Chin up, she started forward, letting him know just who he was up against. Who would win.
* * *
Ty was more aware of Norma Rose than he was of himself as she stomped down the steps as haughty and overconfident as ever. He smiled—inside, where she couldn’t see it—but he felt it nonetheless with each step she took. He’d never wanted a woman the way he did her. Now that he’d accepted it for what it was, it consumed him.
She didn’t slow as she approached the truck, merely walked right past him, nose in the air. “I’ll drive.”
“You don’t even know where we’re going,” he said.
“I’m sure you’ll tell me,” she answered, rounding the back of his Model T to march across the parking lot, toward the large garage.
“Do you have your keys?” He couldn’t believe it was only yesterday he’d witnessed her sequester them all.
She flashed a set in one hand, though he was much more aware of how the fringes on her purple skirt flapped across her backside. It didn’t matter who drove. Actually, not using his vehicle, as common as it was, wasn’t a bad idea. He doubted Roger would let out their secret—the man would surely lose everything then—but involving the resort owner and his daughter heightened the importance of no one learning his real line of work.
Ty had weighed up the options, and in the end decided that if there was any hope of not bringing the resort down with Bodine, it lay in having enough information to arrest the gangster when he stepped off the train, which didn’t leave a lot of time.
He waited until she’d backed the car out of the garage before climbing in the passenger seat. It felt odd, not being behind the wheel. He didn’t like giving control to anyone and expected Norma Rose felt the same, which is why she insisted on driving. Accepting that for what it was, he closed the door, but kept one hand on the doorknob, ready to dive out if needed. He’d been told Dave broke his arm teaching her how to drive.
“Where to?”
“St. Paul,” he answered. “We’re going to find out who poisoned your uncle.”
“How?”
“By retracing every step he took if necessary.”
“Why don’t you just ask Dave?”
“I have—he doesn’t remember a lot.”
“Perhaps—”
“Just drive, Norma Rose.” He’d been aware of her before, but sitting next to her had parts of him imagining things that could never be. Rolling down the window helped defuse the scent of her perfume, but in truth, that didn’t help much.
She focused on the road, and drove with skill, easing his nerves greatly—at least about her driving—by the time they entered the outskirts of St. Paul. Ty had also forced his mind to concentrate on solving who’d poisoned Dave’s drink. “How well do you know the chief of police?”
“Ted Williams?” she asked, easing over a set of railroad tracks.
He didn’t bother nodding, or looking her way; she knew who he meant.
“Well enough, I suspect,” she said.
Ty let a breath out slowly before he turned her way. “I know your father told you I need complete cooperation from you, and I expect it.”
“He did,” she said. “But I have my own expectations.” She turned the wheel, steering the car down a rough road lined with thick trees. “Like the truth.”
“We need to head into the city,” he said. “This isn’t the way.”
“An hour won’t make any difference,” she said, attempting to steer around potholes that jostled the Cadillac so hard his teeth rattled.
“An hour?” he asked.
“Or less,” she said. “That will depend on you.”
Curious and enticed by the way she attempted to sound mysterious and dangerous, he asked, “How so?”
She looked at him for the first time since walking out of the resort. A cold, calculating stare that did little more than warm his chest. Her eyes were too blue, her skin too perfect and her lips too kissable—a fact he’d never forget—to pull off the stare like she wanted to. But she tried. He’d give her that.
She’d slowed the car to a crawl and still stared at him as she braked to a complete stop and then made a show of cutting the engine. If she’d been a man, her father perhaps, Ty might have been growing nervous by now. He’d heard of this spot. The isolation, the trees and rock wall a short distance ahead, screamed this was the end of the line. Right now, Ty was thinking of the privacy it all provided, and what he could do with that—had things been different.
