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“OK, let’s just calm down. What has you so upset?”
I took a deep, shuddering breath through my nose and focused on not murdering someone who was probably a very nice person when he wasn’t destroying my only financial lifeline. “I’m upset because you just murdered my only credit card, my only form of legal tender. It will take me at least a week to get a replacement card. I am on the road for work, stuck five hundred miles from home, without a credit card. And I still need a place to sleep for the night.”
“Well, I can give you one room,” he said. “It’s the least I can do.”
“One?” I growled.
He winced, stepping back away from the desk. “Look, honey, I’ve got a boss, just like you. I can hide one room on the night audit, but two? That’s pushing it.”
I glared at him, but no amount of stink-eye would persuade him. “Fine, fine, just let me have whatever you’ve got.”
I snatched the flimsy plastic key card from his hand and swept out of the office. The clerk called after me to remember that I had to be out of the room by eleven, as if I was going to linger in the morning.
I gritted my teeth, clutching the key card until the edges bit into my palm. What the hell was I going to do? I had the fleet card for gas and maybe enough cash to keep me in food until we pulled into the Half-Moon Hollow town limits. We had enough blood to keep Collin fed for three nights. But that was it—that was the full extent of our resources, which scared the hell out of me. We wouldn’t be able to withstand any more “incidents” without help from Iris.
And if I called Iris for help, she’d probably hop on a plane to complete the drive with Collin herself. I’d be fired. I’d be lucky if I got a ride home. Actually, I’d be lucky if she didn’t tie me to the hood of the Batmobile like a deer for the drive home.
I needed more time. I hadn’t thought about Jason or the wedding or my future in Half-Moon Hollow all damn day. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. My brain had needed the time off from the constant whir of Jason-related worries over the past few months. But I was no closer to making a decision than when I’d departed the Hollow. I wasn’t ready to go back home yet. I needed to complete this job on time, not just because I needed the time away but also to prove to myself that I wasn’t a complete idiot.
“Is everything all right?” Collin asked as I approached the Batmobile. “You look rather distressed.”
“Sure,” I said, smiling thinly as I popped open the rear hatch. “It’s just … the hotel only had one room available.”
“Really?” he asked, scanning the parking lot, which was mostly empty.
“A lot of the rooms are being fumigated,” I told him, knowing that mentioning potential infestations was a calculated risk, given his penchant for cleanliness.
“Are you trying to take advantage of me?”
“I know, it sounds bad,” I admitted. “It’s our only option at this point.”
“Well, I don’t have to sleep,” he said. “I’ll make use of the bathing facilities and read while you sleep.”
“Oh, sure, that won’t make me uncomfortable at all.”
“I would feel better if you weren’t left unattended, anyway,” he admitted as he carefully lifted the silver case from the backseat. “Who knows what sort of trouble you would drum up out of boredom?”
“You’re still not going to tell me what’s in that case, are you?”
He frowned, an expression of honest regret, and said, “I would, but I can’t. I promised Ophelia I would keep it confidential. And because this trip is an effort to repay her for forgiving a small … indiscretion I committed years ago, I can’t afford to fail her.”
“Fine, but if I find out you’re hauling Marcellus Wallace’s soul around in that thing, I’m going to be pissed,” I griped as we carried our overnight bags into the room.
He didn’t laugh at my Pulp Fiction reference. But he was kind enough to ignore the graffiti on the walls and the questionable carpet stains. The room was truly depressing, with faded greenish carpet, water-stained wallpaper, and a bedspread the color of medical waste.
“Surely this isn’t the best room they had to offer,” he said.
I snorted, waving my arm at the splendor before us. “Oh, no, this is the honeymoon suite.”
Overhead, we heard the din of male voices, talking over one another, laughing in that way only the truly inebriated can master. It sounded as if there were twenty of them, shoved into the room above ours.
“This is not going to be a restful evening, is it?”
I shook my head. “No.”
While Collin was in the shower, I made a call to Iris. She did not have any suggestions for how to address our car’s recent “blossoming,” but her teenage sister, Gigi, found a lot of humor in the situation.
“Have you thought about spray-painting a bikini top over them?” Gigi asked.
