Page 35 of The Midnight Knock

Ethan said, “You heard what those things did to Stanley’s van. Do you really think our rooms will be any safer?”

Hunter took a third step down the porch. He was getting irritated. He was gettingscared.

Imagine.

“Come on, Ethan. Now.”

But Ethan didn’t look at Hunter. He looked at Kyla, who appeared just as terrified, just as lost, as him.

On any other night, in any other life, that would have probably been the end of it. No one here was qualified to solve a crime. There was no reason to think there was even any point in trying. Ethanchecked his watch. Nine o’clock. It would be midnight before they knew it, one way or the other.

And yet on this night, in this life, Ethan met Kyla’s gaze and held it.

He had no obvious reason to be friends with this girl, no good reason to think they could work together. That would have required trust, and Kyla and Fernanda had left him and Hunter to freeze on the side of the road.

But Kyla had apologized. She’d come to the office to find some towels and found Ethan and Hunter instead. Dumb luck. Funny timing. It had given Ethan and Kyla a chance to speak, if just for a moment. For Ethan to see the tremor in her eyes, the way she couldn’t quite stand still, like she was afraid she might need to bolt at any moment. It had given Ethan the chance to see that Kyla was terrified and in over her head and fighting to keep it all together, just like him.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough to feel a faint connection with this girl. A little mutual understanding. Maybe the first flicker of trust.

Kyla held Ethan’s gaze. She didn’t look away.

Ethan gestured to room 4. “No harm in us just poking around for a couple minutes, right?”

Kyla gave the door of her own room a dubious kick, tugged at one of the metal bars on the window. She didn’t look impressed. She ignored Fernanda’s stare. Hunter’s anger. She looked out at the ring of light and the black desert and the dozens of yellow eyes that flickered in the dark.

She swallowed. “Beats the shit out of waiting to die.”

KYLA

Kyla stepped past Ethan and straight into room 4 before she could talk herself out of it. It was crazy to try to figure out what had happened here tonight, but hell, they’d already passed crazy twenty miles back. Like it or not, the four of them were driving very fast into a very dangerous unknown.

If Kyla had learned one thing from her last six months in Fort Stockton, it was this: better to get on top of a problem than to let a problem get on top of you.

Room 4 was in even worse shape than she remembered. The air was frigid; in all the confusion earlier, no one had thought to close its doors. Sarah’s body was still sprawled across the bed, her pants still pulled down, a pair of bloody pillows still stacked over her head and neck. At least, Kyla assumed the woman’s head was still there. With a lurch in her gut, she realized she was going to have to check.

Who on earthwasthis woman? Six weeks ago, Sarah Powers had breezed into Stockton Steaks like a glamorous cloud, drifted straight over to Frank O’Shea’s booth, and said something in a low voice that Kyla, a few tables over, hadn’t caught.

Whatever Sarah had said, it had certainly gotten Frank’s attention.

Now, to Kyla’s surprise, Fernanda was the first to follow her inside room 4, followed a moment later by the two boys. Kyla said, “Anyone ever investigate a murder?”

“I’ve covered up a few,” Hunter said. When the other three turned to stare at him, Hunter shrugged. “It’s a joke.”

Ethan edged away from Hunter very slightly, joke or not. “I guess we could start by looking around. Maybe the killer left something behind, right? Or we could figure out the motive for wanting to kill her in the first place. That might help eliminate suspects, right?”

Hunter said, “Our two most obvious suspects are dead. Stanley was definitely afraid of that Ryan person revealingsomethingback in the office. He—”

“I’m not sure Stanley was such an obvious suspect,” Ethan said.He gestured to the spot by the side of Sarah’s bed where the big man, earlier in the night, had crouched next to her corpse in total shock. “The guy seemed stunned to find her like this. That’s hard to fake.”

“Not as hard you think,” Hunter said. “But sure. Say it wasn’t Stanley. That leaves this Ryan person, a man who spent all night hiding from us until he decided to make a big entrance and start throwing accusations around. If that’s not suspicious, I don’t know what is.”

Ethan said, “So what do we do?”

Hunter scowled. “We go barricade our doors and pray for the best. Just like I’ve been saying. Most crimes are solved from interviews, not evidence. Cops spend days getting people to say shit they shouldn’t. Without that or a forensics team here to dust for fingerprints and look for stray hairs, there isn’t much we’re going to turn up just poking around this room.”

Kyla said, “Are you done?”

Hunter scowled. “Fine. You want to find a motive? Look at the way Sarah’s pants are pulled down. That seems pretty unambiguous.”