A Longer Fall (Gunnie Rose #2)(29)

“James Edward, where’ve you been? Excuse me, Mr. Savarov, I wondered if James Edward was keeping you and the missus from your drinks. Every now and then, he does tend to go on.” The voice was hearty, cheerful, and as false as a hair-bow on a pig.

“Not at all, Mr. Mercer,” Eli said. “I asked James Edward for the latest news on when the train tracks would be repaired.”

“All right then, James Edward, duty is done. We need you downstairs.”

“Yessir, right away.”

I could hear him leaving, his step heavy and regular. But Mercer didn’t leave.

“Mr. Savarov, I hope your stay here is going well?”

“Just fine, thank you.”

“My daughter says you are staying on?”

“We are, for the other three days I’d reserved. I certainly hope after that we will be ready to leave. We’ve tracked down a relative of my wife’s who perished in the accident, and there are other friends we’re searching for.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss. I’ve puzzled at your arriving here on your business. But then her relatives being on the train? What a coincidence.”

“Not really,” Eli said pleasantly.

“Of course, of course. Well, have a good stay and be sure and let us know if there is anything we can do to make your time here more comfortable.”

“You can let us charge things to our room,” Eli said, as if he’d just thought of it. “We’ve never been told before we couldn’t do that. Surely that’s the normal procedure?”

“But of course you…” Then Mr. Mercer seemed to catch himself. “That should have been done automatically. That James Edward! I’ll have a word with him. Sometimes you just have to give them a good talking to.”

“I believe Miss Mercer told him not to let us make charges to our room. But if you’re going to correct that mistake, all’s well.”

After a tense moment of silence, Mr. Mercer said, “Good we had this little talk. I’ll let you have your privacy, then.” And I heard more steps and the door closing.

“You can come out now. Unless you want to take another bath?” Eli said. He was trying to sound like everything was fine.

I opened the door and gave my temporary husband a good, hard look.

I didn’t like what I saw.

Eli looked as unhappy as I was. “You’re waiting for me to explain my conversation with James Edward. And I want to. But I swore to a priest I would not tell anyone what I’m doing here. I swore.”

“Swearing is a serious thing, no matter who you’re swearing to. But it’s hard for me to help you—in fact I can’t—unless I know what you’re aiming to do. I have my own goal. I’m obliged to find our cargo so we can make good on our job. Now you want me to help you out. Can those two things go together? Or had we better split up?”

Eli had objected strongly to our separating this morning. Now he hesitated. “I didn’t know it would be so hard,” he said, as if he was talking to himself. He looked at me directly. “I need you, Lizbeth. Our goals march together, for the most part. If I don’t accomplish this, my family…” He stopped.

I wanted to pound him in the head. “What about them?” I said, trying to make him speak.

I could practically see the words inside his mouth, begging to come out, but it wasn’t going to be at this moment.

I looked down at the floor and breathed deeply while I thought. I didn’t have a lot of choices. If I grabbed my stuff and walked out, I had nowhere to go. If I could find a hotel with a vacant room, which didn’t seem likely, I didn’t have enough money to pay for it. And since Eli had paid for the clothes on my back, I’d be pretty damn ungrateful to leave him to fend for himself.

Also, if I became that awful thing in Dixie, a woman on her own, it seemed pretty certain I’d end up killing a person or two.

Shooting someone sounded pretty good right now.

It was lucky the white edge of a note appeared under our door just at that moment. It was even luckier the note was for me. I read it hastily.

Eli waited for me to hand it to him, assuming it was for him, too, but I tucked it in my pocket. (I was lucky the skirt had something so useful sewn in.)

“I’ll be back in a while,” I said, sitting on the bed to put my shoes back on. I decided to skip the stockings. I got a couple of things out of my traveling bag and put them in my new purse, which only held the money from Jake’s pockets. I put on the little straw hat, which did no good at all to keep the sun off my face.

Leaping up, I rooted in my bag until I pulled out a boot. In the bathroom I banged the bootheel hard, sideways, against the edge of the toilet. The heel obligingly went a little crooked.

I nodded to myself and left with the boot under my arm. I didn’t tell Eli good-bye. I tried to go down the stairs very quietly. I succeeded, even in the stupid shoes. The lobby and hall were mostly empty. Only one couple was standing at the desk, checking in. They both looked hot and weary and not interested in anyone else at all. I turned left instead of right at the foot of the stairs, because I’d gotten a hand-drawn map to follow.

I looked just like anyone else as I went out the back door of the hotel, or at least I hoped I did. I was carrying my stupid handbag, wearing the stupid hat, the boot tucked under my left arm. At least I had a knife in the handbag and one strapped to my leg. It was a relief now. The top of the stocking wasn’t interfering with it.