The Lady in Residence Read online

  Clever, him using the same distracting technique she’d worked so hard to perfect. “I’m Dini.”

  He counted off five more cards. “Like the song?” And, completely unbidden, sang a few soft bars of the old Shaun Cassidy hit “Hey, Deanie, won’t you come out tonight?” It was a pleasant memory; her mother used to sing that song to her all the time, and she felt a soft bit of connection to this stranger who so easily tapped into that memory.

  Dini smiled and took back the untouched deck, then scooped up the cards he’d counted off and put them on top. “No. Dini as in hoo.”

  Quin’s eyebrows rose above the frame of his glasses. “Your actual name is Houdini?”

  “Marilyn Houdini Blackstone,” she said with a grand gesture of introduction. “Give me the cards you took off the top.” He did, and she counted them. Nine. She deposited them casually on top of the deck. “Now, you’re going to tell me your three names, and I’m going to deal off the cards and spell them. If I spell them wrong, don’t tell me, okay?”

  “Okay. First, Menger.”

  “Well, that one I know. M-e-n-g-e-r.” She dropped a card faceup with each letter.

  “Hedda.”

  “As in, Hedda Krause?”

  “I wasn’t sure how to spell her name.”

  An unusual, and unwelcome, tremor zipped through Dini’s hand. “H-e-d-d-a.”

  “Oh good. I spelled it right.” He seemed genuinely relieved. “Last one, Irvin.”

  Her finger was poised on the top card, but at the mention of the name, her hand dropped to the table. “Irvin? Why Irvin?”

  “Does it matter?”

  The tone of his question ran everywhere from teasing to—maybe, but probably not—flirting. “It’s kind of a random choice.”

  A tiny shrug. “Not so random. It’s my name.”

  To say that Dini froze in that moment would not be quite accurate. Breath moved in and out, she blinked, and her left hand closed on the deck of cards with a death grip. Still a jab of ice pick–sharp pain stabbed at her head, like she’d taken an ill-advised gulp of a frozen drink. She fought—and, probably failed—to keep a neutral expression on her face as it waned.

  Quin mirrored her gesture of introduction. “Irvin no-middle-name Carmichael, the Fifth.”

  She’d get back to that later. “I-r-v-i-n.” She looked up. “Do you remember your card?”

  “King of diamonds.”

  “And you had nine cards drawn.” She counted them out, dropping them face up on the pile. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight”—dramatic pause—“King of diamonds.”

  “Cool,” he said and took a sip of his beer. “The trick I get—you put the cards down in reverse order. But keeping the stack intact while you shuffle? That was amazing.”

  Dini decided not to confront his condescension, even though it irked her.

  “Do you know who you are?”

  “Do any of us really, Dini? And isn’t that question a little too existential for a first date?”

  The response caught her so off guard she laughed and fumbled her shuffle. She put the cards away and took the cooling mug in her hands. “This isn’t a date.”

  “A date is in the eye of the beholder.”

  “Dates don’t have secrets, Quin Carmichael. And I have a feeling you’re carrying one.”

  “Not a secret, exactly. More like a mystery. Here it goes.” Quin shifted himself as if settling in for a long story. “A few years ago, we—my sisters and I—were clearing out my grandparents’ house. It was originally owned by my great-great-grandfather. Built sometime in the 1890s. We all had a chance to go through and take whatever heirlooms or knickknacks or furniture we wanted, and I found this.” Quin reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and began scrolling. He held it out to Dini, who saw a battered cardboard box, loosely tied with string. “It was at the back of the closet in the master bedroom. So far back that I had the feeling it was hidden.”

  “Feeling.”

  “Sixth sense, you know? And when I opened it…just this weird assortment of stuff. A couple of magazines, newspaper clippings, and”—he all but shuddered—“photographs.”

  Everything within her sparked. So much so, she imagined tiny lightning bolts shooting from her curls as she forced her voice to remain calm. “So how did you know to connect it all to here?”

  “The newspaper articles mostly. About the, um—”

  “The robbery?”

