Grave Phantoms (A Roaring Twenties Novel) - Softcover

Bennett, Jenn

3.84

812 ratings by Goodreads

9780425280768: Grave Phantoms (A Roaring Twenties Novel)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0425280764 ISBN 13: 9780425280768

Publisher: Berkley, 2015

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From the author of Grim Shadows and Bitter Spirits comes the new Roaring Twenties novel in the series hailed as “Boardwalk Empire meets Ghost Hunters, but so much better” (Molly Harper, national bestselling author of the Jane Jameson series).

Feisty flapper Astrid Magnusson is home from college and yearning for the one thing that’s always been off limits: Bo Yeung, her notorious bootlegging brother’s second-in-command. Unfortunately her dream of an easy reunion proves difficult after a violent storm sends a mysterious yacht crashing into the Magnussons’ docks. What’s worse, the boat disappeared a year ago, and the survivors are acting strangely...

Bo has worked with the Magnusson family for years, doing whatever is needed, including keeping his boss’s younger sister out of trouble—and his hands to himself. Of course, that isn’t so easy after Astrid has a haunting vision about the yacht’s disappearance, plunging them into an underground world of old money and dark magic. Danger will drive them closer together, but surviving their own forbidden feelings could be the bigger risk.

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About the Author:

Jenn Bennett is an award-winning artist and author of the Roaring Twenties novels, including Bitter Spirits and Grim Shadows, as well as the Arcadia Bell urban fantasy series. Born in Germany, she’s lived and traveled extensively throughout Europe, the U.S., and the Far East. She currently lives near Atlanta with one husband and two evil pugs.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

September 15, 1928

University of California, Los Angeles

Dear Bo,

I got your letter in the mail today and was so eager to read it, I completely forgot to attend my history class—no great loss. My professor never smiles and doesn’t seem to like me. Besides that, everything is wonderful here. My dorm mate, Jane, and I took a streetcar to Hollywood Boulevard this weekend. Unfortunately, we saw zero motion picture stars.

Sorry to hear someone scratched your new Buick, but not half as sorry as they’ll be when you find out who did it. Sounds like you’re working too much at the warehouse. Just because Winter promoted you to captain doesn’t mean you’re his personal slave. Tell him to give you some time off. Perhaps a weekend in sunny L.A. would do you some good!

I have to go. My next class, Physics, starts in ten minutes and I’ve already missed it too many times. Luckily, that professor thinks I’m cute.

Your friend,

Astrid

P.S.—Don’t tell Winter I’ve skipped any classes.

September 25, 1928

Magnusson Fish Company

Pier 26

San Francisco, California

Dear Astrid,

Your brothers both send their regards. In fact, Lowe came by the warehouse with Hadley and Stella today. They have booked a trip to Egypt next month. (All three of them.)

The mystery of the Buick’s scratch is solved. It was Aida. She ran into it with the baby carriage—an accident, of course. It’s hard to stay mad at a pretty woman. By the way, I’m thinking of naming the Buick “Sylvia.”

Sounds like you’re having fun, but you need to stop missing classes. If they expel you, Winter will blow his top. He’s mad enough that his baby sister isn’t going to Berkeley and still moans about your Southern California campus being a “poor substitute for the real U.C.” And while we’re on the subject, who is this Physics professor? Old men shouldn’t be telling you that you’re cute. Be careful around him. Don’t make me worry about you.

Your friend (and enemy to lecherous old men),

October 5, 1928

University of California, Los Angeles

Dear Bo,

Egypt? Stars above. Please give Stella lots of kisses for me when you see her again and tell her Auntie Astrid misses her. I’m not sure how to make the word “miss” in sign language, but Lowe will know.

My dorm mate, Jane, and I are not on good terms right now because her sweetheart asked me to join him and some of his friends last night when Jane was at a sorority meeting. We saw the Bruins play football—that’s our collegiate team. I thought it might be boring to spend time with all those boys, but they were cutups, and called me Queen of Sheba, joking that they would be my male harem.

You don’t have to worry about dirty old men. Professor Barnes is only twenty-six. This is his first year teaching. He thinks I’m “delightful,” and not just cute, so he’s not only interested in my good looks. He told me if he has time this semester, he might take his best students to visit Mount Wilson Observatory, to look through the giant telescope there. It’s up in the mountains near Los Angeles, so we will stay there in a hotel overnight. More soon. Sylvia is a great name for the Buick!

Your friend,

Astrid

October 15, 1928

Magnusson Fish Company

Pier 26

San Francisco, California

Mui-mui,

Your professor is up to no good. Teachers should not be staying in hotels with students. Lowe, being a professor himself, agrees with me. I am very concerned about your well-being. If you need to wire me a message for any reason, please do so. Never mind the train ticket, I will drive down there and come get you. I haven’t mentioned this to Winter, because he would already be down there. Please use common sense.

