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.
Ko?tana had collected all of these. She apparently liked her pretty things on the broken side. Sometimes I’d wondered if that was why she’d loved having me and Lina underfoot so much over the years.
Some of the nargilehs squatting in corners as decoration, pipes coiled around them, were my own; I’d made their blown-glass bases using the flowers Luka gave me for inspiration, sometimes even capturing the original petals within the fractal folds. Years of scented tobacco haunted the air, and I could smell the ripe, wet cloy of fresh wads too.
It was too early yet for the throng of tourists and local teens who’d descend on the store later. Luka sat alone, reading, perched on the stool behind the counter with his back against the mirrored shelves of liquor and his feet propped on the bar. His eyes snapped up to mine as I stepped in, and a thrill flicked through me. He’d been gone for long enough that even after our reunion two days ago, he seemed more like a striking stranger with amber-bright hazel eyes than my best friend since I was nine. Beside me, I could feel Malina casting the room for Niko, but I didn’t see her anywhere.
“Hi,” I said tentatively as he eased out from behind the counter in his lithe, narrow-hipped way. “I don’t know if you’ve—”
I abruptly found myself tucked beneath his chin, my nose nestled into the soapy hollow of his throat. It wasn’t one of his bone-clenching hugs, either; he held me more than hugged me, letting me decide how close I wanted to be. The tenderness demolished me in a second, and I let out a strangled sob against him, my fingers curling into the blue linen of his shirt.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered against the top of my head, rocking me a little. “Jesus, Missy, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe it. Niko and I tried to come and see you yesterday, but the police wouldn’t let anyone talk to you.”
“They had to keep things quiet,” I mumbled tearfully against his shirt. “It’s bad, what happened. Worse than bad.”
“That was the impression I got.” His voice tightened. “Do they know what happened to Jasmina? Who killed her?”
So they’d heard she was dead, too. I shook my head beneath his chin, then pulled back, wiping haphazardly at my face with both hands. He let me go and held his arms out for Lina, murmuring, “Linka, heart, come here, accept my condolences,” and she slipped into his arms in her graceful way, resting her cheek against his chest as he kissed the top of her head. I frowned at them, uneasy without any good reason. They’d never really been much for touching each other, easy as the four of us all were together—Niko was the cuddler, forever hugging all of us and dealing out kisses without provocation—but that hug had seemed so effortless. Like something they’d done many times before.
He caught my eyes above her head, brows lifted in question.