Grave Phantoms
Page 2
“I can’t believe it’s been like this all week,” she said to the family driver over the half-raised window divider between the front and back seats. “It never rains like this here. Never.”
“Ja,” Jonte replied in Swedish as they turned onto the Embarcadero. “You shouldn’t be down here with all this flooding. Winter will be angry.”
Whoop-de-doo. She’d been back in San Francisco since noon and had barely spoken to her oldest brother. Half the city was barricaded, and she knew that’s why Winter was down here working at nine in the evening—to help sandbag the warehouse. She also knew that’s why Bo was here; however, him she wasn’t ready to forgive.
She hadn’t seen Bo in almost four months, he’d stopped answering her letters, and now that she was home, he couldn’t step away from the warehouse for one hour? Not even a telephone call or a note?
At least the staff had made her a nice dinner to welcome her back, and she’d had a little celebratory champagne. A little too much, possibly, but she didn’t feel very drunk. Then again, she wasn’t very good at drinking. A couple of months back, she’d downed five glasses of bathtub gin and ended up with a sprained ankle after falling off the dormitory balcony. But the post-drinking sickness had been far worse than the sprain, and she swore to all the saints she’d never drink again.
But really, that was a pointless promise to make, considering that Winter was one of the biggest bootleggers in San Francisco.
The limousine slowed in front of a long line of bulkhead buildings that sat along the waterfront. Warm light spilled from windows that flanked an open archway marked PIER 26. Magnusson Fish Company’s waterfront dock. At least, that’s what it was in the daytime; at night, it was a staging warehouse for citywide liquor distribution.
Astrid grabbed her umbrella and began opening the Pierce-Arrow’s door before it came to a complete stop. “Don’t wait for me,” she told Jonte. “I’ll get someone to drive me back home.”
“But—”
“Good night, Jonte,” she said more forcefully and erected the umbrella against the blustery night rain.
Ducking under the building’s gated Spanish stucco archway, she splashed through puddles and immediately smelled exhausted engine oil and shipping containers. Familiar and oddly pleasant. Just past a fleet of delivery trucks parked for the night, men stacked sandbags against the warehouse walls, where water ran across the cement floor. Winter was there, talking to someone as he directed the sandbagging.
But no Bo.
Before Winter could spot her and yell at her for coming out here at night, she folded her umbrella and took a sharp right into the warehouse offices. The reception area was empty, but a light shone from the back office. She marched with purpose, head buzzing with champagne, and stopped in the doorway.
The office was exactly as she remembered. Framed ancient photographs of her family lined the walls, slightly askew and dusty: their first house in the Fillmore District, her brothers as small children, and every boat her father had ever owned—even the last one, right before he died in the accident three years ago. Watching over those photographs was Old Bertha, a stuffed leopard shark that hung from the ceiling.
And hunched below that spotted shark was Bo Yeung, stripped from the waist up and dripping wet with rainwater. A soaked shirt lay on a nearby chair; a dry one was draped across a filing cabinet.
A sense of elation rose over the champagne singing in Astrid’s bloodstream. He was here, her childhood friend, the person she trusted more than anyone else in the world, and the only man she’d ever cared for.
Stars, she’d never been so happy to see his handsome face. She wanted to rush forward and throw her arms around him, like she used to do when they were both too young to recognize things were changing between them . . . when she was just the boss’s baby sister, and he was only the hired help.
No longer.
And with that realization, all her hurt feelings rushed back to the surface.
“So you are alive,” she said.
At the sound of her voice, he stood and turned to face her, and the sight of his sleek, sculpted chest momentarily took her aback. She’d seen him without a shirt a dozen times before—working outside in the sun, in the Chinatown boxing club where he sometimes went to blow off steam, or when they’d find each other in the kitchen raiding the icebox at midnight. But as he stood there in front of her now, holding a damp towel as if poised to fight, the elegant sheen of his finely muscled arms seemed almost risqué. Virile. She felt hot all over, just looking at him.
It was unfair, really.
“Astrid,” he finally said in a rough voice. Straight hair, normally neatly combed, fell over one eye like a stroke of black calligraphy ink. He pushed a damp lock of it back and stared at her like she was a mirage—one that he hadn’t expected to see.
Too bad. Astrid wasn’t going be ignored. She’d worn her best fur and a stunning beaded amaranthine dress that showed off her legs, and she’d practiced exactly what she was going to say to him.
Only, now she’d forgotten most of it.
“You didn’t pick me up at the train station,” she said.
“I was working.” He shrugged with one shoulder, as if he couldn’t be troubled to lift both of them. “Besides, I’m not the family driver. That’s Jonte’s job.”
