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I checked the clock above the door and surreptitiously wiped my eyes. ‘About eight hours.’

‘Shit, girl, they could be anywhere by now,’ Megan said, frustrated.

I slumped back in my seat and groaned. She was right. I should have called the police right when Brooke had gone missing. They would have figured out her disappearance was linked to Chris right away, and Brooke would be safe. Even if it had meant both of us being sent home, and me literally never getting to see Brooke again or being arrested and puton trial. Somehow the thought of never setting eyes on Brooke again was worse than the idea of being charged with murder.

My breath started to catch in my throat, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to have a panic attack or start crying again. Even when I tried to do the right thing, it turned out wrong, and I’d put Brooke in danger for stupid, selfish reasons.

‘Shit, are you all right?’ Megan said.

‘I’m fine,’ I lied. ‘I just don’t know what to do.’

‘Hang on. I’ve got an idea. If it doesn’t work, we can check the CCTV, but this is definitely quicker.’

She spun around in her chair and scooted over to the desk, where an old, bulky desktop computer was set up. She tapped on the mouse until the screen came to life, then typed in a password.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

‘I know this place looks like an independent motel, but we’re not,’ Megan said. ‘This guy bought up a bunch of them in Kansas and Missouri about ten years ago and he operates all of them as a chain.’

‘Okay …’

Megan looked at me over her shoulder. ‘We all share a database,’ she said. ‘I can look up this stalker of yours with the details he used to check in here.’

I stared at her for a second. ‘You can do that?’

‘Yeah. If he’s in the system, I can find him.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘Hang on,’ Megan said.

I watched, my fingertips twitching with anxiety, as she logged into one system, and then another. The computer seemed to whirr achingly slowly in the early morning silence.

‘What’s his name?’

‘Chris Turner.’

‘Okay, I’m checking what info we have on him already.’

Megan pulled a notepad toward herself and started scribbling. I watched, not wanting to interrupt her flow, and tried to translate what I could see on the screen. The system looked ancient.

‘I’ve got his credit card number.’

‘Seriously?’

She shot me a grin. ‘Yep. He checked in this afternoon and he hasn’t checked out. But that’s not unusual, as we wouldn’t expect him to have left until the morning.’

‘Is he still here?’ I asked, suddenly frantic.

Maybe Brooke was still here, in the room that Chris had booked. Maybe they had just moved the van. I could get her back right away.

‘Hang on,’ Megan said, clicking through to another screen. Then she winced. ‘Sorry. Both the key cards were turned back in at some point this evening, so the room’s been flagged as empty. He wasn’t supposed to leave until the morning.’

‘So they’re gone.’

‘It looks that way, yeah. Housekeeping checked it out and cleaned the room. He didn’t even use the bed.’

‘Is that normal?’ I asked.