Page 12 of The Daring Times of Fern Adair
“Why’s that?” the first man inquired. She didn’t understand why they were so edgy about her.
“She’s with us,” Mr. Black answered.
Her arm stiffened under his easy grasp. The two other men swapped skeptical glances. “That so?” the onewith the hand in his pocket asked. “She don’t got no beef with it?”
“That’s so.” Mr. Black glanced down at her, his stare heavy and expectant. He’d said to go along with him, so she gave a small nod, but she was alarmed by what the man had said. What didn’t she supposedly have a problem with?
“Jesus, you work fast.” The man took his hand from his pocket and slapped Mr. Black on the shoulder. The bulge in the pocket remained. Fern really didn’t want to know what it was, but a part of her already did.
“Let’s take her to Rodney, then. He’ll want to know,” the other man said. He nodded up the sidewalk. “We parked up near Plaisance.”
They turned and started back the way they’d come. Her body pulsed with a rush of heat as Mr. Black pulled her along the sidewalk after them.No.She couldn’t leave South Woodlawn. She couldn’t go anywhere with these men! They were calling Mr. Black “Cal,” and one of them had a gun in his pocket. The whispered warning that this wasnot a gamepounded through Fern’s skull.
The other fellows were close ahead, but a string of vehicles passing by obscured her voice as she turned her mouth into Mr. Black’s shoulder.
“Where are you taking me?”
The spiced sandalwood of his cologne, though not as strong as Buchanan’s, invaded her nostrils. He craned his head until his mouth came level with her temple. She felt the heat of his breath on her skin and jerked back.
“Lincoln Park. Play it cool, princess, and I’ll get you back home as soon as I can. Remember…you’re with us.”
What did that even mean? That she had teamed up with Mr. Black in some manner? A matte-black, four-door cabriolet with wide wheel hubs and a thin sliver of a windshield came into view, and she couldn’t think beyond the inevitability of having to climb into the back seat.
She should never have left her lawn! How stupid, how incredibly deranged she had been to follow a perfect stranger at night. If anyone discovered her missing between now and whenever Mr. Black—hopefully—brought her home, she would be in a world of trouble. Being twenty-four and a legal adult meant nothing at all under Judge Adair’s roof.
The fellow with the gaunt face opened the back door. Mr. Black gestured for Fern to get in. Releasing his arm felt like lowering herself off the side of a bridge. The silk of her gown slid easily across the leather seat, and the scent of menthol and gasoline instantly drowned out Mr. Black’s cologne. He got in beside her, and then, the slamming of the door rocked the car.
Nothing was said as the engine roared to life. The driver, the fellow with the gun in his pocket, jerked the wheel and pulled into traffic, cutting off another driver. He laughed at the blare of the other car’s horn, and Fern turned to peer out the half-moon rear window. Headlights blinded her, and with a jerk of the steering wheel, she slid roughly into Mr. Black’s solid figure. He was large, muscularly so, and tall. He had to scrunch up his legs to fit in the back, and even then, his knees were touching the front seat.
Fern pushed her elbow into the seat back and tried toedge away from him, but the car swerved and sent her flush with him again. In the front, the two men were laughing wildly at the sharp blows of the horn behind them.
“Straighten out, Francis, and stop drawing attention to us,” Mr. Black barked.
The car immediately stopped swerving, and Fern could finally scoot to the far side of the back seat.
Francis. The fellow with the gun was called Francis. She had a cousin named Francis. He’d died in the Great War, at Verdun, and Father still toasted him at Christmas every year. She closed her eyes as the glare of headlights raced by the passenger window. She had to focus. Poor dead Cousin Francis didn’t matter right then. These men were taking her to see someone named Rodney in Lincoln Park. There were dozens of neighborhoods in Lincoln Park, north of the Loop and the city’s business district. She didn’t know where Francis intended to drive them. She supposed it didn’t matter. Any place other than South Woodlawn would be foreign to her. Fern didn’t go out in the family Buick often, but she did know the Chicago grid as well as anyone who could read a map.
The traffic grew dense as they went north toward the Loop. Trucks, autos, motorcycles, and the grating shrieks of streetcars and the elevated line were all around her. Mr. Black’s furtive glances were getting more difficult to ignore. He was nervous, it seemed, that Fern would say or do something to lead the other two men to realize the truth—that she had no idea what she was doing or who they were. And if Mr. Black, who’d struck Fern as ice cold,was on edge, that made her even more nervous. As did Francis, who kept looking at her in the rearview mirror.
Francis veered down a street, then hooked a sharp turn, then another. Traffic thinned. They were moving farther away from the lakeshore and the business Loop, and residences began filling in. She gave up keeping track of the turns and street names. When the car slowed on a side street of dilapidated three-story risers, she finally allowed a look at Mr. Black, but now he had his eyes on the road.
Fern pressed her lips together, on the verge of saying his name. His hand slid across the seat and snatched hers. Her fingers, which had been boring into the new leather, went straight. He squeezed her knuckles together once, and for some reason—she didn’t know how—she knew what it meant:Stay quiet.Earlier, he’d warned her to go along with his lead. Spouting off questions now would be a mistake.
Fern bit the inside of her bottom lip and waited. Mr. Blackwouldbring her home. He’d promised. Whatever occurred between now and then, she would simply have to get through it. There was no other choice after she’d been so naïve as to follow their mysterious dinner guest when he left their home.
The tires cut toward the curb and squealed to a stop. Francis turned off the engine and swung open his door.
“Shake a leg, Vinny,” he said to the other man. “Go ‘round the back and give a steak to the Dobermans.”
Francis opened the back passenger door. He stood aside, buttoning his coat and casting his eyes up toward a red-brick, three-story riser. Light limned the edges ofthe first-floor windows, all of them shrouded with drapes.
Doors slammed, and Fern jumped. Mr. Black and the other fellow, Vinny, had already gotten out. She set one red silk heel on the curb, which was littered with cigarette butts and broken glass, and could move no further, frozen in place. She couldn’t believe she’d gotten herself into this situation.
“What’s wrong, kitten?” Francis scoffed.
A calloused hand dropped in front of her face. She gasped and jerked back, but it was only Mr. Black, his open hand waiting for her to alight.
Fern slid her fingers into his palm and let him guide her onto the curb, though not without nicking the crown of her head on the top of the metal doorframe. She barely felt her throbbing scalp as Mr. Black led her up the stoop to the home’s front door. This must be where the man they’d called Rodney lived. Her sweaty palm clung to Mr. Black’s while Francis knocked. He then tipped the brim of his hat to a pair of young ladies walking past the front stoop. The girls, with their bobbed hair and little cloches pinned at an angle, giggled and whispered something into each other’s ears before moving on, swinging their long-beaded necklaces in front of them like airplane propellers.
