Page 26

When I reached the lobby, I noticed there was only one receptionist on the night shift and no security guard.

The bar was closed, and the shutters were down on the breakfast area.

The receptionist was in a little room behind the desk.

She was awake, but looking at her phone, with her feet up on a second desk chair.

She didn’t notice me.

The reception desk was pretty low, and I caught sight of a folder that was open, its pages spread.

Something clicked in my head.

When we checked into places, they sometimes took the car’s license plate number and wrote it in a book, so they knew who had paid for parking.

I mentally shifted my plan to take into account this new information. My fingers curled into a ball, and I forced myself to take a deep breath.

In the hours I’d been lying awake, I’d run through dozens of options for causing a distraction, which I needed now.

The receptionist would definitely see me if I just casually walked behind the desk.

I didn’t want to throw a rock at a car, and too many people ignored car alarms anyway, especially in places like this.

They were part of the background noise. I also didn’t want to do anything stupid on CCTV and accidentally get the cops breathing down my neck.

In the end, I crossed over to the lobby restrooms, not trying to hide, stuffed most of a roll of toilet paper into a toilet and flushed.

Back in middle school, someone pulled this prank at least once a month, flooding one of the restrooms. Like clockwork, the water rose and spilled over the top of the bowl.

Bingo .

I dashed back out into the lobby and pressed my hands on the desk.

‘Sorry, but I think your restroom is flooding,’ I said, a little breathless from the lie and the running.

The girl rolled her eyes and set her phone down.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ she muttered, just loud enough for me to hear. ‘Gimme a second,’ she said, louder this time, and I nodded.

She went into the restroom, and I ducked behind the desk, my breath shallow now from nerves more than exertion. I reached up and pulled the folder off the desk, then sat down on the floor so I was out of view of anyone passing by.

‘Come on, come on, come on,’ I muttered to myself, running my fingers along the rows of handwritten information.

I found the Mustang:

M Summer, red Mustang, 063 - BBH (WA)

And a few rows underneath that:

C Turner, black Mercedes Vito, AAN 8912 (UT)

Meredith Summer. Red Mustang, Washington plates.

Chris Turner. Black Mercedes van, Utah plates.

I knew it. That bastard had followed us all the way here from Salt Lake City. He wasn’t an undercover cop, he wasn’t a private investigator … he was following us because he wanted us for something. Or, more likely, he wanted Brooke.

I slapped my hand down on the folder. I was right about him. I’d been right from the first time he’d given me one of his slimy smiles. I took a deep breath, letting my fury simmer down.

Was there another tracker on the car that we hadn’t found at the garage? Had one of the mechanics sold us out and told Chris where we were headed? Or maybe he’d just been close enough on our tail the whole time to follow us all the way here.

Either way, I knew who had taken Brooke.

Now I had to figure out how to get her back.

‘What are you doing down there?’

I looked up at the face of a confused receptionist.

‘Shit.’

The folder fell off my lap as I scrambled to my feet, the sick feeling of being caught curdling in my stomach.

‘Sorry,’ I said quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to –’

I stopped talking before I incriminated myself any farther.

‘What?’ the receptionist asked.

‘Touch your stuff,’ I finished lamely.

‘Oh- kay ,’ she said. ‘Do you want to tell me why you were touching my stuff, or should I call security?’

There was no security, I knew that, but I didn’t want to call her bluff.

I quickly looked her up and down. She was wearing black skinny jeans and a button-down shirt with the motel’s logo embroidered in the top corner.

She had a lip ring and dark hair pulled back into a messy ponytail.

She looked older than me, but not by a lot.

‘Can I trust you?’ I asked, letting a little desperation leach into my voice.

‘I mean, probably not.’ She raised an eyebrow at me when I didn’t respond.

‘My friend has been kidnapped,’ I said in a rush.

‘Your friend,’ she echoed slowly, ‘has been kidnapped.’ She didn’t say it like a question.

‘Yes. I’m trying to get her back.’

‘That doesn’t explain why you were under my desk.’

‘I …’

I waited until she pointedly rolled her eyes.

‘You can trust me,’ she said wearily. ‘I’m not going to call the police, unless you do something even weirder than looking through my parking lot folder.’

‘I can’t make any promises,’ I said, trying to make a joke, and she pressed her lips together to hide her smile. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Megan.’

She didn’t look like a Megan. ‘I’m Jenna.’

I wasn’t in the mood to trust a stranger with my real name tonight.

‘Okay, Jenna,’ she said. ‘Tell me about your kidnapped friend.’

I followed Megan back into the room behind the reception desk, which was a small office with no windows and a mini-fridge full of Diet Dr Pepper and Pepsi Max.

Someone had terrible taste in soda. She gestured to the second chair, the one she’d had her feet up on earlier, and I sat down, letting my clasped hands fall between my knees.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her. I had to learn to trust people.

And she wasn’t automatically a bad person just because she was a stranger.

And I definitely needed help from someone who wasn’t involved in law enforcement.

I just had to work up the courage to tell her the right lies, that wouldn’t put the police on my tail.

‘Br—’ I hesitated, reminding myself that Brooke had checked into the hotel with Meredith’s ID. ‘ Meredith disappeared this afternoon.’

‘Maybe she went for a walk, or met up with some friends?’ Megan queried.

I shook my head. ‘We don’t know anyone in the city. We’re from Washington.’

‘Okay,’ Megan said. She didn’t look convinced.

‘She’s not answering her phone, and she hasn’t come back to the motel, and there’s this guy, Chris, who’s been stalking her.’

‘Someone has been stalking her?’ Megan said, looking even less convinced now.

‘Yes,’ I said emphatically. ‘We’re heading to St. Louis, and we’ve run into him a few times on the way, so he’s definitely following us.

I didn’t know he was here until I checked your folder, and you have his van listed as being in your parking lot.

And now she’s missing and so’s Chris’s van.

I wanted to check your CCTV to see if I could find him. ’

Megan stared at me intently, and I noticed that there was a little gray in her green eyes. It was hard to see under all the eyeliner.

‘Why don’t you call the cops?’ she asked after a long moment. I could tell she still wasn’t sure about me and that made me even more nervous. I needed her to help me, and I needed her to believe me before she could help.

‘Because,’ I said, treading very carefully now, ‘we didn’t exactly tell anyone we were leaving. Or where we’re going.’

‘So you ran away from home?’

‘Yes.’ It felt good not to lie.

‘And you knew she had a stalker when you ran away?’ she asked, clearly judging me.

‘No!’ I said quickly. ‘Not until a few days ago.’

‘After you left home.’

‘Right.’

‘I still don’t get why you won’t call the cops,’ Megan said, exasperated.

‘Because … because if I do that, they’ll ship us back home. And I’ll never see her again,’ I said, the words melting into a sob.

Understanding dawned in her eyes. ‘Ohhh. So you’re running away because you’re –’

‘Yes.’ I didn’t bother correcting her.

‘And your parents don’t want you to be together?’

‘No.’

She whistled between her teeth. ‘This is some gay Romeo and Juliet shit.’

I couldn’t help but smile, even though tears were spilling over. ‘I know. Can you help me?’

She shrugged. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘I don’t know. Until I checked your folder, I didn’t know for certain that it was Chris who’d taken her.’

‘So now you know who she’s with, but not where they are,’ Megan said, swinging herself back and forth in her chair.

‘Right.’

‘How long has she been missing?’

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 put on 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.

‘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.