"I don't need charity."
"It's not charity. It's strategy. Whoever did this knows where your van was. They don't know where I'm staying." I close the van doors, what's left of them. "Plus, you'll need somewhere to work. Somewhere to sleep that isn't a fairgrounds crime scene."
She considers this. "Where are you staying?"
"Motel outside town. Not fancy, but it's clean and the doors lock."
"Fine. But I'm paying my share."
"Deal."
First stop is a Best Buy off the highway. Rainey spends forty minutes picking out a replacement laptop with enough processing power to handle her photo files, the kind of machine that makes the clerk's eyebrows climb when she rattles off the specs she needs. I reach for my wallet and she shuts me down with a look.
"My equipment. My purchase."
"You just lost everything you own."
"And I'll rebuild it the same way I built it the first time. On my own." She hands the clerk her card. "But thank you."
We get back in my truck, go and check the van one more time then leave it behind. As we drive away, I catch Rainey looking back at the wreckage in the side mirror.
"You okay?" I ask.
"Ask me again when this is over."
Fair enough.
My phone buzzes. Text from an unknown number.
You've been warned. Walk away while you still can.
I show it to Rainey. She reads it, and something hardens in her expression.
"Send them a message back," she says.
"What should I say?"
"Tell them to go to hell."
I type exactly that. Hit send. And catch Rainey's reflection in the windshield, jaw set, eyes hard, looking like a woman who justlost everything she owned and decided to make someone answer for it.
Tyler would have liked her.
4
My reservation is for the only room left, and Rainey looks at me like she's deciding whether sharing a bed with me is more dangerous than whatever's hunting us in the dark.
The clerk at the Crossroads Motel is apologetic but firm. Convention in town, circuit riders flooding every cheap place within twenty miles, only room they've got is the one with the queen bed and questionable water pressure.
"It'll have to do," I say.
Rainey doesn't argue. Just shoulders her salvaged camera bag and follows me to room twelve, which smells like industrial cleaner and has wallpaper that might have been fashionable in 1982.
One bed. One bathroom. Nowhere to hide.
She drops her bag on the dresser and moves to the window, checking the locks. Her hands are steady, but I can see the tension in her shoulders. The van getting trashed shook her more than she's admitting.
"You don't have to stay here," I say. "I can find you somewhere else. Somewhere safer."
