“Easiest way would be to take one of the pieces,” she said.

“And your mother hid the crossbars, but the newspaper reports of my find might as well have put a gigantic red arrow pointing to me.”

“Yes, yes,” she said impatiently. “But if Noel Irving is Oliver Ginn, why in the world would he try to get to know me? Why not just befriend you if that would better serve his purpose?”

A string of Swedish curses spilled from his lips. “Oliver’s got family in Oregon?”

“That’s what he told me.”

“What about your father’s partner? Any idea where he’s originally from?”

She shook her head, suddenly sickened. “I don’t know anything about Oliver. He always called on me at work—he never picked me up from home. Never even asked for my home telephone number.” Panic sunk its claws into her belly. “Lowe, I don’t even know where the man lives. And my God, if Oliver is Noel, he’s been flaunting himself under my father’s nose, courting me at the museum in the room right next to his own enemy?”

Lowe whistled sharply and put a firm hand on her shoulder. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay? One thing at a time.”

“Yes,” she said, forcing her frantic breathing to slow on a long exhalation. “Yes, of course. You’re right. Panic will get us nowhere. Must stay clearheaded. For Father’s sake.”

He squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll see what I can dig up on Oliver, and I’ll ask my brother if he can send someone here to keep an eye on you and your father. Until we know for sure, I don’t want Ginn within a hundred feet of either one of you.”

“I have the Mori,” she argued, more to calm her own nerves. Because of course she had them, and cursed though they may be, they would protect her.

“That’s well and good, but I’m still calling someone out here to watch the two of you. Not taking any chances. If that jackass is Noel Irving, he’s a dangerous maniac. And if he’s not, he’s got ulterior motives. Not to mention, he put his hands on you. And no one gets to do that but me, ja?”

She nodded as warmth bloomed over her cheeks.

A thousand thoughts swirled in her head. Noel. Oliver. All the secrets her father had kept from her. “What if I’d gotten married and had a child? Would the curse pass on when I died? Was my father ever going to tell me?”

“I don’t know.”

“And how could he still worship that woman?”

“What woman?”

“My mother. She was having an affair with his best friend while pregnant with me? That’s ghastly. Scandalous. And goddamn selfish.”

“She paid for it in spades,” Lowe said.

She slanted him a sharp look beneath her lashes. “You just don’t want me to get angry and smash you with an operating table.”

“I’d prefer not, given the choice,” he said, smiling softly.

She attempted to smile back, but ended up merely wilting against his shoulder. He slung a strong arm around her and tucked her tighter into the diminishing space between them. She didn’t resist. He was warm and reassuringly solid. Even his clothes smelled comforting. And if one of the nurses told her father of seeing them like this, she didn’t really give a damn at the moment.

All of this was madness. Pure, unbridled insanity. Thank God Lowe had been there. If not, would she be picking out caskets for her father? Heading out to Lawndale again to make funeral arrangements? No matter what problems stood between them, she couldn’t bear to lose Father right now. Not like this.

Feeling uncharacteristically fragile, she reached across Lowe’s lap for his maimed hand. A small noise vibrated in his chest before he curled his fingers around hers. How quickly things had changed between them. When they’d met on the train, she’d avoided shaking his bare hand, but now his touch was a balm to her shattered nerves. She shoved aside her worries for the moment as exhaustion settled. “I haven’t had a chance to thank you for the lily.”

“You liked it?” He said this with a boyish tilt to his lips, as if he wanted to be proud of himself for thinking of it but needed her confirmation to be sure.

“It was terribly romantic,” she said, repeating Miss Tilly’s pronouncement.

“Oh, good.” His squinting eyes twinkled with muted joy. “My pleasure.”

“I’m not sure what the proper thing to do now is—after last night I mean.”

“None of what we did was proper,” he said in a hushed, teasing voice that sent a little shiver through her. “Just please don’t tell me you regret it.”

“No.” She smiled softly, feeling unusually shy. “Definitely not.”

“Thank God,” he said, squeezing her hand. “That’s all that matters for now.”

 • • •

Noel Irving’s home was destroyed in the earthquake of 1906. Lowe made a couple of phone calls the next day and discovered the man’s name popping up again in 1910 as the owner of a small bungalow in Noe Valley. But when Lowe went there to investigate, he found it occupied by a family of Greek immigrants who didn’t speak much English—barely enough to tell him they’d purchased the house a decade ago.

He changed tactics and began searching for Oliver Ginn. The man had told Hadley he was looking for a house to purchase in Pacific Heights, but Lowe couldn’t find an address there, nor in any other neighborhood—not at the telephone company, the electric company, or the property tax office. And a quick flirtation with a young operator got him a tally of all the telephone numbers assigned to any people with the surname Ginn in the state of Oregon: zero.