And that’s when I knew. She hadn’t run; she’d beentaken. The motel room wasn’t abandoned; it was wrecked. The lamp was shattered, one of the chairs knocked on its side, the curtain hanging by a single hook…
And blood. A smear near the doorframe, more on the carpet. So much blood. Wounds, blood, bodily fluids, none of that had ever bothered me. But at the sight of the blood that might havebeen hers on the doorframe and the floor, I thought I was going to be sick.
Then I saw the knife. It was still on the floor where I’d thrown it the night before, but there was fresh blood on the edge. That told me she used it, she fought back.
At the base of the doorframe, nearly hidden in the shadows, was a small, pale curve of flesh and keratin. One of her fingernails had been torn off as she had fought. She’d clawed at the doorframe as they dragged her out, scraped herself bloody, buying seconds.
Waiting for me, and I wasn’t here.
I scanned the floor again. There were four sets of prints in the thin layer of dust and debris near the threshold. One small, barefoot, likely hers. The others were booted, heavy, and deliberate. Two were heavier than the other one.
“Fuck.”
I followed the trail through my own worst-case scenario. No sign of forced entry. Did she open the door for them? Why would she do that? Whoever it was had known I was gone. They’d been watching, waiting. Probably knew our routines, might have even seen me leave. My mind was calculating in real time. I had finished Brian off fast, needing only a few hours.
A few hours and I’d lost her. I backed up, trying to find the mistake, the thing I missed. There was only one person who knew we were here.
Rook.
I never trusted people like Rook. We were the type of people that didn’t work together with anyone, not really. We circled the same drain, traded favors but never names, never stories. But I hadn’t expected this betrayal.
I was already moving down the walkway before I had even made a decision about what I was going to do. I was on autopilot now.
The clerk was still behind the front desk. Harmless: mid-forties, balding, bored. He looked up when he saw me coming, and his smirk disappeared when I slammed my hands down on the counter.
“Has anyone been here today?”
He blinked. “Uh, what? No? Just—just you, man. You booked online…”
“I didn’t book shit. A friend did.”
He swallowed hard. “Y-yeah. Yeah, the guy with the leather jacket. Quiet. Paid cash.”
I leaned in. “I’m going to ask again. Did you seeanyone elsecome here today?Anyonewho looked like they didn’t belong?”
He shook his head too quickly. “No, I swear, man. Nobody. I haven’t seen anyone but you and your girl, and that guy who booked it. That’s it.”
“So the guy who booked the room was here today?”
“Yeah, yeah he was.”
“Alone?”
“No, he had two other guys with him.”
I stared at him. He wasn’t lying; he was terrified. If he’d been paid to keep quiet, he wasn’t tough enough to carry it. That just confirmed it.
“Thanks,” I said, stepping back.
He exhaled in relief too soon.
I grabbed the edge of the counter and flipped the whole thing over. It crashed, sending the register and his coffee flying. He jumped back, scrambling.
“Next time you see three men dragging a bleeding girl across your parking lot,call someone. If you’re here when I get back, I’m shooting both of your kneecaps.”
I turned and left without waiting for a response. I turned on my phone to start going down a list to try to figure out whereRook might have gone… and then I saw that the tracker on her burner phone was active. That genius fucking girl.
The gravel kicked up behind my tires as I peeled out, struggling to see out of my cracked windshield.
