Ryan
Ethan nodded.
“I heard the same thing.”
“I thought you said you were asleep until eight?”
“You mean after that smoke break with Hunter?”
Ryan told the truth. “Yes, exactly. I passed out quick when I got to my room, but I wasn’t asleep for long.
I woke up at seven thirty because I heard that same conversation in room four.
I was in room three, sharing a wall with Sarah, and I heard the same exact argument that Fernanda did.
It scared the shit out of me, to be honest with you. ”
“Why did it scare you?”
“Because for a second, I would have sworn it was Frank O’Shea I heard talking in there.”
Ethan raised an eyebrow, looking curious almost in spite of himself. “Sarah said she had a satellite phone. Could it have been a call you heard? Like, on a speaker?”
“Not really. Those phones have terrible connections. The sound quality is atrocious. This sounded like Frank was in the room. But obviously that’s impossible. We would have heard him arrive, Frank and his whole entourage. We would know they were here. O’Shea isn’t exactly subtle.”
“And it was dark by seven thirty.” Ethan looked out his window. “I don’t think anyone would have made it past those things outside.”
As if to confirm this, a SHRIEK sliced through the room. Ryan had the uncanny feeling that the local wildlife—whatever the fuck they were—could hear them. He rubbed his hands together, suddenly cold.
“Right,” Ryan said. “Ergo, Frank wasn’t the man talking to Sarah at seven thirty. So who was it?
“Stanley Holiday, I guess. Or you, if you’re still not being thoroughly honest.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“I’m going to have to take that on faith, aren’t I?”
Now Ryan gave Ethan his most honest look.
He didn’t have much practice with this expression: it was rare for him to tell the full truth about something, but he was doing it now.
“You’re also going to have to take it on faith it wasn’t me, just like you’re going to have to take it on faith that I didn’t kill the girl.
Because I didn’t. I never spoke with her either.
Not at seven thirty or before or any other time. I never got the chance.”
Ethan wouldn’t meet his eye. “You could be investigating all this for show. Finding a way to pin it on someone else.”
“I’m not that smart, kid.” Ryan smiled. “If I was, I wouldn’t have let an idiot like Stan Holiday get me thrown in Huntsville.”
Ethan chewed on this for a second, gave a little uncommitted shrug. “How’s Stanley doing?”
“Alive and unmolested, fret not. But this gets us to the interesting part. Again, let’s go back. If it wasn’t Frank O’Shea talking to Sarah Powers at seven thirty, and if it wasn’t me, who does that leave?”
“Just Stanley. It couldn’t have been me or Hunter. We were already in the cafe by seven thirty. Thomas was already there, too, waiting for us. That doesn’t leave many options.”
A sudden, awful sound came over the motel then: a roaring moan, so loud and strange Ethan and Ryan both clapped their hands over their ears until it passed. The earth shook under their feet. Every nerve in Ryan’s body lit up with fear.
Nothing good could make a noise like that.
Ryan looked at the clock. It was already past eleven thirty. They needed to hurry.
“Here’s the problem—it couldn’t have been Stanley in room four either. He was actually asleep at seven thirty. He didn’t wake up until a few minutes later, when Fernanda went into his room with a gun.”
Ethan blinked. “When Fernanda did what?”
“I’ve only heard Stanley’s side of this story, but I think it’s safe to believe the broad strokes.
According to him, Fernanda turned up a few minutes after seven thirty waving a gun around.
Scared the shit out of him, obviously. For a second, he thought the girl was trying to kill him, but she just wanted to make a deal.
According to Stanley, Fernanda and her friend Kyla are making a run for the border.
They have some camera film in their possession that’s going to ruin Frank O’Shea’s operation, and by extension Stan Holiday.
Stanley’s been Frank’s accountant for decades.
He knows where all the bodies are buried. ”
“And?”
“And so Fernanda promised she could keep Stan safe when shit hits the fan. There are apparently some shots on the girls’ film that implicate him. Shots that Fernanda promised to slice out before handing the film over to the cartel.”
“Wouldn’t that look suspicious?”
“It’s the desert, kid. Everything’s suspicious.”
“And do you believe her?”
“I do,” Ryan said. “I went to room seven a few minutes ago, the room where Stanley and Penelope were staying. No sign of Penn, but I did find a long black hair next to Stanley’s bed along with some blood on the nightstand. The hair looks like one of Fernanda’s.”
Ethan’s eyes were still closed, his thumb and finger trying to rub some relief into his head. “So that explains why Fernanda came to dinner a few minutes after Kyla, looking all flustered. She’d just finished trying to put the fear of God into Mister Holiday.”
“And it explains why Stanley’s got a busted lip. Fernanda gave him a good thwack with her gun when he tried to talk shit.”
“Why didn’t Fernanda take his gun while she had the chance?”
“He probably had it stashed somewhere and she didn’t have time to look for it. Remember, Penelope was sleeping in that same room. Stanley’s a thug, but he wouldn’t want to leave a Deagle laying around where a kid could just grab it.”
“And what did Stanley get up to after that? It was another ten minutes before he came to dinner.”
“I… asked him that myself.” Ryan chewed his lip. “Whatever it was, he’s afraid to talk about it. He hasn’t said a word since I asked him.”
“Isn’t that suspicious?”
“We’ll get back to it. Here’s the first important point: there isn’t a single man unaccounted for tonight.
No one who could have been in room four arguing with Sarah Powers at seven thirty.
It wasn’t me, it wasn’t you or Hunter, it wasn’t Thomas, it wasn’t Stanley.
I don’t think the motel is haunted, or breaking the rules of Newtonian physics—”
Ethan shook his head, eyes still closed. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Something is off about this place. About tonight.”
“I agree with you there. But I think we have an easier explanation, at least in regards to the conversation at seven thirty. There’s someone who wasn’t in their room and who hasn’t been accounted for.”
Ethan finally caught on to what Ryan was saying. He opened his eyes, blinked, stared. “You don’t think it was…”
Now that Ethan was looking at him, Ryan couldn’t look back. Here was a fact he’d been avoiding all night, a question he’d been desperate not to answer. There was no escaping it. The answer, really, had been staring at him since Mexico.
“Penelope,” Ryan said. “I think Penelope was in Sarah’s room at seven thirty.”