A woman with a halo of curly brown hair restrained by a brilliant lime green headband suddenly appeared at the balcony, leaning over it to yell, “Hi! You looking for a room? I sure hope you are, because man alive, are you a long drink of water for sore eyes. Or something like that. I never was really good with similes. Or metaphors. Whichever that is. I’m Alison. You do want a room, don’t you?”
She was nothing like what he expected. She also wasn’t a Traveller, which relieved his mind on that regard. “Actually, I’m looking for a friend of mine. He recommended this motel to me, and I wondered if he was here. His name is”—covertly he slid a glance to the slip of paper upon which he’d written down the information from the California police—“Alan Renfrew.”
“Really?” Alison’s eyes opened wide for a few seconds before she jumped back and scampered along the balcony until it met a circular metal staircase, down which she thundered.
“He is here?” Peter asked, somewhat confused by her response.
“No, the ‘really?’ was about someone actually recommending this place. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s home and everything, and I’m grateful to have it because the alternative is staying with my mom and stepdad, but it’s not quite the Hilton, you know what I mean? And we never, ever get guys like you here.”
Peter stiffened, eyeing the woman warily. She reminded him of a friendly puppy, bouncing around with happy abandon. “I don’t know whether you expect me to apologize for something, but it appears you do.”
“No,” she said with a surprisingly wolfish grin. “I was being wildly inappropriate to a potential customer, though, and that’s something that Vic would have a hissy over.”
“Vic?” Peter ceased being annoyed, and threw himself wholeheartedly into confused. He was tired of being annoyed by everything. Confusion might not be the ideal state to find oneself, but there were worse things that could befall him. Besides, he’d always been rather good at untangling chaos, and this young woman’s verbal acrobatics offered him an opportunity to do just that. “Vic is the owner of the motel?”
“You know him? He’s not here right now. He’s off fishing at Crescent Lake for a few days. He left me in charge. Do you want a single room or a double room? We only have four rooms total, and three are doubles, so I hope it’s the latter because there’s a Goth in the single and a pair of hikers in one of the doubles.”
“A pair of hikers?”
“Yeah, an older guy and a younger one. They said they’re father and son, but I don’t think they are.” She winked at him. “I think they’re having a romantic getaway.”
“Ah. Just so. And what about the Goth?” Peter leaned his shoulder against the wall marking one of the four rooms. What a bizarre place this was. He felt oddly at home. He wondered if the woman from the forest would like it, as well, then quelled the thought instantly. He didn’t care what his cousin’s wife thought. She was nothing to him. Less than nothing. As of that moment, she ceased to exist for him.
Her eyes lit up when she smiled. He’d read about such things, but never actually seen it happen. It was as if her whole being glowed with an inner illumination.
“He’s a Goth.” Alison shrugged. “You know, the people who are dark, and depressing, and mope around thinking black thoughts. They wear black and never crack a smile.”
He never smiled. His life was dark and depressing, and mope-worthy. Did the woman in the forest ever mope? He doubted it. She was all sunshine and freckles and warm, silken skin that he bet tasted of wildflowers. “I wouldn’t imagine that Goths find a room in a church motel to be particularly pleasing on an aesthetic level, but I could be wrong. However, such a thing begs the question of what a Goth would be doing in a remote town in the middle of nowhere.”
Alison giggled, and stuck her hand into her jeans pocket to dig out a set of keys. “I know, right? It’s just what I said. I asked him what he was doing here. He said something about having his picture taken in a tree for some Web site, and then went off to be emo somewhere. Your friend isn’t here, but I can give you the bridal suite if you like. Not that I hope you have a bride along with you, because I am single and all, but still, you look like you could do with a nice room. It’s along here. It’s not much of a bridal suite, but it does have a queen-size bed, and its own entrance on the side of the building. It’s forty-five bucks a night, breakfast included, pay in advance if you’re staying less than three nights.”
