I wished I’d met him under any name but hers.
Chapter Four
I WOKE REACHING ACROSSthe bed.
My hand slid across the mattress and found cool sheet instead of warm skin.
For two breaths, there was only the cheap motel cotton, wrinkled where she’d been, and the space beside me gone empty.
I opened my eyes.
Green light from the Pine Shadow sign cut around the curtains. The window unit rattled like loose coins. Stale air, old smoke, sex, and motel bleach sat heavy in the room. I lay naked under the sheet, one arm stretched into the place where Crystal should’ve been, and listened.
No water ran.
No movement came from the bathroom.
No soft curse, no bare foot on carpet, no rustle of clothes.
I shoved upright. The cuffs sat on the nightstand beside my phone, dark screen up and untouched. Her boots were gone from the foot of the bed. Her overshirt was gone from the chair. My T-shirt lay half under the bed, and my jeans were on the floor where they’d landed when I’d stopped thinking with anything above my belt.
The front door was the only place left.
I dragged on my boxer briefs and jeans, yanked on my T-shirt, and crossed the room.
The safety chain hung slack against the wood. The room key was still on the table.
I opened the door.
Cool July air slid over my face, carrying pine resin, damp blacktop, and the tired buzz of the motel sign. The parking spot in front of room twelve sat empty.
My pickup was gone.
My hand tightened on the doorframe, and the last of sleep cleared.
I shut the door and shoved my hand into the right front pocket of my jeans.
The truck keys were gone.
Only then did I check the bathroom. The door stood half-open, the little window above the narrow drop behind the motel was shut, latch down, and the motel soap still sat dry around the edges. She hadn’t gone in there.
I stood in the middle of that cheap room with one hand buried in an empty pocket and the taste of her still in my mouth.
Then I moved.
I pulled my hand out of my pocket, grabbed my belt from the floor, and threaded it through my jeans. My boots went on fast. The leather dragged over skin still warm from the bed. I checked the small coin pocket in my jeans. The cuff key sat there alone, too small to matter for the problem outside.
She’d left the restraints.
She’d left my phone.
She’d left the room key.
She’d taken the only key that moved.
I almost laughed, but nothing about it had humor in it.
I shoved the cuffs onto my belt, took my phone off the nightstand, and picked up my jacket from the chair. The cheap phone I’d taken from her car still rode in the pocket. If she’d had help—and she had to—she’d kept another way to call for it.
