“Ever heard of mass hysteria?” she asks.
“Like the Salem witch trials?”
“Yes. Exactly like that. People start believing lies to be truth, and their own minds deceive them.”
I lean forward a little, getting into storyteller mode.
“But what if the woman was a real person who died at the hotel and it was covered up?”
Grandma’s eyebrows climb higher. “Why would that happen?”
I shrug. “The author of the book thinks it could have been to protect her lover. Maybe he pushed her?”
She wipes her hands on a dish towel and looks at me thoughtfully. “You mean murder?”
I nod.
“Did a guest actually fall to her death at the Belicourt?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Eyewitnesses—actual guests who were on their way to the gala that night—reported seeing her lying on the Cottonwood Court floor, yet nothing was ever officially reported, and no one knows her name.”
“So, you don’t know if any of it’s true.”
“Not yet.”
“Why don’t you just ask the young man you were with the other night?”
I shove a section of orange into my mouth. “Man? What man?” I ask as I swallow.
Grandma narrows her eyes. “The young man who gave you a ride home. Your boss?”
Oh, right. I forgot I introduced them.
“Mr. Garrison. Right,” I say. “Um, he’s not exactly a fan of The Lady in Red story. In fact, he gets irritated anytime it’s brought up. Thinks it’s nonsense. So, he’s a dead lead.”
She raises a brow. “What are you planning to do?”
I pop another orange wedge into my mouth and chew slowly.
“Harleigh?”
“I’m going to go down to the library today and look through their newspaper archives. See if I can find out who she was. I mean, if she was a real person, someone had to be looking for her, right? People don’t just disappear into thin air without someone noticing.”
“So, you’re gonna keep snooping even though your boss doesn’t want you to?”
“Yep.”
“Why are you so curious?” she asks.
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
But that’s not entirely true.
There’s something about the story that sticks in my brain.
Maybe it’s the drama of it.
Or the romance.
