The two men continued to stand in the shadows cast by a tall, sculpted stone building, evidently having some sort of a conversation since one of them periodically nodded, while the other spoke, his hands gesturing quickly. They were both clad completely in black, one carrying a leather jacket, the other wearing one despite the heat of the day. The jacket wearer was farthest from me, his face too shadowed to see in detail, but I did notice he had short curly chestnut brown hair. The one turned slightly away from me, holding on to his jacket slung casually over his shoulder, had long black hair pulled back in a ponytail.

I glanced back at Denise, hoping against hope that she might have given up on me and gone to see the fireworks, but doubting she’d miss the opportunity to do a little old-fashioned gloating when I failed at my goal.

“I hate being right,” I said under my breath. Denise stood at the table, the café nearly empty now as more and more people headed to the park. She made shooing gestures toward me.

I edged my way past a tiny clothing shop and pretended interest in racks of dusty books that sat outside an even dustier bookseller. This must be the spider-filled shop Denise had mentioned. I glanced toward her. She had her back to me as one of the men on the tour stopped to talk, gesturing in the direction of the park. Excellent! She was distracted! Now was my chance.

I ducked into the spider-filled bookshop, scurrying to the back, grabbing a couple of books to pretend interest. “She’s not likely to come looking in here for me if the spiders are as bad as she said. I’ll just hide out for a little bit. There’s no shame in hiding. She’ll figure I skipped out, and go look elsewhere for me, right? Right.”

My relief lasted about two minutes, after which shame got the better of me. Being a coward wasn’t my style. A careful and covert survey of the square from inside the bookshop confirmed my thoughts. Denise was disappearing down a street opposite, clearly on the hunt for me. “Yay for insight into human nature.”

I paid for the books and strolled out of the bookshop, adopting a casual, not in the least bit stalkerlike air as I meandered toward the two men. “Maybe I could bribe them. Maybe I could offer them a few bucks if one of them would walk back to the hotel with me . . . ugh. Is this what it’s coming to? Bribing men to pretend an interest in you? For shame, Pia. For sha—oof!”

A woman whumped into me with enough force that it sent us both reeling, my books and her large bag falling to the ground.