Page 76

‘Eh,’ she said with a shrug. ‘You see all kinds of shit working this job.’

Megan switched over to the other system and started tapping away again. My knee started bouncing and I couldn’t stop it.

‘He’s not in the system as having booked anywhere else.’

‘Shit.’

My knee fell still.

‘But we’re talking about a network of, like, eighty motels. The chances that he would randomly pick another one in our network is fairly small.’

‘Can you check if he’s made a reservation in advance? Like, for tomorrow night?’

‘Yeah, I can, actually.’

She turned back to the computer and started scrolling through a long list, like she had to manually search for his details.

I wondered who the hell had bought all these shitty motels and insisted on running them on software from the 1990s.

A few minutes later, Megan looked up at me again.

‘I’ve got him,’ she said with a grin.

13

Appetite for Destruction– Guns N’ Roses

It was almost four in the morning, and I was so exhausted I thought I might fall over. I had no idea where Brooke was, but now, thanks to Megan and her magic ancient software system, I knew where they were going.

Tomorrow night – or tonight, now – Chris had made a reservation for a motel east of St. Louis. I had no idea if that meant he had always planned to keep moving east, or whether he had been anticipating that would be our next stop. It almost didn’t matter. At least I had time to sleep before I had to work out how I was going to get there.

‘Are you okay? You look kinda sick,’ Megan said.

I shook my head. ‘I’m just tired.’

‘I forget not everyone in the world is an insomniac,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘What are you going to do now?’

‘Sleep,’ I said. ‘I’ll wait until the morning to decide what my next move is.’

‘I know you wanted to check the CCTV,’ she said, ‘butI’m going to be honest with you – it doesn’t actually work. And when it does, it only covers the staff parking lot.’

I pressed my fingertips to my eyelids as I processed that. ‘I don’t think it matters anymore,’ I said eventually. ‘I know where they’re going now.’

‘Are you sure she’s with him? Like, a hundred percent sure?’

‘Nope.’ I shook my head and blinked on purpose a few times, trying to dislodge the aching, itchy feeling from my eyes. ‘But it can’t be a coincidence. This guy has been showing up all over the place and then she disappeared.’

‘Okay, I get what you’re saying. One more question, then you should go to bed.’

‘Go for it.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want to call the cops and let them deal with it?’

‘No,’ I said honestly. ‘That still might be the first thing I do when I wake up later. But I know more now than I did an hour ago.’

‘You could’ve just asked me for help, you know.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said automatically. ‘I’m not good at asking for help. Or trusting people.’