Wicked Like a Wildfire (Hibiscus Daughter #1)(31)
I held the key out to him, waiting until he took it from my palm with his dry, tobacco-stained fingers. The gesture sparked a glint of memory—the glimmering little thing that Dunja had held out to my mother before they parted—but I had to be sure. “Did you see her here? Do you know who she came to meet?”
The clerk had paled beneath his leathery tan. “Yes, Jasmina was here,” he said finally. “I was here for that shift, and I saw her come in. She greeted me, but that was all. I let her pass. I should have stopped her—our procedure is to have all visitors check in, so we can call ahead—but I didn’t. I thought . . .”
Malina came to the conclusion faster than I did. “That she was visiting someone she wanted to keep discreet.”
Of course. A single mother, with no male companions anyone ever knew of. A man of this generation would have assumed Mama was a lonely woman yearning for company, but intent on guarding her reputation. He’d have considered it a kindness, even chivalry, letting her preserve the privacy of the visit.
“Something like that, yes.” His hands curled into fists on the counter, and I felt a stab of pity for him. This wasn’t his fault, but now there’d always be the spidery niggle, the doubt that he could have done something differently. “I never thought that this might have anything to do with—with the death. If it does, I need to—”
“Yes.” I cut him off. “The police should know, and they should hear it from you as soon as possible. But please, since we’re here, could you tell us first? Is that what happened? Was she meeting a man here?” I let my voice tremble. “Probably it’s nothing. But it would help so much to know.”
He sucked in his lips, working them through his teeth. I could almost hear his thoughts; he’d already breached the protocol once, and look what had happened. Now there were tragic orphans, wanting things from him.
Sighing, he squinted at the serial number on the key fob, then pecked it into his computer system. “We have only seventeen rooms, and two apartment suites. This key is for one of those—suite eighteen.”
Lina and I both leaned eagerly into the counter.
“No, it wasn’t a man,” he said finally, squinting at the screen. “A woman, I remember her. Sounded almost like one of us, but had a Russian name. Nina Ananiashvili. We get lots of Russians through here, but that’s an unusual name even for them. I mentioned it to my wife, who nearly went crazy. Said this Nina was Georgian, once the prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Ballet, that she was in America now. But I told her it couldn’t possibly be the same woman.”
I felt light-headed from holding my breath. “Why not?”
“Because Nina Ananiashvili can’t be more than forty or so, according to my wife. And the woman who stayed with us had completely white hair.”
“And is she . . .” I had to swallow past the lump of risen dough in my throat. “Is she still here?”
“No, miss. She left yesterday, early in the morning.”
“How early?”
He squinted at the log. “Around five thirty, it looks like.”
Early enough that she could have been at the café that morning, in time to hurt Mama right before I got there.
I closed my eyes. Please, please, please. “And do you have any idea where she might have been going?”
“Well, she paid in cash, and there was no . . .” His eyes cleared. “Actually, yes, there was something. We have a shuttle that takes our guests to Perast every day, for the restaurants and the museum, and to see Our Lady of the Rocks, of course. I’m not sure if she took it or not, but she asked about it when she came looking for a room. Does that help at all?”
I NEARLY JOGGED to Luka’s café, Lina by my side, my insides alive with adrenaline. Even if it hadn’t been Dunja, maybe she knew who had done it—or even how Mama had been left stranded, like a traveler abandoned on the Styx’s banks without the ferry fare. And whatever Dunja had told her had made her so afraid she’d wanted to be both drunk and numb, and even close to us. If there was the slightest chance that I might find her in Perast, that was where I had to go.
When I’d voiced all this to her, Malina had drawn me up short. “Why do you keep saying I like some lone-wolf vigilante, Riss?” she’d demanded.
“I thought it would be better if—”
“I know I’m not made of granite all the way through, like you, okay? But she’s my mother, too. And if that woman really is at Our Lady of the Rocks, then we have to go. What do you think we should do about getting there?” We’d never been able to afford a car, or felt the lack of one. “Take the bus?”
I squared my shoulders. “Luka’s going to lend us his car.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“Everything. And I’m going to need you.”
The Roma Prince was tucked into one of the narrower alleyways in the Old Town’s winding maze, gaslight lanterns swinging on either side of its ornate, bronze-clasped wooden door. Niko and Luka’s mother, Ko?tana, had named it after her nickname for Luka—it was also very much in keeping with her tongue-in-cheek defiance toward those who still hadn’t fully accepted a Romany woman in their midst, even one married to a Cattaro local whose family traced back generations. She’d decorated the café with Niko’s help, and it looked like a sultan’s harem flavored archly with Niko’s own taste—clusters of embellished, black-and-silver darabukka goblet drums in place of tables, and luxuriant cushions instead of chairs, with gold-embroidered brocade curtains separating the little enclaves. The red walls were hung with strings of old threaded coins, frail bouquets of dried herbs, and Romany instruments in various stages of disassembly—an artfully broken cimbalom splayed out like some abstract sculpture, three pieces of a snapped pan flute, staved-in mandolins and tarnished tambourines everywhere.