AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It was a short drive to Black Rock Falls Motel, and Kane parked outside the office. He scanned the parking lot. Only three vehicles sat piled with snow outside the doors to the rooms. It seemed that most of the tourists had headed for the ski resort. The snow on the mountains had come early this year and visitors were already enjoying everything Glacial Heights Ski Resort had to offer. Part of him wished he was up there, hurtling down the slopes with the rush of cold wind on his cheeks. It was almost like flying and he pushed his body to the limit to go as fast as possible, but the seconds he spent on the descent were never enough. He always wanted more. In those few seconds there was no time for thoughts, problems vanished and his mind relaxed. Like skydiving, nothing mattered until he pulled the cord to open his chute, and then gravity slammed reality back into him. He glanced up as an eagle spiraled overhead.Nowhe’sgot an uncomplicated life, that’s for darn sure.
He let Duke out of the truck to stretch his legs and then followed Jenna inside the office. Cigarette smoke hit him in a wall of stink and the ceiling above the counter had a yellow hue from years of exhaled tar. This he found unusual as the Montana Clean Air Act prohibited smoking in offices. He’d never smoked. Not after a particular grueling lesson about the dangers of tobacco products. He vividly recalled the shock of seeing the cross section of a smoker’s blackened lung displayed beside the glass jar of tar they’d drained from his lungs after he’d died. He figured the dejected-looking doctor giving the lecture believed if he could prevent one kid from taking up smoking, he’d started to win the battle. Kane sometimes wished he’d run into him over his lifetime, to tell him it sure had worked for him.
He stood beside Jenna at the counter as she asked the manager about Maisy Jones.
“When did you last see her?” Jenna’s pen was poised over her notebook.
“She drove out of the parking lot at about four-thirty on Monday.” The man scratched the back of his greasy unwashed hair, spilling dandruff across his shoulders. “I don’t ask my guests where they’re going. I just happened to look out of the window. Her old truck is hard to miss.”
“Was she alone?” Jenna made notes. “Did she have any visitors that you noticed?”
“Not that I saw and, yeah, she was alone.” The manager wrinkled his brow. “She struggled some getting out her bags. She looked younger than her ID stated but the picture was the same.”
Kane glanced around wondering how desperate someone was to stay at the motel in winter. “How did she seem when she arrived?”
“Normal, I guess.” The manager shrugged. “Whatever that means. She seemed okay, not nervous or agitated. She just asked the price of a room and could she get a deal if she took one for a week. We negotiated a price and she paid in advance.”
Kane imagined a young woman walking into a motel office to get a room. “How did she pay, cash or card?”
“Cash.” The manager frowned. “Nothing wrong with taking cash. It’s legal.”
Moving his gaze over the man, he nodded. “Was she carrying a purse or did she pull the cash from her pocket?”
“A purse.” The manager’s eyes squeezed shut and he pulled a face. His eyes sprang open and he smiled displaying yellow stained teeth, with one or two missing. “I remember it was hanging over one shoulder, blue with a bright yellow flower on one side. Like kids draw, you know, with a smile in the center?”
“That’s very helpful.” Jenna folded her notebook. “We’ll need to see her room. Has housekeeping been inside this morning?”
“Yeah, and when your deputy called and asked me to check if she was in her room, I spoke to Maria, the housekeeper. She told me that the bed hadn’t been slept in but the towels were damp, so she changed them, wiped down the bathroom and vacuumed the floor.”
Kane held out a hand. “Give me a key and we’ll check it out.”
“Don’t you need a warrant to search her room?” The man’s eyes narrowed.
Kane lifted one shoulder and stared him down. “Not if you give us permission as it’s your place. Miss Jones is missing and we need to find her.”
“Sure, I’ll get the key.” The manager turned away, grabbed a key from a hook behind him and handed it to Kane. “Don’t lose it. It opens all the rooms. She was in room four.”
Kane took the key, attached to a six-inch slab of wood withdo not remove from officewritten in marker pen on both sides. He pushed open the door to the office and took a few deep breaths of fresh air. He turned to Jenna. “I’ve inhaled about six packs of secondhand smoke just being inside that room.”
“Yeah, the last time we were here Rowley wrote him a ticket and he paid a fine.” Jenna frowned. “The back part of the office is his private residence, so maybe the smoke is drifting out from there.”
Kane shook his head. “Nope, from the stains on the ceiling, he smokes at the counter.” He headed across the courtyard and toward the line of motel rooms.
“Then I’ll write him up again.” Jenna flicked him a glance. “Getting bored? It’s not like you to chase down illegal use of cigarettes.”
Hiding a smile, Kane stopped outside room number four. “No, I’m just looking out for the health of the guests he has going into his office.” He shrugged. “That’s our job, to uphold the law.” He slid the key in the lock and stood to one side. “After you.”
“Okay, glove up.” Jenna removed her thick mittens and pulled examination gloves from her pocket and snapped them on. “I want to go through her things. She might have a laptop or tablet with her and I sure hope we find her purse.”
Kane stood in the doorway, scanning the room. He liked to take in the feel of the room and imagine Maisy Jones inside. A bag was open on the bed, clothes dragged out and tossed aside, another sat beside the closet. He walked into the bathroom, pulling on examination gloves. Personal toiletries sat on the vanity. An open makeup bag spilled cosmetics across the top. A pink toothbrush sat in a glass beside a hairbrush. She had seemingly arrived, showered, changed and left well before her shift. Where did she go?
A plastic laundry bag sat on the floor beside the door. The motel did offer laundry service, but as Maisy hadn’t left it beside the front door with the pickup slip, he figured she’d planned to wait a couple of days and then send a bundle of clothes. He pulled evidence bags from his pocket. He carefully pushed the cosmetics back into the bag and, along with the hairbrush and toothbrush, added them to an evidence bag and labeled it. Next, he bagged the soiled clothes. He walked out of the bathroom. “The bathroom yielded enough DNA for Wolfe to identify her if she’s a victim of crime.” He dropped the bags onto the bed. “Find anything?”
“Apart from clothes, nothing.” Jenna shrugged. “The problem is most people use their phones for everything now. I had hoped for a laptop but there’s nothing here. There’s a safe in the bottom of the closet. It’s locked. I’ll go to the office. They must have an override key.”
Dropping down to squat in front of the safe, Kane looked at her. “What is her birthdate?”
“Just a second.” Jenna scrolled through her phone for Maisy Jones’ DMV record and gave him the date.
