Chapter 8
Thea
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know I passed out and am now face down on the sticky hotel carpet. When I crack my eyes open, I find that man—Mark, or whatever his name is—walking around my room like there isn’t a problem in the world. Surely if I did pass out, he’d be more concerned.
Satisfied that this is all a bad dream, I go back to sleep.
***
It’s not a bad dream. I wake up in the same unfortunate position, staring at the backside of a virtual stranger.
“Please don’t fart.”
Mark pops up from where he was looking under the bed. “Oh, hey,” he says, as if he forgot about me. “You feeling better?”
“Better?” I peel my face off the carpet. “As opposed to?”
He gestures vaguely to the floor. “Not… better?”
“Yes, I’m fine thank you, I often take naps in botulism spores, and I find random bodies in pools of blo—” My brain catches up to my mouth, and my head grows ten pounds heavier, dragging me back down to the infested floor.
“Hey, knock that off.” He grabs me under the arms, hauling me to my feet like a child. He drops me on my bed, then starts packing my suitcase.
“It’s not like I can just not faint at the sight of death and blood.” I press a hand to my mouth to ward off the nausea, then immediately remove it when I remember where it’s been.
“I do it just fine.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not a heartless Marine like you.” My body is still wavering beneath me, and I grab hold of the bed.
“You think I’m a Marine?”
“That’s not the point. There’s a dead body.”
“Yeah, and you need to stop getting distracted by it.”
My nostrils flare. “It’s a little hard to ignore.”
“Try harder.” He slips his phone out of his pocket and scans the message. “You’re clean. We need to get out of here before they can pin this on us.”
My brain catches up to the words coming out of his mouth. On two specifically.
“I’m clean? Did you run a background check on me or something?”
“Yes,” he admits with absolute ease to invading my privacy.
I feel… violated. He looks over at me with the most intimidating expression I’ve ever seen.
I’m a therapist; I’ve mastered the compassionate yet “tell me all your secrets” look.
All he has to do is narrow his eyes like that, and I’m ready to divulge my life history.
“I’m going to get you out of here, unless you did this. ”
My jaw drops, and I’m instantly horrified. “You think I would do…” I can’t even say the word. I wave my hand in the general direction of the body. “That?”
“I only met you forty-five minutes ago.” He presses his lips together, sizing me up. “Under the right circumstances, everyone can be a killer. I’d say getting dumped and not being in the right frame of mind—”
“I was drunk. Not psycho.” I gape at the audacity.
He lifts a shoulder. “I don’t know you. They could be one and the same.”
“I didn’t kill him!” I slap my hand down on the silent comforter, driving the fact into the bed like a white flag of innocence. “Good.” He nods once. “Otherwise, I’d have to turn you in.”
My heart leaps into my throat. He wouldn’t, would he? “You don’t strike me as the type to put your faith in a man in uniform.”
“You got me.” He snatches my book off the nightstand.
My aunt’s book. She gave me an advance reader copy last week. I promised I’d read it.
I inhale a shaky breath. Why am I fixated on a book?
There’s a dead body and a stranger telling me to follow him.
My brain is looking for something to understand, something within my control when everything else is so far gone.
I just want to sit and read that entire book and pretend none of this is real.
“Are you coming?” he asks, hauling my luggage to the door.
“I—”
“Unless you’d prefer to stay here with the body and wait for the police?”
That is not happening. How long before bodies stink? Can I smell it already? My stomach churns, and I stagger behind him. “W-what do we do? We can’t leave him here.”
He sends me a curious look over his shoulder. “You want to bring him with you?”
“Wh-no! That’s not what I meant.” My hands shake, and I rub them down my dress—a dress I will be trashing so I am never reminded of this horrid day. “I just… Why was he here in my room… dead? Oh my gosh.” The floor sways beneath me, and I grab the wall. “Am I being framed?”
“That’s one option.”
I don’t like that he just confirmed my worst fear and with zero compassion. “I’m never making it out of this country alive.”
“Also a likely scenario.”
“I kind of don’t like you.”
