“The wedding will be a month from now,” Father continued. “I’ll make the announcement.”
Betty’s mouth had gone dry. “A month?”
“Oops, I’m sorry!”
Betty glanced up at Jane’s exclamation, and was alarmed to see cake and frosting stuck to the front of James’s suit coat.
She then turned to Jane, who pushed the line whenever she thought she could get away with it. Hence the reason she was the one to come up with them sneaking out at night.
Holding an empty plate, Jane held up a linen napkin. “I didn’t mean to bump into you.”
James blinked several times, looking at the cake on his jacket as if not sure what to do about it. “That’s all—all right,” he said.
Jane smiled and shrugged. “I’ll get you another piece.”
“That’s all right,” James said. “I don’t care for cake.”
Betty grabbed the napkin and wiped the frosting off his jacket. “Father, I don’t believe now is the time to make any announcements.”
Jane waved a hand slightly. “Father, Mother is looking for you. It must be time for Patsy and Lane to leave.”
Father flashed Jane a glare that said he’d speak with her later before he turned. James bobbed his head at both of them as he moved away, as well.
“I don’t like him,” Jane hissed.
“He’s not that bad and I can’t believe you threw cake on him,” Betty whispered in return.
“He’s about as exciting as an earthworm, and I didn’t throw it on him,” Jane said, with mirth sparkling in her eyes. “I just bumped into him and the plate accidently hit him in the chest.” She set the plate on the table. “Come on—we need to get upstairs with the bowls of rice so people can grab a handful to throw at the bride and groom.”
“I don’t know if I can trust you with a bowl of rice,” Betty said, picking up one of the large bowls that had been waiting on the floor under her table.
Jane laughed as she picked up the other bowl. “I won’t dump it over his head. That would be a waste of rice.”
“And that slice of cake wasn’t?”
Jane shook her head. “No. He’s a palooka, a goofus, if I ever saw one. You know it as well as I do. Life with him will be like watching grass grow.”
“Sometimes boring is good,” Betty said.
Jane laughed. “Be warned. I’m not going to let you do it. It’s just you and me now. But it’s still one for all and all for one.”
Betty’s stomach hiccupped. Jane was right; it was just the two of them. They did need to stick together. Now more than ever. But she had to stop Jane before she did something really foolish. “Don’t—”
“Let’s get a wiggle on,” Jane said, “or the bride and groom will beat us up the stairs.”
They carried the rice to the front doors of the church, and stood there as people filed out, grabbing a handful, and then lined both sides of the sidewalk so they could throw the rice on the bride and groom as they hurried outside and ran to Lane’s car.
The crowd dispersed shortly thereafter, and Betty readily took on the job of sweeping the rice off the steps and sidewalk.
She was kneeling down, holding the dustpan with one hand while sweeping rice into the pan with the broom in her other hand when an icy shiver rippled down her spine.
Straightening, she glanced around, and goose bumps rose up on her arms as she noticed a man sitting in a car across the street, staring at her. The sun prevented her from seeing his face, but something about him, the way he was looking at her, was scary. Frightening.
She spun around and ran up the steps.
Following LeRoy, Henry entered the hotel through the back door in the alley and took the service elevator up to a room on the fourth floor that his uncle had set up as a meeting place.
LeRoy had been at the dock when Henry, dressed as a navy sailor, had walked off the boat. LeRoy had ushered him into the backseat of a black sedan, which dropped them off at the hotel’s back door. Just as Uncle Nate had said would happen on the phone before Henry had left Hawaii.
Henry was given supplies, including clothes, money, a new badge, firearm, and the keys to a black Packard in the hotel parking lot and filled in on the details of Burrows being captured by agents Bob Mayer and Jacob Nielsen, as well as the news that no one had seen or heard from Curtis Elkin in weeks. Since the time Henry had been shanghaied.
“Elkin wasn’t on the ship with me,” Henry said, fingering his old badge, and the one that had belonged to Elkin. They’d supposedly washed up onshore near the docks. “He’s the mole. I’m sure of it.”
“I am, too.” LeRoy set his coffee cup down on the table in the hotel room that overlooked the bay. “But we need proof. Solid proof.” He picked up the file folder. “I’ve gone over this so many times, I can read it with my eyes closed. There’s nothing here. Nothing.”
The folder contained all the information the Bureau had on Elkin. His personal information as well as every case the agent had worked on.
LeRoy let the folder fall back onto the table with a smack. “We’ve never had this before. A mole, but it’s the only thing that explains the leaks.”
“Things Elkin knew.”
LeRoy nodded. “Yes, but others knew them, too.”
“The others are all accounted for,” Henry pointed out.
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t the mole. Elkin could have been shanghaied just like you, or...” His gaze went out the window, to the ocean. “He could have met a worse fate.” Turning, he said, “So could you have.”
“I know,” Henry admitted, “which is why I believe it’s Elkin. And I believe it was Elkin that shanghaied me. He wanted us to believe it was Burrows that shanghaied both of us.” He fingered the badges lying
