Chapter Six
Six
Barcelona, Spain
“Anyone following us?” I murmur.
Dane looks around as he opens the door to the taxi. “Not currently. Get in.”
In the cab, Dane’s thumbs move over his phone screen. “We’ve got rooms booked off the Placa de Catalunya.” He leans forward and gives the name of the hotel to the driver. He turns to me and says, “We’ll check in and walk over to the cathedral.”
I’m about to ask when he had time to book us hotel rooms, but my stomach growls again. I remind myself to grab one of those little Spanish sandwiches, a bocadillo, or something as soon as we can.
The cab circles the enormous plaza before turning down a side street and pulling alongside a curb.
Our hotel is tucked between a cell phone store and a computer-repair shop.
The street is lined with mopeds and cars and trees planted in small holes of the sidewalk, as though the city said, Oh, fine, and allowed a sliver for nature.
Flowers festoon balconies on every floor of the buildings.
We go inside and find a surprisingly chic hotel lobby.
The hotel clerk performs a symphony of keyboard clacking as Dane checks us in, followed by a long discussion in Catalan and some worrying looks of consternation on the part of the clerk.
I take one of the free bottles of water set out in the lobby to stave off the hunger.
Dane turns to me from the counter and takes one step across the lobby to where I stand. “Slight problem.” His forehead crinkles.
“Don’t tell me they’re booked up because of a hot dog convention and there’s only one room left and we have to share.”
“It’s an accounting conference.”
I guess, “But the bad news is there’s only one room.”
He nods.
I refused to share a room with Eric last night, insisting on getting my own room when we arrived at the hotel even though it meant paying the nonconference rate.
I’ve known Dane less than a day, and I’m surprised to find I don’t care about the room, which says more about Eric than it does Dane.
I shrug and say, “Fine. We’ll deal with it. ”
Dane nods once. “Let’s drop your bag in the room and get to the cathedral.”
We go up to the sixth floor and open the door to the room.
It’s a nice enough hotel, with updated decor and soft lighting.
The bed is huge, and the window faces a building across the street that has several balconies draped with the striking red-and-yellow stripes of the Catalan flag.
I drop my backpack, which at least has my toothbrush and toiletries in it.
I also have a smaller cross-body bag that’s just big enough to hold my wallet, phone, and the guidebook.
We go back downstairs, out to a wide stone pedestrian street, the Avinguda del Portal de l’àngel.
It’s a trendy shopping lane, and the stores are large and bright.
My eyes are full of the street, taking in the stores and the strolling tourists.
Little side streets that are fetchingly narrow and cobbled peel away from us, promising adventures.
It hits me that I am here, in Barcelona, where I’d always wanted to visit and didn’t think I’d get the chance.
My stomach growls again, this time too loud to hide, and I feel the warning pinpricks of fuzziness.
Low blood sugar, jet lag, and maybe delayed shock seem to crash into me all at once.
I stop in the street. “I need to eat. I’m going to grab something real quick.” I point to a little store that looks like it sells cigarettes and souvenirs. The store has a small snack selection, and I get a bag of chips.
When I rejoin Dane outside, he gestures to a bench. “Do you want to sit while you eat?” It’s thoughtful. I know he wants to get to the cathedral.
“No. Let’s keep walking.” I shove chips in my mouth as we walk.
Dane says nothing, but I notice he’s not going at his usual mad dash Dane pace.
He’s slowed for me. The lane we’re on curves and narrows.
We pass stores that aren’t as high end but are more practical, like a delicious-looking jamonería and a little gift shop with colorful mosaic bull figurines.
He says, “It’s just through here, according to Google Maps. ”
We exit to a plaza, bordered on one side by the grand entrance to what must be the cathedral.
It has a massive neo-Gothic stone arch over the main doors, set back in diminishing archivolts.
Dane pays the admission fee for both of us, and we walk into the hushed, cool interior of the cathedral.
This cathedral is no Sagrada Família, but I’ve never visited that and this one is pretty damn impressive.
