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“You have anyone in there?” I asked, looking at the door Will had been pointing at. It hung off its hinges against the vinyl siding of the motel. Even from where I sat, I could see the claw marks in the wood.
Will nodded again, head snapping up and down. “Yes, sir. Some out-of-towners. In suits. Businessmen, looks like, though they didn’t talk much about anything. They’d been here a couple of times before. Rude, if you ask me. No one was in there, though. It’s empty.”
“Get any names, old man?” the other deputy asked. “Or did you just take cash under the table?”
“This is a legitimate business,” Will snapped. “Of course I got names. It’s in the ledger. I’ll show you. I don’t do dirty work. And I’ve always said there’s been something weird going on in this town, okay? No one else sees it, but I do. You can’t tell me you don’t hear the howling that comes from the forest at night. Just because other people don’t talk about it doesn’t mean I won’t.”
“Sure,” the deputy said. “Mountain lions and howling in the woods. Got it. Let’s see the ledger.”
Will stomped off toward the office, muttering under his breath. The deputy followed him. I put the truck in Park and turned off the key as Jones began walking toward the motel room, flashlight out, hand on the grip of the gun.
I opened the door.
He glanced back at me. “Maybe you should stay in the truck.”
I shrugged. “Wild animal, right? Probably more scared of us than we should be of it.”
Jones sighed. “He’s trashed.”
“Probably. But what else is new.”
“At least he’s not behind the wheel,” he muttered.
“Only because he lost his license after jumping the curb and hitting a parking meter.”
“Said his brakes were faulty. Blew damn near three times the legal limit.”
The gravel crunched beneath my feet as I followed Jones toward the open door.
“See that?” he said quietly, the beam of his flashlight on the scratch marks. There were four of them, scarring the door deeply. They were big.
“Still think it was a couple of kids?”
“More than a mountain lion. Could have been done with a knife.”
“Sure, Jones.”
We stopped on the stoop near the room. Jones cocked his head, standing stock-still. Then, “I don’t hear anything.”
That’s because there was nothing there, but I didn’t say that. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
He walked forward.
From over his shoulder, I could see the room had been destroyed, just like Will had said. Tables overturned, the walls gouged. The bed had been ripped to shreds, the mattress hanging off the frame, springs poking up through the fabric.
“What the hell?” Jones whispered.
“Kids,” I said. “Drunk. Drugs. Something.”
He shook his head. “Then what about that?”
I followed the beam of his flashlight.
Blood splattered the wall. It wasn’t a lot. But it was there, still wet and dripping.
JONES WAS out in the cruiser, reporting back to dispatch. He’d changed his tune. “Animal,” I could hear him saying. “Some kind of animal. Looks like it was hurt. Will’s saying he had guests in the room, but their SUV is gone, so they might have already left town. Didn’t get a plate number.”
