Billy tugs on my arm and I impatiently pull away. I’d been practically running ever since I left Dr. Boyle, while Billy’s been chasing me down the street, trying to get my attention. Part of me appreciates how humorous we must look—a cowboy chasing a flapper down the staid streets of London—but the larger part of me is terrified and horrified and desperate to reach Cole. Billy finally grabs me around the waist and picks me up off my feet. “What are you doing? Let me go!” I struggle and fall just short of clobbering him on the head with my umbrella. “Stop it. What the hell are you involved in? Murder? Blackmail? What?” He holds me easily in his arms and I’m aware that I am being held so that the lines of our bodies are flush against one another. I stop struggling. “Please put me down.” He does what I ask, and I begin walking again. “I can’t tell you everything. Suffice it to say that a friend of mine was murdered and that man knows who did it. For reasons I can’t explain right now, I can’t go to the police.
