“Car accident,” Kyla said.
“Cancer,” Ethan said.
“Same thing. Just slower.”
Ethan’s body seemed to warm up enough for him to start walking again. He took a few steps around the supply closet, his hands tucked into his armpits, deep in thought. “Does your friend Fernanda have stomach issues?”
The question was so strange Kyla took it seriously.Didshe? Kyla wasn’t entirely sure. The girls weren’t especially close. After a few months of her working at the steakhouse, Frank had hired Kyla to help cater one of the massive barbecues he threw for his men at his big compound outside of town. It had been hard for Kyla not to notice the imperious, beautiful Mexican woman standing alone in the corner of Frank’s house like a piece of furniture. Kyla had said hello to her. Frank had been delighted.Swing by tomorrow, keep her company, he’d said, as if Fernanda were some kind of restless animal.
Frank had added,Ask her to tell you a story.
Here, in the motel’s supply room, Kyla said honestly, “I’m not sure. We don’t know each other all that well.”
“She said she was late coming to dinner because she needed to use the restroom,” Ethan said. “But it seemed a little long for a bathroom break, if you don’t mind me saying. You and Penelope got to dinner around, what, 7:35? It was ten, maybe fifteen minutes before Fernanda turned up. Do you think she was in y’all’s room that whole time?”
Kyla narrowed her eyes, if only because she’d tried to avoid asking herself this same question all night. “I don’t think Fernanda could have killed Sarah. She isn’t that type of girl.”
“But you just said you don’t know her very well.”
“She wouldn’t have donethat.You saw the way Sarah’s pants were pulled down. I feel pretty confident my friend isn’t a rapist.”
“We don’t know that Sarah Powers was raped.” Ethan looked almost pained to be asking these questions—pained on Kyla’s behalf—but he didn’t stop. “The way her pants were pulled down could just be a smoke screen, something the killer did after the fact to confuse us, just like you said a few minutes ago. Fernanda knew the cartel trick with the pillows. She knew that Sarah was going to talk to Frank after dinner. She knew that Sarah had a satellite phone. She knew that Stanley was here, too, and if he didn’t have one of those phones, he might want to use Sarah’s if he ever found out she had it.”
“Why would Fernanda care about the satellite phone?”
A little smile came over Ethan’s face. “Please. It’s obvious y’all are on the run from Frank’s outfit. It would be very, very bad if either Stanley or Sarah told Mister O’Shea that y’all were here. I don’t know the details of y’all’s trouble—respectfully, I don’twantto know—but you ain’t exactly being subtle about it. That satellite phone could really complicate your lives. Making sure Sarah didn’t have it would be good. Making sure she never got the chance to tell anyone she saw y’all here could be even better.”
“I don’t…,” but Kyla trailed off. She wasn’t stupid. She’d considered this angle for herself already, many times, and never come to a satisfying answer. It wasn’t like she could ask Fernanda to admit to murder and leave the woman out in the cold when the lights died.
Could she?
“What about your man?” Kyla said to Ethan, desperate for a change of subject. “Was he with you all night?”
“He was with me well before seven thirty.”
“That’s a rather lawyerly answer.” Kyla turned from a shelf full of laundry detergent to arch an eyebrow. “I asked if he was with youallnight.”
Ethan examined shelves of his own. He held up a white plastic bottle and said, “Look at this label. Doesn’t the logo look old, like the sort of thing you see in old commercials?”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“Because there ain’t much to say. Hunter just took a smoke break, is all. Got back to the room around six forty-five and took a nap with me. I couldn’t sleep, though. I just stayed awake with him until he got up and we went to dinner.”
Kyla said, “Six forty-five. You’re sure on that time?”
“I am.”
“Why, though? Were you watching the clock? Were you waiting for him to come back?”
“Of course I was waiting for him to come back. We’re in a strange motel in the middle of nowhere and—” Ethan broke off, clearly debating whether to tell her something. “Y’all aren’t the only people who’d like to steer clear of Frank O’Shea. Back when we passed through Turner, Hunter did something pretty awful to a man who works for Frank. I was worried the guy’s goons were sure to come looking for us.”
“Was it Cleveland, the fry cook with the little rat face?”
“You know him?”
“Little shit came to dinner on Frank’s dime once a month. Always found some excuse to look down my shirt.” Kyla almost smiled at the idea of that particular fucker having a run-in with Hunter. “Whatever your man did to him, the boy had it coming.”
“I don’t think anyone deserves what Hunter did to that guy.”
