Free The Girls at the Kingfisher Club by Genevieve Valentine

hadn’t gotten out in time.
    â€œYou and me both,” she said.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    At the precinct’s holding cell, Jo sat in uneasy silence with the other women who had been picked up.
    Two policemen took turns bringing them for the bail-money call at the sergeant’s desk at the end of the hall. One by one they clicked away on their dancing shoes, and laughed over the line with whoever was awake at three in the morning and willing to come to the station.
    One of the women, a sharp-looking lady with a curly black bob and a dress studded with sequins, walked out with a grin and asked the desk sergeant to dial a Fred for her.
    He gave her a look up and down that made Jo want to shrink back in her skin, but if the woman noticed, she didn’t say.
    â€œDarling, come and bail me,” she said into the line. Her voice rolled down the hall.
    There was a short pause, and then she continued, “Well, if he won’t bail me out, would you mind? Thanks a million, doll.”
    â€œWho was that?” asked her friend, when she was back.
    â€œMy husband’s girl on the side,” said the woman, brushing some invisible dust off her skirt.
    The friend gasped. “Myrtle, no! What will you do to her?”
    Myrtle shook her head. “She’s bailing me out. She’s not the one who’s in deep with me.”
    When Jo’s turn came, she asked the officer (a new man, older and kinder) if she could have a little while, just to make sure someone would be home.
    â€œMaybe even until morning,” she added hopefully.
    â€œSure thing,” said the officer, but he added, “Your mister’s bound to be angry no matter what. Better just call him and get it over with. This is no place to spend a night.”
    Jo didn’t have much choice. Even if Lou could make it to the house, there might not be enough savings for bail (she didn’t know how much bail was for imbibing), and Lou still had to find out where she was. It could take a day just to visit every jail in the city, assuming you were allowed outside at all.
    Jo decided she might as well get comfortable; she’d rather take her chances in jail than ever call her father’s house.
    But what would happen to the rest of them if she was discovered missing?
    She fought against tightness in her chest. They were clever. They’d come up with an off-putting illness for Jo, if anyone asked for her. It would give them a day, maybe, before she had to find out a way to get home.
    She pressed a hand to her sternum—it felt as though some air needed forcing.
    Over the next few hours, the other women went home. They went out joking or yawning, shuffling out in unstrapped shoes. One girl, still drunk, gave the officer a kiss on the cheek as he walked her down the hall to meet the man who’d come to bring her home.
    Jo watched them going, her panic growing. Was their father even now sending a message upstairs that Jo should come to the library? When he found out she wasn’t there, he’d think she’d run away. What would happen to the rest of them, if he thought his oldest and steadiest offspring had made a mockery of his authority?
    He’d bar the back door. He’d give them all away to the first eleven men he could find.
    Jo leaned her head back, the cool brick wall scratching her clammy neck, and closed her eyes.
    When the kinder cop came back and called for Myrtle, the woman with the curly black bob stood up.
    â€œWho’s outside for me?” she asked.
    â€œA young lady.”
    â€œAlone?”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    Myrtle nodded, unsurprised, and adjusted her headband before the walk down the hall. Jo guessed it wouldn’t do to show up disheveled in front of the husband’s new girl.
    â€œMyrtle,” called her friend as Myrtle moved past the bars, “I’ll come down to the store tomorrow and hear about it?”
    â€œYou might as well,” Myrtle said.