5
EMERSYN
Tara cut the engine as soon as we pulled up outside the rundown motel. I peered through the rain-streaked window. The motel was nothing special. I’d probably passed by a hundred times and never noticed it. There was a neon sign out front, but it was broken, and only one of the letters flickered on and off randomly. I looked at the corners of the building, along the fascia under the roof edge, but there didn’t appear to be any cameras. Still, there might be something in the room that could give me more of a clue as to who Jake had injured. Or why. It was always the ‘why’ that mattered more; that was the part my readers wanted to know.
The curtains shifted in the office window, and a face peered out. A man tapped on the glass and pointed to the sign taped to the window, which read ‘OFFICE.’
“Where’s the bar from here?” I asked Tara.
She was picking at her nails, not bothering to look out the windows or at me. “Just through there.” She pointed in the direction and turned back to her nails.
“Okay.” I unclipped my belt. “I’m going inside to talk to the manager and see if I can find anything out. You coming?”
She widened her eyes and shook her head. “Nah. This is your gig. I just came along to show you where it was. I’m not getting involved.”
“Fine,” I huffed, opening the car door and stepping out into the pouring rain. “What room was it?” I yelled back into the car.
She pointed to a door.
Even though it was only a few steps to the office, I was soaked by the time I walked in. Brushing the water off my face, I plastered on my sweetest smile and approached the man behind the counter. He didn’t look impressed.
“What?” he snapped, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses.
“I was just wondering if you might be able to help me with something.” I smiled sweetly again, but the man only frowned in suspicion.
“Unless you’re wanting a room, I doubt it.”
“My uncle stayed here a while back, and he’s certain he left his laptop in the room.” It was pathetic. Surely I could have come up with something better. My skills were slipping. It was like my brain had frozen a little at the man’s cool demeanor. “He sort of hid it, you see. He was worried someone would take it.”
“Tell him to buy a new one.” He swiped a section of his thinning hair back.
“Well, he had all his—”
I stopped talking as the man abruptly got up from his chair and walked away. He returned a few moments later with a cardboard box and dumped it on the counter.
“Lost property. If he left it, it will be in there.” He sat back down and turned his attention back to the computer screen. Clearly, he didn’t appreciate being bothered.
I rustled through the box, knowing I wouldn’t find what I was looking for. “Hmm,” I said, pretending to be disappointed. “Do you mind if I have a look in the room?”
“It’s not in there.”
“But could I just have a quick look? He did say he’d hidden it, so maybe your cleaning staff missed it.”
“They didn’t.”
“Please,” I begged, hoping the innocent look on my face would sway him. I rested my arms on the counter and smiled sweetly again. Surely it would work this time. Surely my smile would soften him, just a little.
He looked up and narrowed his eyes. “No.”
“My uncle is going to be so disappointed.” I pouted, hoping to change his mind, but the man was immune to the charms I clearly didn’t possess.
“Well, tell your uncle not to hide things in motel rooms. If we had found it, it would be in that box. There’s nothing else I can do.” After a moment’s hesitation, he added, “Sorry.”
I stood there for a minute, feeling slightly foolish but not wanting to give up so easily. “Maybe it was stolen from his room?” I offered. “Do you have any security cameras around here?”
“Does it look like we do?” The man cocked his head to the side, although I could tell he didn’t expect a response.
“Well, okay. I guess there’s nothing left to do other than tell my uncle to go to the police. I’m sure they would be more than happy to come by and take a look. He had a lot of valuable information on that laptop.”
“The police aren’t going to concern themselves with lost laptops, little lady.”
Little lady. Did he seriously just call me little lady? First of all, I wasn’t little. Tara was. Secondly, I was far from a lady. I rubbed my forehead, frustration starting to bubble.
“They will when they find out what was on it,” I muttered.
“Oh, yeah? And what was that?” You could tell it had piqued his interest, but he didn’t want to show it.
I laughed. “Like I’m going to tell you. Maybe he did leave it in his room? Maybe it was you who took it? Am I just supposed to take your word for it?” I pulled out my cell phone and started pressing buttons.
“Who are you calling?”
“My uncle. He’ll need to file a report with the police.”
The man narrowed his eyes again. He knew I was full of bullshit, but I was counting on the assumption that operations like his couldn’t afford the attention of the police, even if it was all a bluff.