Removing the key, she opened the driver’s door and stepped out. Ty chose to mollify her and climbed out as well, and followed her up the road to the rock wall, which was actually an overhang. The twin cities, St. Paul and Minneapolis—farther to the west—were visible, laid out in a bird’s-eye view. The railroad tracks, streets, buildings, various lakes and the river, with numerous bridges stretching across dark water as the mighty Mississippi curled its way through the hills and valleys, neighborhoods and plats of industrial areas where smoke clouded the otherwise blue sky.
“Suicide hill,” Ty said when she turned another cold stare his way.
She was good, barely lifting a brow at her surprise that he knew exactly where they were.
He gestured to the edge, and the swamp several hundred yards below. “More than one man has been said to take his own life by jumping off this ledge.” When she lifted her chin, he added, “Despite the bullet holes in his chest.”
Chapter Fourteen
Ty said no more, it was her turn. She’d brought him here to alarm him and was trying to not let her disappointment show. The trouble with that was he knew her too well. Perhaps because she was so much like him. A man used to hiding things saw them easily in others.
“And more than one of those men was a federal agent,” she finally said.
He reached over and flicked the butterfly on her headband before tugging on her ear. “Norma Rose, I’m touched you’re so worried about me.”
“Worr— I’m not worried about you,” she snapped, shoving aside his hand.
“Then why did you bring me here, if not to warn me?”
With lips pinched tight, she breathed through her nose and, he had to admit, her glare was a bit intimidating, just not to him.
“I’m warning you,” she growled, “about what will happen if you don’t tell me the truth. The whole truth. And don’t give me that private-eye spiel again.”
Ty opened his mouth, to spout off a comeback about her not being strong enough to push him over the edge, but stopped before the words escaped. She was going to find out, sooner or later, and he’d rather she heard it from him, yet the opportunity to utilize his answers as leverage was something he couldn’t let go to waste.
“Fair enough,” he said, turning around to make his way back toward the trees.
“What? Where are you going?”
“The sun’s hot,” he said.
She followed, but kept her distance, staying a good arm’s length or more away from where he stopped. Crossing her arms, she asked, “Is your real name even Ty Bradshaw?”
“Yes,” he said. “Tyler Bradshaw.” When she opened her mouth, he held up his hand. “I’ll tell you everything. The truth. But only if you tell me the truth, too.”
She frowned. “I’ve never lied to you.”
Ty didn’t confirm or deny that, but instead asked, “What’s the history between you and Forrest Reynolds?”
* * *
Norma Rose caught herself too late, after she’d flinched visibly, which Ty noticed. “That is none of your business,” she stated, taking a step back to put more space between them. This had been a bad idea, bringing him here in the hope of scaring him. A man like Ty didn’t scare easily, and unfortunately, she did. That wasn’t something she liked admitting, nor did she want to, but his nearness made it impossible to deny. The pull inside her was worse today than it had been last night, even with all she knew, and that was not a good thing.
“I think it is,” Ty said.
&
nbsp; “What?”
“I think the history between you and Forrest is related to all that’s happening.”
For a moment she feared he’d read her mind. It wouldn’t surprise her. He seemed to be living inside her. His presence had her heart beating faster and her palms sweating, and she felt a crazy, fanatic desire to kiss him again. “Forrest took over the Plantation last year when his father left town,” she said.
“And?”
She wasn’t afraid of Ty, but it felt like she’d lost, or was losing, and she didn’t like that. Not at all.
Norma Rose turned around, not seeing the trees covering the hill and lining the roadway, but stared in that direction. She couldn’t lose. Answers were what she needed, and Ty was the one to give them to her. If she had to give up a few herself, so be it. Forrest Reynolds had become the least of her concerns.
“Galen Reynolds inherited the Plantation from his wife’s family. It had been successful before the turn of the century, when the White Bear Lake area was full of resorts. It started out as a yacht club with sailboat races that brought crowds of people into the area. My mother and Karen Reynolds were close friends. We kids grew up playing with each other.” That was a long time ago, but even as young children she’d understood the Reynoldses had money while her family hadn’t. She wasn’t about to mention that, so added, “The flu, when it hit, took Karen’s youngest son, August, two weeks after my brother Adam. They were babies really, only five years old. My mother died a month later.”
