tagging the Inn and the Sidecar, thanking them both for an afternoon of history and haunted romance. Within seconds, the red heart beneath the post lit up, and she saw that @QCMichael liked it. Quin. Then his own post popped up, the picture of the two of them—one taken by the bartender—with a caption: This girl is magic and amazing. No hashtags (just because a guy develops an app doesn’t mean he “gets” the marketing aspect of IG), but the picture…She’d posed with men before—the dads at birthday parties, guys from the audience after a show—and she always looked so stiff. So uncomfortable. Because most of the time she’d just taken a step from their proximity or shrugged off their touch or steeled herself against an unwelcome embrace.
But here, the two of them stuffed into a tiny room built for one, she could see the way their bodies formed to each other. Her lines intersected his lines. His fingers splayed against the stitching of her belt. Had his arm encircled her? And she hadn’t noticed? Didn’t twist herself away with a frozen smile?
No. In fact, there was no smile on either face, unless you counted the contented half lift of Dini’s lips. Quin, however, wasn’t even looking at the camera. He was looking at her, his glasses loosely held in his left hand, his face turned at an angle that betrayed his gaze. Even though she was there, even though it was her, Dini felt like she was peeping in on a private moment. Nobody would ever look at this picture and not think that Quin was in love. He couldn’t have posed for this. Surely in the series of the bartender’s snaps there was one where both of them wore cheesy friendship smiles. This was a moment unguarded and captured. This was a trap like the one the poor fox in the Pipe Room must have wandered into. And, like the fox, Quin had put it on full display for her and—she checked—all 117 followers.
Chapter 16
Excerpt from
My Spectral Accuser: The Haunted Life of Hedda Krause
Published by the Author Herself
One week passed. Then a second. And perhaps a third—measuring time became the least important of my priorities. I knew I should leave the Menger. Even more, I knew I should leave San Antonio, but I knew that if I left, I would never see my worldly goods again. Sallie White had gone from being a mischievous irritant to a force of destruction. I knew people thought me to be mad. I heard the sniggers of the staff as I passed them in the hall and the whispers of guests who somehow knew my tale. I may not have been robbed by Sallie White herself, but I’d been robbed by this place. My hands might be empty, but I would not walk away until they grasped some kind of justice.
One afternoon, after a stretch of mutual avoidance, I took it upon myself to step behind the front desk and knock on Mr. Sylvan’s private office door. At his terse “Come in,” I entered, holding myself tall, lest he think I came to grovel.
“Mrs. Krause.”
“Mr. Sylvan.” Then an uncomfortable minute before, “May I sit down?”
“I’ve never known you not to do exactly as you wish.”
I took a seat in the chair opposite his desk, noting how absolutely tidy it was, not a stray paper in sight. Just a blotter, a telephone, pen, ink, and massive ledger. “I’m sure you realize why I am here.”
“Has it something to do with the staggering amount of money you owe the hotel?”
“Surely staggering is an exaggeration.”
He licked the tip of his fingers and flipped to a page at the back of his ledger. I did not see the specific figures, but even from this distance the amount of red ink appeared as damning as anything in Carmichael’s notebook. “Would you like to hear the total?”
“I would not. Not right now, thank you.”
“I’d be well within my rights to have the police come and toss you out on your bustle, you know.”
I suppressed a smile at the way his moustache twitched at the word bustle. “I understand. And I am thankful for your generosity—”
“It is not my generosity, I assure you.”
“Then, I suppose the owner?”
“The owner is away on extended business, not expected to return until summer, at which time I am certain to lose my job. No, Mrs. Krause, it is not so much a matter of generosity as practicality. Better to keep you here than