It’s a proper Gothic cathedral with soaring arches crisscrossing above and small chapels lining each side of the nave.
We walk quietly toward the high altar, and Dane turns right to exit the huge space.
I follow him, and we’re in an outdoor courtyard, which must be the cloister, surrounded by giant stone columns.
It is lush, quiet, and filled with trees in the center, like a secret garden.
We slow our walk to an almost reverent pace that the space demands.
Dane’s face reflects the wonder I feel. I like seeing this thoughtful side of him.
A goose honks, and I see three white and well-fed ones in the middle area, secured behind a tall fence.
My stomach turns over with excitement that we’re at the cloister, that my solution for the guidebook puzzle led us here.
We circle the perimeter of the garden and come to an opening in the fencing.
Two fat geese swim in their own private pool.
A small courtyard encloses Sant Jordi’s fountain, which is a wide stone octagon.
It’s less grand than I expected, its stone worn from visitors or age.
Metal faucets spout from the mouths of faces carved into the upper part.
I glance at Dane to find him circling the fountain, eyes scanning.
A small metal statue of a knight on a horse sits on a mossy, ruined small third tier at the top of the fountain—Sant Jordi, I know, slaying a metal dragon beneath him.
“Anything?” I ask.
He shakes his head. He’s still circling the fountain. I’m worried that we won’t figure out what the next step is supposed to be. The Feast of Corpus Christi is tomorrow, so maybe there’s nothing to see today, but still.
A man in black and a priest’s collar comes into the space and says something in Catalan, pointing to the gate we came through.
Dane nods and asks a question, which the priest answers in an impossibly long explanation.
Finally, Dane jerks his head toward the gate at me.
I follow him out of the small space, and the priest closes the gate behind us.
“What happened?” I ask.
He grins, and the way his face transforms is enthralling. “The second puzzle is happening.”
■ ■ ■
We leave the cathedral through the hushed nave.
“What did the priest say?” I ask.
“I’ll tell you when we’re not out in the open.” He seems sure of our next move, which is good. We walk back up to the rush of the busy Placa de Catalunya, and Dane points at a building that looks like a large department store. “I need to do a little shopping since we left Madrid in a hurry.”
“We left Madrid in a hurry because you said we were being chased,” I say as he pulls open the glass doors. I don’t bother explaining that the airline lost my bag.
“And we were.” He gestures to a store directory. “Get whatever you need. I’m buying.”
“Of course you’re buying,” I say. “You’re a millionaire.”
He rolls his eyes and heads up the escalator to the men’s department.
The store is like every other huge big-city department store, and it’s comforting to find that there are some things that can be relied upon to be the same the world over, right down to that unique department store smell of perfume and newness.
I wander through the women’s department, grabbing essentials—socks, a few bras, shirts, and two pairs of jeans.
I grab a pack of green lacy underwear. The clothes selection is pretty decent and I don’t do a lot of shopping normally, with my postdoc salary, so I decide to try on a blue sheath dress.
My phone pings with a text. I check it and see that I have a long string of missed texts from Christine.
Her texts range from Did you arrive in Madrid to Why aren’t you answering me to Do I need to alert Interpol?
Checking in with each other when we travel is our way of covering for the fact that we don’t engage much otherwise.
I respond that I’m fine, that I’m in Spain (neglecting to mention which city), and that I might be staying a little longer than originally planned. I hit send, and almost immediately she starts typing back.
Christine: Eric said he broke up with you when I called him. He told me to get your stuff out of his condo.
I forgot that she asked me for Eric’s number for this trip. It was a nice request, which I took to mean that she recognizes that I’m out of the country for the first time and cares what happens to me.
Zoe: I broke up with him, not the other way around. I really appreciate you getting my things.
Christine and I have never been each other’s wingwoman like that before. Maybe this will be a turning point.
Christine: Thank God you’re rid of him.
She met Eric once, months ago over the holidays.