“I’m sorry.”
She hadn’t turned around and didn’t now. The sympathy in his simple statement was too strong and left a part of her feeling raw all over again. Almost as raw as way back then, when Forrest’s father had first begun to vocalize his hatred toward her family. As the bitterness of that seeped forward, she let it out. “Galen Reynolds claimed my mother got what she deserved, that she’d given the flu to August.”
“The flu was everywhere. His son could have gotten it anywhere.”
“I know.” Enough of this. Now wasn’t the time to rekindle the hatred she harbored for Galen Reynolds. The man could no longer hurt her. Spinning around, she walked past Ty, who’d stepped too close for comfort. “Forrest and I remained friends, and we dated while in high school, until his father put a stop to it,” she said, as if there was no more to it than that.
Ty walked past her, all the way to the passenger side of the car, where he opened the door.
When her expectant gaze didn’t produce a response from him, she said, “It’s your turn to tell me the truth.”
He laughed, which goaded her.
“I’ll tell you the truth, when you tell me the truth,” he said, climbing in. After shutting the door, he leaned over to glance at her out the driver’s window. “Let’s go. I want to visit the last drugstore Dave remembers being at.”
“I did tell you the truth,” she insisted.
He sat up and stared out the windshield, which meant she had to lean down to look in the window. “I’m serious. I want to know who you are,” she demanded.
“I’m Ty Bradshaw from New York,” he said off-handedly, “who needs to discover who poisoned your uncle before it’s too late. Now either get in, or give me the keys. I really don’t care which.”
Norma Rose wrenched opened the door, mainly in reaction to his reference to time running out. Her father had hinted at that, too. Shoving the key in the ignition, she said, “I will find out who you really are and expose you for a rat.”
With a single slicing gaze before he turned toward the windshield again, he said, “And I will find out what really happened between you and Forrest.”
It took some maneuvering back and forth before she got the Cadillac turned around, but then she hit the gas. The car bounced and banged as the tires fell in between potholes.
“It takes a good driver to hit every hole in the road,” Ty said.
She’d have liked to tell him to shut up, but was too busy holding onto the wheel.
“Slow down,” he said, “before you break an axel.”
With no intention of listening to him—ever—she pressed her foot harder on the gas pedal. Ty’s hand grasped her leg. His fingers and thumb dug into the sides of her knee, making a nerve flex and shudder. With the grip of iron that she wasn’t strong enough to fight, he pulled on her leg, forcing her foot off the gas. Trying to keep the car on the road while fighting the sensations zipping up her leg, Norma Rose hit the brake with her other foot.
Before letting go, Ty growled, “Slow down or I’m driving.”
“It’s my car,” she snapped.
“I don’t give a damn whose car it is. I’m not going to be stuck out here because you’re throwing a fit.”
“A fit? I’m not throwing a fit.”
“Don’t you care what happens to your father? To your beloved resort?” he asked.
Norma Rose opened her mouth, but didn’t trust herself to speak. She did care. Why else would she be here, with him?
“The truth is, Norma Rose, that I’m not the enemy, and if you want to save Nightingale’s from being raided, by either the feds or the mob, you’ll stop acting like a spoiled brat and help me.”
Her fury rose to an entirely new level. However, used to hiding things, she held it in as she drove, slowly, down the road. By the time she turned back onto the highway her rage had melded into determination for the deepest revenge possible. Without a word, she drove directly to Charlie McLaughlin’s drugstore and parked along the street out front. She was out the driver’s side before Ty could make it around to open the door for her, and she marched forward onto the sidewalk. Her nerves zinged beneath her skin, a mixture of fire and ice, yet she planted the often-used smile upon her face as they entered the store, him holding the door for her.
