Crystal Kemp had played me in my own room, in my own bed, with my own keys.
My jaw locked so hard it sent pain into my ear.
The bed sat behind me, ugly and ruined, one side kicked open, the other still holding the shape of my body. The sheet had slipped low, and the green motel light washed over every wrinkle I had no business touching.
Her hair had been spread there two hours ago.
Her mouth had been on mine.
Her tiny black ink drop had been under my thumb.
I shut that down before it found a place to live.
The room needed clearing. The job needed fixing. The woman needed catching.
Anger made a man sloppy. I didn’t give it the order of the room.
I checked under the bed, behind the curtains, and around the bathroom. Nothing. No purse, no boots, no hidden anything. She’d swept herself clean out of the room and left me every reminder of why I should’ve known better.
By the time I stepped back outside, the eastern edge of the mountains had gone from black to iron gray. Pine Shadow looked worse before sunrise. The cracked blacktop had a damp shine. The green and orange sign buzzed above the office. Two rooms down, a curtain twitched, then went still. Somewhere behind the building, the trash-bin lid knocked softly in the wind.
Room twelve’s parking spot stayed empty.
I walked the lot anyway.
No woman crouched behind the vending machines. No pale hair cut between cars. No fresh sound came from the highway except a semi downshifting somewhere beyond the trees. A set of tire marks cut out of the lot and toward the county road, and I knew the track before I crouched beside it. My truck had aheavy rear tire and a front right with a worn outer edge I’d been meaning to replace for two weeks.
She’d pulled out clean.
She hadn’t even hit the curb.
That made me angrier than it should’ve.
The office bell gave a tired jangle when I pushed through the door. The same clerk from check-in sat behind the counter with a hoodie pulled over his uniform shirt and a paper cup in his hand. His eyes went from my face to the empty space through the window where my truck should’ve been.
“You need another key?” he asked.
“I need to know when my truck left the lot.”
His fingers tightened around the cup. “Your truck?”
“Black pickup. Parked in front of twelve. Cracked passenger-side headlight.”
“Oh.” He swallowed. “I thought you were leaving.”
“I wasn’t.”
He put the cup down carefully. “It rolled out early. Maybe forty minutes ago? I didn’t see much. I was restocking towels behind the desk, and I heard the engine. I looked up when it pulled past the office.”
“Driver?”
He looked toward the window again, like the answer might return in the parking lot. “A woman. Blonde hair. She’d pulled the seat close. I figured you were in the room packing or something.”
“Was anyone with her?”
“I didn’t see anyone else.”
“Did she stop anywhere? Talk to anyone? Walk toward the road first?”