“Fine.” The man pulled himself up from the chair with a sigh. “Which room?”
I smiled brightly and put the phone away. “Five.”
He opened the cupboard behind him and pulled out a key. “You’re in luck. It’s empty. You’ve got five minutes, or else I’ll be the one calling the police.”
I offered him my most brilliant of smiles. “Thank you so much. My uncle will be so pleased.”
“Sure he will.” The man rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to the computer screen.
I pulled open the door but stopped and turned back for a moment. “You wouldn’t happen to have the name he booked the room under, would you?”
“The name of your uncle?”
“He doesn’t always book under his real name. Sometimes he uses a pseudonym.”
“A pseudonym?” the man repeated.
“A fake name.”
He pretended to tap away at his computer, keeping his eyes locked on me the whole time. “Sure,” he said without looking at the screen. “He booked it under the name Prince fucking Charming. Now go take a look at the room before I change my mind then leave me the hell alone.”
I quickly scooted out the door, held the keys up, jingled them in Tara’s direction, and then headed for the room. Tara joined me a few moments later despite saying she didn’t want to get involved. I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” I said, standing in the middle of the room and surveying my surroundings. “I need a clear sense of how it went down.”
I started taking photos as Tara recounted her version of events.
“We were in here when—”
“Where?”
“What do you mean where? We were here. In this fucking room.”
I rolled my eyes. “Where in the room? In the bathroom? Sitting on the chairs? Where exactly? I need all the details I can get.”
“You sure can be a bitch when you want to be, can’t you? How many people have you fooled with that innocent and deceiving smile?”
“Just get on with it, Tara.”
She was standing in the doorway, arms crossed, brows furrowed. Her hair was beginning to curl from the rain. “We were on the bed.”
“Straight into it, huh?” I took a snap of the bed. The cover was dark green. It fell to the floor as well as being tucked over the pillows. There were dark stains on it. I shuddered.
“It wasn’t like that. Well, I guess it could have been. It was heading that way before your friend interrupted us. Anyway, we were on the bed, drinking champagne straight from the bottle and basically rolling around on all the cash he had.”
“Classy.”
“Fuck you, Emmy. Do you want me to tell you what happened or not?”
“Go ahead. I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
“That would be a first.” She poked out her tongue, and I did the same. “We were on the bed when the door was kicked in. He didn’t break it or anything; the locks are pathetic. Then he told me to leave. At first, I was surprised, as I’d assumed that maybe he was there to join us in the fun, and if I was being honest, I wouldn’t have minded that at all, but he yelled at me to leave, so I did. Well, I went to leave, but first, Jake handed me this big wad of cash and told me I didn’t see him.”
“So what did you do?”
“I left. What else was I supposed to do? I could tell something bad was going to go down, and there was no way in hell I was going to be caught in the middle of it.”
Having finished taking photos of every angle of the room I possibly could, I walked outside and peered in the window. “And you say you watched what happened from a crack in the curtains?”
“As much as I could, yeah.”
“And what happened?”
“Your friend, Jake—”
“Not my friend.”
“Well, the Jake guy starts yelling at the other guy, and he yells back. It was all over the money he had. Or, at least, I think it was. As soon as Jake’s fists started flying, I skedaddled and went to the bar. Jake arrived not too long after that.”
“Right. Let’s go there then.”
“You’re not going to find anything.”
“Not if I don’t look, I won’t.”
After returning the key, we drove to the bar even though it was only a short distance away. Tara didn’t want to get wet. She said her hair couldn’t handle it.
The bartender nodded at Tara in greeting when we walked in. “Tara.”
“Sully.” She nodded back as she settled onto one of the barstools. Her tight skirt rode up her thighs.
“The usual?” he asked.
“Sure. She’s paying.” She nodded at me, pulled a cigarette out of the packet in her jacket pocket, shoved it in her mouth, and leaned over the bar so the bartender could light it. My eyes moved to the ‘No Smoking’ sign behind him.
“For compliance,” he said.
I moved to one of the stools far from Tara and sat down. “You smoke only at night, huh?” I waved my hand through the plume of white smoke.
“Fuck you,” she replied.
“Want anything?” the bartender asked.
