She looks at me. "Harper Beaumont?"
"Walked up to the rail at warm-up. Told me to tell you."
"Harper Beaumont said that tome?"
"To me. About you."
She looks at the ground. Her face does the thing I told myself I'd remember. Not a smile.
Something like the smile a woman has when an older woman she’s admired her whole career took thirty seconds to acknowledge her existence. The kind of acknowledgement that hits harder than a first place finish.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
She doesn't say anything else, but the tension in her shoulders shifts a quarter turn.
"Let's get you to the motel."
"Okay."
We load Jaeger and drive across the parking lot toward the exit gate and the highway.
She has her phone out and she's typing something to Brynn or Cassidy or whoever she texts after a ride.
I'm watching the road and the rearview.
The sky has gone dark over the panhandle and rain is coming.
We get to the motel.
A Hampton off the access road.
I tell the clerk Dakota's my friend’s daughter and we need adjoining rooms.
She gives me two keys without looking at the cut.
The rain hits the parking lot as I cut the engine.
She gets out, walks around the back of the truck to grab her duffel.
I get out the driver's side. I'm walking to the back to help her with the trailer when I see it.
A piece of paper.
Folded in half.
Tucked under the windshield wiper of my truck.
I don't move, but she does.
She comes around the front and sees what I'm looking at and she stops.
Neither of us reach for it.
"Spur."
"Get in the room."
