pads of his fingers over her scars. “How long have you had them?”

She let out a long breath. “Since I began working nightclubs. They've gotten thicker over the last year. And I know you can see them, so don't tell me you can't.”

“Yes, I can see them,” he said softly.

“I've tried to use the lancet on other places, but this is the easiest to hide onstage.”

He studied the other hip and brushed his knuckles over a tender spot. “It's red here.”

“That was from two nights ago, my last show. I try to switch sides every show.”

“Probably wise.” His hand ran up the scars, over the upper curve of her hip, up her ribs. Then he cupped her breasts, catching her off guard. “Now, are we done with this ridiculousness?”

“Yes,” she said, feeling as if she'd cleared some small hurdle or received a passing grade on a test. And when he traced circles around her nipples with his thumbs, she gasped for breath and forgot about the scars altogether.

“Good.” The erection tenting his towel brushed against her stomach. “See what you do to me?” he whispered roughly against her hair. “Even the sound of your voice makes me hard. Your smile . . . your laugh. You smell so damn good. Christ, Aida—you turn me into a babbling fool.”

“Winter.”
Her forehead fell against the damp hair on his chest. He was always so warm.

“I want you, cheetah. Every inch, scars and all. I want all of you.”

His words emboldened her. The corner of towel tucked into his waist looked as though it wouldn't take much effort to come loose. She took hold of that corner and tugged.