Last Violent Call (Secret Shanghai, #3.5)(17)

The logbooks started to stack up on the floor. Three piles. Five. Ten.

“Ahh!”

Roma jolted, taken aback by her sudden cry. “What is it?”

Juliette hurried to turn the logbook around, stabbing her finger at one line toward the very bottom.

“A five-minute call to Vladivostok from Happy Inn. That is only twenty minutes away from here.”

It was a rural inn that Juliette knew by name because her cousin had mentioned it to her in the past. Celia hid out there sometimes between assignments if it was too much of a bother to go back to Shanghai in the short term. If they hosted Communists on occasion, then surely the word on the street cast the inn as a place to go for people who didn’t want to be found.

“That’s promising,” Roma said. “Let’s see if there are any more.”

They combined efforts, with Juliette passing Roma each book and Roma doing the briefest flip through the pages. By the time they had finished the whole September stack and started to shove the logs back onto the shelf, it had only been that one entry that proved useful.

“What’s the hour?” Juliette asked.

“Almost two o’clock,” Roma replied.

“So we have time for another stop?”

Roma was already moving. “We do as long as you keep up.”

“What!” Juliette screeched. Her heels clacked as she ran after him. “I am not any slower than you!”





7


Happy Inn’s front desk had been left unstaffed, but there was clearly someone on duty. Roma could hear the shuffle of footsteps in the room right behind the desk, and there was a cold cup of tea waiting too close to the edge.

“Let me jump behind the desk,” Juliette whispered. She rose onto the tips of her toes to see what was hiding behind there. “I will be quick.”

“No,” Roma said firmly. “They could come back at any second.”

“Are we merely to wait, then?”

Roma looked around the reception area of the inn, taking in the fraying wallpaper and the one hallway that led toward the rooms at the back. Understandably, there was no one else around, only the heavy hush of night and the grandfather clock in the corner, its pendulum swinging from left to right with each passing second. The red carpet under their feet might have been plush when it was first installed, but now it was so dirtied that the threads were flat and gray, murky like paint water. Mold grew in the corners of the four walls, dark clumps that decorated the wooden panels. An attempt had been made, it seemed, at etching an Art Deco border design directly onto the wood, which perhaps would have looked nicer if the squares were the same size.

“We can ask nicely for this information, so it should be no problem to wait.” Delicately, as if he were removing a feral cat with her hackles raised, he plucked Juliette’s hands off the desk, walking her back a step before she lunged anyway. Then, because he wasn’t sure if that would quite suffice, he took a handful of her loose hair, smoothing it over her shoulder and separating it into three sections.

“Are you… braiding my hair?”

“Yes,” Roma answered plainly. “I’m forcing you to hold still. It also keeps getting in your eyes.”

The problem with getting his wife to listen to him was that she had a penchant for not listening to him if the situation amused her. Big matters and serious decisions between them were effortlessly uncomplicated; they practically spoke as if they were the same person when they were trying to problem-solve together. Smaller concerns, on the other hand, were a battle between how well Roma could sweet-talk her and how stubborn Juliette decided to be in opposition. More often than not, she won.

“I didn’t know you could braid hair,” she remarked.

Roma made a haughty sound. “Who do you think did Alisa’s hair every morning?”

“I don’t think I ever saw Alisa with a braid.”

“Yes, well—” The moment that Juliette tried to dart toward the desk, he abandoned the braid and his farce, weaving his fingers through her hair instead and forcibly pulling her back. “I never said I was very good. Quit that.”

“I only want to have a peek.”

“Juliette, I swear, if you don’t stay still—”

She tried again. Roma yanked her hair once more, harder. Though he couldn’t get a good look at her face, he could tell that Juliette was silently laughing.

It was at that moment the door behind the desk opened and the receptionist stepped out, a man who looked slightly younger, dressed in plain traditional garments and holding another cup of tea. He paused, trying to make sense of the scene before him.

Roma released his grip on Juliette’s hair, shooting her a look that said, Aren’t you glad I kept you back?

In response, Juliette turned and gave him a sly wink that wasn’t fit for interpretation around company.

“Good morning,” she said, sidling closer to the reception desk, now given free rein to loom over and peer at the papers. “Could you help us out? We are looking for a guest.”

“It is most definitely not morning,” the man replied. He set his cup down next to the one already waiting. “Who are you looking for?”

Roma approached Juliette’s side. He remained wary, eyes narrowed upon the receptionist.

“He only gave me his name as Mr. Pyotr,” she answered. “I don’t suppose anyone here matches?”