As if that were the point? Truly.
“And you didn’t come to dinner. Lena made almond cake.”
“Ja,” Jonte replied in Swedish as they turned onto the Embarcadero. “You shouldn’t be down here with all this flooding. Winter will be angry.”
Whoop-de-doo. She’d been back in San Francisco since noon and had barely spoken to her oldest brother. Half the city was barricaded, and she knew that’s why Winter was down here working at nine in the evening—to help sandbag the warehouse. She also knew that’s why Bo was here; however, him she wasn’t ready to forgive.
She hadn’t seen Bo in almost four months, he’d stopped answering her letters, and now that she was home, he couldn’t step away from the warehouse for one hour? Not even a telephone call or a note?
At least the staff had made her a nice dinner to welcome her back, and she’d had a little celebratory champagne. A little too much, possibly, but she didn’t feel very drunk. Then again, she wasn’t very good at drinking. A couple of months back, she’d downed five glasses of bathtub gin and ended up with a sprained ankle after falling off the dormitory balcony. But the post-drinking sickness had been far worse than the sprain, and she swore to all the saints she’d never drink again.
But really, that was a pointless promise to make, considering that Winter was one of the biggest bootleggers in San Francisco.
The limousine slowed in front of a long line of bulkhead buildings that sat along the waterfront. Warm light spilled from windows that flanked an open archway marked PIER 26. Magnusson Fish Company’s waterfront dock. At least, that’s what it was in the daytime; at night, it was a staging warehouse for citywide liquor distribution.
Astrid grabbed her umbrella and began opening the Pierce-Arrow’s door before it came to a complete stop. “Don’t wait for me,” she told Jonte. “I’ll get someone to drive me back home.”
“But—”
“Good night, Jonte,” she said more forcefully and erected the umbrella against the blustery night rain.
Ducking under the building’s gated Spanish stucco archway, she splashed through puddles and immediately smelled exhausted engine oil and shipping containers. Familiar and oddly pleasant. Just past a fleet of delivery trucks parked for the night, men stacked sandbags against the warehouse walls, where water ran across the cement floor. Winter was there, talking to someone as he directed the sandbagging.
But no Bo.
Before Winter could spot her and yell at her for coming out here at night, she folded her umbrella and took a sharp right into the warehouse offices. The reception area was empty, but a light shone from the back office. She marched with purpose, head buzzing with champagne, and stopped in the doorway.
The office was exactly as she remembered. Framed ancient photographs of her family lined the walls, slightly askew and dusty: their first house in the Fillmore District, her brothers as small children, and every boat her father had ever owned—even the last one, right before he died in the accident three years ago. Watching over those photographs was Old Bertha, a stuffed leopard shark that hung from the ceiling.
And hunched below that spotted shark was Bo Yeung, stripped from the waist up and dripping wet with rainwater. A soaked shirt lay on a nearby chair; a dry one was draped across a filing cabinet.
A sense of elation rose over the champagne singing in Astrid’s bloodstream. He was here, her childhood friend, the person she trusted more than anyone else in the world, and the only man she’d ever cared for.
Stars, she’d never been so happy to see his handsome face. She wanted to rush forward and throw her arms around him, like she used to do when they were both too young to recognize things were changing between them . . . when she was just the boss’s baby sister, and he was only the hired help.
No longer.
And with that realization, all her hurt feelings rushed back to the surface.
“So you are alive,” she said.
At the sound of her voice, he stood and turned to face her, and the sight of his sleek, sculpted chest momentarily took her aback. She’d seen him without a shirt a dozen times before—working outside in the sun, in the Chinatown boxing club where he sometimes went to blow off steam, or when they’d find each other in the kitchen raiding the icebox at midnight. But as he stood there in front of her now, holding a damp towel as if poised to fight, the elegant sheen of his finely muscled arms seemed almost risqué. Virile. She felt hot all over, just looking at him.
It was unfair, really.
“Astrid,” he finally said in a rough voice. Straight hair, normally neatly combed, fell over one eye like a stroke of black calligraphy ink. He pushed a damp lock of it back and stared at her like she was a mirage—one that he hadn’t expected to see.
Too bad. Astrid wasn’t going be ignored. She’d worn her best fur and a stunning beaded amaranthine dress that showed off her legs, and she’d practiced exactly what she was going to say to him.
Only, now she’d forgotten most of it.
“You didn’t pick me up at the train station,” she said.
“I was working.” He shrugged with one shoulder, as if he couldn’t be troubled to lift both of them. “Besides, I’m not the family driver. That’s Jonte’s job.”
As if that were the point? Truly.
“And you didn’t come to dinner. Lena made almond cake.”
