Bea nods solemnly. “Almost nine, if the good Lord hadn’t intervened.”
Carmen looks up from the blue-inked notes she scrawled back in Chicago, her attention snared like a fox. “Nine?” she repeats.
Bea’s mouth curves into a small wistful smile. “Cody Daniels,” she says simply. “He and his best friend, Elijah, were both attacked by the rabid beast a few weeks ago while they were out camping. Cody somehow escaped. It’s a miracle, by all accounts. Elijah wasn’t even recognizable when they found him.” Bea leans in closer, her voice so quiet Carmen almost can’t hear her next words. “His face was peeled clean off and his heart had been eaten. Terrible, I’ll tell ya.” Her eyes shine with emotion.
Carmen’s heart stutters at the realization there’s asurvivor. Someone she can talk to, who can walk her through what happened and show her the scene . . . “Where can I find him?” she asks in a rush. “Cody Daniels?”
Bea stills, eyes narrowing with a sharp edge that tells Carmen she’s pushed too far. “Now what business would you have with poor Cody?”
Knowing she’s on shaky ground, Carmen does what she can to keep her tone confident. “His statement would provide crucial details into the moments leading up to the attack,” she tries, hoping like hell it works. “You can’t deny the benefit of providing the public with information that may end up saving them in a similar situation. I’m . . . I’m trying to protect people.” A truth, buried in a web of lies.
“We protect our own,” Bea states firmly, and Carmen hears it for what it is—the end of the conversation.
“Of course.” Carmen nods with a smile. “Apologies if I overstepped—I meant no harm.” Pulling a hundred-dollar bill from her pants pocket, she places it on the counter between them, covering an old coffee stain. “I appreciate your help.”
Bea’s eyes grow wide as she looks at the money. “You aren’t a reporter,” she says.
Carmen stands from the stool, tilting her head as she keeps her face schooled. “Of course I am.”
Bea only watches as Carmen turns to make her way across the diner, pushing through the door and out into the night.
CHAPTER 2
Lugging her oversized duffle through the narrow door of her room, Carmen drops it on the worn mauve carpet and looks around. She was lucky to snag a corner room on the third floor, ideally positioned to grant her some semblance of privacy. Two double beds with flower-patterned comforters take up most of the compact space, each with its own square wooden nightstand and lamp. In the nearest corner is an old laminate desk with a hunter-green upholstered chair tucked beneath, a small notebook with a black pen resting atop its glossy surface.
Her eyes skim across the whole room, on the hunt for anything out of place or . . .sketchy. Like the shine of a hidden lens in the outlets or light fixtures, or stains on the mattress beneath the bedding. She pulls back the curtains that hang above the window and finds nothing amiss, no one crouched and waiting to jump out at her later. She does the same to the curtain hanging in the shower and comes up empty.
Motel rooms are nothing new for Carmen—they’re the closest thing she has to call home, besides the Impala parked down in the lot below. And while this room is definitely nothing special, it’s leaps and bounds nicer than some of the sheer dungeons she’s endured over the last couple of years.
A shiver nearly makes it up her spine at the memory of a particularly cavernous room she’d booked for the night when the Impala blew a flat driving through El Paso. As if the mold spotted along the ceiling hadn’t been enough, the dark stains in the bathtub and crusted edges of the bedsheets certainly left their mark.
No, this is nothing like that.
She’s only been in Renbury, Ohio for a few hours and can already feel the small-town comfort that Midwest suburbia offers. It reminds her of a similar place she once called home, long before her mother died and she was handed over to the vipers of child protective services at only nine years old. She wasn’t sure where, exactly, that had been, but knew it was somewhere southwest. Nevada, maybe? Or perhaps Arizona? She closes her eyes for a moment, taking a rare moment to let the memory of a large saguaro cactus and blooming bougainvillea wash over her.
She doesn’t let it linger for long—so much of her existence is spent avoiding the remnants of all her past lives. The good ones . . . and the bad.
Opening her eyes again, she distracts herself with the rigorous routine she’s developed over the years: pulling the curtains closed again to keep out any prying eyes; turning off all of the lights except for the one in the bathroom, letting its glow illuminate the rest of the space just enough so that anyone outside won’t immediately know there’s a tenant in this room; unloading all of her gleaming blades and other assorted weapons onto the surface of the small desk. Carmen navigates through the movements as familiar to her as any other bedtime routine, knowing it’s the only way she’ll be able to relax in this new environment. She doesn’t know how long she’ll be here for, but she’d paid the man in the lobby for the whole week.
Once her meager wardrobe is stashed away and her face is washed, Carmen settles into the seat at the desk, examining the collection of knives sprawled out across the wooden surface as she thinks about what Bea revealed at the diner: there’d been asurvivor. A boy who’d somehow escaped the peril of beasts so vicious that anyone who saw them rarely lived to speak about it. The knowledge clenches tightly in her chest as that old ache slices through her again—as familiar as her own heartbeat.
On instinct, she reaches for the pendant that hangs from the thin gold chain around her neck, pulling it from where it’s tucked between her shirt and chest. She holds it for a moment, the metal warming where it’s pinched between her fingers, before she opens the small clasp on the side. Inside is a small photo of a girl, her golden hair curling around her face. Bright blue eyes crinkle as a soft smile curves from pouty pink lips.
Carmen holds her breath as she stares at it for a long, long time.
When the picture blurs from the tears that threaten to spill, she snaps the locket closed and tucks it back into her shirt. Reaching for the bottle of whiskey she picked up from the liquor store across the street on her way to the motel, she twists the cap off and tips it toward her mouth. She gets four rough swallows down before the burn in her throat becomes too much, leaving her heaving and shaking for breath.
Setting the bottle down with a dull thud, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand as flashes of a long-ago summer night flit through her mind: a yellow cotton blanket hugging scattered mounds of sand, two paper cups filled with bubbling champagne, a cerulean sky stretching so far it kisses the dark sea on the horizon.
Carmen had felt so much joy that day, it was almost overwhelming.
She should have known it would all come crashing down.
It takes Carmen far too long to venture back out the next morning. Between the pounding in her head and the nausea raking through her stomach, she almost gives up on doinganythingproductive today. But after pulling a pillow over her head and sinking deeper into the bed, she realizes wasting away will only prolong the work she needs to do.
And she doesn’t have much time.
So after ripping herself out from between the sheets, she crawls to the bathroom and into the shower, desperate to wash herself clean of the hell she’d put herself through last night if the nearly empty bottle of whiskey on her nightstand is any proof. She knows her throbbing hangover is from more than just the alcohol; it’s almost impossible to think of Lacie without the onslaught of a physical reaction, like a bone-deep rebellion against what her brain knows is true.
