Chapter 10
The sheriff didn't turn on the siren. He just drove, wipers beating, heater blasting too hot against my wet skin. I sat in the passenger seat with my seatbelt across my lap, angled under my belly the way the nurse had shown me months ago. My gown dripped onto the rubber floor mat. I kept my hands laced over the bump and tried not to shiver.
He took the county road down from the hill and I watched the mansion get smaller in the side mirror. The lights along the balcony stayed on. The black sedan was still parked at the base of the steps where I'd left it. Mark hadn't followed.
"You sure about the motel over urgent care?" he asked at the stop sign before the highway.
I nodded. "I need a door that locks."
He didn't argue. He turned right onto Route 19 where the gas stations and fast-food signs glowed through the rain.
The Pine View was the kind of place with an ice machine that hummed too loud and a vacancy sign with half the letters out. The sheriff pulled under the awning and left the engine running while I got out. My bare feet hit wet asphalt and then the thin indoor-outdoor carpet of the office. The bell over the door jingled.
The clerk was a woman in her sixties with reading glasses on a chain. She looked from my face to my dress to my feet and didn't change expression.
"One night," I said. My voice came out hoarse. "Whatever you have on the ground floor."
"Seventy-nine plus tax," she said. "Cash or card?"
I had folded bills in the small beaded clutch I'd carried at the gala. I'd shoved it under the lining of the suitcase before I'd left, then grabbed it at the last second when I abandoned the case on the steps. The bills were damp but intact. I counted out ninety on the counter. She slid a registration card toward me.
"ID?" she asked.
I hesitated. "I don't have it. It was in my bag. This is all I have."
The sheriff had come in behind me, dripping on the mat. He tipped his hat toward her. "She's good for it, Donna. Welfare check. Can we waive the ID tonight?"
Donna looked at me again, at the wet hair stuck to my neck, the green beads clinging to my belly. She took the cash and pushed a key across, an actual metal key with a green diamond keychain.
"Room six. Checkout eleven. Towels in the bathroom. No smoking," she said. "Deputy, you need me to log anything?"
"Just that I dropped off, no transport needed," he said.
He turned to me. "You got a phone? Charger?"
"I have my phone," I said. It was dead in the clutch, but I didn't tell him that.
"You lock that door," he said quietly. "If anyone bothers you, you call dispatch. Same number I gave you. Okay?"
I nodded. "Thank you."
He didn't touch me. He just stepped back outside into the rain and I watched through the office window as his cruiser pulled away, taillights smearing red on the wet highway.
Room six smelled like cleaner and old air conditioning. I locked the deadbolt and the chain and stood with my back against the door until the AC rattled on. Then I peeled off the gown. The beads had left little indentations on my skin. I hung it over the shower rod and it dripped steadily into the tub. Under the harsh bathroom light my feet were gray with grit, my calves striped with rain.
I took the white towel and dried my hair first, then my shoulders, my arms. The terry cloth was thin but warm from the rack. I wrapped it around myself and sat on the edge of the bed. The bedspread was faded blue with a pattern of diamonds.
I pressed my hands low on my belly and waited.
For a long minute there was nothing, just my own breathing and the rain hitting the window unit. Then a shift, a roll against my palm, firm and familiar. My breath caught and I let out a sound that was almost a laugh.
"Hey," I whispered. "You still there."
Another nudge, stronger this time. I closed my eyes and kept my hands there until tears finally came, not the restrained kind from the steps but messy, with sound. I didn't wipe them away.
My clutch buzzed once. My phone had gotten enough charge from the old car charger the sheriff had let me plug into for two minutes. One bar, three percent.
A text preview lit up on the lock screen. It wasn't for me. Donna at the desk had forwarded something, or Mark had texted the sheriff's dispatch line and dispatch relayed it. I saw Evelyn's name.
I opened it.
From Mark: She took the motel on 19. Evelyn says she'll be back by morning. Save her gown if she left it.
I stared at those words. She'll be back by morning. The same line Evelyn had said from the doorway, calm, holding champagne, watching me pull a suitcase through the rain. It hadn't worked on the steps and it wasn't working now.
I didn't reply. I let the screen go black. I plugged the phone into the wall outlet with the bent charger from the nightstand drawer and left it face down.
May you like
I pulled back the bedspread and got under the sheet in the towel. The mattress was soft in the middle. I kept one hand on my belly and one hand near the lamp, where the key rested. Outside, trucks hissed by on the highway, spraying water. No car slowed for room six. No knock came.
The rain kept falling on the awning, steady and separate from me for the first time that night. I locked my eyes on the chain on the door and let myself drift, safe because the only prediction left in that house was failing, one hour at a time.
