We have the third room, and when I unlock the door and swing it open, there’s a familiar smell of bleach and despair that radiates out. We leave the car where it’s parked, since it’s near a floodlight, and take everything of any value out. I take the greasy plastic-tabbed key and hand over cash, and I’m back out the door in two minutes. The motel office is as unenthusiastic as you’d expect, and I wonder about the slack-faced man behind the counter he has the dead-fish eyes of someone who’s seen it all and covered most of it up.

And if some random predator decides to take her down, he’s got a surprise in store.

She’s also armed, and a great shot, and I’m not particularly worried about leaving her out here alone. Before I close the door, I give her a straight look. I add a Florida Marlins cap I found in the last convenience store, pull it low, and head inside. If there’s a camera, I don’t want you on it.” Gwen’s more recognizable than I am, and with any luck, Absalom hasn’t got their asses in gear scouring for pictures of my face yet. We bump into the parking lot, which is just as rough as the paint job on the room doors, and park in one of the many free spaces. “Bedbug Central it is,” I say, then turn the wheel. “Norman Bates called, he wants his shower curtain back.” There are two cars parked in the small lot, and a total of about twenty rooms, all first floor. It’s a plain U-shaped brick affair, slightly raised up a hillside, and it has all the curb appeal of a mortuary. No point in getting to Markerville tired and having to wait for sunup, right?”Ī half hour later, I spot a place called the French Inn, a drive-in motel that saw its best days back in the fifties, at the latest. “You want to keep driving, sleep in the car, or get a room?” I try to make sure there’s nothing in the question to suggest that it’s a come-on, because God knows, this isn’t the time even if there’s some possibility of it.

It’s a fair drive, at least a few hours, and it’s already getting dark by the time we hit the outskirts of Nashville. It doesn’t sound promising, but I get directions anyway. Even the post office closed up shop back in the sixties. “Nobody got no business in Markerville,” he tells me. He squints his eyes at me-faded gold coins that used to be a dark brown, I think-and shakes his head. The map we buy doesn’t have Markerville on it, and I end up asking an old man sitting in a rocking chair outside the store, which is as rural as it gets.

Stillhouse lake book 2