“There’s a Citgo down the street,” he said, pointing.
“Would you let your kid use the bathroom there? The parking lot is filthy.”
Maya was wriggling, trying to unfasten her seat belt. “I gotta goooo,” she wailed.
Letty opened her door all the way and got out, sliding past the cop. She opened the back door, extricated Maya from the car seat, balanced her on one hip, and grabbed her purse and phone.
“Excuse me,” she said, not bothering to turn around, race-walking toward the motel office. It wasn’t just Maya who needed a bathroom now.
She glanced backward just as she reached the door. The cop was standing by the Kia, hands on his hips, watching.
Letty yanked the plate-glass door open and an unseen electronic bell dinged. There was a front counter, with a blond fiftyish-looking woman standing behind it, talking into the phone. She looked up and frowned.
“Are you the owner of that Kia out there?” the woman asked. “I’m just getting ready to call for a tow truck.”
“Bathroom,” Letty said tersely. “Please? My little girl…”
“Pee-pee,” Maya wailed, right on cue. The kid’s timing was flawless. Like her mother’s, Letty thought ruefully.
The woman paused, then shrugged and pointed to a narrow hallway. “Right there. But it’s for motel guests only.”
“Fine,” Letty said, hurrying toward the bathroom door.
Shetook her time in the bathroom, first washing Maya’s tearstained face and hands, finger-combing the damp curls, then doing her best to try to make herself look, as Mimi would have said, “respectable.”
Letty sat Maya on the closed toilet seat. She washed her own hands, then splashed water on her face and neck before gathering her straight brown hair into a ponytail. She fished lipstick from her purse, which was bulging with all the last-minute items she’d tossed in before fleeing the city.
She closed her eyes and tried to choke back the suffocating sense of panic she’d been seized with at the sight of that cop in the parking lot. Common sense told her she should back the Kia out of here and ride on down the road.
But.
That magazine article. There was something about this place that meant something to Tanya. Her sister was not particularly sentimental. She was not a saver of magazine articles. And yet, she had saved that article about this particular place. Why?
Breathe, Letty,she told herself.Inhale. Exhale.
When she opened her eyes again, the face that stared back from the bathroom mirror was pale and gaunt. Her hazel eyes were bloodshot, ringed with dark circles. She glanced down at the blue-and-white-striped T-shirt she’d grabbed from Tanya’s closet, after she’d realized her own white blouse bore a blood smear on the cuff.
“You look like you were rode hard and put up wet,” she muttered,unconsciously slipping into Mimi’s West Virginia twang. For the first time she noticed the price tag fluttering from beneath the sleeve of the shirt. She plucked it from the fabric. The designer brand was one she didn’t recognize, but the price took her breath away. Tanya had paid 325 dollars for this simple boat-necked blue-and-white-striped knit shirt, which she’d never even worn, and probably didn’t remember having bought. The walk-in closet in her sister’s town house was crammed with expensive clothes like this, many never worn.
Tears stung her eyes as she ripped the tag in half and stuffed it in her pocket.
“Letty?” Maya’s bright blue eyes studied her. “You crying?”
“No, baby,” Letty said, leaning down and kissing the child’s forehead. “I’m fine. We’re both gonna be fine. Let’s go talk to the nice lady about a room, okay?”
The nice lady was standing right outside the bathroom door, arms folded across her chest. The cop from the parking lot was standing next to her.
“Hi,” Letty said, forcing a weary smile. “Thanks so much for letting us use the bathroom. It was kind of an emergency.”
“You’re welcome,” the woman said. She wore a pink polo shirt tucked into high-waisted mom jeans. A name badge pinned to her collar saidMURMURING SURF. MANAGER, AVA DECURTIS.Her ash-blond hair was worn in a short, bad perm. She nodded at the cop. “Joe tells me you said you’re looking for a room.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Letty said, deliberately laying on the Southern accent she’d worked so hard for so long to erase. “We don’t need anything fancy, just a clean place to sleep.”
“I’m sorry, but like the sign outside says, we’re full up.”
“I told her that,” Joe said. He’d removed his sunglasses, and if he weren’t busy being such a prick, Letty thought, he could actually be considered semi-hot.
“Yes,” Letty agreed. “He did tell me that. But I was hoping maybe somebody would be checking out this morning. We drove all night,and I haven’t slept in hours and hours. Are you sure you don’t have anything? I mean, at all?”
