Page 198

So this is where he went.

Inside, the lobby smells aggressively of bleach and something damp trapped behind a wall. A ceiling fan clicks overhead without moving much of anything.

Near the elevators, a ball of what looks like black hair rolls slowly across the tile, pushed by a weak draft from somewhere I can’t see. It bumps against the baseboard and sits there.

Sexy.

The woman at the desk doesn’t look up from her phone when I pass.

I look at the paper again, the room number scrawled in Don’s sharp little handwriting. Floor six.

My thumb hits the elevator button harder than it needs to. Somewhere above me, the elevator groans awake.

I stand there in the damp lobby and tell myself I came here for answers.

Answers only. That’s the lie I can live with until the doors open.

The sixth-floor hallway is hot and stagnant. Too narrow for comfortable airflow.

I find the correct room number at the far end, then stand there.

My heart acts stupid. And insistent. And unsure.

Maybe I shouldn’t knock. Maybe whatever made me walk down wet streets and into the hairy-ball hotel was just a mild form of heatstroke.

My hand lifts anyway. The knock comes out soft, so much so that I look at my knuckles like they belong to somebody else.

My shoulders tighten while I wait.

And wait.

Nothing.

I try the knob, and it turns.

The room is small. Dark. Hot, even with the balcony door wide open. The curtains hang limp on either side, barely moving. Somewhere, water drips with patient little ticks.

Paul sits on the bed, facing the balcony.

He doesn’t look over. For a second, I get the weird feeling he’s been sitting there for a very long time, like somebody put him down and forgot to turn him back on.

I step inside and nearly trip over a small black bag on the floor, the one Don picked up at the house hours ago.

“Hey.”

Paul looks down. Not at me, but the floor between us, like maybe there’s an answer hidden in the jagged cracks in the tile.

“Nice place you got here,” I add, scooting the bag with my foot.

Paul gives a loud breath. “Last-minute bookings are hard in PV.”

I nod, even though he isn’t looking. Last-minute booking—and hopefully short-term, too. I can’t see Paul staying here more than a night or two. He isn’t made for squalor.

And then it hits me that Paul is probably going to leave Mexico. That should feel like victory. It would have a week ago.

He moves a little on the mattress. Not a complete turn, but a shift. “How’d you find me?”

I shut the door, and the room gets smaller.