  “Yeah. I did some googling and learned more about the place. And since I had some time on my hands, I finally decided to come and check it out. See what I could learn. I came in here for dinner and told the guy behind the bar—”

  “Gil.”

  “—and he said he knew someone who could tell me the whole story inside and out. And that you’d be leading a tour. So I signed up. And here we are.”

  “Here we are.” No doubt Gil was relieved that she had a new audience for her obsession.

  “So, I’m here until Thursday morning. Maybe we could meet up again? And you could kind of …? Because I have to tell you, some of it’s pretty …”

  He had that speech pattern that made statements sound like questions, allowing spoken thoughts to drift off into vague hand gestures. He was clearly a gregarious sort—instantly at ease with a stranger, a quality Dini never quite understood. She had no idea how much silence had elapsed since he stopped talking, but she knew her cue was to pick up the thread.

  “You won’t be able to understand any of it if you don’t know the whole story.”

  “So tell me the story. You’re an awesome storyteller. I listened to you out on the tour for, like, two hours. Excellent. Chills.”

  She wanted to tell him that most of what he heard was a script, memorized and repeated. Despite his apparent lack of historical intuitiveness, he seemed harmless enough. Her week was pretty empty, save a birthday party tomorrow and an afternoon event on Wednesday. And she might get a free meal or two—call it her fee.

  Plus, he was the in-flesh descendant of the man who had vicariously broken her heart a thousand times over.

  “What do you know about your great-great-grandfather?”

  “Not much. Not as much as I should. He worked for the FBI? Back in the day before it was, you know, the FBI.” He punctuated this with a duh-duh-duhn. “So much of my family followed him on that. My grandfather. And two of my sisters, but they’re forensic accountants. I took the wimp route and went into teaching. Not that I haven’t had my share of rough days there.”

  Dini filed all of this away the way she filed everything—neatly and without effort.

  “What do you know about Hedda Krause?”

  “Again, not much,” he said. “There’s a couple of pictures and newspaper clippings. I did some online searching about her too and didn’t come up with any more than what you said on the tour. I mean, I don’t even know if all of the stuff in the box is related. So, like I said, I was coming to town anyway and thought I’d—”

  “You said you had time on your hands and decided to come here. That’s not the same thing as coming here anyway.”

  “Does it matter?”

  Dini looked at him, thinking about the story of Hedda Krause and Irvin Carmichael. A story she knew by heart. A story that her mother had handed down, that they had spent hours telling and retelling each other on long bus rides and in cheap motels while her father slept in the next bed. She wasn’t about to recount this story to a stranger like it was one of her farfetched Alamo Haunting Spirits Ghost Tour tall tales, no matter how desperately she wanted to get her hands on what he tossed aside as a few photos and clippings.

  “I suppose not. But when I say you need to know the whole story, I mean—I think you should learn it from Hedda herself.”

  “I have no idea what that means, but I’m game. So we can…maybe tomorrow?”

  “Not tomorrow, I’m working. Besides, that won’t give you enough time.”

  “Time for what?”

  Din
i took a deep, patience-affirming sigh. “Time to learn the story.”

  “How am I supposed to know the whole story if you won’t meet with me.”

  “Give me your driver’s license.”

  Quin actually sat back and gave a small shake of his head, like her request had jangled his thoughts. “My—what?”

  She held out her hand. “Your license. I want to be sure you are who you say you are.”

  “Why would anybody lie about being Irvin Carmichael the Fifth?”

  Still, he reached into his pocket to retrieve his wallet. Simple, black leather, thin. He opened it to reveal his Virginia license, and the name he claimed. Besides his address, Dini’s quick mind scanned the photograph. He must have weighed a good twenty pounds more when this picture was taken. The lack of beard alone wouldn’t explain the round, soft face. That explained the certain edge he carried.

  “Here’s my deal,” Dini said, opening the bag beside her and rummaging around beneath her costume. There, at the bottom, she found the quilted zippered pouch, which she opened to withdraw her greatest treasure from.

  “You’re going to read to me?”

  “No. You’re going to read for yourself.”

