“Run off together.”
“Miss Sail . . .” Red splotches bloom on Matthew’s cheeks. “I’m . . . I’m flattered, I suppose. But you can’t possibly think your Miss LeVine would have any interest in a fella like me.”
“But she told me she was going to tell you.” My words are coming out high and gaspy again.
Matthew’s eyes are trained on the hood of the car. “Tell me what?”
“That she loves you.”
A muscle in his jaw ticks. “No disrespect intended, Miss, but I think you must be all balled up.”
“I’m not. Lydia loves you. When she left my house yesterday, she said she was coming home to tell you. I watched her walk through the gate.”
Matthew looks at me, mouth downturned and eyes brimming. He looks as though he pities me. “She must have been teasing you.”
“Lydia doesn’t believe in teasing.”
“Then it must’ve been a misunderstanding.”
“It wasn’t a misunderstanding.” I stomp my foot. “If she’s not with you, Matthew, then where is she? Where is she?”
Walter is here, his thick arms around me, holding me back. “It’s okay, Pippy.”
“She didn’t tell him.” My words are a blubbery mess against the shirt I bought only yesterday. “She never told him. They’re not together, she’s just . . . gone.”
My mind plays out ugly scenarios—Lydia snatched from the street. Lydia crying for help, calling for me, but I’m oblivious inside my house. Lydia terrified and unable to fight off her captors.
“I’m sorry I made things worse.” Matthew’s words are hoarse.
Walter’s arms gather me against him and squeeze. “Piper was holding on to hope.”
“We’re all trying to. I’m sorry, Miss Sail.” Through my blurred eyes, I find Matthew regarding me with more emotion than I thought him capable. “I’m sorry I didn’t keep her safe.”
At that, his chin trembles, and he busies himself with the bucket of suds.
“Let’s get you home,” Walter murmurs as he guides me up the alley.
“She’s out there, Walter. We have to find her.”
“Lots of people are looking.” Walter’s words are low and soothing. “They’re doing their best.”
But what if their best isn’t enough?
CHAPTER
FIVE
Piper?” Joyce stands in the doorway of the living room. Her pale blue work dress has damp patches from washing dinner dishes and she holds a rag in her hand. “Jeremiah Crane is on the phone for you.”
Walter stops digging through the box of screws and Nick’s heel stops tapping against the floor.
“Can you tell him I’m not available to speak right now? That I’ll ring him tomorrow?”
“Of course.” Joyce’s footsteps whisper down the hall, back to Father’s office.
“What’s he calling for?”
I open my mouth to answer Walter.
“He’s keen on her.” Nick taps his pipe against the desk. “He called earlier too.”
I almost say he’s not keen on me, but then I recall this afternoon’s invitation to the movies. The memory is foggy, as if perhaps it was only a dream.
I press my fountain pen to the page of my notebook. Lydia watched Cole for the Barrow family during the last month because their nanny left to work at John Barleycorn. She once told me that she didn’t like being there if it was just Mr. Barrow, because—
“How can you study at a time like this?” Nick’s voice is filled with disgust as he folds shut the newspaper. “I haven’t been able to get a blasted thing done all afternoon, I’m so worried.”
“I’m not studying. And sitting there, smoking your pipe, and staring at the paper won’t bring Lydia home.”
I tap my pen a few times. What were Lydia’s exact words about Mr. Barrow?
She was “unsettled in his presence,” she once said to me, and she mused that maybe that was why their nanny had quit. That it was better to be a waitress at a speakeasy, where being flirted with is a known part of the job.
“Piper, what are you working on?” Walter’s voice sounds nervous, as if he already knows the answer to his question.
“One second.” I finish my thought about possible motives for Mr. Barrow—could Lydia have learned something about him that he didn’t like?—and then look up. “I’m writing down anything about Lydia that seems like it could be important. Things Lydia said or reasons others might have had a grudge against her or the family. That sort of thing.”
This is met with silence. Nick’s mouth hangs open slightly and Walter seems to have forgotten he was in the middle of finding a screw to repair the leg of the end table.
“When I’m done, I’ll give it to the detectives, and hopefully it’ll help them.” I poise my pen above the page and consider the next name.