He sizes me up again. “I’m impartial. Look, it was probably just a robbery gone wrong. That being said, it’s not safe here, and we can’t stay. So stop talking and move.”
I stumble on wobbly, weak legs toward the door, the entire way telling myself this is all a dream. A horrible, horrible nightmare from which I will awake shortly.
I stop at the bathroom.
“Can’t you hold it?” He asks.
“I’m way past ‘holding it’. I’m lucky I didn’t relieve myself when I passed out.”
He grimaces.
Sure. Because a dead body isn’t gross, but a woman talking about the realities of bladder control is.
“Make it quick,” he orders.
Or what? Will he leave me? I’m not about to give him the chance. I’m in and out in thirty seconds.
Mark opens the door and tugs me into the hall. I’m little more than a still doll at this point. The actual plastic Barbie in the Barbie Girl song. He can brush my hair, or take me anywhere. Like maybe to his torture chamber because I caught him killing someone.
No. I didn’t see him kill that man. Because he didn’t.
Though he totally could kill someone. He’s practically a giant; he could kill me with his bare hands.
There’s something about his blunt honesty, even when it’s rude, that makes me feel oddly safe with him.
Not comfortable. The man is a mountain in the Arizona desert, all harsh and prickly terrain.
When people are in a time of crisis, they typically find something to cling to.
I’m clinging to my prickly mountain man, convinced he can protect me from all my fears.
And my recent track record shows that when I go it alone, the results are dismal.
A maid steps out from the room across the hall, and Mark tenses beside me before dropping an arm around my waist. Well, not really my waist; his hand moves behind me.
Did he just…? His hand brushes my butt, and I jump.
The maid barely looks up from her cart as Mark steers my frozen body down the hall. I could get kidnapped in this country and no one would care.
Only when we are in the elevator does he drop his weird act.
“For the record, I did not give you permission to get handsy.” I turn on him, shoving my finger into his chest.
“You could have. Apparently you’ve been drunk for half this trip.”
Rude, yet accurate. The truth hurts.
I cross my arms over my chest. “Why did you touch my butt?”
“I was putting the do not disturb sign up on your door. It should buy us some time, and we will hopefully be out of town before our faces end up on the news.”
“The news?” He’s kidding.
I search his blank stare for a flicker of amusement because he has to be kidding.
When did things get so serious? I mean, sure, the dead guy in my room was a good clue, but now we are outlaws on the run? I’m suddenly light-headed and fear my lunch is going to come up at any moment. This isn’t real.
“As much as I hate this, I was no doubt caught on security cams coming in with you, which means I’m at risk, too.
Hopefully, the footage isn’t great.” He scrapes a hand over his beard in frustration, like he can’t believe his bad luck.
Get in line, buddy. “But…” he continues.
“I’ve got some unfinished business in the States. So… I’ll help you get home.”
The way he says ‘unfinished business’ sounds unnecessarily frightening.
Maybe it’s nothing. He just left an ex-wife there.
Current wife? He seems like someone who would ghost someone important…
or leave them tied up in his basement. Who knows anymore?
My whole view on life has shifted. I would believe him if he told me the world was square.
“We might need to change your name,” he says, and I jerk out of my thoughts.
“Change my name?” Now he’s just being ridiculous. There’s no way. This is one giant prank. It has to be. I tilt my head to the side, attempting to see him and this situation in a different light. All I have to do is believe what I choose to see. “Are you like a pranking YouTuber?”
He frowns as the elevator slows. “A what?”
“You know one of those people who play pranks on unsuspecting strangers and film it so the whole world can laugh at them?”
“Why would I do something so pointless?”
“Maybe if you could just pretend, I would really appreciate it.”
“I don’t like to play pretend.”
The elevator dings, and Mark walks swiftly through the hotel lobby. I have no choice but to keep up with him. No way am I going back to the heartless concierge to ask if I can switch rooms because a dead guy happens to be in mine.
This stranger is my only hope.
I thought things were bad after Scott left me.
It’s so much worse now.