Chapter Five
One Day Before the Murder
THE NEXT MORNING, Grace followed Lillie up the stairs of Earnest’s house, letting her hands chase the gleam along the polished banister.
The satin train of Lillie’s dress trailed on the staircase just in front of her, lapping it like waves.
In St. Louis circles, Grace often felt like a fraud.
But—in her defense—at least she knew it.
She dressed up in Lillie’s clothes for weeks in St. Louis like she was putting on a costume.
An actress, trying on a new life. But was Harriet, too?
Grace glanced at the imposing, aristocratic portraits of the Allreds on the walls.
She was aware of her own slightly mixed motives for wanting to marry someone of means. If someone close to Harriet owed a substantial amount of money, was Oliver merely a tool?
She’d thought that Harriet was her companion, a fellow outsider, but something about the previous night made her realize that she didn’t know Harriet at all.
“Earnest,” Lillie said, entering his room. “You gave us an incredible scare.”
The morning light poured through the bedroom window. Earnest was starkly bruised, surrounded by white linens and pillows. A heavy wristwatch sat on the nightstand beside a vase of fresh lilies the shade of apricots. Frannie was wringing her hands, pacing. She looked as though she’d hardly slept.
“Did I fall from heaven?” Earnest said with a lazy smile. “Because you sure look like an angel.”
“Not even remotely funny yet,” Lillie said.
His smile cracked wider, his right eye a ghastly shade of purple. When he moved his hands, Grace noticed they were bandaged, as though they’d been burned.
“I missed that dance last night,” Grace said lightly to him.
“Yes, well, things didn’t go quite according to plan. I’d envisioned waltzing in triumphantly after a successful flight, but I ended up falling on my face. From quite a height.”
He smiled at her, but his usual spark was dim.
“What happened?” Grace whispered, coming to stand near the bed.
“The machine seemed to be doing fine upon takeoff, and then something caught fire. I smelled the smoke and managed to bail with my parachute just before the damn thing exploded. Pardon my French.”
“C’est bon,” Lillie said. “Now, can we come to visit you again?”
“No need,” Earnest said, sitting up with a slight grimace. “I’m not missing any more of the fair. I’ll be back by tonight.”
“Tomorrow, at least,” Lillie insisted. “Surely you need to rest.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” He did look gray, though. As Lillie turned to leave, he caught her by the hand. “Thank you, Miss Carter,” he said. “I believe I owe you my life.”
She laughed. “Let’s not be dramatic, I did very little,” she said, but he held her tight.
“It meant a lot to me.”
He gave them a hint of his old smile, then turned to look out the window.
Lillie was quiet in the carriage as they left Earnest’s enormous house behind.
“Are you all right?” Grace asked her gently.
She had been planning to take this opportunity of a brief moment alone to tell Lillie about her to decision to leave. She felt a sudden sadness as the wheels passed the elegantly carved sculptures and blooming fruit trees of the Allred mannsion. Their time alone together was so little.
“You were amazing last night,” she said instead, threading her fingers through Lillie’s.
“I think there must be something wrong with me that I feel so alive when others are having their worst moments.”
“Are you still planning to slip away tonight?” Grace asked. “When I distract Oliver with a game of croquet?”
Lillie threw a look over her shoulder as she always did when they discussed the Evening Dispensary, even though they were completely alone.
“I’m actually helping, Grace,” she said, her face lighting up. “Dr. May has been training me. She helps prostitutes sick with venereal disease, girls and women who came to work at the fair. They’re going to open a home for them so they have somewhere safe to go.”
She laughed when she saw the look on Grace’s countenance.
“Don’t look at me like that! I think what Dr. May does is so noble.
And yet—can I be perfectly, dreadfully honest with you?
Sometimes I don’t know if I’m ready to give all of this up.
Sometimes I think, perhaps I’ll go into medicine myself.
Nursing, if I don’t have what it takes to be a physician.
But Mother and Father would have a fit. They’d disinherit me, I’m certain of it.
And so I pause. Isn’t that selfish of me?
I like my pretty dresses and my clean food and a safe place to sleep at night. And it makes me ashamed.”
“Those aren’t bad things to want, Lillie.”
