I haul aside the sheets, rise swiftly from my bed. "What happened?"
"I-I couldn't sleep, I—" she sobs again, and it hits me. She isn't sad. She's terrified.
"What? You what?" I ask through a jaw so clenched it aches. With my phone trapped between my shoulder and my ear, I shove my legs through my jeans.
"I need to leave this place," she whispers.
"Olive Township?" Those two words, strangled, reveal how I've come to care for her in such little time. How much I could care for her if she stayed.
"The Olive Inn," she says.
"Mallory," I say, forcing calm into my voice. I'm on quick feet down the hall, grabbing my wallet and keys off the kitchen counter. A light jacket from the hall closet. "What. The. Hell. Happened?" If somebody hurt her, I'll do things I never thought myself capable of.
It hasn't been more than a minute since her call, but I'm already in my car, driving toward town, my path lit by a full moon night. I pass the big house, and the light in my mom's bedroom turns on. No doubt she'll be calling me soon, wanting to know where the hell I'm going, and why I'm driving with such urgency.
"I couldn't sleep. Yesterday was Maggie's birthday, so I grabbed my phone to look at old photos of her." Mallory's voice is steadier now, and she takes a deep breath. "When I opened my photo app, I found photos of me sleeping."
What the fuck?
"The photos were timestamped and I'm in the same pajamas now."
Rage sweeps through me in a way I've never felt. I've spent years fencing, facing opponents in a bout, wielding objects that could fillet a man if not blunted, but with such civility. There is nothing civil about the way I feel now.
"What's the timestamp?" I ask, passing under the Summerhill sign and taking the turn for town.
"12:43," she says, voice breaking.
"Pack your things," I instruct. "I'm coming to get you. Stay on the phone." The gas pedal hits the floor.
It's a twenty-minute drive from Summerhill to town. Straight desert roads and unobstructed views allow me to arrive in far less time.
I swing my car up to the curb in front of Olive Inn, hopping out and jogging to the front door. My primary focus is getting to Mallory, but I'm halfway across the lobby when a man walks out from a set of doors behind the front desk.
"Do you need something?" he asks, glaring at me.
I change course, steering his way. "Who has access to the guest rooms? You?"
He pales. The guy is the least physically threatening person I've ever encountered, but desperate people do weird shit, so I know better than to be too aggressive.
"Only the g-guests," he stutters.
Bracing my palms on the front desk, I lean over it. "And who else?"
"The manager has a master key," he answers, fear in his eyes.
"Are you the manager?"
Reluctantly, he says, "I'm the night manager."
I'm aware that in this moment, I have no way to prove he's the person who let himself into Mallory's room and took pictures of her sleeping. Mallory's the priority now, so I push off the desk. "If I find out you're the one who did it, I'll make youwish you hadn't."
Then I'm racing on through the lobby, and behind me he yells, "Did what?"
I'm done spending time on that fuck. I need to put my eyes on Mallory, make sure she's ok. Her and Peanut. Can the baby feel her fear? The spike of her adrenaline?
I reach her room and knock on the door. "It's me," I call out.
"Hugo." Mallory's relief seeps through the cheap wood.
