dropped away to a nettle-ridden slope, was dented and rusty.
At the far end of the alley, I came to more white cinder block. I’d found the edge of the Grable. I stepped onto the guardrail but couldn’t see over the wall. I could see the broken glass cemented into the top, however. The Grable had been built for privacy.
Turning around, I saw a young woman in the doorway, puffing on a cigarette and watching me. Her hair was a dull, fake black that she brushed into her raccoon-dark eyes. She was positioned beside the Dumpster, and I’d been so intent on the motel grounds that I hadn’t noticed her.
“Uh …,” I said, trying to think up a plausible lie. She rolled her eyes, stubbed out her cigarette on the scarred edge of the Dumpster, and turned her back on me. She couldn’t have cared less.
After she went inside, I laid a wooden pallet against the building and, with a running start, used it to jump up and get a grip on the edge of the roof. Thankfully, there was no broken glass here.
I pulled myself up and lay across the tarred paper. If I made too much noise, stood too high, or walked onto a section that couldn’t support me, I was going to spend the night in jail. At best. I kept low, crawling on my hands and knees toward the edge of the building and the white wall of the motel.
I wondered how Catherine had been caught. They probably staked out the only place where we could have rented replacement cars. I should have tried to look more interesting; maybe they would have taken me instead.
The top of the motel wall was even with the drugstore roof. I swept the ghost knife through the glass shards, slid belly-down over the wall, and dropped between it and the nearest unit. There wasn’t even enough space for me to turn all the way around. I edged toward the back of the building.
Each unit had a small window at the back that would have shown nothing but wall. Maybe it had once offered a view of the forest. I knew that peeking in a window with a big white background was a good way to be spotted. I peeked anyway.
The walls inside the unit were yellow and the bed-sheets a slightly darker yellow. It looked like an invalid’s room. At the far end, a slender, dark-haired man in a black suit sat in a chair. He hunched forward to peer through a crack in the curtains into the courtyard. He had a Glock in his hand.
I ducked down and hurried to the next room. This one was empty. There were two more units in the row, but only the end unit was occupied.
I went back to the first empty room, cut the window out of the wall, and climbed through.
I took a towel from the bathroom and set it on the bed with the candle, newspaper, and lighter. One of the things people don’t realize about prison is that it’s vo-tech for criminals. The trick I was about to set up had been taught to me by a college kid who liked fire a little too much. I’d never tried it myself, but I remembered his instructions. At least, I hoped I did.
I set things up and climbed out the window, then used the narrow space between the end unit and the wall to scramble back over to the drugstore roof. Night was falling.
My hour was up. I lowered myself into the Dumpster alley and hustled around the buildings. The cellphone in my pocket vibrated. I didn’t answer. The motel entrance was just ahead of me, and they could talk to me in person in a minute.
I paused at the arched entrance and slid my ghost knife into the stone. The only evidence that it was there was a paper-thin slot in the cinder block. No one would find it, and maybe it would be close enough for me to
In the front office, the clerk looked up at me in surprise. He looked like he would appear surprised by the arrival of lunchtime.
“Which room is Mr. Yin’s?” I asked.
A newspaper rustled behind me. A short, athletic Chinese man stood, stepped toward me, and dropped a comics section onto the floor. He didn’t pull out a gun, but he did gesture toward the door with a slight bow and a polite smile.
We walked through the courtyard. Mr. Yin, of course, was staying in the room farthest from the entrance. It was a well-defended spot, but it didn’t leave him an escape route—not unless he had a pogo stick that could bounce him over a ten-foot wall.
Drivers inside the BMWs and the Maybach started the engines and drove out of the lot.
My guide knocked on the door and led me inside. This one had a genuine painting on the wall. It showed a man in robes sitting on a hill between some twisted trees. It had been painted on something thinner than canvas, but I didn’t know enough to identify it. The painting obviously didn’t come with the room.
“Ah!” a middle-aged man said. He stood at the far end of the room, six bodyguards standing near him. This had to be Mr. Yin. He had a thick neck, a black suit, a placid smile, and a gold ring on every finger. His eyes were wide, almost bulging out of his head, as though he was studying everything around him. This was a billionaire?
A dark-skinned woman in a gray suit stood beside him. By the way she had wrapped up her hair in a bun, I figured she was Well-Spoken Woman.
I glanced over at the painting again. Maybe he took it with him everywhere. “You have an eye for quality!” Yin said. “Your attention goes directly to the most arresting object in the room. Excellent.”
His English was better than mine. “Where’s Catherine?”
“Close by,” Mr. Yin said, “but not so close that you could kill us all and take her away unharmed.” He was smiling at me. What the hell was he talking about?
He turned to the woman beside him. “Well?”
She was staring at the backs of my hands where my tattoos were most visible. Her eyes were shining, and she looked like a pirate who’d found buried treasure.
This was not going as I’d expected. These were the nicest kidnappers I’d ever met. And that remark about killing them all …
