“No, you’re not.Dash!”
I gave him a reassuring wave as I got out of the cruiser.
The decaying Cutlass didn’t look any better up close.The paint bubbled and peeled like a bad case of chicken pox, and one tire was so low that it was about to pass the threshold into flat.No hub caps.No license plates.A little sticker in the rear window said EVERGREEN ESTATES, and it had faded from years of UV exposure.Inside, the pilled gray upholstery was stained, matted, and ripped, and aging yellow foam protruded out from several of the larger tears.The car wasn’t empty—far from it.It was full of what appeared to be trash.To-go cups, takeout bags, crumpled receipts, approximately a million foil gum wrappers, the kind of flyers that get shoved under windshield wipers, a pair of leggings, and a bong shaped like a piece of corn on the cob.Thank God they weren’t litterbugs.
“Dash!”Bobby called from the cruiser.
I gave another jolly wave—is jolly the right word?—and leaned in through the driver’s open window.A single key was in the ignition, which meant maybe the woman had been telling the truth to whoever she’d been talking to on the phone—maybe the car really had broken down.A brown paper bag from Let’s Taco Bout Tacos left me feeling mildly outraged.Tacos were forgoodpeople.Good, law-abiding, taco-loving people.People who randomly stole boxes of wigs and, in the process, made my life much more difficult didnotdeserve tacos.
From the cupholder protruded a big plastic key tag, almost a foot long and with that mid-century rounded diamond shape.An image had been printed on the plastic at one point, but much of it had worn away; what was left looked like a very bored woman, head resting on her hand.
“Dash,” Bobby said again—this time, right behind me, his tone sharper.
When I turned around, Bobby’s expression was grim.“I’ve got to go.There was a landslide a couple of miles south of town, and it’s all hands on deck.”
“Oh my God.Did anyone get hurt?”
“It doesn’t look like it, but we’re still getting people on the scene.It’s going to be a mess.”
That was probably putting it lightly; in the time I’d known Bobby, he’d only had to deal with one other landslide, but it had taken two days of almost non-stop work.When he’d finally gotten a break, he’d slept for twelve hours.
“Go,” I said.
“I can drop you back in town.”
“Wearein town.Go.I’ll be fine.”
He backed toward the cruiser and then stopped.“Dash, don’t go after that woman.”
“I won’t.”
“Please.You don’t know what’s going on, and she might be dangerous.”
“I won’t, promise.”
But when he opened the cruiser’s door, he hesitated again.“I don’t like leaving you here.”
“Bobby, it’s an emergency.I promise I can walk a few blocks.”
Helplessness tightened his expression, but then he dropped behind the wheel, and a moment later, he was rushing down the road, lights whirling.
So, Bobby was gone.
And the woman was gone.
And the wigs were gone.
And Bobby was right: it would be dangerous to run after the woman.I had no idea who she was.I had no idea why she’d taken the wigs—or, for that matter, why she seemed so desperate to keep them.
But on the other hand, a very annoying voice said, the deputies are going to be dealing with this landslide for a long time.And this woman stole Fox’s wigs.And something seriously weird is going on.
And there was a hotel key justsittingthere.
I stretched through the window to grab the key.Up close, I couldn’t make out any more of the image printed on the tag, but on the reverse side, several words were printed.THE and then a bunch of worn-away letters.Maybe a D.
I didn’t know all the motels and hotels around Hastings Rock; there were a lot of them—it had been a tourist town for decades, and tourists needed a place to sleep.But I did have my phone, and a quick search pulled up a list of nearby motels.I figured based on the car this mystery woman was driving, she wasn’t staying anywhere too fancy, so I limited the search to the, uh, frugal end of the scale.
And then I saw it: The Drowsy Mermaid.
