“Okay.” Dunk’s voice dropped low. “Hey, Jack? She still sleeping? How ’bout giving Stella a poke for me? From what I’ve heard, she’s a—”
I hung up and tore off the sheet of stationery and shoved it in my pocket.
If Cammie was still alive, the others might be, too.
The hotel room door burst open and Stella came in, her clothing soaked through, her dark hair dripping, her skin deathly pale. “We need to go.”
I let out a breath.
She closed the door quickly behind her, went to the window, and pulled back the curtain slightly. Her hand was trembling again. I looked out the window over her shoulder.
The rain fell in thick sheets, bouncing off the cracked pavement.
Six white cars now. One blocked the parking lot exit. Another was parked directly behind my Jeep. Three more across the lot and a white Cadillac Escalade parked in the center of the lot, two of the doors open. A man I didn’t recognize stood on the driver’s side, a cell phone pressed to his ear, oblivious to the rain. His long, white trench coat buttoned tight.
“I put my things in the Jeep. The Escalade pulled up when I was coming back up the stairs. I don’t think they saw me.”
“Did you see any other people?”
She shook her head. “Only the two guys in the Cadillac, but somebody moved those other cars.”
My knife was at the bottom of Hermon Reservoir. We had no other weapons.
I looked around the room, then went to the dresser beside the bed and pulled open the drawer, took out the bottle of Maker’s Mark. About a third left. I twisted off the cap and threw it aside, then tore a strip of cloth from one of the pillowcases, rolled it, and shoved it into the mouth of the bottle. “I need matches,” I said, pulling open the other drawer and looking inside; only an old Bible.
“I saw some over here.” Stella went to the nightstand on the opposite side of the bed, grabbed a matchbook from beside a filthy ashtray, and tossed them to me. “Will that work in the rain?”
“I have no idea.”
I put the yearbook in my backpack and slung the bag over my shoulder. “Do you have the other book?”
She nodded. “In my bag.”
The motel room door burst open, and Stella let out a sharp scream.
Two men came in, both moving low and fast. The first had a 9mm in his hand. The second man had a shotgun. Both were dressed entirely in white. Without a thought, I dropped the bottle of whiskey and charged the man with the semiautomatic, my shoulder plowing into his gut and sending him flailing backward into the other man. All three of us tumbled out the door onto the concrete walkway and fell into a pile. I brought my elbow down hard into the jaw of the man with the handgun, and his eyes rolled back into his head. I scooped up the gun and rolled to the side as the man with the shotgun pushed the limp body away and began to stand.
I leveled the gun on him. “Don’t.”
He smiled at me. “The safety is on.”
“Glocks don’t have safeties. Set the shotgun down, and take a step back.”
The man had cut himself when he fell. Blood rolled down from his forehead into his eye. He ignored it, his grin widening. The shotgun continued to rise.
I fired twice. Both rounds hit him in the gut. I tried to fire a third time, but the gun came up empty. I tossed it aside. The man looked down at the growing red spot on his white coat, then fell to his knees, the shotgun dropping beside him. I grabbed it.
The bottle of whiskey sailed out the door of my room, past my head, and over the balcony, a flame trailing from the makeshift wick. It exploded on the roof of the Cadillac Escalade in the center of the parking lot, flames spreading over the SUV despite the rain. The man who had been on the phone jumped aside and disappeared from sight somewhere below.
Stella ran past me toward the stairs, my backpack over her shoulder. “Come on!”
I followed her down the steps, the shotgun leading.
A third man in white was waiting at the base of the stairs, the barrel of a shotgun pointing out from under his white trench coat directly at me.
Stella walked straight toward him, her pace quickening with each step. She tugged the glove off her right hand and reached for him. The man’s face went pale, and he swung the gun from me to her.
A blast rang out.