I shook my head and looked around the room. It was dark and smelled like no windows had been opened in years. There was a pool table in one corner with a well-used dartboard hanging on the wall above it. Posters plastered over every available space advertised events long past. One wall had a massive cabinet with glass cupboards showcasing various beer jugs, all printed with people’s names. But it was something behind the counter that caught my interest.
“So what brings you lovely ladies in here on a Saturday afternoon?” the bartender asked.
Tara laughed and crossed her legs from one angle to the other. “We’re looking for information on someone. A guy who came in last month. Big guy. Scary-looking dude. Long hair.”
“Bruises all over his knuckles?”
“So you remember him?”
“Doesn’t sound like someone you girls should be looking for.”
“We’re not looking for him. We just—well…” She turned to me. “What is it you’re hoping for, exactly?”
“That security camera work?” I nodded to where the camera was mounted on the wall behind the bar.
The man shrugged and picked up a rag, wiping glasses as though he cared whether they were clean or not. “Tapes record over themselves after a few weeks. Doubt it will have what you’re looking for.”
“You know what date it was when he was here?” I asked Tara.
“Saturday.”
“Which Saturday?”
“Dunno.” She took a deep drag on her cigarette. I wrinkled my nose, and the man behind the bar laughed.
“Mind if we take a look anyway?” I asked him.
He looked at Tara, and she jerked her head. “She’s okay.”
I snorted. “Just okay, huh?”
“Fine.” The bartender hung the glass back above the bar and flicked the rag over his shoulder. “I don’t want any funny business coming my way because of this, though.”
“No funny business, I assure you,” I told him.
“Have at it then.” He nodded to a doorway behind the bar. “Doubt you’ll find anything of interest, and it’s not my problem if you do.”
Tara hopped off the stool, shimmying her skirt back down her thighs. “This is kind of fun,” she said as she followed me into the dark room.
It took me a while to find the light switch, but once the light was on, I looked around the cramped and messy office space. A dust-covered screen sat in the corner, showing the live feed of the bar. Beneath it was what looked like an old video player.
“Press rewind until it can’t go back any further, and then press play. The date and time are on the bottom left side of the screen.” The bartender stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. I pressed the button, and the footage played in reverse.
It took a while to rewind an entire month, but soon we were watching Tara sitting at the bar, picking at her nails. I let it play, getting my phone out to record it as Jake entered, his hands covered in blood. He walked over to the bar, said something to the bartender, then walked into the bathroom.
“What did he say to you?”
The bartender shrugged. “Who knows? But judging from the fact that I poured him a whiskey, I’m guessing he ordered a drink.”
“And you weren’t suspicious of him? The man literally had blood all over his hands.”
He shrugged again. “I’m not paid to be suspicious. I’m paid to pour drinks, which is what I did. And I don’t remember giving you permission to record this.”
“I don’t remember asking.” I directed my attention back to the screen. Sometimes it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
It played out exactly as Tara said it had. He sat at the bar and drank glass after glass until the bartender refused him, and he smashed an empty glass on the bar.
I paused the footage, zooming in with my phone’s camera onto Jake’s face. Even with the less-than-desirable quality of the image, I could see the wildness in Jake Thornton’s eyes. Whatever reason he had for beating the man, it was clear it had messed with him. He was not a man who looked happy with his actions. He looked broken.
“Is that it?” I began fast-forwarding through the footage, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jake returning.
“That was it. Never saw the guy again.” The bartender sighed. “Are you done now?”
I stopped recording, pushed back the chair, and got to my feet. This whole day was a bust. There was nothing new to learn from the visit to the bar or the motel.
“Cheers.” I tossed some money down.
The barman merely nodded.
“Now what?” Tara asked when we were back in her car. “Where do we go from here?”
“We go home.”
“Home? I was just getting into it,” Tara whined. “Can’t we, like, access the CCTV street footage or something to see where he went?”
I snorted. “You know someone who has access to it?”
“I thought you would.”
“I’m not a fucking detective.”
“But you are someone who pays their debts, right?”
The payment Tara had demanded was for me to get her into an exclusive nightclub that had opened recently. I had an invite so I could review the place on my website.
“Not sure if you really deserve any payment. We didn’t find anything new.”
“Em, you promised—”
I grinned and playfully whacked her arm. “Don’t worry. I’ll still take you to the club.”
“You better,” she pouted.