Page 40 of Murder Most Actual

Back in their room, Liza crawled into bed, and Hanna crawled in beside her and wrapped her up in her arms. “I really am proud of you, you know.”

Liza gave a tiny, mirthless laugh. “For pretending I’m not playing detective when I’m clearly playing detective?”

“For actually making a pretty good job of it.” She brushed Liza’s braids to one side and kissed her neck. “And for everything else. I know I don’t always—haven’t always.”

Liza let her hands come to rest over Hanna’s, her thumbs running gently over Hanna’s thumbs. “It’s okay, I haven’t always either.”

“You’re amazing,” she breathed. “You have always been amazing.”

“You’re amazing too.” Liza rolled over, bringing her forehead close to Hanna’s. “And I’m sorry if I haven’t always made you feel it.”

Hanna’s arms tightened about her waist. “I’ve not always made you feel it either. And …” She tucked her chin downwards and laid her head against Liza’s shoulder. “I don’t know, it just feels really cheap and shit to say we’ll do better.”

“You don’t think we will?” Liza’s heart was beginning to beat slightly faster now. This conversation wasn’t going to a good place.

“I think neither of us wanted to do worse in the first place, but we did.”

Well, that was a depressing way to put it.

“You know I absolutely fucking love you, right?” blurted Liza. It was a clumsy sentiment, and at other times she’d have been embarrassed to put it in such inartful terms. But right now, she didn’t care. “And I’m not just saying that because I’m scared of losing you or worried there’s a killer on the loose. I absolutely fucking love you.”

“I love you too. But…” Hanna half-squirmed, half-shuddered.

“But sometimes people who love each other hurt each other?”

A nod.

“And sometimes that means they shouldn’t be together?”

And another. “I’m not saying I want—that I don’t want to—but when this is all over and we’re back home, what will have changed?”

“I’ll have a hell of an episode for my podcast.”

“I’m serious.”

Liza had been semi-serious as well. Being the podcaster who solved an actual murder would probably be fantastic for her career. Of course, her career wasn’t currently doing wonders for her marriage what with recording and having to bod off on research trips every week or so. Getting legitimately famous would only make that worse. “Sorry, I’m deflecting.” She flumped onto her back and stared at the canopy-rose with its radiating pleats. “I guess I’m just hoping—we’ve aired some things, haven’t we?”

“Aired isn’t the same as fixed.”

For a while, Liza just let that hang in the air. Then at last she conceded, “No, it isn’t.”

Shifting in the dark, Hanna turned onto her side, and instinctively Liza rolled over to hold her. And that, at least, felt right.

“We’ll work it out,” she whispered. “People get through worse than this.”

Hanna didn’t reply but made a kind of gentle shrug that in context seemed to signal agreement.

And with either the best or the worst timing in the world, there was another gunshot.

Chapter Fifteen

Colonel Coleman, in the Dark, with the Dagger

Saturday night / Sunday morning

This time, it had seemed to come from inside the hotel, which meant it had seemed to come from everywhere. Jumping out of bed, Liza looked back to see that Hanna had decidedly not jumped with her.

“Can we …?” The look in her eyes was almost pleading. “What if we didn’t? What if we just stayed here?”

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