Diva (The Flappers) - By Jillian Larkin Page 0,4
to honey. And you’ll figure out what his secret is.”
Gloria glanced again at the photograph in her hands. This boy certainly didn’t look like a criminal. He actually reminded her a little of her best friend, Marcus—she’d be willing to bet that, like Marcus, Forrest would have dimples when he gave a real smile.
But thinking of Marcus led her to thinking about a far handsomer, darker-skinned man: Jerome.
It had been an agonizing month and a half apart, but one day soon she hoped to hold him, kiss him, and stare into those deep-brown eyes of his that said he knew her better than anyone she’d ever met. She still sang as much as she could—jail cells actually had pretty swell acoustics—but she desperately missed Jerome playing piano beside her. If she had to dig up the dirt on one wealthy, handsome young fool to free herself and get back into Jerome’s arms, well …
“If I do this, and I get you what you’re looking for, can I go free?”
Hank nodded. “We’ll cut you a deal, I promise. But let me be clear: If you fail to turn up dirt on Forrest, you’re going back into the big house. And not these cushy FBI digs. Nothing your parents do or say will help you then. You’ll have to serve real time.”
Gloria glanced at the box and sighed. Really, she didn’t have to think about her decision for too long. “Have you got a garter in there somewhere? No self-respecting flapper would leave her prison cell without one.”
“Oh, congratulations, darling!” the pixielike woman in the silver Chanel dress gushed. “You have no idea how utterly elated my girlfriends and I were when we saw the news in the Times.” The woman stood across from Gloria near one of the tiny tables covered in fine blue tablecloths that were arranged around the dance floor at the Conch Shell, a hopping beachfront restaurant. The life preservers, colorful shells, and anchors that hung on the wood-paneled walls were a playful nod to the ocean lying just beyond the restaurant’s back patio.
“We toasted your release right then and there at the newsstand!” the dame went on, practically yelling over the roar of the band playing hot jazz on the stage beyond the dance floor. “Champagne would’ve been best, but at nine in the morning, a flask of gin had to do.”
The woman speaking was a tiny wisp of a thing—shorter than the petite Gloria, even—and very, very beautiful. Her dark brown hair was pinned to the side to reveal spectacular diamond earrings and even more spectacular cheekbones. Her nearly black eyes glowed with an aloof sophistication.
A year before, a woman this glamorous wouldn’t have been caught dead talking to a bluenose deb like Gloria. But now she was one in a long line of starlets, journalists, and artists all eager to congratulate Gloria on her sudden release from prison. Gloria felt an instant sense of belonging among these impossibly charismatic flappers and swells. A far cry from the first time she’d entered the Green Mill back in Chicago, when she hadn’t even bobbed her hair.
Before Gloria reached the mahogany bar when she first arrived, a black man in a crisp white shirt, black vest, and blue bow tie had appeared beside her with a dirty martini. “Giggle water’s on the house for you tonight, darlin’.” He gave her a nod. “It’s a brave thing you done for Jerome Johnson,” he whispered. “Something none of us’ll ever forget.”
“Thank you,” Gloria had said. She had finished the drink quickly and set the glass down at the bar—just in time for a handsome man in a seersucker suit to sweep her to the dance floor, where she moved through the steps of the Baltimore Buzz, amazed she could remember them. Gloria glanced at the sparkling dancers around her, smoke filling the air and spinning in endless curlicues as it flowed up to the ceiling fans above. There was glitter, glamour, and music—and Gloria was at the center of it in her brilliant Paquin dress and flawless makeup. What else could a girl ask for?
Well, besides her fiancé.
It had only been when she’d caught the eye of the only grim-faced fellow in the crowd that she had remembered she didn’t belong here. She had come here with a bureau chaperone, and she had a mission: Find Forrest Hamilton and grill him for information.
The man, Terzy, had tapped his watch and continued scowling at Gloria. She’d excused herself from the dance