Page 44 of Blood Game

CHAPTER

TWELVE

The hotel was one of several along the main thoroughfare in Caen, built after the war to accommodate the growing tourist industry, the room decorated in 1970's plastic, with a turquoise shower curtain with half-moons on it in the bathroom, and street-side windows that looked out on the street below from the second floor, with two vinyl-covered chairs across from the bed. But the sheets were freshly laundered and black-out shades blocked out the neon lights that gleamed beyond the windows, advertising off-season rates.

It was after midnight when they checked in. She wouldn't have cared if it was a bunk bed with a sleeping bag in one of those hostels from her college days.

James paid with cash instead of the plastic she had in her hand. She didn't argue. She was running on less than four hours’ sleep, and that saying about the second day being worse after an accident, was setting in. She hurt all over from the attack at the Blue Oyster.

“All the comforts of home,” James commented as he closed the door.

“I wouldn't walk barefoot on the carpet,” he commented, noticing a stain by the coffee bar.

“No problem,” she replied, not even certain she would last long enough to take off her boots.

He set the lock and safety chain at the door, then crossed to the windows. He scanned the street below at the front of the hotel, then both directions. The area was well-lit, and there was still traffic, even this late in the season. He pulled down the shade.

“Do you always do that?” she asked from the edge of the bed that was as far as she'd gotten. He'd checked the closet and the door to an adjoining room—also locked and bolted.

“I don't like surprises.”

He set the backpack on the table between the two chairs, and laid the sack with the other half of her sandwich on the coffee bar.

“Paper cups,” he commented, gesturing to what passed for a small kitchen. “But there's coffee for the morning.” It was one of those small compact brewers with individual brewing cups. He looked over at her.

She sat at the edge of the bed, dark circles under her eyes, legs splayed in front of her, and looked more like an exhausted child. Her thick, dark hair swept forward over her shoulders.

“Lie down before you fall down,” he told her, reaching around her and pulling back the coverlet and blankets. There was just one bed, a double.

“I'm fine. It was just the heat in the car,” she covered a yawn. “And the food...” She couldn't even remember what it was—a sandwich of some kind on a croissant, cold, mostly tasteless, the last choice in the cold case at an all-night market.

He swung those long legs up onto the bed and gently pushed her down onto the pillows, then pulled off first one boot then the other, thought about the jeans, then decided against it.

“I don't need you to take care of me,” she murmured.

He angled a dark brow. “Of course not.” He pulled the blankets up, tucked them around her, and cut the light on the bedside table.

“There's enough room,” she said through another yawn.

It was simple enough, practical under the circumstances, share the one bed, they could both get a decent night's sleep. Anything but simple.

“I'll take the chair,” he replied.

She listened as he moved around the room in the dark, the scrape of one of those chairs dragged across the room. He pulled an extra blanket from the foot of the bed, then settled in the chair.

It should have been easy, just close her eyes. But she lay there, unable to sleep, thoughts crowding in, thinking about what they'd learned from Diana Jodion as rain pelted the window, the pulse of the lights from the street slipping past the edges of the shade.

“Do you believe in God?” she asked, staring through the shadows.

From what he'd shared about his early school years, it was a natural assumption. But there was a saying about the first three letters of the word—assumptions were easy and too often wrong.

His head was tilted back on the chair, his profile outlined in the sliver of light that slipped past the edge of the window shade.

“I didn't for the longest time,” he finally replied. “Probably something to do with youthful rebellion on my part.”

“Sister Margaret?” she asked, thinking that might be reason enough to rebel.

There was that thoughtful silence again. She could almost see him shrug, the way he had of dismissing something.