Your friend,

October 30, 1928

University of California, Los Angeles

Dear Bo,

I can’t believe you told Lowe. That was personal, between you and me. I am perfectly capable of making decisions without anyone’s help, you know. And for your information, I had a wonderful time with Luke at the observatory. He is kind and sensitive, and he sees me as none of you do: as a woman.

Your adult friend (not your “little sister”),

Astrid

December 5, 1928

University of California, Los Angeles

Dearest Bo,

I am sorry about my last letter. I suppose I was upset with you, but that was silly. It’s really very touching that you’re concerned about me. It means a lot. I just wish you’d trust me to make my own decisions, even if they are the wrong ones sometimes.

Are you receiving my letters? I’ve heard on the radio that terrible storms are heading up the coast toward the Bay, so please stay safe.

My favorite wristwatch broke, which was upsetting. I will look for a replacement in S.F. There are no decent jewelry stores here. Oh, I bought my train ticket home and leave in ten days. That’s December 15th at noon. (Does that date sound familiar?) I can’t wait to see you at the station.

Your true friend,

Astrid

P.S.—I’m sorry I got mad about you calling me mui-mui. I actually miss hearing you saying that. No one here speaks Cantonese.

ONE

DECEMBER 15, 1928

Astrid Magnusson was mad as hell. She furiously wiped the fogged-up window of her brother’s Pierce-Arrow limousine with the mink cuff of her coat, but it didn’t help. The hilly streets were nothing but darkness punctuated by the occasional streetlight as they drove through more rain than she’d ever seen in her life.

“I can’t believe it’s been like this all week,” she said to the family driver over the half-raised window divider between the front and back seats. “It never rains like this here. Never.”

“Ja,” Jonte replied in Swedish as they turned onto the Embarcadero. “You shouldn’t be down here with all this flooding. Winter will be angry.”

Whoop-de-doo. She’d been back in San Francisco since noon and had barely spoken to her oldest brother. Half the city was barricaded, and she knew that’s why Winter was down here working at nine in the evening—to help sandbag the warehouse. She also knew that’s why Bo was here; however, him she wasn’t ready to forgive.

She hadn’t seen Bo in almost four months, he’d stopped answering her letters, and now that she was home, he couldn’t step away from the warehouse for one hour? Not even a telephone call or a note?

At least the staff had made her a nice dinner to welcome her back, and she’d had a little celebratory champagne. A little too much, possibly, but she didn’t feel very drunk. Then again, she wasn’t very good at drinking. A couple of months back, she’d downed five glasses of bathtub gin and ended up with a sprained ankle after falling off the dormitory balcony. But the post-drinking sickness had been far worse than the sprain, and she swore to all the saints she’d never drink again.

But really, that was a pointless promise to make, considering that Winter was one of the biggest bootleggers in San Francisco.

The limousine slowed in front of a long line of bulkhead buildings that sat along the waterfront. Warm light spilled from windows that flanked an open archway marked PIER 26. Magnusson Fish Company’s waterfront dock. At least, that’s what it was in the daytime; at night, it was a staging warehouse for citywide liquor distribution.

Astrid grabbed her umbrella and began opening the Pierce-Arrow’s door before it came to a complete stop. “Don’t wait for me,” she told Jonte. “I’ll get someone to drive me back home.”

“But—”

“Good night, Jonte,” she said more forcefully and erected the umbrella against the blustery night rain.

Ducking under the building’s gated Spanish stucco archway, she splashed through puddles and immediately smelled exhausted engine oil and shipping containers. Familiar and oddly pleasant. Just past a fleet of delivery trucks parked for the night, men stacked sandbags against the warehouse walls, where water ran across the cement floor. Winter was there, talking to someone as he directed the sandbagging.

But no Bo.

Before Winter could spot her and yell at her for coming out here at night, she folded her umbrella and took a sharp right into the warehouse offices. The reception area was empty, but a light shone from the back office. She marched with purpose, head buzzing with champagne, and stopped in the doorway.

The office was exactly as she remembered. Framed ancient photographs of her family lined the walls, slightly askew and dusty: their first house in the Fillmore District, her brothers as small children, and every boat her father had ever owned—even the last one, right before he died in the accident three years ago. Watching over those photographs was Old Bertha, a stuffed leopard shark that hung from the ceiling.

And hunched below that spotted shark was Bo Yeung, stripped from the waist up and dripping wet with rainwater. A soaked shirt lay on a nearby chair; a dry one was draped across a filing cabinet.

A sense of elation rose over the champagne singing in Astrid’s bloodstream. He was here, her childhood friend, the person she trusted more than anyone else in the world, and the only man she’d ever cared for.

Stars, she’d never been so happy to see his handsome face. She wanted to rush forward and throw her arms around him, like she used to do when they were both too young to recognize things were changing between them . . . when she was just the boss’s baby sister, and he was only the hired help.

No longer.

