All the Beautiful Lies(66)

She dozed some more, the television on, and woke to the sound of knocking on her door. She sat up, and looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table. It was eleven o’clock. For a few seconds she was entirely disoriented. The room was dark, except for the illumination of the wall-mounted TV, now showing a weatherman in front of a map of New England. She remembered that Harry was going to come over. She went to the door, ready to tell him that he shouldn’t come in. The kiss from earlier flashed through her mind. His hand on her neck.

She opened the door. In the exterior yellow lamplight he looked pale and young. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, and he was breathing hard, a hand pressed against the side of his head as though he had a headache.

“Hey, Harry,” she said. “Sorry, I’m—”

“You should leave,” he said.

“I should leave?” she repeated back, confused.

“You should leave right now. I think you’re in danger.” The words sounded clipped, like he didn’t have enough breath to say them fully.

“What’s going on? What happened?” She reached a hand toward him, and he flinched backward a little. He took his hand away from his head, and a trickle of dark blood ran down his cheek.

“You’re bleeding,” she said.

“Am I?” He looked at the palm of his hand, streaked in blood. “Oh,” he said, then his knees buckled, and he fell into the motel room.

Caitlin reached out, trying to break his fall, but he hit the carpeted floor hard, his head bouncing. And then he was still.





Chapter 27





Now



“Do you know where Kennewick Hospital is?”

“I don’t,” Caitlin said.

“You can follow us if you like.”

“Okay, sure,” Caitlin said to one of the very young, very unconcerned EMTs after Harry had been strapped onto a gurney and wheeled into the back of the ambulance outside her motel. Two preteens a few units down had watched the whole ordeal from just outside their door, their parents occasionally poking their heads out to take a look.

After Harry had collapsed into her room, Caitlin rolled him over, and he’d come to, his eyes wide with surprise and confusion. She took a look at the side of his head. His hair was dark and sticky with blood; there was an inch-long gash just above his right ear, the area around it puffing up.

“I’m calling 911,” she said.

“It’s okay. I just fell and hit my head,” Harry said, beginning to sit up.

“Yes, that’s why I’m calling 911.”

While they waited for the ambulance, Caitlin crouched and talked with Harry, now sitting against the wall.

“What happened?” she asked.

“There was a man. He was watching you.”

“What do you mean?”

Harry’s brow creased, and his eyes seemed to empty out, as though he’d forgotten what he was about to say. Then he lightly shook his head, and said, “I came here to see you. I walked, actually, because I didn’t want Alice to hear me start the car, and when I got here there was a man standing”—he pointed straight up with the index finger of his left hand—“a man standing over near the woods.”

“Where? On the other side of the parking lot, by the picnic tables?” Caitlin could picture what Harry was talking about. It was really just a cluster of pine trees that separated the parking lot from Route 1A.

“Yeah, he was by the picnic tables in the dark. But I could see him, and he was watching your window.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I watched him for a while.”

“Where were you?”

“I was hiding behind a truck that was parked near the office.” His brow creased again like he wasn’t trusting his own words.

“Could you see who it was?”

“No, it was too dark and he definitely didn’t want to be seen. A car went by and he’d crouch so the headlights wouldn’t reach him through the trees.”

Caitlin looked up at the cheap blinds in the window. They were pulled closed, but not tightly closed. There were some gaps between the plastic strips. Whoever had been watching might have been able to see her, and at the very least could see movement in the room.

“Who do you think—”

“It was whoever killed your sister, and probably my father. I don’t know who it is, but you need to leave. I don’t think you’re safe.”

“How did you get hurt?”

“Oh,” he said, removing the towel from the side of his head, and looking at the dark stain. “I chased him. He must have seen me behind the truck because he was suddenly leaving, heading around to the back of the motel, and I shouted ‘Hey’ and was running between parked cars, and came down funny on my ankle, and then I was on the pavement. And my head . . .”

“What did you hit?”

“A car, I guess. I don’t remember. Then I came to you.”

“You were very brave.”

Harry laughed, then grimaced. “I tripped and fell.”

“What were you going to do if you caught him?”

“I don’t know. See who he was.”

“Did you get a better look at him when he took off?”