6. Drew
DREW
I adjust myself before I open the door, wishing I had something I could use to defend myself should I need to. Might just be my paranoia, but I don’t like someone turning up unannounced.
It’s never meant good news for me before, usually cops calling in on me to get me in trouble, though I know I’ve done nothing wrong this time around. I lay a hand on the door, take a deep breath, and then push it open.
On the other side stands a man around my age, leaning against the doorframe, tapping his foot impatiently as he waits for someone to answer.
He plasters a grin on his face as soon as he sees me, and peers past me into the room. Recognition pings at the back of my mind, but I don’t know exactly where I know him from.
He’s got the kind of face that could belong to just about anyone, the kind that could so easily vanish in a crowd.
“Hey, man,” he greets me, trying to sound as casual as he can, though I am not buying it. “You know if there’s a girl staying in this motel? Renee something?”
I stand there in the door, blocking his view.
“Why?”
He bristles slightly at my tone, but I don’t let it get to me. Better rude than in trouble, that’s what I’ve always thought.
“She has something that belongs to me,” he replies, running a hand through his hair. He looks agitated, almost tweaking, like he has too much energy in him and doesn’t know what the hell to do with any of it.
“And what’s that, exactly?”
“Why do you need to know?”
“I might be able to help you with it,” I lie. I pray that Renee is keeping herself hidden in there. Last thing I want is for them to clock that she is in here with me, and figure that I’m hiding her out. “I’m good at finding things for people. Least, I can be.”
He grits his teeth, clearly not entirely pleased he has to deal with me at all.
“A notebook,” he grunts out, at last. “It belongs to my family. It’s important.”
I furrow my brow, as though I can’t make sense of it.
“A notebook? That’s what you’re looking for?”
He tightens his jaw. I’m trying to downplay this to him, make him feel foolish for coming all this way just for something like that, but at the back of my mind, something has sparked to light.
This must be the guy who broke into the storage unit, and whatever it is that’s contained in that notebook, it is clearly important enough for him to chase her all the way across the state to find it.
“What could be so important about a notebook?” I press, trying to keep my tone light in the hopes of brushing off the importance of this. Behind me, I hear Renee move, and I shift to block the doorway, making sure that she isn’t seen.
“It doesn’t fucking matter,” the man snaps back. “It belonged to my grandfather, and I need it back, now!”
He goes to push me out of the way, shouldering me aside so he can get into the room, and it all happens so fast that I can barely react before he’s inside.
“Renee—”
She is already on her feet, her bag hooked over her shoulder. She looks terrified as the man advances on her, clutching it close to her, trying to glare him down.
“Get out of here!” she insists, but he moves nearer as I lunge to put myself between them.
“You have something that belongs to me,” he growls, and he holds his hand out, beckoning his fingers towards her. She shakes her head.
“Everything that my grandfather left me belongs to me,” she retorts. “You need to go.”
And then, he reaches to his side, and a cold glint of metal catches the light. Her hand flies to her mouth, and I realize that it is a gun. A fucking gun.
He draws it out slowly, and Renee looks at me, her eyes wide and petrified.
“Give me,” he repeats. “That fucking notebook.”
He does not aim it at her, in fact, he looks a little spooked by it, his hand shaking as he keeps his finger from the trigger,- but he does not have to. She is trembling as she reaches into the bag, pulling out the notebook.
He lets out a breath of air through his nose as soon as he sees it, clearly glad to have finally laid eyes on exactly what he is looking for.
She places it in his hand reluctantly, and he flips through it, searching for the map.
As soon as he lays eyes on it, he slips the gun back into his waistband, and narrows his eyes at her once again.
“Forget you ever saw this,” he warns her, and he casts a look back at me. My hands flex, eyes flicking to the gun. I want to snatch it off him, blow a hole through his fucking head for threatening her at all, but I know I cannot risk it.
One wrong move, and we’re both dead, and then there’s no way we’re going to be able to figure out what is being held at the point circled on the map.
He makes his way from the room, and, as soon as the door closes behind him, she collapses into my arms, clinging to me as though for dear life.
I can feel the terror wracked in every inch of her tense body, like there is nothing she wants more than to reel back time to the moment of pleasure before he arrived.
“It’s okay,” I murmur to her, stroking her hair. “It’s okay, Renee. I’ve got you.”
She breathes deep, her breath ragged as she tries to calm herself. And, when she looks at me again, her eyes are glassy with tears.
“That was the last thing I had of his to uncover,” she tells me, voice trembling helplessly. “And now, it’s… it’s gone.”
Something shifts in me, hearing that pain in her voice, the agony that is written in every word she says out loud.
And I think back to losing my own grandmother, the way it sent my life off the rails, how everything that she had done to ground me and make me feel like I was worthy of love and affection shattered the moment she was in the ground.
I would have done damn near anything if it meant that I could have clung to any piece of her, and, beneath it all, Renee still has a chance to do that.
“No, it isn’t,” I reply, and I rise to my feet, going to splash some cold water on my face to wash away the remnants of the glass of whiskey I’d already had. “If we get going now, we can beat him there.”
“But—but he had a gun!”
“I’ve dealt with worse people than him,” I reply firmly. I mean it.
That bastard, he might think he has some big dick, coming in here flashing a gun just to get his hands on a notebook, but it’s clear that this isn’t something he’s used to.
“And he’s got to figure out exactly where the map leads.
Not like he’s going to be able to do that as quick as you did, not without me to point him in the right direction. ”
When I emerge from the bathroom, she is gazing at me, her eyes wide, her teeth resting on her bottom lip.
“You really think we can do it?”
I grab her arms and kiss her, hard, on the mouth, just once, a reminder of the encounter that we never got a chance to finish.
“I know we can. Now, come on, we don’t have any time to waste.”