Monster (29 page)

I walked over, resting
my arms on the desk and looking over to see someone sitting in an old
recliner, feet up, watching a game on TV. He was middle aged with
thinning dark hair and a beer belly, his round face a little oily.
Exactly the kind of man who looked like he ran a rundown motel in the
middle of bumfuck nowhere.

“Hey. Are there
any rooms?” I asked, reaching into the bag Jstorm left me and
dragging out the cash and fake Ids.

“Sure are,”
he informed me, lifting his body out of the chair and coming toward
the desk. “Just you stayin'?” he asked, his eyes raking
down my body in a way that made my mouth taste sour.

“No. My boyfriend
just went to grab some takeout.”

At this, he nodded,
turning away as if disinterested. And I got the sneaking suspicion
that if I hadn't just lied my ass off, there was a chance that he
would have shown up at my door later. With a key. And a hand full of
roofies.

Gross.

“Well you two can
stay in room seven. It's all the way on the end,” he said,
handing me a key. As in... a key. Not a credit card key. An actual
metal one. Weird. “You putting this on a card or...”

“Cash,” I
said immediately.

“Seventy for the
night or fifteen for the hour.”

Double gross.

I didn't even know
pay-by-the-hour places actually existed.

“Seventy it is,”
I said, thumbing through the money and handing him eighty.

“If you need
anything at all, darlin', anything at all... you just come here and
talk to Bob, okay?”

It took everything I
had not to grimace. “Thanks,” I said, taking the ten he
was holding out, making sure our fingers didn't so much as touch,
shoving the money in my bag, and making my way quickly back out of
the office.

Creeps were creeps were
creeps.

But Bob who ran a
pay-by-the-hour motel and used physical keys (meaning there were very
likely duplicates), and referred to himself in the third person?
Yeah, that was like... super creepy.

I made my way toward
the room at the end, stopping at the vending machine to grab snacks
and a drink, then grabbing a bunch of discarded beer bottles off the
curb, before sinking my key into the lock and going into my room.

So motels were gross.
Didn't matter where they were across the country, they were nasty.
Dated wallpaper. Dirty carpets. Old box TVs. A bedspread and sheets
that probably hadn't been washed in weeks.

Skanky, skeezy places.

But it was my only
option. So I tried to look past the peeling of the dingy brown
wallpaper. I kept my eyes off the stained carpets. And I went nowhere
near the bed. I dropped all my things on the top of the folding table
that had seen better days but looked relatively clean then made my
way to the bathroom to check the sink for roaches. Thankfully, none.
Then went to the bed, lifting the mattress, and searching for bed
bugs. Again, none. But I wasn't taking any chances anyway.

I nabbed the empty
bottles off the table, moving to the door, securing the locks and
chains, then balancing one bottle on the knob and laying the rest on
the floor in front of the door. There was carpet so the bottle on the
knob wouldn't break if it fell , but if it fell and landed on the
other bottles, I'd hear it. Even if Creepy Bob had a key, there was
no way he was getting in without me knowing it.

I washed my hands and
went to work on eating though I had no appetite. I hooked up my
laptop and linked into the unsecure network the motel offered,
checking around online.

Nothing from Jstorm.

Nothing from the posts
about Glenn's death.

Just... nothing.

I sighed, plugging in
the name of the motel and seeing where I was. What was around. How I
could get form where I was to where I was going. Which, well, I had
no idea of yet.

Apparently a city bus
had a stop right out front and would take me through the town and
could drop me off at the train station where I could buy a ticket to
any number of places.

Jstorm had the plans
all laid out.

I just had to go
through the motions.

I sighed, powering down
the laptop and dragging the second folding chair closer so I could
prop up my legs. I had never been one of those 'can sleep anywhere'
kind of people. I needed a bed and a blanket and a pillow. I needed
to be able to stretch out. But with the looming threat of Lex, of
Creepy Bob, and the very possible incurable disease I could catch
from getting within three feet of that bed, well, I was just going to
have to learn how to sleep sitting up.

The door to the room
next to mine opened and slammed. I heard laughter, a deep male voice,
a high female one. Then the bed squeaked loud once. Then, not two
minutes later, started squeaking fast and frantic.

Apparently room six had
a pay-by-the-hour guest.

Lovely.

I switched on my TV,
letting the religion station blare on and on about sin and other shit
that didn't mean shit in a sleep-and-fuck motel. Or in the kind of
life I lived in in general.

The couple in the next
room made mewling and groaning noises. The bed stopped squeaking.
There was shuffling. And then the door was closing. Apparently all
they needed was twenty minutes.

Sleep was elusive
despite my aching body.

I figured this was due,
in large part, to the aching somewhere else.

The kind of aching that
felt like it was never going to stop hurting.

The kind that only got
worse from ignoring it.

So I let down the wall
and I let the thoughts come.

I thought about him.

And then I cried,
promising myself it was the first and the last time. Not because I
thought I would miraculously stop hurting. But because I was going to
purge it all right then and there, then lock whatever was left in a
chest somewhere deep inside with a note on it to be opened never.

