Don't Look for Me(16)

That was how she’d come to think of him. Neat. Tidy. And completely unaware that his royalty status ended at the crossing of Route 7.

He walked behind the counter.

“What brings you back here?”

Nic took a moment to consider how much to tell him.

“Following up on some things. A new lead. Probably nothing, but I have to be sure.”

Booth nodded. Thinking. But, oddly, he didn’t ask for details.

“You here alone?” he asked instead. He sounded concerned. Or maybe curious. Either way, his face lit up a little.

“For now,” she said. “Can I get a room for the night?”

He busied himself then, looking at a handwritten ledger, finding a key—an actual key on a large wooden ring.

“You want 2A again?”

“Sure.”

She threw a credit card on the counter. He handed her the key on the wooden ring, the number 2A carved into it and painted gold.

Booth slid the card across a manual imprint machine, then gave her the slip to sign.

“Have you been doing okay?” he asked.

Nic signed. Handed back the slip.

“Sure, you know. Given everything.”

The wheels were turning now. She could see it on his face, the way he scrunched his eyes and cocked his head to the side, slightly askew.

“No word from her?”

“No. Nothing.”

He shrugged, held his palm up to the sky. “Strangest thing. How easy it is to disappear in this day and age.”

Only it wasn’t, Nic thought. It wasn’t easy at all. A person needed money and a place to stay and food. All of those things forced a person out into the open, into systems of data that could be traced.

What was strange was how easy it was for everyone to believe Molly Clarke had just left. Just disappeared. Including herself.

A response was on her tongue, but she said nothing. Booth seemed like a decent man. Well meaning. He’d told them before that he hadn’t seen Molly Clarke the night of the storm. He’d boarded up both places, the inn and diner, well before she could have made it to town from Evan’s school. Said he was in his apartment, in the back, all night. Reading with a lantern. Having some tea. Listening to the radio until the storm had passed. And then trying to get to sleep with the wind still roaring and the worry that the plywood wouldn’t hold.

“Well, I’m happy to help any way I can.”

He winked at her then, and Nic smiled in response.

“I need to rest if you don’t mind,” she said.

Booth waved toward the stairs.

“Of course.”



* * *



The room was the same. Old. Frilly, as though that’s what guests at a quaint Connecticut inn would expect. Grandma décor. And Booth kept the heat running—she remembered this all too well. The crackling radiator, the hot, dry air. It was stifling.

She tossed her phone on the nightstand, her bag on the small chair in the corner by the window. She pulled the shades and drew the curtains. It was nearly six, dusk, gray skies.

She ran water in the scalloped sink, splashed her face.

Back to the bed. She changed into pajama pants and a T-shirt, pulled up the covers and climbed beneath them. The sheets were stiff, but cool. She lay her head on the pillow.

It offered little comfort. The mattress had hardened unevenly over time. The pillow turned soft. Blood rushed into her head, making it pound harder, right into her eardrums. It wanted a drink.

She reached for her phone on the nightstand. There was a text from her brother.

WTF? Hastings?

She started to text back, but the phone rang in her hand.

“Finally!” her father said when she picked up. “What’s going on there? What’s happening?”

Nic winced. Everything felt worse now, lying down. She got up and walked to the window, opening it a crack to let in the cool air. The grounds behind the inn were nothing but bare, scattered trees with stubborn patches of dead leaves clinging to the branches.

“Nicole!” Her father was in a panic.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m at the inn. I got a room.”

He let out a moan.

“It’s not like last time.”

“I don’t like any of this. I should come back.”

It occurred to her then—how he would have insisted on coming if he thought there was any real danger. From Edith Moore or someone in this town. Or the town itself. He still believed that his wife had walked away on her own, even after seeing the handwriting analysis.

“No, Dad,” Nic said. “One of the cops is coming with me tomorrow to meet Edith Moore. I won’t leave the inn until then. Maybe to the diner next door, but that’s all.”

Now a sigh and another moan.

“She just wants a chance at the money, Nicole. She waited almost two weeks to come forward and that doesn’t make any sense. How did she even get your number? You can’t hold on to false hope that this is more than what it is.”

Words flew from her mouth before she could stop them.

“Is that why you lied to me—about the note?”

“Oh, Nic…”

She hung her head, the phone still pressed to her ear. “I remember, you know. That last day of the search, when they found it.”