The Bootlegger's Daughter. Lauri Robinson

a caged bird.

      “Yes, he does,” he said, his voice as calculating as his stare, which slipped downward.

      A tremendous heat singed the skin from her toes to her nose. Everywhere his gaze touched. By the time his eyes met hers again Norma Rose was completely disturbed. And uncomfortable. This had never happened to her, and she wasn’t impressed. “Since when?”

      “We sat next to each other at the lunch counter in the drugstore. He had the chicken noodle soup. I had the tomato.”

      Norma Rose didn’t care what kind of soup they’d eaten, but his explanation did give her insight she’d missed earlier. His accent was eastern. New York, if her guess was right. They couldn’t pronounce tomato to save their souls. What was a New York lawyer doing in St. Paul? Eating tomato soup at a drugstore?

      The ringing of a telephone momentarily interrupted her thoughts. She gathered them quickly enough to say, “My uncle was mistaken. He has no need for his own lawyer.” Turning to Ted, she said, “I’ll take Dave home now.”

      Glancing between her and the lawyer, Ted paused, as if not sure what to do.

      “Now,” she repeated, lifting her purse off the desk, once again demonstrating Ted wouldn’t be seeing any extra cash for his efforts tonight.

      “Chief.” The unknown officer stuck his head through the open doorway again. “There’s a raid downtown.”

      “Damn it.” Ted grabbed his hat off his desk. “Where at?”

      “The Blind Bull.”

      The officer’s answer sent a shiver up Norma Rose’s spine, as did the hint of surprise on Ty Bradshaw’s face. She’d read the calling card a second time and would not forget his name again, nor would she forget how he smiled at her. Having smiled like that on numerous occasions herself, she easily recognized he was attempting to disguise, or make her believe, that he hadn’t reacted to the news of the Blind Bull being raided, although the news had certainly surprised him.

      “Get Dave Sutton. Norma Rose will take him home,” Ted told the officer.

      “Yes, sir.” The officer disappeared out the door.

      “I’m assuming there’s no paperwork for me to sign,” Norma Rose said.

      “Of course not. I’d have already signed it if there was,” the lawyer answered.

      She gave him a glare that said she wasn’t talking to him, nor would she ever be. Turning to the police chief, she said, “I’ll be sure to inform my father of all your assistance tonight.”

      “Now, Norma Rose...” Ted began cajolingly.

      “Good evening, Chief Williams,” she snapped before he could continue, and then marched through the doorway into the police station, where she assumed the other officer would bring her uncle.

      Dave was already there, sitting in a wooden chair on the far side of the room, looking green and holding the side of his head with one hand. His sample suitcase sat between his legs. He lifted his head as she approached. “Aw, Rosie, I sure didn’t mean for you to have to come down here to get me.”

      Norma Rose didn’t say a word until after she’d looped an arm around his elbow to help him stand. Not that she was much help. His six-foot frame had a good eight inches on her and he outweighed her by a hundred pounds. He stood, though, and caught his balance when he wobbled.

      Grabbing his leather suitcase in her other hand, she growled quietly, “What were you thinking, doing such a thing?”

      “I didn’t mean to get arrested, and I didn’t drink anything, either,” Dave mumbled in return, with rather slurred words. “You know I’m allergic.”

      “I’m talking about the lawyer,” she said sharply.

      “I met him—”

      “I know where you met him,” she said. “Come on, I have to get you home.”

      “Ty can give me a ride home,” her uncle said, spying the lawyer.

      “And have you giving out family secrets?” she hissed. “I don’t think so.”

      “I never give out family secrets.” Dave wobbled and hiccuped. “Rosie, I don’t feel so good.” Rubbing his stomach, he added, “I don’t know if I can handle riding with you all the—”

      “You’ll handle it all right.” She wrenched on his arm, heading toward the front door Ty Bradshaw held open. Just because she’d had a slight accident years ago when she was learning to drive, which had resulted in Dave, the one teaching her how to drive, breaking an arm, he chastised her about her driving. It wasn’t her fault he’d stuck his arm out the window when she’d been forced to swerve off the road. Yet, he refused to ride anywhere with her, unless absolutely necessary. Tonight was one of those absolutely necessary times.

      “I can give Mr. Sutton a ride to the resort,” the lawyer said, grinning as if he knew the entire history of her driving record. “My car’s right over there.”

      Norma Rose glanced in the general direction he pointed, just so she didn’t have to look at him. A jalopy, a Model T similar to the one she’d wrecked years before. The lawyer was grinning even more broadly when she turned her glare his way. “That’s quite all right, Mr. Bradshaw. Your services are no longer needed.” On impulse, mainly due to how her blood had started to boil, she added, “They never were.”

      He lifted both eyebrows as he dipped his head slightly. However, his grin still displayed a set of white teeth, sparkling like those of a braying donkey. Norma Rose opened the Cadillac’s passenger door and tossed Dave’s suitcase in the backseat. The car—a gift from her father for her twenty-fifth birthday a few months ago—didn’t have a scratch on it. Proof her driving skills were now stellar. That accident had been five years ago and her first attempt to drive. She wouldn’t have needed to learn how to drive back then if her younger sister by two years, Twyla, hadn’t refused to give her a ride that morning. The year before, when Uncle Dave had returned from the war, he’d taught Twyla how to drive. He was also the one who’d taught Josie and Ginger when they became old enough, and he rode with any one of her sisters regularly.

      “Ohhh.”

      The heavy groan had Norma Rose glancing at her uncle.

      Sweat dripped off Dave’s forehead. “I’m going to be sick.” He stumbled then, all the way to the back of her car, where he unloaded his stomach.

      Norma Rose’s stomach revolted at the sound of her uncle’s heaving. Her throat started burning and she pinched her lips together, breathing through her nose as her gag reflex kicked in. She could deal with about most everything, but not throwing up. Not the sounds, the sight, the smell. It evoked memories of death and dying. People too sick to care for one another, dying side by side in their beds.

      The flu epidemic that had swept the nation had stayed for months in her home. Taking lives before it left. Her mother, her brother, her grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, friends. A few of them had been spared—her sisters and father—but they’d all been sick with coughs so deep and raw they’d sounded like a gaggle of geese honking, and so uncontrollable they’d coughed until they’d vomited. Once her grandmother’s most cherished and prized possession, the washing machine on the back porch couldn’t handle the workload. With no money to replace or repair the machine, Norma Rose had washed soiled linens and clothes in a tub with bleach so strong her hands bled.

      Dave retched again and though he was downwind, she got a whiff of a smell similar to the one that had once hovered over her home. Sweat coated her hands inside her black gloves. Afraid she would lose the contents of her stomach Norma Rose slammed the car door shut and dashed around the front of her Cadillac, the slick bottoms of her new shoes slipping on the pavement in her haste.

      “Fine,” she told the lawyer, afraid to breathe while pulling open the driver’s door. “You give him a ride home.”