She tugged it closer around herself. “You know that won’t happen.”
Gil had his phone. “You want me to order it now?”
“In the next few minutes? Please? I’m ready to go.”
“Hey, Dini.” He beckoned her close. “For what it’s worth, I think he’s a nice guy. This could be good for you.”
Dini left without comment, keeping her face expressionless against the real pleasure in watching Quin watch her. “Do me a favor?” she called up. “Bring my bag down to me? I can’t do those stairs again.”
This was only partly true. Yes, there was a bit of a wobbliness in her thighs, but most of that could be attributed to the fact that she’d been a little bit in love with the ancestor of the man walking effortlessly down the stairs, carrying his glass and her cup, with her book tucked under his arm and her satchel cradled in the crook.
“Sunday morning. Brunch,” she said once he was next to her.
“I was going to try to find a church to visit.”
Church. Filed away. “You can find one that meets early. Then, we’ll say eleven. A place called Mi Tierra. Sound good?”
All this she wrote on the napkin and drew two lines, solidifying the plan.
“Two minutes, Dini,” Gil said. “Gray Honda Accord.”
She thanked him again and said to Quin, “I don’t drive in the city if I don’t have to. Getting a Lyft is cheaper than parking.”
“Do you live nearby?”
“Sort of. So, let me tell you two things real quick. First, that book means more to me than you can even imagine. Please, please, be kind.”
“No reading in the tub. Got it.”
Dini pushed the image out of her mind. “And two: if anything does happen to it, or if you choose to abscond with it, I will hunt you down and haunt your life.”
“Well, I don’t know how impressed I’d be with your hunting. Because, you know, I’m right here. Staying in this hotel.”
“No, I mean I’ll come to your house.” She named the address, amused at his look of incredulity.
“You—you looked at my license for a millisecond ten minutes ago.”
“I’m that good.”
They’d been walking across the bar together, and not until they reached the door did Dini remember the cold wind waiting outside. “I’ll stay with you until your car gets here,” Quin said, opening the door.
“You don’t have to. It’s freezing.”
“I’m not going to let you stand out on the street by yourself. Looks like tomorrow might be a good day to stay inside and read after all, if it’s anything like this.”
Already his nose was red, and the skin above his beard blotchy. He shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, and Dini was about to insist he go back inside, really, when a gray car with the Lyft logo in its window turned the corner.
“There’s my ride,” she said, lifting a hand to flag it. “I’ll see you Sunday. Do your reading.”
“I will. I promise.” He opened the back door, leaned in, and verified the driver. His solicitude seemed a second nature—opening doors, escorting, protecting.
She had one foot in the car when she called out, “Hey, Quin Carmichael.” Unnecessary, because he hadn’t yet taken his eyes off her.
“Yes, Dini Blackstone?”
“Do me a favor, and don’t read the whole book. Okay?”
He looked quizzical. “Okay?”
“Just up to page”—she closed her eyes and scanned her memory—“fifty-one.”
“Fifty-one. Got it.”
When she was settled in the car, he handed over her satchel, told her to buckle in, and the driver to be safe. The car was warm, scented with a freshener meant to make you feel like you were inhaling fresh laundry on a line. The driver, a fortyish woman with long blond hair pinned on the sides with sparkly barrettes, commented on the sudden change in the weather. “I was running the air conditioner at noon.”
“Yeah.” Dini looked over her shoulder to see Quin, still standing on the street, watching them drive away. “It’s crazy.”
Chapter 2
Excerpt from
My Spectral Accuser: The Haunted Life of Hedda Krause
Published by the Author Herself
I will spare you, Dear Readers, from the sordid details of my life before I walked through the doors of the Menger Hotel. What matters is this: I arrived with a heart burdened by grief, my dead husband’s words echoing in each beat.
“Promise me,” he’d said. “Go search out a life where love will find you.”
By some cruel trick, I cannot see his face, but the memory of his touch, his