Page 67 of Pieces of Her (Andrea Oliver 1)

Laura hadn’t said he can trace you. She’d said they.

Going by the movies, they generally meant evil corporations, corrupt presidents or power-hungry tech billionaires with unlimited funds. Andy tried to play out each scenario with her mother at the center of some vast conspiracy. And then she decided she should probably stop using Netflix as a crime sourcebook.

The Florence exit was up. Andy couldn’t squat on the highway again. She hadn’t had lunch because she couldn’t bear to eat another hamburger in another car. The part of her brain that was still capable of thinking told her that she could not make the thirty-hour drive straight through to Idaho without sleep. Eventually, she would have to stop at a hotel.

Which meant that, eventually, she would have to figure out what to do with the money.

Her hand had pushed down the blinker before she could stop it. She glided off the Florence exit. Adrenaline had kept Andy going for so long that there was hardly anything left to move her. There were signs off the exit for six different hotels. She took a right at the light because it was easier. She coasted to the first motel because it was the first motel. Worrying about safety and cleanliness were luxuries from her former life.

Still, her heart started pounding as she got out of the Reliant. The motel was two stories, a squat, concrete design from the seventies with an ornate balcony railing around the top floor. Andy had backed crookedly into the parking space so that the rear of the station wagon never left her sight. She clutched the make-up bag in her hand as she walked into the lobby. She checked the flip phone. Laura had not called. Andy had depleted the battery by half from constantly checking the screen.

There was an older woman at the front desk. High hair. Tight perm. She smiled at Andy. Andy glanced back at the car. There were huge windows all around the lobby. The Reliant was where she had left it, unmolested. She didn’t know if she looked weird or normal swiveling her head back and forth, but at this point, Andy didn’t care about anything but falling into a bed.

“Hey there,” the woman said. “We got some rooms on the top floor if you want.”

Andy felt the vestiges of her waking brain start to slip away. She’d heard what the woman had said, but there was no sense in it.

“Unless you want something on the bottom floor?” The woman sounded dubious.

Andy was incapable of making a decision. “Uh—” Her throat was so dry that she could barely speak. “Okay.”

The woman took a key from a hook on the wall. She told Andy, “Forty bucks for two hours. Sixty for the night.”

Andy reached into the make-up bag. She peeled off a few twenties.

“Overnight, then.” The woman handed back one of the bills. She slid the guestbook across the counter. “Name, license plate, make and model.” She was looking over Andy’s shoulder at the car. “Boy, haven’t seen one of those in a long time. They make those new in Canada? Looks like you just drove it off the lot.”

Andy wrote down the car’s information. She had to look at the license plate three times before she got the correct combination of numbers and letters.

“You okay, sweetheart?”

Andy smelled French fries. Her stomach grumbled. There was a diner connected to the motel. Red vinyl booths, lots of chrome. Her stomach grumbled again.

What was more important, eating or sleeping?

“Hon?”

Andy turned back around. She was clearly expected to say something.

The woman leaned across the counter. “You okay, sugar?”

Andy struggled to swallow. She couldn’t be weird right now. She didn’t need to make herself memorable. “Thank you,” was the first thing that came out. “Just tired. I came from...” She tried to think of a place that was far from Belle Isle. She settled on, “I’ve been driving all day. To visit my parents. In I-Iowa.”

She laughed. “Honey, I think you overshot Iowa by about six hundred miles.”

Shit.

Andy tried again. “It’s my grandmother’s car.” She searched her brain for a compelling lie. “I mean, I was at the beach. The Alabama beach. Gulf. In a town called Mystic Falls.” Christ, she was crazy-sounding. Mystic Falls was from the Vampire Diaries. She said, “My grandmother’s a snowbird. You know, people who—”

“I know what a snowbird is.” She glanced down at the name Andy had written in the guestbook. “Daniela Cooper. That’s pretty.”

Andy stared, unblinking. Why had she written down that name?

“Sweetheart, maybe you should get some rest.” She pushed the key across the counter. “Top floor, corner. I think you’ll feel safer there.”

“Thank you,” Andy managed. She was in tears again by the time she climbed behind the wheel of the Reliant. The diner was so close. She should get something to eat. Her stomach was doing that thing where it hurt so bad she couldn’t tell if it was from being hungry or being sick.

Andy got back out of the car. She held the make-up bag in both hands as she walked the twenty feet to the diner. The sun beat down on the top of her head. The heat brought out a thick layer of sweat. She stopped at the door. She looked back at her car. Should she get the suitcase? How would that look? She could take it to her room, but then how could she leave the suitcase in her room when—