“Well, Norma Rose Nightingale, imagine seeing you here.”
She couldn’t take much more. Truly she couldn’t. “Hello, Janet,” Norma Rose said to the girl behind the lunch counter, whose eyes, thickly coated with kohl and mascara, had settled on Ty. “Imagine seeing you here.”
“I work here,” Janet Smith replied, curling her red lips into a smile and batting her lashes unabashedly at Ty. “I live in the new set of apartments just right around the block.”
* * *
Hostility hung in the air so heavily between Norma Rose and the soda girl, Ty almost quivered. But then he chose, as usual, to take advantage of the opportunity. Curling a hand around Norma Rose’s elbow, he guided her onto one of the squat stools along the counter. She flinched—inwardly, he sensed more than felt it—but made no show of pulling out of his hold. Once they were both seated, he asked, “What’s your lunch special?”
“Grilled cheese and tomato soup,” the girl named Janet responded.
“How’s that sound?” Ty asked Norma Rose, purposefully ignoring the other girl’s invitation to take full notice of her rather voluptuous curves.
He imagined Norma Rose wanted to tell him exactly how she thought that sounded, but she didn’t, as he knew she wouldn’t. Instead she smiled up at him. “Fine.”
“We’ll take two specials,” he told the girl. “And two milk shakes.” Glancing toward Norma Rose, he asked, “Chocolate?”
She nodded.
“Two chocolate milk shakes.”
“I don’t recall seeing you around,” Janet said, once again giving him an open invitation with her eyes.
“I’m a friend of Norma Rose’s.” Sensing Norma Rose might soon snap, he added, “Could we get those shakes before the meal?”
The girl spun around and the drumbeat of her heels faded as she disappeared through a set of swinging doors at the end of the counter. Norma Rose said nothing while peeling off her gloves and discreetly examining her hands. They were no longer blue, and he wondered how hard she’d had to scrub them. After setting her gloves on her lap, she plucked a few napkins from the holder on the counter and slid one his way.
“Thank you,” he said.
She remained
silent.
He grinned, inwardly. “Who is that?” He didn’t bother nodding toward where the girl had disappeared.
“Janet Smith.”
“I caught the first name,” he said. “How do you know her?”
“She lives in White Bear Lake, or did. I wasn’t aware she’d moved.”
There was more to her animosity than her just living in the same town, and assuming he knew why, he pushed. “Another one of Forrest Reynolds’s girlfriends.”
She shot him a disgusted look. “Not that I know of, but I haven’t kept track.”
“Haven’t you?”
“No, I haven’t.” Flustered, and most likely knowing he wouldn’t give up, she whispered, “If you must know, her brother was a local whiskey runner who got himself caught a few months ago because he drank more than he delivered.”
Her eyes grew wide before she lowered her lids, telling him what he already knew. That she’d said more than she’d intended, and that Janet blamed the Nightingales for her brother’s arrest.
“Interesting,” he said. “What’s his name?”
Opening her eyes, she peered past him, to where Janet was reappearing at the end of the counter. He leaned closer. “What’s his name?”
“Jeb Smith, but everyone called him Smitty,” she whispered.
The clanging and banging made by the soda girl was obviously intended to break apart what must look like a tête-à-tête. Ty glanced her way, letting her know it wasn’t appreciated, which had the effect he’d figured it would. She made more noise by turning on the electric mixer to stir their shakes.
“And he worked for your father.”
“I didn’t—”
“We’re beyond that, Norma Rose,” he hissed through a smile. “He was running Minnesota Thirteen, wasn’t he?”
She pinched her lips together and nodded.
“Thank you,” he said close to her ear. He lingered there for a few seconds, inhaling deeply, while telling himself it was for Janet’s benefit. A minute later, he knew it had worked. Norma Rose’s cheeks were rosy and Janet’s were red.
The Bootlegger's Daughter (Daughters Of The Roaring Twenties Book 1) Page 19