Willa used her office phone to call the local police.
“I can give you a ride into town once the police are done,” she said, hanging up. “This guy Donny, he rents cars from the back of his shop. Won’t be no Enterprise, but it’ll be a car.”
Ruby looked out at the empty, glass-strewn road.
“I think I’ll stay the night here,” Ruby said.
She had six days until the execution.
“You sure about that?” Willa looked worried.
“Why not?”
“I just...”
Ruby remembered telling a counselor once that since she didn’t have a mother, it didn’t matter if she died. She still felt that way. What was the point of living if you let others die?
“Do you think he’ll come back?” she asked.
The woman swallowed. “Maybe.”
“Got an idea who that was?”
“No.”
“Really? Seems like in a small town like this, you’d recognize each other’s trucks. I sure would.”
Willa flushed, looking upset.
“No,” she muttered.
“I’ll take room eleven again,” Ruby said, and Willa reluctantly fetched the key.
The Pickleweed police arrived, and Ruby left the office to meet them, curious if either of the officers would recognize her name. If they did, they were still quite cordial.
“Hello, gentlemen,” Ruby said as they left their car uncertainly, hitching their belts. “Someone shot at me.”
The police left after scribbling a few indifferent notes. Ruby dined on candy bars and chips from the vending machine down the hall, chased with cups of stale-tasting hot chocolate from the packages left in her room. She flossed and brushed her teeth, washed her face, turned off all her lights, and sat by the window, peeking through the heavy curtains. They smelled of mold and bleach.
The motel lot was quiet. A tow truck had come and hauled off the rental car, all the way back to the Atlanta airport. She would take her ride from Willa in the morning and get a new car.
At ten p.m., Willa hung aclosedsign in the office window, and the light went off inside. Ruby figured that Willa had an apartment back there. She wondered what kind of life it was, if it was a happy one. Something told her it wasn’t.
It got silky dark. The woods came alive with night, and she could hear owls in the back, and deer moving through the trees. She packed her bag and put it over her shoulder, then opened the window in the back.
She slid out, landing softly in the woods.
She made her way around the back of the motel, stopping and listening for any cars or footsteps in the dark. She saw that the light was out in the apartment. The air conditioner dripped water.
At the end of the building, she paused. All was silent. She slid around the corner, then down the front walkway, watching, listening.
The front office was locked. She tried the lock, gently, then pulled a thin metal bar from her bag. This she slid under the bolt, flexed the door, and popped the lock open. She had learned this trick from a retired detective, now dead.
She felt for the string that led to the bell, to silence it, then slid inside, closing the door gently behind her.
She felt around the counter. Underneath was the handwritten log, releasing the smell of even more soaps. She closed her eyes for a moment, then held the log up to a sliver of moonlight coming in through the window and read.
Nothing there. Just names she didn’t know.
