And I know a thing or two about cursed objects.
One killed my mother.
Now my father was hunting down another.... To hell with my mother, and to hell with me. Maybe he wouldn’t come back this time. Maybe our last conversation would be the nasty fight we’d had over Vlad’s ring when he’d left me here, and I’d be orphaned in Istanbul for the rest of my life. In a way, that felt decidedly apropos, but I wasn’t sure if it was better to feel sorry for myself or mad at my father. I supposed either was preferable to worry.
By the time the taxi finally reached my stop, I’d managed to drag myself out of those swampy emotions and instead focused my thoughts on catching up with Madame Leroux. She had to be here, and I had to convince her to stay in Istanbul for a little while longer. That’s all there was to it. Clutching my handbag and the tattered remnants of my pride, I sprinted from the curb to the hotel’s entrance under the doorman’s offered umbrella. Then I stepped into my current home-away-from-home.
The Pera Palace Hotel.
Lauded as the grandest hotel in Turkey, its arabesque mosaics and Murano chandeliers were an impressive mix of Orient and Occident. The marble floors were Carrara; the service was white glove. A five-star experience, truly. Earlier today I couldn’t bear to spend another moment inside these walls, but now it felt like what I needed most: a safe and familiar haven.
As I hurried past an enormous arrangement of hothouse flowers that smelled deceptively of springtime, the hotel’s bearded concierge glanced up, spotted me, and waved me toward his desk. Embarrassed about my muddy dress, I attempted to ignore him, but he caught up with me halfway through the lobby, in front of the main salon.
“Miss Fox!” he shouted.
No ignoring him now. I slid my eyes in his direction and pasted on a weak smile. Behind me, scents of roasted pistachios and rose water drifted from the hotel’s salon along with lively notes from a grand piano. After my lousy afternoon, I could use a cup of tea and something sweet. Might as well go out in a blaze of baklava.
“Good news! Everything is arranged,” the concierge told me. “When your luggage is ready, please telephone me at the desk. Your departure tickets are being exchanged and will be held at the railway station. You’ll be boarding a night train that leaves at ten o’clock tonight.”
“Mr. Osman,” I said, confused. It was hard to concentrate on what he was saying, because my eyes went to the bald notch that had been clipped out of the top of his hair; he told me yesterday that his wife was angry at him when she trimmed his hair. Emotions and hair clippers make terrible bedfellows. “I have no earthly idea what you’re talking about.”
“Your tickets.”
“What tickets?”
“The train tickets to Europe?”
I was trying to make sense of what he was saying and was sure he had me confused with another guest. Yes, we’d booked train tickets to go home, but that was for next week, after my father returned. “What do you mean, you’ve exchanged them?”
“For tonight’s train, as requested.”
“Requested? By whom? Was it Madame Leroux?” Maybe she’d changed her mind. “Is she here?”
Mr. Osman’s nose twitched. His gaze dropped to the muddy stain on my dress. “Miss,” he said, scratching his beard. “Are you...? Has there been...?”
“Yes, there has,” I said without explanation. “Can you please send someone up to my room to fetch my clothes for cleaning?”
“Right away.”
“Is that where Madame Leroux is?” I asked.
“Madame Leroux left a half hour ago.”
“With the lounge singer?”
“And her luggage.”
I quickly surveyed the lobby, still unable to fully process that she was actually gone. I didn’t see her blond head anywhere, but I did, however, notice a dark one: Behind me, a middle-aged man in a long black coat bent to pick something off the marble floor. When he stood back up, dark eyes stared at me from a pale, bearded face that was thin and angular, handsome in a dark-and-brooding Heathcliff ofWuthering Heightssort of way. “Pardon me, miss,” he said in an Eastern European accent. “You dropped this.”
He held out a folded Turkish banknote between his index and middle fingers. I accepted it automatically before I looked closer and realized it was an old bill. Very old. Not the same size as modern paper currency in circulation.
“Oh, this isn’t mine, sir.” I tried to hand it back, but he only shook his hand.
“I saw you drop it,” he insisted, and made a motion that indicated it fell from my coat pocket. Something about the man was strange and off-putting. When I was trying to decide why exactly, the concierge interrupted.
“Regarding your brother,” the concierge said.
“One moment please,” I mumbled, holding up a finger to Mr. Osman, but when I turned back around, the man in the black coat was already exiting the hotel. I frowned at this for a moment, dazedly pocketing the old banknote, as Mr. Osman’s words quite suddenly sank into my thick brain, making me forget all about the Eastern European man.