I would never forget.
Not really.

But I could disappear.

Start a new life.

Leave this all behind.

Move on.

I hoped.

Nineteen

Breaker

I didn't sleep. Which
was stupid as fuck. I needed to be sharp. Have my wits about me.
Especially since I hadn't been able to find Alex. Not a trace. She
was smoke. And also because I hadn't found a way into Lex's place
before he got back to try to get Shoot out.

Rock. Hard place.

Because I still had to
go in.

I had to show my face.

Feed him some lie about
Alex not being with me.

Hell, tell him I
couldn't unbreak her. That I had to get rid of her like he had
suggested. He'd be pissed, but I would likely still get to keep my
life. Maybe even get Shoot's too if Lex was in a good enough mood. I
guess it all depended on how his meeting went.

Lex's place, like mine,
was situated on a hill. Unlike mine, his had a walled-in perimeter
and a manned security gate, two of his goons sitting in the booth
bullshitting when I pulled up.

“Truck stays out
here,” they told me and, given I didn't have a choice, I nabbed
my keys and hopped out. And then, as expected, I was frisked and
relieved of the two guns I had on me. Stupid fucks didn't check my
boots. There was a knife in each. Not that they would do me too much
good against his little army with an impressive assortment of guns,
but it was something.

The gates slid open and
I walked up the curving drive toward the house.

And by 'house', I meant
'mansion' because Lex lived big. Twelve-thousand square feet big.
Three car garage. Endless windows (bullet resistant all). A grounds
that included a tennis court, pool, and stable. Lex didn't play
tennis, he never learned how to swim, and I suspected he wouldn't
know a horse from a German Shepherd.

If you looked close,
you would see the security cameras. And then you would notice the
shadows lurking that could have been trees, but were actually men.
And they were men with guns strapped to their backs.

Yeah.
There was a good chance I wasn't walking out of there no matter
what
kind of mood Lex was in.

But, for the first
time, I couldn't bring myself to really give a fuck. I just wanted to
get the meeting over with.

As I rounded on the
front door, one of the men moved into view, jerking his chin at me
before opening the door and letting me inside.

It was as lavish and
over the top as one could expect of a twelve-thousand foot estate.
Dark wood. Deep tones. Expensive, very professionally placed
furniture. Straight ahead was a horseshoe staircase with white
(yes... white) carpeting. There was a hallway beneath it that seemed
to lead toward the kitchen/dining area. To the left of the front door
was a sitting room with a giant fireplace and bookshelves full of
heavy tombs I was sure Lex had never even looked inside. To the right
was yet another sitting room but that one had a grand piano and
obnoxious, pretentious art on the walls and statues stationed around.

I wondered if he
realized how his house looked to an outsider. How painfully obvious
it was that he was trying to erase all the traces of the homeless
street kid he had been back in the day. A kid who never learned how
to play piano or pronounce the names of classical musicians. A kid
who had never even heard of Proust or Machiavelli.

Granted, I didn't know
shit about them either. But I wasn't trying to fuckin' act like I
did.

“He wants you to
see him downstairs,” the nameless guard said, nodding his head
toward the hallway and I moved toward it, him a few feet to my back.

Downstairs.

As in the basement.

Great.

“Through here,”
he said, leading me into the kitchen and opening a door that had
wooden stairs leading downward. “You go alone.”

Double great.

“Right,” I
said, nodding, and moving toward the stairs. No use putting off the
inevitable.

I had been half
expecting cinderblocks and barred windows. Maybe I should have known
better. Estates like his had finished basements as a rule. His was no
exception. I hit the landing and was in a sprawling space.
Sand-colored tile floors, a deep reddish orange paint to the walls, a
bar stationed far to one end beside a door.

That door was the only
ominous thing in the room.

The rest of it looked
like a place a man went to to relax, get away from his nagging wife,
jerk off to embarrassing porn.

“Breaker,”
Lex's voice called and I saw him closing the door beside the bar and
coming toward me.

“Lex,” I
said, nodding.

“Where's Alex?”

Right to it then.

“Not here,”
I said, shrugging.

“I can see that,”
he said, his voice getting icy. “Care to explain yourself?”

“Not
particularly.”

“I'm not a man
you want to play games with, Bryan.”

“Not playin'
games, Lex. She ain't here. I don't feel like talkin' 'bout it. Not a
game. Just how shit is.”

“It's amazing to
me that you're still breathing,” he said oddly, his head
tilting to the side as if it was something that truly confused him.

“Why's that,
Lex?”

“Because you
either lack the respect or the brains to realize who you should watch
your tongue around.”

“That's me, a
stupid, reckless, pain in the ass.”

“Used to be
people put up with it because you got the job done and didn't ask
questions or screw around. It seems that is something that has
changed about your reputation.”

“Look,” I
said, holding back a sigh. “Save me the lecture. Save your
money. Just give me Shoot and we can both go our separate ways.”