away with a glance. Dini loved whatever intuition led him to stay quiet with her, where others would pepper her with questions. “Were you hurt at all?” “Where did you go?” “Did you sue?” Instead, there was only the protective cloud of restaurant noise—forks against plates, the rumble of the bus cart—and over it all, the mournful trumpet of a Mexican love song.
At his elbow, Quin’s phone vibrated, and his eyes immediately glanced at the screen.
“Go ahead,” Dini said, grateful for the interruption. She watched him swipe the screen, read it with a bit of a furrow to his brow, and then type out a quick message before setting the phone, screen down, next to his empty plate.
“Okay,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Back to Hedda. What do I need to know?”
She was recovered, ready—at last—for this conversation. “It’s more like what I need to know. From you. Do you believe her?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just from what you’ve read so far. Hedda’s account of that night. What she said she heard. That voice, the touch. Do you believe her?”
“I believe she believes.”
“That’s not the same.”
Quin took a tortilla out of the warmer and tore it in half. “These are amazing. I’ve lost track of how many I’ve had.”
“That is your third. And don’t change the subject.”
“Why does that matter?”
“Because it does.” Dini knew she sounded…crazy? Obsessive? Basically everything Arya accused her of being. She didn’t want to scare Quin off. Not yet anyway. Not before she’d seen what he’d brought from the rest of the story. Without asking, she took up the other half of the torn tortilla and softened her tone. “Because it matters to Hedda.”
“My first instinct then, quite frankly, is to say no. I don’t believe her, because I don’t believe in ghosts. We are all susceptible to suggestions and fears. She was a woman in a precarious situation. She needed sympathy? Attention?”
“Sallie’s throat was crushed. She didn’t speak a word for three days. Hedda is the only person who ever heard her speak.”
Quin’s voice was low, his tone patient—as if explaining to a child for a third time that the monsters in the movie won’t follow you home. “She heard someone speak, but it wasn’t Sallie White. It’s like solving any problem. Once you know what the answer isn’t, you can go back to the beginning and start over, look for something you didn’t see—some small miscalculation.”
Dini chewed, thinking. He was right, of course. Not even she, if held to the fire, could confess an unyielding belief in ghosts. Always, the question wasn’t what Hedda heard, but who. Dini knew the how of it: a phonograph most likely projecting a voice, a chemical blown like an air dart. But again, who? Dini had read the account so many times, she could quote passages without prompting. Still, she remained unable to solve the mystery, to put the torment to rest.
She brought her attention back to Quin, finding him once again tapping away on his phone’s keyboard. Trying not to bristle at his distraction, she shifted her position in the booth, the squeaking of the vinyl seats louder than she anticipated.
“Sorry,” he said, putting his phone back on the table. “Maybe talking through all of this with me will illuminate something new. Plus, who knows? I might have some important missing factors.”
“I hope so.”
“Speaking of …” He opened the drawstring of his bag and brought out a plain manila envelope. “Look inside. She signed it to him.”
Heart racing, Dini opened the envelope and took out a photograph. It was roughly four inches by six and featured Hedda as a young woman, obviously sitting for a portrait with a professional photographer. She was looking over one shoulder, boldly into the camera’s lens. The giddy anticipation Dini had felt in sliding it out of the envelope was short-lived, however. She’d seen this photo a million times, for it served as the frontispiece of the book.
“This was in the box?”
“It’s yours now.”
“Thank you.” She held it closer. “The photographer’s studio dated it in the corner—1914. She didn’t write her memoir until the late 1960s. Published in 1971. I always knew she used an old photo of herself, but this was taken before she even arrived in San Antonio. Years before. If your great-great-grandfather had a copy, she must have had two prints of it.”
“And the writing on the back?” Quin reached over to flip the photograph. “It matches what she has written at the front of her book.”