Page 45 of The Midnight Knock

Hunter said to Fernanda, “You’d be surprised.”

He took stock of room 7. Stanley and Penelope had made themselves at home. There were two full beds, only one of which had been slept in. The room had the same wardrobe and long dresser and brass lamps as all the other rooms. The same reddish-brown carpet and turquoise coverlets and chevroned bars on the front window.

There were two pieces of luggage in sight. A brown overnightbag stood on the corner table. The bag was stodgy and less impressive than it wanted to appear, like Stanley. A muted pink backpack rested on the easy chair. Penelope’s, no doubt.

Penelope’s backpack held only a sports bra and a pair of athletic shorts, like the girl had been packing for a PE class, not a trip to Mexico. Stanley’s bag didn’t have much more in the way of clothes: a few shirts, some socks, a couple pairs of underwear.

Hunter called to the bathroom, “The Holidays weren’t packing for a long trip.”

“I do not believe Penelope packed for a trip at all,” Fernanda said. “I heard a little about it at Frank’s house. Ryan Phan picked the girl up from school three days ago. They were in Mexico by the time anyone thought to miss her. It all sounded rather unplanned, at least on her part.”

“You were at Frank’s house?”

Silence.

“Any idea what sort of work Sarah Powers was doing for Frank?”

“No.”

Hunter ran a thumb along the seams of Penelope’s bag, then Stanley’s. Sure enough, he found a false pocket in the lining of Stan’s overnight case. Hunter pinched the fabric and tugged it open, revealing a cache of cash: five hundred-dollar bills. An emergency travel fund, typical for people at risk of mugging. No real surprise.

He thought of the cash spilled across Sarah Powers’s dresser. He put Stan’s money away.

His eye caught something on the floor, over near the bed. Looking up, he saw a few fine dots on the nightstand, a mist of red-brown stains. He cocked his head. He hadn’t expected this.

But before he could take a closer look, Fernanda poked her head out from the bathroom.

“You call him Frank. Not Frank O’Shea.”

Hunter met her eye. “So?”

“Have you met him?”

“No.” This was a lie, but the truth would be too much of a headache to explain. “Why?”

“Their mothers disappeared from this area. Frank’s mother, and Stanley’s. Both on the same night. Perhaps even from this motel.”Fernanda pushed back her hair. “There is a legend about this place. That twelve people vanished without a trace one night, many years ago.”

“Do we really have time for legends?”

Hunter said it dismissively, but he remembered the morning he’d met Sarah Powers. He remembered the awful things he’d heard in Huntsville the night before. Terrified whispers in the dark. The last night of The Chief.

Tell Sarah, the mountain is getting restless.

Fernanda said, “There is great power in a story. Even if you do not believe it.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“The women on the bed just now. One of them had Frank’s jaw. The other had Stanley’s hair.”

Hunter looked from Fernanda to the bed and back again. His lungs were starting to burn from the room’s dry air. He thumped his chest. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Fernanda didn’t let it go. “Something much stranger is happening here than a simple murder. I have felt it all night. Those things in the desert, the time running fast, now these shades on the bed—we are dealing with something we do not understand.”

“Then let’s get busy figuring it out.”

Still—still—Fernanda didn’t move. “You do not care about Sarah’s murder. You are just killing time until you can get back to your room.”

Hunter said nothing.