thinking.
The motel appeared on his right, two blocks ahead. Drawing near, he could read the sign out front, advertising CABLE TV and AIR CONDITIONING, as if both features were exotic luxuries. In larger letters the motel’s name was spelled out:
THE DESERT DREAM INN.
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Near the motel office, in an alcove, there was a soda machine. Elizabeth knew she shouldn’t waste any money, even sixty cents, but after her walk in the sun, she was hot and fatigued.
She fished a few coins from her purse, then fed them into the slot and pressed the Coke button. A frosty can rolled down the chute with a thud. She popped the tab and took a long swallow, leaning against the wall.
There were plans to be made. She would have to stop for dinner somewhere; she needed to be well fed and alert. And maybe she ought to pick up another flashlight. Her little pocket flash was probably inadequate for the job she had in mind. Also, she’d better remember to take her gloves and the vinyl jacket.
It was too bad she’d lost her gun. She would have liked the protection it provided. But the gun was gone, and she had no money for a replacement. She would just have to hope she didn’t need it.
Still organizing her thoughts, she stepped out of the alcove, just in time to see a dark sedan pull into the parking lot.
And she knew.
Cop car.
There was no doubt. She knew it with her nerve endings and reflexes, before her mind even had time to process the reasons. Cops always drove either a Ford Crown Victoria or a Chevy Caprice, and the sedan was a Ford straight out of the police motor pool, complete with a stubby, telltale antenna jutting out of its rear.
Instantly she ducked back inside the alcove, her heart booming, the can shaking in her hand.
Had they seen her? She wasn’t sure.
She had emerged from the alcove only momentarily, and the overhang above the doorway had kept her in shadow.
They might not have noticed her. She prayed they hadn’t.
If they had, she was finished. There was nowhere to run. The alcove had no exit except the one that led to the parking lot.
She hugged the wall and listened.
The sedan rumbled to a stop not far away. The motor died. She heard a car door open and shut.
One door.
One cop, then. Alone.
Had to be a detective. It was the detectives who drove the unmarked cars.
He was here, looking for her. He must be.
She had been stupid, so stupid, to check into this motel. She should have known that the cops at the coffee shop would remember her. Should have left this neighborhood, gone outside city limits entirely. But she’d been exhausted, distracted by the news on the radio, not thinking clearly — not thinking at all.
Twelve years of caution, and now it all might have ended for her because of one mistake, one moment’s inexcusable carelessness.
Footsteps on asphalt. The man… approaching.
He was coming for the alcove, straight for the alcove, and coming fast.
God, this was it.
Arrest.
The word she hated most in the world.
Would they put her in another mental institution, or would it be jail this time? She might almost prefer jail. Either way, she would be trapped, caged, and they would never let her go.
He was close now. A few yards away.
Wildly she thought of making a break for it, sprinting across the parking lot, perhaps losing him in a back alley.
Ridiculous. She could never outrun him.
He stepped onto the walkway outside the alcove.
Then a door opened — the door to the motel office — and she heard a male voice say, “Excuse me. I’m Detective Shepherd, Tucson PD.”
The door swung shut.
He was in the office. He’d had no interest in the alcove. He hadn’t seen her, after all.
Relief weakened her. She dropped the soda can, and its contents painted an ink-stain splash on the cement floor.
Moving fast, she left the alcove and doubled around to the rear of the motel, praying she had time to salvage her belongings and flee.
*
The manager was in her office, smoking a cigarette and arguing with somebody on the phone. She hung up quickly when Shepherd entered. He’d heard enough of the conversation through the door to know she’d been in a dispute with her bookie, but he didn’t give a damn about that.
He introduced himself, showed his badge. She was no more interested in it than the receptionist at Hawk Ridge had been.
“How can I help you?” she asked indifferently. She had narrow, suspicious eyes and three chins.
“I’m looking for a woman, a fugitive, and it’s possible she’s staying here.”
“What woman?”
“She’s blonde, looks to be between twenty-five and thirty, and if she checked in, it probably would have been this morning, before ten.”
“We don’t get many check-ins at that hour….”
“It could have been later. She was wearing—”
“Whoa. Hold on. What I was gonna say is, we don’t get many check-ins at that hour, which is why I remember the lady in question.”
She was here.
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