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“But she knew this is where Jessie came from. I think I came from here, too.” The girl gazed at Becca soulfully. Becca had no idea what she was thinking. “Can’t I come in?” Becca cajoled. “I just have so many questions.”
“It’s not safe for you, either.”
“Do you know who I am?”
She glanced behind her, then down at her feet. “Rebecca…”
Becca’s pulse jumped. “Look, I think…I think I might be related to someone here and it’s very important that I find him.”
Jessie saw the girl’s eyes dilate, the pupils making her eyes tw
o black orbs with the faintest halo of color around them. “You won’t find him here,” she said.
“You know who I’m talking about?”
The girl hesitated. “You’ve met Madeline?”
“Yes,” Becca said, surprised by the non sequitur. “But I’m looking for someone else and it’s really important. People have died. I need to find him.”
She half turned away.
“No, wait!” Becca called, but she was already leaving.
She stopped when she was about thirty feet away. “Whoever you’re looking for is not here.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you asked for ‘him,’” she said without inflection. “There are no men at Siren Song.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Hudson stared at the pimply-faced clerk on the other side of the faux-wood counter in the lobby of the tired-looking motel where he, Becca, and Ringo had stayed only a few short weeks ago. A striped yellow tabby viewed the interplay with utter disdain from the back of a worn couch as the clerk, who was all of fourteen or so, gazed at him in consternation.
“I-I-can’t talk about our guests. It’s, um, the privacy policy.” The kid kept looking over his shoulder, hoping someone would come to the rescue while the cat yawned and stretched his legs.
“I’m her fiancé,” Hudson tried. A stretch maybe, but close enough, and the next time he saw her, he damned well was going to ask her to marry him. He’d spent too many hours in the hospital wondering about her, worrying about her, loving her, to let her go again.
“Do you, like, have some kind of proof or somethin’?” The kid’s gaze slid to the sling supporting Hudson’s left arm, and Hudson realized he looked like hell in his filthy clothes, disheveled hair, and scruffy beard. He probably appeared to the kid to be one of those loner, killer types from the movies.
But Hudson was too panicked, too sick with worry to go into it or explain anything. Time was running out. “Just tell me what unit she’s in.”
“Grandpa?” the boy called nervously over his shoulder to the open door at the back.
“What?” a male voice bellowed.
“I, uh, could use a little help out here.”
With a huge sigh, “Grandpa,” a large man built like Humpty Dumpty, shuffled into view. Suspenders looped from his faded denim pants, doing nothing as they dangled uselessly from his waist. A thin, tank-style T-shirt was half covered by an open flannel shirt. He peered over the tops of half-glasses. “What’s the problem?”
Irritated, Hudson repeated his request. “My fiancée checked in earlier. I’m supposed to meet her, but I don’t know what room she’s in.”
The man swiped a hand over the graying stubble on his jaw, started to argue, then said, “Oh, forget it. A woman checked into unit seven today. I can’t let you in, but I can go there myself. You can come along.” He glanced out the window. “But I’d bet Butterfinger over there,” he said, nodding to the orange tabby, “that she’s not in. Her car’s missing. No lights on. No television, either.”
The kid walked over to pick up the cat, stroking its head.
Butterfinger snuggled up to the boy, his long tail twitching as he, too, gave Grandpa Humpty the evil eye. Gramps found a baseball cap and jacket, then, with a jangling set of keys, waddled toward unit seven.
It was all Hudson could do not to run in front of him. The fact that Becca wasn’t here made him crazy. Where was she? God, what was she doing? He had a deep, driving fear that she might be out baiting the madman. As they crossed the seedy parking lot, he tried her cell phone again.