Peter allowed himself to be escorted to the room in question, noting with not a lot of interest that the room was sparsely furnished for a honeymoon suite. The room itself was small, but had the high-vaulted ceiling of the church to compensate. The furnishings consisted of a bed, two chairs that sat at a chess table, and in a small separate room, an antique claw-footed bathtub. A door with accompanying side panels of stained glass depicting the beheading and subsequent drawing and quartering of a saint were the only other sights to be seen.
“Toilet’s just off the TV room,” Alison said from the doorway, gesturing toward the dark area under the balcony. “But you have your own tub, which is nice. I hate knowing someone else’s butt has sat in my tub, don’t you? I mean, you don’t know where that butt has been! Unless, of course, it was a boyfriend’s butt. That’s totally different.”
She grinned at him again.
Peter was no stranger to the admiring looks of women. He was not an extraordinarily modest man, but he was also quite aware that although he was considered by most women to possess all the qualities desirous in appearance—dark hair, pleasant features, eyes that were frequently referred to as “bedroom”—there was little value in the arrangement of his bodily attributes except so much as it allowed him to more easily acquire information from smitten women.
No one had ever looked at him the way the woman in the woods had, though. Her eyes had all but glowed with admiration. It made him feel wonderfully heroic, as if he could scale the highest mountain on her behalf.
“Thank you,” he said, accepting the key Alison held out to him. “If you were about to offer to share the tub with me, I must decline.”
He certainly wouldn’t be saying those words if it was the other woman offering.
No! He refused to countenance such thoughts. She belonged to one of his cousins. That was the end of the subject.
“Damn,” Alison said, giving a shrug and a still-friendly smile. “Was worth a try.”
“It was. Do you take credit cards?”
“Nope, cash only. There’s an ATM at the local store, though. It’s on the other side of the street, just beyond the barbershop. I’ll hold the room for you, if you like. It’s not like we get a ton of visitors here. Most people go up to Crescent Lake. How come your friend told you he was here when he isn’t?”
“I would very much like to know that,” he said, closing the door of his room. “Thank you, I will use the cash machine shortly.” He waited, hoping she’d go away so he could do a little exploring of the hotel. It wasn’t that he thought she was outright lying, but experience had taught him never to take anyone’s word for something important.
“No problem. Want me to show you around first? That’s the breakfast room just beyond us, and above in the balcony is the TV area.”
“That’s not necessary, no.”
He waited, looking at her.
She looked right back at him.
With a mental sigh, he turned and marched out of the motel, warning Sunil that they would be in public before making his way down the street to a small shop that bore neon signs advertising two kinds of beer, as well as fresh sandwiches, and bait. He used the cash machine, pausing briefly to chat with the woman behind the counter to see if she knew anything that might be useful to him, and then emerged into the night to conduct a little reconnoiter of the motel and surrounding area.
Shortly before nine, he reentered the motel and quietly moved to the door of his room. From the room opposite, he could hear the muted thump of a bass line. Obviously the Goth resident was back and liste
ning to some music. From the balcony, the tinny strains of a commercial jingle drifted down to the dark main floor. Alison was most likely watching TV. He took a step toward the breakfast area, now completely in the dark with only the odd shaft of light spilling over from the balcony. He could make out the forms of a couple of small kidney-shaped tables and chairs, and what looked like a sideboard.
There was nothing that he could find that was the least bit suspicious about the motel. He’d discuss his findings—or, rather, lack of them—with Dalton. A glance at his watch showed that it was time to phone him and see if he was in town yet.
“I’ll let you out once we’re in the room,” he whispered to his pocket. It buzzed its acknowledgment.
Wary of making noise so as to attract the attention of the effervescent Alison, he moved quietly to his door, unlocked it, and stepped inside.
Wherein he was promptly stabbed in the side.