  The title, My Spectral Accuser: The Haunted Life of Hedda Krause, was stamped in gold lettering on the front cover of the thin green volume. Her mother had fished it out of a donated books bin at the library, and the way she clutched it made young Dini love it before she ever heard a word. Mom said she’d actually met the author, the subject of the book, who was a very old woman at the time. Since then, there was rarely a day when Dini didn’t have it in her bag, or purse, or satchel—for comfort as much as anything. Even her mind, sharp as it was for numbers and patterns and memories, couldn’t begin to calculate how many times she’d read it. Hundreds, easily. Some passages, thousands. And now, in a gesture that she would have deemed impossible only an hour ago, she handed it across the table to a stranger.

  “You have to read this.”

  Quin took the book in his hands with what could be seen as either reverence for, or unfamiliarity with, such a thing. “Someone wrote a book about her?”

  “She wrote a book about herself.”

  A smile spread on his face—one of pure joy and discovery. “Is Irvin the ‘First of His Name’ in here?”

  Dini caught the Game of Thrones reference and tucked it away as another detail. “He is, but there’s so much more. You have to know her—Hedda—and her story. The only way to really do that is to read it in her words. She only had a hundred copies printed. I don’t know how we were lucky enough to find one.”

  “I don’t believe in luck. There’s a reason, a plan for everything.” He’d opened the book and was gingerly fanning the pages with his thumb.

  Dini resisted the urge to leap across the table. “Careful, there. I haven’t torn a page yet, but it’s delicate.” Indeed, the pages were soft, almost cottony around the edges.

  Quin opened the front cover carefully and turned the book so Dini could see the displayed page. “I have this picture. The print of it. I could go—”

  “No.” Again, self-control. “Before we talk any more about her, you have to know her voice. Before we talk about your great-great-grandfather, you need to hear his voice. This is your family history. This is why you found a box hidden at the back of a closet. So read it.”

  “All of it? I mean, I don’t have a problem reading, but…I’d like to see you again. Soon. To talk, I mean.”

  Dini felt the slightest and most unfamiliar frisson pass through her as he stumbled through the last sentence. “Not the whole thing. Wait here a second.” She scooted out of the booth and walked down the stairs to the bar, allowing her body to loosen up and her lungs to exhale a breath she’d been half holding since Quin invited himself to join her. Gil was trying awfully hard to look busy, wiping a perfectly clean glass, as Dini picked up a napkin and asked for a pen. She probably had a dozen pens somewhere in the vastness of her bag, but this would be quicker than finding one.

  “I know this is kind of a new deal for you,” Gil said, his voice deep and rumbly with friendship, “but these days the kids just put their numbers straight into each other’s phones.”

  “Actually, my phone is dead. Would you mind using yours to call me a Lyft? I’ll pay you back.”

  “You could pay me back by returning my sweater.”

  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 sat
chel, 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 hand grasping mine, comes to me as a tangible phantom, a pressure against my pulse.

  “There is no love waiting for me anywhere but here, my darling,” I told him. “Where would I go?”

  I could never seek any life other than the one he’d given me. His cozy hearth was my cozy hearth. His bed, my bed. Never mind that I was his third wife to share it, or that his sons would never grant me a place in his life outside of it. Their father died in that bed while I sat beside him. It was late in the afternoon, and their shadows filled the doorway within minutes of his last breath.

  “Go, now,” the older one said, his voice so like his father’s that I wondered for a moment if he’d stepped back from the angels.

  “Where would I go?”

  “Anywhere.” His voice colder than his father’s lifeless touch.

  How came I to San Antonio? What guided my steps to the Menger Hotel? Surely the same Divine Guidance that made me mistress of my late husband’s parlor carried me over the threshold and dropped me onto these shining parquet floors. It was early October, cool, and sloppy with rain, making the crackling fire in the fireplace just past the desk a welcome sight indeed. I made my way straight to it, holding my hands out to its warmth. With no idea how long my bit of pocket money would hold out, I’d had to choose between transport for my trunk and transport for myself. Thus, having been assured my luggage would arrive within a few hours’ time, I’d walked from the station, feeling the cold seep in one step at a time.