Page 15 of Over Her Dead Body

He turns and walks away.

I stay where I am.

He reaches the corner.

Keeps going.

Ten steps.

Fifteen.

Then he stops beneath an awning and looks back.

I don’t move.

For several seconds, neither does he.

His attention shifts to the dark car.

He swears under his breath and starts back toward me.

I watch him come back, which is satisfying enough that I almost forget I’m furious.

“What are you doing?”

“This isn’t a street where you want to be alone at night.”

CHAPTER 7

EMMA

The bar he takes me to is underground. Stone steps down from the street, a heavy door, and then a room that is small and dark and older than most of Austin. The kind of place that doesn’t have a sign because if you need a sign you don’t belong here.

At this hour, it is full of people who look like they have made peace with tomorrow being difficult. Music low. Voices high. Perfume, smoke, expensive shoes, bad decisions.

A woman at the bar laughs like nothing impossible has happened to her today.

Must be nice.

Reid walks in like he owns the place. The bartender nods at him, and I think: you have a regular bar in Lisbon. You have a regular bar in Lisbon and I have been putting flowers on your grave.

He chooses a table in the corner and takes the chair facing the door.

I sit across from him.

The bartender appears without being called. Reid orders in Portuguese because apparently that’s something he does now.

Whiskey for him.

Tempranillo for me.

I look at him.

“Easy guess,” he says.

The wine arrives.

I take a drink.