And with that realization, all her hurt feelings rushed back to the surface.

“So you are alive,” she said.

At the sound of her voice, he stood and turned to face her, and the sight of his sleek, sculpted chest momentarily took her aback. She’d seen him without a shirt a dozen times before—working outside in the sun, in the Chinatown boxing club where he sometimes went to blow off steam, or when they’d find each other in the kitchen raiding the icebox at midnight. But as he stood there in front of her now, holding a damp towel as if poised to fight, the elegant sheen of his finely muscled arms seemed almost risqu�. Virile. She felt hot all over, just looking at him.

It was unfair, really.

“Astrid,” he finally said in a rough voice. Straight hair, normally neatly combed, fell over one eye like a stroke of black calligraphy ink. He pushed a damp lock of it back and stared at her like she was a mirage—one that he hadn’t expected to see.

Too bad. Astrid wasn’t going be ignored. She’d worn her best fur and a stunning beaded amaranthine dress that showed off her legs, and she’d practiced exactly what she was going to say to him.

Only, now she’d forgotten most of it.

“You didn’t pick me up at the train station,” she said.

“I was working.” He shrugged with one shoulder, as if he couldn’t be troubled to lift both of them. “Besides, I’m not the family driver. That’s Jonte’s job.”

As if that were the point? Truly.

“And you didn’t come to dinner. Lena made almond cake.”

“Did she? Sorry I missed that,” he said lightly.

“Is that all you missed?”

“Don’t tell me she made lemon pie, or I really will be sorry.”

Anger heated her cheeks. “I’ll give you something to be sorry about, all right. Be serious for one moment, please. I think you owe me at least that for not bothering to say hello to a girl you haven’t seen in months.”

He snapped the edge of the towel toward the ceiling. “Do you not see what’s going on out there? We’re nearly underwater.”

“But it’s my birthday.” Even as the words came out, she knew they sounded petty and childish, and wished she could take them back.

“I know,” he said.

And that made her livid.

“A simple ‘Happy birthday’ would be the polite thing to say. But I’m not sure why I expected you to even remember, because you haven’t answered any of my letters.” He hadn’t even bothered to write and tell her the disappointing news that her friend and seamstress, Benita—who lived downstairs in the Magnusson house—had left for Charleston two weeks ago to tend to a sick relative. “I suppose you just forgot to write me back?”

Bo grunted and avoided her eyes.

“Don’t tell me you were busy working, because I know damn well it hasn’t been raining all that time.”

“No, it hasn’t.” He turned away from her, toweling off his hair.

“Then what? Out of sight, out of mind—is that it? Am I that forgettable?”

“Damn, but I wish you were.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? God, Bo. Is it because you’re not being paid to wheel me around town anymore, huh? Is that it? You get promoted and now I’m just a job responsibility you can shuck?”

He tossed her a sharp glance over his shoulder. “Stop being ridiculous.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You came down here in the middle of the night to tell me that?” He tossed the towel aside and pulled on a dry undershirt.

“What if I did? At least I remembered where to find you after four months, which is more than I can say for your crummy sense of direction.”

Swearing under his breath, he snatched up a clean shirt and glanced up at her as he shrugged into it. His fingers paused on the buttons. “Have you been drinking?”

“Drinking?” Astrid repeated, as if it were the most ludicrous thing she’d ever heard.

“You keep squinting at me with one eye shut.” He marched toward her. Before she could get away, his fingers gripped her shoulders. She dropped her umbrella and leaned back, trying to avoid him, but his neck craned to follow her movement. His attractive face was inches from hers, all sharp cheekbones and sharper jaw.

He sniffed. Clever, all-seeing eyes narrowed as he tracked her sin with the precision of a bloodhound. “Champagne.”

“Only a little,” she argued, breathing in the mingled scents of the dusty warehouse and rainwater, and beneath those, the brighter fragrance of Bo.

All her anger disappeared for a moment because—damn it all!—she’d missed him so much. She didn’t care if his position in the Magnusson household meant they shouldn’t be together, or that societal rules regarding their cultural differences meant they couldn’t be together. If she had to make a vow never to leave him again, she would. And unlike the no-drinking promise, she’d be able to keep this one, because if going away to college had taught her anything, it was that Bo was what she wanted.

Only Bo.

She softened in his grip and dazedly blinked up at him with a small, hiccupped laugh.

“Ossified,” he proclaimed. For a moment, the slyest of smiles curled the corners of his mouth. She loved that smile. He was the shiniest, most vibrant person she’d ever known, and she wanted to soak him up like warm sunlight.

His gaze fell to her hand, which had drifted to her neck like a shield, as if it could somehow prevent her runaway feelings from escaping. “I thought you said you broke that wristwatch,” he said in a lower voice.

“I did. But my arm feels bare without it.”

For a moment, she thought he might reach for her hand. But he merely released her, stepping away to button his shirt. “You shouldn’t b...

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