Inez paused, considering. It was not as though she was a stranger to violence. In Leadville, men were cut down in their prime with disturbing regularity, and women too. But since coming to San Francisco, she had grown distanced from such events, even though the nearby Barbary Coast and Chinatown had their dark sides, their secrets, their attacks, murders, and suicides. In her world within the music store, she had remained apart from all that.
Until now.
Inez sighed and stood. “I suppose so.”
She picked up the flowers. As she did so, the sharp scent of rosemary stung her nose, mixing with the softer notes of moss and China roses, the color playing riot with the magnolias and maple leaves. She tried not to assign any hidden messages to the jumbled whole from the language of flowers. Most likely, Nico simply pointed to the most ostentatious, extravagant arrangement that caught his fancy and told the flower vendor, “That one.”
She continued, “I’m quite fond of him, actually. Of all of Miss Donato’s gentlemen callers, Mr. Monroe has, or had—oh dear, I do hope it isn’t him—a certain spark about him. A certain passion and drive. So, yes, I am fond of him.”
John’s gaze didn’t leave Inez. He remained still, as if absorbing her every word, re-forming it somewhere deep inside and pondering how to respond. His fingers moved lightly as if playing a silent tune on the broken clarinet keys. At last he said, “Some not feel as you do, Mrs. Stannert.”
His words—neutral in melody, cautious in harmony, the “L’s” pronounced as usual with exceeding care—caused a prickle to crawl up her neck. “Not all? Are you saying Jamie Monroe has enemies?”
The entrance door at the other end of the building squeaked and the bell overhead gave out a dispirited clunk.
Nico’s voice echoed from the front of the store, equal parts admiration and charm, “Buon giorno, madam! How may I help you?”
A woman answered, “Pardon me. I’m looking for Mrs. Stannert.”
That voice—lilting, flirtatious, just a hairsbreadth away from improperly bold. So familiar, but from a time so far away. Inez’s breath caught, and for a moment, she was dizzy, as if the floor tilted eastward, tumbling her into her past.
It can’t be.
Not here.
Not now.
Her grip on the flower stalks tightened, crushing the stems.
John silently slid from the room, case and clarinet in hand. A twin set of footsteps approached, Nico’s no-nonsense tread in counterpoint to the mincing tick-tick of a feminine shoe.
Fighting dread, Inez composed her expression into one of polite anticipation and commanded her feet to move. She advanced to the door leading to the showroom, just in time to see John step behind a long counter and vanish behind the curtain hiding the repair room. She thought fleetingly that she would have to corner him later and persuade him to say more, before all of her attention focused on the woman advancing toward her.
Mrs. Florence Sweet, otherwise known as Frisco Flo, madam of one of the most prestigious “pleasure palaces” in Leadville, adjusted her gray-colored chapeau, trimmed with long ruby feathers. She slipped the looped handle of her closed, rose-colored parasol over her wrist and placed one rose-gloved hand on Nico’s arm, bestowing a smile that had sent many a better man to his knees in supplication.
Inez had not seen Flo since leaving Leadville over a year ago. Yet, here she was, bold as brass. Unannounced. Unexpected. Far from her Colorado home.
Flo sashayed through the music store, where Inez had staked her claim on building a new life. To Inez it was as if her earlier reminiscences of Leadville had conjured up a ghost.
Nico was saying to her, “It is always a pleasure to meet one of Signora Stannert’s clients, Signora Sweet.”
Flo smiled demurely and twisted one of the blond corkscrew curls framing her face with a finger. “Well, it certainly is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Donato. Although I don’t know that I would describe myself as one of Mrs. Stannert’s clients.”
“But that is only because Mrs. Sweet and I have yet to discuss the terms for piano lessons for her daughter,” lied Inez smoothly. “Hello, Mrs. Sweet. I wasn’t expecting you.”
Flo didn’t bat an eye at Inez’s extemporization and invention. Instead, she looked at the flowers in Inez’s hands, then at Nico and the empty vase he held by his side. Baby-blue eyes wide, she turned to Inez and said, “Oh dear, Mrs. Stannert. Are you otherwise engaged? I do hope I haven’t interrupted anything. My time is limited, and I absolutely must speak with you regarding those…lessons.”
Flo had no daughter and had certainly not traveled from Colorado to California to inquire about music lessons, but the urgency in her tone rang true.
Aware of Nico’s inquisitive gaze, Inez tried to mask her unease.
A silent business partner of Flo’s lucrative Colorado endeavors, Inez had always attempted to keep involvement with the madam at arm’s length. Events in Leadville had not always allowed for such niceties. Since the ink had dried on their mutual contract, their lives had become considerably entangled on a personal level, with Inez coming to Flo’s aid during tough times, and Flo helping Inez out on a matter of some delicacy. Even so, their secret business partnership had remained just that—secret.
Still, Inez knew far more than any proper lady should know about how Flo ruled her empire. Flo never left Leadville, not trusting her volatile employees and clientele to be governed by any but herself. It made no sense for her to come gallivanting out to San Francisco on a whim, much less make such an open visit to Inez, here, in her new life. What could be so important, Inez wondered, that Flo would risk the trip, the possible slide in profits, and the exposure of her most loyal, at-a-distance business partner?
In other words, what was she doing here?
“No, no, you haven’t interrupted anything.” The whole morning had been
