Chapter 42 Sloane
Sloane
When I wake up, Lacey isn’t in the motel room. The threadbare establishment has an aura of abandonment that gives me chills.
Where the hell is she? My chest is tight.
I get up and hurry barefoot across the stained, tacky carpet, flinging the bathroom door open.
I expect to find her floating in a tub full of blood-stained bathwater.
The stark overhead fluorescent bulb lights up the dingy tiles and the yellowing sink basin, but there’s no red in here.
No blood. My heart rate slows a fraction…
until I realize the motel is next to a busy road and there’s more than one way to get the job done if you’ve a mind for suicide.
“Lacey? Lace!” Outside, the sky is a wash of glorious blue. In the parking lot thirty feet away, Lacey stands at a pay phone, speaking into the handset. I make sure she hears me as I approach behind her.
“… night. Two of them.” She nods at me when she notices me arrive.
“Yes,” she says. “I know. I will, I promise. But right now I just need the address.” She bites on her lip, body tense as she apparently waits for whoever is on the other end of the line to respond.
Her rigid stance eases when she closes her eyes for a second, exhales, and then goes rummaging for a piece of paper in her pocket.
Quickly, she uses a Rest-Eezy motel pen to scribble a set of numbers onto the back of a receipt.
“Thank you, Georgio. I’ll come and see you, I promise.
” She slams down the handset, triumphantly holding aloft the dog-eared paper.
“I got it. I got the address of the compound where Zeth is right now.”
I grab her arm, holding her still so I can squint at the information she recorded.
“Those are just numbers, Lacey.” I’m screaming in my head, though.
Fucking compound? A compound sounds dangerous.
And why the hell is it that Lacey knows where Zeth is, and I don’t?
She’s been living with him for the past six months.
They clearly share a strong tie. It’s an irrational thing to be pissed about, I know, but hell.
I must be an irrational creature. I dismiss the petty stab of jealousy, trying to focus on the task at hand.
Lacey tuts, leaning the receipt against her knee to quickly insert some commas, and suddenly the information morphs from a random string of numbers into coordinates. “It’s out in the desert,” she says, handing over the paper.
“Who gave you this? How do we know this is the right place?”
“Because Zee told me about this place a few times. Never gave me specifics, but my old boyfriend runs in the same circles as Zeth. Kind of. He knew where I was talking about right away.”
“Oh God, Lacey.” I stare at the coordinates until the numbers start to swim. “This can’t be the only compound out in the desert There are probably hundreds of them…”
“Not that charge fifteen thousand dollars a night and are invite only,” Lacey argues. Where is the panicking girl who smashed a rock over a guy’s head last night? The girl standing in front of me now is barely recognizable. She has a confident spark in her eyes. Even her voice is stronger.
“This is the right address.” She nods vigorously, as if doing so makes the statement true. “Zeth’ll be there. Don’t worry. We’re gonna go get him, and he’s going to make all of this right again. That’s what he does, Sloane. He makes everything all right.”