huge John Wayne icon in their minds and it’s, well, not quite that.”
“Still, I want to go see it. Be a tourist.” He nudged her playfully with his elbow and started walking.
“You should have time before you go. You say you’ll be wrapped up on Tuesday? Wrapped up with what, exactly? I thought you were here to learn about Hedda. And Sallie.”
“Sallie!” He slapped his forehead as if just remembering a long-lost thought. “What a—I mean, you told part of the story on the tour. I knew she died—”
“Was killed.”
“Yes, killed—”
“Murdered by her husband.”
“But that bit about it taking her three days to die. Three days? Why do you leave that out of your tour talk?”
Dini shrugged. “Some of the hosts include it, but I don’t. I don’t like to think about her suffering. It’s horrible enough, isn’t it? How we can be so entertained by other people’s pain? If I can give her a little bit of dignity, I want to do that.”
“And it was right down there?” They stood at the corner of Crockett and Alamo Plaza, one Häagen-Dazs shop and a tourist center away from the entrance to the Menger Bar.
“No, actually it was on the other side. Back then the hotel also had a brewery, and the bar was a part of it. The bar as it is now didn’t come until sometime after Prohibition.”
“Well, Prohibition’s over. Do you want to go in? Have a drink? Play a round of Hedda and Bert?”
Is he flirting with me? Dini thought about their kiss—Hedda and Bert’s—and wondered if he was thinking about it too. After all, he’d only read half the book. He didn’t know how it ended. She knew her lips were raspa stained, but he didn’t know how they tingled with the lingering spice. And hadn’t she been flirting too? Taking him over to see her picture, knowing—because the photographer told her endlessly—how good she looked, how her curves filled everything out just right. “Queen of hearts, “he’d said, clicking away. Queen of broken hearts, more like it.
“No,” she said and charged on, not letting herself surmise whether or not he was disappointed. “We came here—I came here—to see the Christmas picture.”
“Right. The Christmas picture. Let’s go.”
They turned toward the front entrance and were soon within steps of a man dressed in the bedraggled layers of the homeless. He was weaving in an irregular pattern on the sidewalk, and as he approached, Dini felt Quin’s hand on the small of her back, tugging her closer. Her first instinct was to pull away. First, because the man approaching was a regular on the plaza and—as far as she knew—harmless. Second, because her body wasn’t used to touch of any kind. She’d made herself available to Bea’s physical affections and even granted Arya the opportunity for a true, long hug when the occasion allowed. But she’d never been one to allow random physical confrontation. Not with strangers. Not with men.
Except Quin.
In just those seconds, she calculated every touch. The touch of their hands at Mi Tierra. The brush of his hip against hers as they walked in the crowded street. The nudge of his elbow. Now this. It bothered her mind but not her body, and she missed it immediately when he drew away to open the lobby door.
They passed a sea of furniture positioned in front of a massive black stone fireplace and headed, by some unspoken instinct, across the threshold to the Victorian lobby. “Do you want to wait here?” He indicated a grouping of sofas around a glass-topped table. Spanning the area, a painting depicted a classic cowboy in pursuit of roping down a stray. It was the very place she’d mentioned in her playful text before she saw the name and the emojis. “Or do you just want to come up to my room? That would be easier.”
“I—I don’t know—”
“Look”—he held up his hands in a gesture of surrender—“I know you don’t know me well, but you can trust me. I’m a nice guy. A good guy. Not a serial killer or anything like that.”
“Most serial killers don’t introduce themselves as serial killers.”
He laughed. “Point. But—we can leave the door open. I know, I know—that’s what I would say here in order to get you there and—”
“It’s fine,” she said, suddenly consumed with nothing other than seeing the prize she sought. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 9
Excerpt from
My Spectral Accuser: The Haunted Life of Hedda Krause