Christine suffered a few difficult breakups that left her with the conviction that all men are human garbage bins, so chances weren’t great that she’d like Eric.
But the two seemed to hate each other on sight.
Eric thought she was a shrew—he actually used that word—and while this is largely true, it crossed the sacred sibling line that allows only me to call my sister a shrew.
For Christine’s part, she phoned me the next day (highly unusual) and implored me to dump him.
She said Dad would be disgusted, which was weapons-grade manipulation.
It might have worked because that was about the time I started pulling away from Eric.
I text back a simple heart emoji now, because sometimes, despite your best efforts, your big sister is right.
I get dressed and decide to go for the blue sheath too, because Dane’s paying. I take my clothes and go up the escalator to the men’s department. Dane has a pile of his own, and all of it is in various shades of black or gray.
“Found what you need?” he asks, nodding at the items in my arms.
“Yes. Surely you could use more color.” I point to two black T-shirts on the top of his pile.
He frowns at them. “They’re what I always wear.”
“You’d look good in green.” I grab a neatly folded emerald-green shirt from a nearby display. “And this light blue one.”
“This isn’t a fashion show.”
“Suit yourself.” I shrug and pile my clothes on top of his. He takes everything to a nearby cash register and puts it down to pay, but I notice that he exchanges out the two black shirts for the green and blue ones.
Once everything is purchased, Dane navigates us via another escalator to the luggage department.
I stand to the side while he looks around the bag selection, eventually buying us both two bags for our clothes and some other things that look like straps.
We exit the store and head around the corner to our hotel.
“I’m just going to get changed,” I say as we dump our bags in the room. I’m eager to be out of my two-day-old travel clothes.
“Take your time,” Dane says. “I’ll hang out in the lobby downstairs and argue with the front desk about getting us a second room.
” He checks his watch, which prompts me to check mine too.
It is nearing six p.m. “It’s early for Spain, but we can grab dinner.
” He takes out his phone. “Give me your number. Call or text if anything happens.”
I picture assassins scaling the hotel outside and leaping into the room through the window as I give him my number, and he sends a text so I have his.
“And,” he says, pulling out a black item with straps from the bag with his purchases, “wear this under your clothes at all times. It’s a document holster. Put your passport and ID in here. Anything you don’t want stolen from these rooms.”
“I don’t want any of my things stolen.”
“It has to be worn at all times. You need to be able to run with nothing in this challenge.”
I believe him, especially after what happened on the train.
He leaves the room, and in the quiet wake of his departure, I revel in the loud silence.
I head for the shower, intending to quickly wash off the travel grime, but the hot water is glorious and I can’t help but linger.
The hotel soap is particularly nice smelling, like sugary lemon.
I wonder if Dane will smell like it later and push that thought away.
When I’m out and dressed, I see a text from an unknown number.
Hi Zoe, I’m Araceli, Dane’s assistant. He gave me your number. Feel free to reach out with whatever you need. I’m based in Madrid, but I can get you anything! I’ll be handling the logistics of your travel.
Dane doesn’t seem the type to have an assistant, but maybe if I win this challenge and become a millionaire, I’ll get one too.
As it is, the man clearly travels frequently and speaks fluent Spanish—and Catalan.
Before now, the most earth-shaking transition I’ve had was moving to Chessmont for my postdoc.
I text Araceli and ask her if she can check me out of my room in Madrid. She replies immediately and says she’ll take care of it. It occurs to me that apart from the incident on the train, things haven’t been terrible.
When I emerge from the elevator, Dane is standing in the lobby, focused on the street outside, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets, all of which I find enormously sexy. For a moment I watch him, enthralled.
Then I notice the clerk shooting me a little knowing smirk, having obviously caught me openly drooling. I straighten, clearing my throat. But my face is burning hot as Dane turns and takes me in, his eyes quickly flitting over me. He grunts and turns to the door to go out onto the street.
“Have a great evening,” the hotel clerk trills in a mortifyingly suggestive tone. There’s nothing for me to do but follow Dane out.