Reid snapped up the shotgun. “That’s the least of your concerns right now.” He pressed the barrel into the dirty-blond dreadlocks.
The clerk immediately dropped to his stomach and whimpered. “Don’t… don’t kill me… please don’t… please… don’t kill me…”
“Give me your phone.”
“I don’t… I don’t have one…”
Reid bent at the waist and quickly patted the guy down. He was being honest; he didn’t have a phone, but he did have a wallet. Reid flipped it open and checked the driver’s license.
“George.” Reid scoffed. The clerk didn’t look much like a George. “You got a car here, George?”
“I got, I got a dirt bike, p-parked out back…”
“Good enough. Here’s what’s going to happen, George. I’m taking your bike. You, you’re going to walk out of here. Or run, if you prefer. You’re going to go to the hospital and get your nose checked out. You’re going to tell them that you were sucker-punched in a bar. You’re not going to say a word about this place, or a word about me.” He leaned over and lowered his voice. “Because I’ve got a police scanner, George. And if I hear one mention, even one word of a man fitting my description, I’m going to come to…” He checked the ID again. “Apartment 121B on Cedar Road, and I’m going to bring your shotgun with me. You got all that?”
“I got it, I got it.” The clerk blubbered, blood and spittle hanging from his lips. “I got it, I promise I got it.”
“Now, the man with the girls. When were they here?”
“There was… was a guy, like you said, but I didn’t see no girls…”
“But you saw a man that fit that description?”
“Yes, yes. He was real serious. Barely said a word. Came last night, after dark, and paid for the night in cash…”
“When did he leave?”
“I don’t know! Sometime in the night. Left the door open, or else I wouldn’t have known he was gone…”
During the night? Reid’s heart sank. He had hoped, but hadn’t truly expected to find the girls at the motel—but he thought he was catching up. If they had a full day’s lead on him… they could be anywhere.
Reid dropped the wallet and stepped back, taking the shotgun barrel from the kid’s head. “Go.”
The clerk scooped up the wallet and ran through the dark doorway, tripping once and falling onto his hands before hurrying out into the night.
Reid ejected the cartridges from the shotgun, four of them in all, and stuffed them into a jacket pocket. He wasn’t actually going to take the gun with him; it was an illegal weapon by virtue of having its barrel and stock cut off, and likely unregistered even before its modifications. He wiped the shotgun clean of his prints before replacing it beneath the counter.
He didn’t need to invite trouble. He had enough as it was.
The police would arrive at any moment, but he couldn’t leave without something more to go on. He hurried back to the broken door of room 9 and searched again, this time not caring to replace anything or handle with care. He tore the pillows and sheets from the bed. He searched under the bed and chair. He pulled out the drawers of each shoddy nightstand and the bureau, but found nothing but an old Bible with a cracked spine. He fanned its pages and shook it out, just in case.
At every opportunity so far, Maya had left something behind on purpose. According to the clerk, the girls had spent most of a night here.
Reid hurried into the bathroom. It stank strongly of bleach as he checked the shower stall, the sink, the vanity with the cracked mirror. He opened the single small cabinet beneath the sink and found two spare rolls of toilet paper, a spray can of air freshener, and, curiously, a blue ballpoint pen.
Reid turned on the hot water in both the sink and the shower and closed the door to the tiny bathroom, letting it fill with steam. He inspected the mirror in the hopes that Maya had perhaps written an invisible message that would only show with condensation—but there was no message. Still nothing.
I’m missing something. She left a clue. I know she did.
Sirens wailed in the distance, floating to him through the open motel room door. The police were en route. He grunted in frustration and kicked at the toilet bowl with his boot, hard enough to chip the porcelain.
He looked down and blinked.
I should have seen that. Should have known.
Atop the toilet tank was a single hair, brown, long, with a white root still attached. He dropped to his hands and knees and found a few more scattered on the floor. They were Maya’s hair, tugged loose from her head on purpose—to give him a clue.
He lifted the lid from the back of the toilet.
Reid reached in and tugged loose the furled scrap of fabric that was looped into the flush lever’s chain. He unrolled it in his fingers, which began to tremble as soon as he recognized the familiar pattern of pineapples.
Sara.
The scrap was triangular; a pocket, he realized, torn loose from her favorite pajamas.
He held the scrap to his face. It could have been his imagination, but it still smelled like her, like his baby girl.
He turned the fabric over to the other side, the all-white side, where three words were written in blue ink.
“No,” he whispered hoarsely.
Port Jersey. Dubrovnik.
Reid sprinted from the bathroom as fast as he could.
Rais was trying to take his girls out of the country… if he hadn’t already.
CHAPTER TEN
No, no, no… As Reid leapt across the orange carpet of room 9, it felt as if his legs couldn’t move fast enough, as if every muscle was straining to react at an impossible speed. He had to get to the port.
He understood now. The cars, the change of directions, even the murder of the woman in the rest stop bathroom—all of it would confuse the authorities, make Rais look desperate and meandering, as if he didn’t know what he was doing.
He knew damn well what he was doing. He was taking Reid’s girls to Europe—and from there, god only knew where. With a twelve-hour lead, they could be anywhere in the world. Away from the jurisdiction of the police and feds. Away from him…
He scooped up his bag without pausing and kept running, parallel to the row of motel rooms toward the office at the end. He barely heard the sirens, wasn’t even cognizant of their blaring wail until he was suddenly awash in headlights.
Three police cruisers screeched into the narrow lot of the Starlight Motel. Reid blinked in their glare as officers poured from them, unseen behind the bright headlights, shouting so many warnings at him at once that not any one of them was intelligible.
He didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop, not now. Reid sprinted onward, around the corner of the motel and behind it. As George had said, there was a dirt bike waiting, faded with age and looking worse for the wear.
Reid leapt onto it, slinging his back securely over one shoulder. He squeezed the clutch and kick-started the engine. It sputtered once and then came to life in a high-pitched whine, strong and robust beneath him. Despite its appearance it seemed that the clerk had taken decent care of the parts that mattered.
The pursuing officers came around the corner, their rapid footfalls drowned out by the roar of the bike’s engine. They held their hands out in front of them in warning. Two went for their guns.
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