FIVE
“I’d feel like a martyr, except I don’t really have anything to be martyred over,” I told Eloise as we bumped our way down the drive to the family camp. “You are at least running, although your engine dies if I try to go over thirty, or you have to idle for more than forty-five seconds, or you make two left turns in a row, and I’m earning money to get you fixed up right, and Mrs. Faa told the nasty William to get cracking on setting up my little home away from home, so really, all things considered, I’m a pretty lucky girl.”
Eloise wheezed and backfired a few times as I rolled her to a stop across from the crescent of RVs. I added getting new brakes to my list of things that needed to be done to restore my beloved car to her former glory, then refused to think about how much more that would add to my bill. “Focus, Kiya. You have a job, albeit a temporary one, with a bunch of adorable little puggies. Who cares if the rest of the family think you’re some sort of lesser species of leper? You’re not working for them.”
“I can assure you that not all of the family views you as a leper, lesser or greater,” a warm, masculine voice spoke behind me as I crawled out of the window. I jumped, cracked my head on the edge of Eloise’s roof, and swore profanely for a few minutes.
“Sorry,” Gregory said, wincing in sympathy when I rubbed the back of my head. “I didn’t intend to startle you. Are you bleeding? My grandmother has a first aid kit in her caravan, if so.”
“No, just bruised.” Gingerly, I felt the sore area on my head, quickly dropping my hand when the bruised area protested such a gesture. “What are you doing here?”
He looked slightly taken aback at my brusque question.
“That sounded far more rude than I intended it to be,” I said quickly, not wanting to offend him. “You have to forgive me. I just whacked the bejeepers out of my head while a man stared at my ass as I got out of my car, so I’m bound to sound a bit cranky.”
He grinned. “How do you know I stared at your ass?”
“I may crawl out of the car butt first so that I can keep the movement from dislodging Eloise’s parking brick, but that doesn’t mean I’m an idiot. Besides, I felt you looking at it.” I pursed my lips and considered the handsome man before me, suddenly beset with the horrible thought that perhaps my butt wasn’t watch-worthy. “Oh my god, you didn’t, did you? It’s because it’s so big, isn’t it? That’s it, I’m getting one of those ‘fabulous buns in ten days’ DVDs the second I get home.”
He laughed and took me by the arm. “As a matter of fact, I did look, although I averted my eyes as soon as you hit your head. I didn’t think it right to continue to ogle you while you were writhing in pain.”
“Gentlemanly,” I agreed, but dug in my heels to stop him from walking me away from the car. “You didn’t deny that my butt’s too big, though. But we’ll let that go. Here, make yourself useful and take this.”
I reached through the window into the backseat where the things I’d purchased (after some successful haggling) sat in all their glory.
Gregory looked from me to the car. “My grandmother told me that we were loaning you the extra camping things. Did you purchase more?”
“Just things like food and necessities of life like chocolate and Doritos. Oooh, is that my tent? It looks…uh…” Lifting out the large, empty plastic paint bucket filled with as many assorted camping items as my advance would purchase, I stopped in front of the rusty green tent that was now erected at the opposite side of the clearing from the RVs.
Gregory’s nose wrinkled. He set down the box of canned goods that I had shoved into his arms. “Yes, that’s it. You have my profound apologies about it, too. I gather it hasn’t been used in some time.”
I set down my paint bucket and flinched. “It smells like the tent ran over a skunk.”
“My grandmother asked me to give this to you.” He held out a bottle of room spray that claimed it could neutralize any odor.
“Thanks. I suppose that once the air roams around and through it, it’ll smell nicer.”
An expression of discomfort briefly crossed his face. “I only wish I could invite you to stay with me, but as it is, I have to leave shortly to take a videoconference. I may be back later, but even if I am, I’ll be rooming with my cousin, and…well…”
“And I wouldn’t be welcome.” I made a wry face and moved past him with my armload of camping supplies.
“It’s not that. He simply does not have the room. Nor do I think you would be comfortable staying in the RV with him.”
