We’d bought it prior to the trip, when I was trying to think of every tool that might help us. Not that I really had any vision of it working in the woods. It’s nice to have something to do with it now.
Beck clicks the lights off and the black light on.
I don’t know what I’m expecting, exactly. A motel this sketchy will surely be covered in stains. Some will likely be blood but not be from someone being murdered. But my stomach clenches the second Beck’s pen finds a single stain on the floor. It’s a bit of spray, but nothing that would indicate any struggle or deaths took place here. I really don’t know much about blood spatter other than a few things picked up watching crime shows, but I assume there would have to be a lot of blood. We have so much of it inside of us, and it can’t be contained easily. If anyone were hit hard enough to die, there’d have to be an uncontrollable amount of blood in here.
But there aren’t any puddles, any huge lines of spray. There are…small lines of spray, dots, smears as big as fingertips. I have to think even if Paisley were already dead, she’d leave some sign of her life around here somewhere. Blood draining out of a mortal wound isn’t that easy to hold in.
“You know, it raises the question whether I’d ever do this to another hotel room again,” Beck says as she glances over a stain on theright bed’s pillow. “Is it better to live in ignorant bliss or to physically leave a premises covered in human fluids?”
I snort and say, “I wish I could vote for ignorant bliss, but my anxiety is only kept tame by knowing things.”
I move into the bathroom, which is our best shot for finding evidence, anyway. They always do sketchy shit in the bathroom.
Hell, one of the most famous kills in cinema happened in a motel shower. There must be something to that. Or at least enough homicidally-inclined people would have it etched into their memories that they’d think it was the smart move.
There’s obviously no decayed body in the tub, but we keep going. Any clue would help. God, if we could even find another piece of her jacket or some jewelry. Something that says she and Evan were here together whether she was alive or not at that point.
We turn off the lights. Black light on.
Bathtub, shower curtain, sink, toilet.
Beck moves the black light slowly, as if painting the room stroke by stroke.
Nothing on the tile.
What happens if this is all for nothing, and Paisley isn’t on this property at all? If she were indeed killed and buried in the woods and the call to this motel was a coincidence? The idea has my throat growing heavy.
“Try the grout,” I say.
It’s easy to wipe away blood from tile, but getting anything out of the space between has to be difficult, right? We lean in close together, as if one of us could ever miss it.
There’s a glow between the tiles of the shower.
“There’s something there, but there’s no way to prove it’s blood.” My stomach sours. “This isn’t gonna get us anywhere.”
Beck throws the black light onto the ground. I cringe as it shatters, the sound reverberating in this lonely little space. “We found her fucking fingernails,” she says. “So where’s her body? If she died in here, where is it? God, Emma, what are we doing? What if the federal cops don’t even take us seriously? Why would they, without Paisley’s body? Will they even believe we killed Evan in self-defense? We have Evan’s gun with us, for god’s sake.”
“Forself-defense,” I say. “We’ll give it to Natalie as soon as we find her.”
“We—”
Bang!
And there’s that sound again. The hairs on my arms rise, my body moving closer to Beck. “Do you think we should be concerned about that?”
Another bang hits, this time directly on the wall between our room and room 4.
The thought is so insane, but I can’t stop the idea from tumbling out. “What if it’s the local cops? What if they found Evan?”
“It has to be someone else,” Beck says. “This place seems to have a lot of shady characters.”
But the banging moves.
To our motel room door.
“So what do you do with that?” I ask.
We move out of the bathroom. I grab my pepper spray, knowing Evan’s gun is in my bag if we need it, but I really don’t want to watch someone else die. There are pens and lamps and all sorts of things that hurt people in movies, but I have no idea if they work in real life. I unplug a lamp—
