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It had stopped snowing, but the fog was still thick and the air frigid. The interior of the car was slow to warm, even after he turned on the heater. As they approached the city limits, she said, “You didn’t secure the mobile home.”
“It’s served its purpose. I won’t be going back.”
“You’ll just leave your possessions behind?”
“The possessions that count aren’t in the mobile home. I’ll collect them and—”
“Ride off into the sunrise?”
“Basically.”
“You realize that I can describe this car to the authorities.”
“Yes.”
“You have a backup plan?”
“Always.”
They rode the remainder of the way in silence. He pulled to the curb on a street that ran along the back of the motel and put the car in park. She stared through the streaked windshield. The defroster was just beginning to melt all the frost and frozen precipitation that had accumulated overnight.
She focused on the disintegrating ice crystals rather
than on the tightness in her throat. “I’m relieved. And a bit surprised actually.”
“By what?”
“I thought you might mete out Jeff’s punishment yourself.”
His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “That was my original plan. And nothing would give me greater pleasure. But I slept on it and decided to entrust him to the legal system. Not to save his skin, understand. But mine. Dealing with you and Jeff will keep Connell occupied for a while.”
“Giving you a head start.”
“Right.”
She hesitated, then said, “Fair warning. I’ll tell Connell everything about you that I know. I have to. Before, when the only issue was your involvement with those horrid Floyd brothers, I covered for you, because I shared your outrage over Lisa. But I can’t facilitate you in escaping justice.”
He held her gaze for several seconds, then reached beneath the driver’s seat and retrieved a brown paper sack. “Your evidence,” he said, passing it to her. “Don’t open it. Don’t touch the rock. Hand it over to Connell as is. You still have the charm?”
“Yes.”
“All right then. You know what to do.”
Knowing that her misery was nakedly apparent, but unable to keep it from showing, she spoke his name beseechingly.
“Enough’s been said, Doc. Connell is in room one ten. Get on with it.”
Mistrusting herself to linger for even a second longer, she got out of the car. She’d barely closed the passenger door when he wheeled away. She watched through tear-blurred eyes as the taillights disappeared around the nearest corner.
Once he was out of sight, she trudged toward the motel. It was the one in which Jeff had been hosted by the sheriff’s office, and it was as unattractive as he’d described. Its two levels had open breezeways. Guest room doors were alternately painted red, white, and blue. Near the elevator in the center of the building was a communal ice machine. A neon arrow flickered above it.
Room one ten was three doors down from the end on the first floor. She raised her fist, paused, and looked over her shoulder toward the corner around which Hayes had disappeared. He’d made himself a cruelly insulting stranger this morning, which, she realized now, had been his way of coping with the inevitable good-bye.
Heartbreak wasn’t simply a byword.
Steeling herself, she rapped on the motel room door with her knuckles.
From within, a sleepy voice called, “Yes?”