I remembered the man who asked me if I was going to drown the pugs, and shook my head. “You’re right about that. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. I haven’t camped since…well, since I was a little girl. It’ll be a new experience, and my foster mom—she’s a psychologist, and knows these things—she says that opening up oneself to new experiences is the way to self-enlightenment. Although honestly, I think I’m pretty self-enlightened already, but Carla says that I’m more goofy than enlightened, and won’t be able to dissect my true inner being until I take stuff more seriously.”
“That sounds almost as unpleasant as this foul tent,” Gregory said, nudging it with the toe of his shoe.
“What, enlightenment?” I looked inside and noted the air mattress and pump that had been arranged inside. I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about being positioned so far from the others—on the one hand, it was nice to have privacy. William had set up the tent so that it opened to the woods, rather than inward toward the mill center. But on the other hand, I definitely felt like an outsider, suitably far enough away that Mrs. Faa and her family wouldn’t get cooties from me. Not that I had them, but they sure made me feel like I did.
Although to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure what a cootie was.
“No, dissecting your true inner being.” He paused for a moment, giving me a curious look. “What are you doing?”
“Hmm?” I looked up from where I had been staring at my feet. “Sorry, I was trying to remember if I ever knew what a cootie was. Fleas, do you think? Or lice? Both are icky, but I can’t decide which is worse.”
He just looked at me for the count of seven, then said slowly, “You are the most bizarre individual I have ever met. And I have a wide circle of acquaintances.”
“It’s ’cause you look like a male model,” I said, nodding. “People are drawn to you. Shallow people, that is, because people with real depth of character look beyond something like a gorgeous face and six-pack and really nice ass. Not that I’ve noticed your ass.”
He opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, shook his head, and turned to stride away.
I took stock of my new possessions, took a deep, mildewy-skunk-scented breath, and set to work making my own little slice of paradise in a camp full of unfriendlies.
By the time the sun set, I had sprayed the tent with the air freshener that most decidedly did NOT kill all offensive odors, as it claimed, and set up a small wobbly tabletop charcoal grill in a makeshift fire pit, a resin lawn chair and matching table, and two portable camping lanterns with fres
h batteries (the latter of which cost more than the former) that did a pretty good job of lighting my little space. As I was making small adjustments to my domain, I received a visit from a barely civil Andrew, who thrust a toilet seat at me, and dragged me off into the woods to see the pit he had, upon William’s orders, dug specifically for my use.
“How very kind of you,” I said in a frosty tone upon viewing the arrangements. I clutched the toilet seat (still in plastic wrap) to my chest, and fought hard to keep from screaming.
“You will not visit our women’s latrines,” Andrew said sternly. “You are—”
“Mahrime, I know, thanks so very much for mentioning it. Again.”
He grunted, ignored my withering sarcasm, and stomped off to go lounge around in expensive RV luxury. I muttered several rude things under my breath as I set up my facilities, and returned to my tent, where I pulled my chair out to the side so I could look pathetically hungry in hopes that someone would offer me a bite of food that was being grilled by two of the women.
They didn’t even glance my way. And since Mrs. Faa wasn’t around to make people be nice to me, I settled down to develop my campfire cooking skills. Mrs. Faa and her dogs emerged for their dinner, after which I hooked up the little beasties and took them for their prebed constitutional, opting to go down the drive toward the main road rather than get tangled up in the undergrowth. By the time they’d had their walk and been returned to their owner, I was too beat to even make a pretense of conversation with her, and, with a weary smile at Gregory, who was deep in conversation with his cousin Andrew, headed into my tent and spent the next forty minutes pumping up my air mattress. Despite the odiferous surroundings, sleep claimed me the second my head hit my rolled-up sweater that served as a pillow.
Until, that is, my entire tent was shaken by an earthquake, one that had me groggily grunting, “Huh?” before the earthquake manifested itself into a human form. “What on earth?”