Ledger pushed his own coffee to the side and looked through the notes.
The first was from Wren. Or Earl. It was the business card he’d given them the night before, folded into a sticky note with Ledger’s name written on it.
“Call me” was scrawled in Sharpie on one side and a phone number on the other.
Ledger flicked the corner of the card with his thumbnail. It was probably better if he just assumed there was no difference between Earl and Wren. That might work to remind his cock that there were bad decisions andbaddecisions, as in ones that could get you killed quicker.
Not to mention the fact that the equinox was in—Ledger paused for a moment as he checked the date on his phone and then did the math in his head—five days.
That salted wash of dread threatened to choke Ledger again. It clenched in his gut and chest, cold and too hard to breathe through. He closed his eyes and shoved it back down before it could get a proper foothold.
Five days. That didn’t give him time to be sappy over pretty black eyesorwallow in terror.
He’d need atleasttwo weeks to fit that in.
That little bit of inappropriately timed humor made Ledger laugh softly to himself. He hitched his hip up and stashed the card in the pocket of his chinos.
That would solve his transport issues. It was the least Wren could do under the circumstances.
Another gulp of coffee replaced the salt taste in his mouth with that of burnt beans and old sugar, and he checked through the other messages.
Three of them were obviously from other… collectible enthusiasts. Ledger crumpled them up and dropped them into the dregs of his coffee. Two of them were from local reporters looking for an interview. One from the sheriff asking to speak to him again.
They went into the coffee too.
The last note was the only one Ledger paused over.
i am still here.
No name. No number. It was written in a different hand than the other messages. Ledger couldn’t think of anyone he’dwantit to be. After a moment of puzzled speculation, the note went into the coffee cup with the rest. Ledger tossed it into the trash on his way out the door.
The woman had already gone. Ledger hadn’t noticed her leave. He stared at her table, thrown off by… something. Before he could put his finger on what exactly, his phone rang. When he pulled it out of his pocket, he saw Lachlan McBride’s name on the screen.
Shit.
He held the phone awkwardly in one hand and let it ring as he walked briskly back to his room. It stopped just as he got to the door. Ledger quickly swiped through to his contacts and called the shop as he unlocked the motel door.
Just as it did every time he tried the door, the key stuck mid-turn. He pulled it out halfway, jiggled it, and tried again. This time it worked, and Stella answered the phone.
“Yeah,” she deadpanned.
“Why is Lachlan calling me?” he asked.
There was no way to hear a shrug, but Ledger still could. Maybe he’d just known Stella long enough to know that her reaction to his annoyance would be to hoist her bony twenty-year-old shoulders up a few inches and curl her lip. A seventy-year-old woman’s mannerisms on a young woman’s body—but that was what you got when you made deals with Hell without checking the fine print.
Although Ledger supposed he couldn’t hold that over Stella’s head anymore.
“I don’t know,” Stella said. “Maybe he wants to send his condolences?”
Ledger clenched his jaw as he closed the door behind him.
“He hates me.”
He heard the distinct sound of nails being shaped with a file. After a couple of years of working with Stella, you could identify the sound in the dark.
“True,” she drawled, the word drawn out over her tongue. “He wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire, but that doesn’t mean he’s got no manners. I raised that boy right.”
Ledger sat down on the end of the bed. He scrubbed his hand over his face and admitted, “It’s going to take longer than I expected to wrap things up here.”