“No, perhaps not. But then—it all starts to feel sort of dulled, doesn’t it? When there are things to do out in the world that matter. That have to do with someone else and not just myself. People below my station.”
Grace swallowed at that comment, but Lillie rushed on, not noticing. “Yes. Something beyond myself, and this circle that feels so suffocating sometimes, everyone curved in on themselves so that we’ve become something ghastly.”
She finally caught the look on Grace’s face. “Oh, darling. Grace. I know that expression. Of course I’m not speaking of you.”
“You have always looked out for the charity cases,” Grace said. She tried to laugh, but it came out brittle.
“I’ve never once thought of you that way,” Lillie exclaimed, jumping to take Grace by the arm. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Lillie. It’s all right. You aren’t going to have to pull me along anymore, like a piece of dead weight,” Grace looked out at the paved stone streets of the city, the trolleys and electric streetlights.
“We’re getting too old for it. It makes me feel ridiculous, and I think we have to face reality—”
“Don’t say that,” Lillie said, her alarm growing. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that this has to be the end,” Grace said, tears springing to her eyes. “This week, this last, glorious week. I can’t do this anymore, and it’s not fair to do it to you either.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lillie said, tears mirroring in her own eyes.
“Please! What do you mean, this is the end?” She choked on a laugh.
“We’re going to be in one another’s lives forever.
I won’t stand it any other way. You’re more than my best friend—you—you know this—you’re closer even than my cousin. You’re my sister.”
When Grace was younger, sleeping in the bed next to Lillie, she had often wished that they really were sisters.
“Besides, I like you better than Oliver anyway,” she said, and Grace laughed.
“Your mother already thinks I’ve corrupted you. Your midnight medical adventures on Scab Row are not going to help things.”
“She doesn’t know a thing. She thinks I’m cross-stitching, but I don’t even know how.
I buy them from the women’s league and pass them off as mine, and she’s none the wiser.
” Lillie shook her head. “And I have never once thought of you as someone needing my charity. I’ve been grateful to you,” she said, clasping Grace’s hands, “for helping to keep my eyes open. You’ve made me simultaneously want more for my life regarding the things that matter and less for the things that don’t.
I will never forget the goodness you’ve brought me, all my life. Goodness—and grace,” she said.
She reached out for Grace and embraced her, holding her tightly.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too,” Grace said. “And I always will.”
“Silly darling, imagining that you could get away from me that easily,” Lillie said, squeezing her hands.
Grace smiled faintly, her throat going strangely dry.
The thing was, Lillie had never once come to visit her in Kansas City.
Grace knew it was because of Aunt Clove, and that now Lillie was finally old enough to start making her own choices.
They both were. But this—whatever their life had looked like up to now—was ending.
And as long as they were facing their ugliest secrets: if they couldn’t without a doubt hang on to one another, Grace would rather be the one to cut the cord than the one who was left.
Lillie looked out at the city, seemingly convinced that all was intact and all would be well. Her face was clear and lovely, until her brow suddenly knotted.
“Also. While we’re alone,” she said, voice lowering, “I think Oliver has been acting quite strange lately. Have you noticed?”
Grace’s heart fell. “Oh,” she said, studying a fountain nestled between elegantly manicured parterres. Suddenly, she was eager to get back to the house. “What do you mean?”
“Just… odd. Sneaking off at strange times. His head in the clouds. Being a little, I don’t know. Cagey.”
“Maybe he, too, has secret forbidden medical aspirations,” Grace said lightly.
Lillie laughed, pushing back strands of her hair. Grace’s favorite sound.
She loved being with her cousins. Being between them had always been her favorite place in the world. Only recently, it had begun to feel like being pulled in two separate directions.
“So you haven’t noticed anything?” Lillie prodded.
Grace glanced away, her throat uncomfortably dry as that pull threatened to break something that mattered dearly to her.
“No,” she said. “I haven’t.”
“You have to tell Lillie,” Grace insisted to Oliver as soon as they were alone.
They stood together as the boats floated lazily below in the canals, the water reflecting the white columns of the Palaces.
“Tell Lillie what?” Oliver asked innocently.
“Oliver,” Grace growled.