How to Save a Life(77)

The burner phone.

Rapid City.

The detective.

Step by step instructions without a diagram of the finished product.

The clock said two a.m. Jo slept peacefully. I slipped out of bed and took the prepaid phone from off the nightstand where Jo had left it. She was planning on throwing it out but didn’t want to leave it in the hotel trash.

As quietly as I could, I stepped outside the motel door, watching to see if Jo woke at the sound. She didn’t.

I stepped out onto the tiny porch outside our room, made a call to information, then a second call. At this late hour, I got an answering machine. I left my message and hung up. The instant the call ended, I felt a chill sweep over my skin. I peeked into our room. Jo was stirring in the bed. I hurried back inside, and tucked the phone into the inner pocket of my duffel with plans to ditch it somewhere safe tomorrow.

I slipped back into bed with Jo and wrapped my arms around her. She sank deeper into sleep, and I followed soon after, easily. I hated hiding anything from Jo but my mind was at peace because I had done the right thing even if she’d never see it that way.





I woke at dawn, wrapped around Jo. Her naked back against my chest and a thin sheen of sweat between us. She smelled like tangerines: sweet but tart. I smiled into her hair because she tasted the same: sweet and tart. She stirred, rolled in the circle of my arms to face me. My fingertips ran along her scar. While I hated where it came from and the pain it carried along its pale seam, I loved it as a symbol of her survival. A battle scar.

Her smile flickered under my fingertips. She kissed me, then declared the coffee in the motel was shit.

“Is that a subtle request?” I laughed.

“It’s concern for your well-being. I’m not too friendly without coffee.”

“You seem pretty friendly to me,” I said, kissing the hollow beneath her ear. “But I’ll get you some coffee anyway.”

She folded back the covers and sat up. “You’re a saint. I’ll hop in the shower and get us packed up.”

I got dressed and Jo bustled around the room, humming to herself as she collected our belongings. Since Joyland last night, she looked as if another heavy weight had fallen off of her, or a shadow had lifted. I wondered if she’d look this content in our own space. Our own home instead of some dingy motel. I drank in the beauty of her, then went out.

I double-checked the door, making sure it was locked behind me.

I should’ve told her to put the chain on.

I was only gone fifteen minutes. Shoving the pair of coffees in the crook of my elbow so I could get the room key, I noticed the door was cracked. Then I heard a muffled cry inside. I dropped the coffees and shouldered the door open like a battering ram.

The guy had Jo up against a wall, a hand over her mouth as she writhed and twisted in his grip. I was on him in a second, tearing him off of her and hurling him to the floor. Only then did I register him as the front desk clerk, the scrawny guy who had checked us in the night before.

“Evan, behind you,” Jo cried. “There’s one m—”

I whipped around as a second guy took a swing at my face. He popped me under the left eye. Adrenaline and rage surging in my limbs, I seized him by the shirt front and threw everything I had into my punch. Pain flared along my knuckles as they struck his jaw. The guy’s head whipped left and blood spattered. His body followed his head and he hit the floor with a groan.

Jo screamed my name and then a stabbing shard of pain dug into my side. The desk clerk had landed a kick to my kidney. I whirled around with a right jab to his gut and he doubled over.

The second guy had pulled himself into a crouch and was scrambling for the door. He’d call for help or the cops and we’d be f*cked. I started after him but froze when I heard a clanging thud and a choked cry behind me.

Jo was standing over the desk clerk, the bedside lamp in her hand. The clerk was out cold, a lump rising on his brow. Jo’s face had drained of color and her eyes stared wide.

“Oh my God, is he dead?” she whispered.

The clerk’s scrawny chest rose and fell with a soft moan.

“He’s not dead,” I said, taking the lamp from her hand. “Did they hurt you? Did either of these f*ckers hurt you?”

She shook her head. “They knew about us. That one…” She pointed at the clerk. “He said he knew who we were. Said we probably had money from robbing a bank or something.” She looked wide-eyed at me. “He said he called the cops but he wanted a re-reward first. Our money. I told him we had nothing but they didn’t listen.”

“Shh.” I held her close to me for a moment, holding her together. “We have to go. We’re leaving right now.”

Our things were scattered all over—clothes and sundry items littering the bed and floor. I started grabbing everything I could see and stuffing it into my duffel, expecting the cops to bust in the door at any minute.

Jo hadn’t moved. She stared down at the unconscious clerk murmuring, “Something’s not right.”

“Get your stuff, Jo,” I said.

“In the kitchen,” she murmured. “Lee…He hit me in the kitchen. But I was holding…” Her gaze lifted and met mine. “No, you were holding it. The skillet. In the living r—”

“Josephine!” I barked.

Her eyes cleared and she shook her head, coming back to now.