dead man in the hotel room didn’t look like a Hazel. Could she be Hazel? Hazel lived in Seattle, Washington. Was that where she was now? No bells of recognition rang in her head. Seattle meant about as much to her at this point as Timbuktu.
Peering into the back of the car, she scanned the seat and floor. She plucked a black leather jacket from the floor and shook it out. It had to be hers.
With her blood racing, she jammed her hands in the pockets. Her trembling fingers curled around a slip of paper, which she pulled free.
Timberline, WA.
At least there was a common denominator here—Washington. Could she be in Timberline now?
She scooted from the car and locked it with the key fob. She reached into the motel room and yanked the Do Not Disturb sign from the inside door handle, hooking it on the outside before slipping back into the room.
Larry hadn’t moved.
Tapping her toe, she assessed the big man on the floor. Did he have a wallet? A phone? He’d landed on his back, and if he kept his wallet in his back pocket, she doubted she could turn him over to do a search.
Her stomach churned. She didn’t want to try. Didn’t want to touch him.
She had to make some kind of move. She couldn’t hang out here until someone came looking for Larry—or her. And where was here?
She scurried to the other side of the bed and the telephone on the nightstand. She grabbed a cheap notepad printed with the words Stardust Motel, Seattle, Washington, and dropped it.
She returned to the closet and pulled out the suitcase. The clothes in there obviously belonged to her. She wasn’t stealing. Her gaze shifted to the dead guy. Theft was the least of her moral concerns right now.
As she slid the door closed, she noticed two bags stacked on the far side of the closet. She parked the suitcase by the front door and dragged open the other closet door.
She unzipped the first duffel bag and peeled back the top, releasing a stream of air between her teeth. Stacks of bills were nestled neatly in the bag, and she clawed through them all the way to the bottom.
Hugging a few thousand dollars to her chest, she stumbled backward until the back of her legs hit the bed. She sat.
What did it all mean? Were she and Larry bank robbers who’d had a disagreement? Lottery winners who couldn’t decide how to split their windfall?
She dropped the cash on the floor and returned to the closet. With both hands, she pulled the money duffel off the other one and unzipped the bag on the bottom. This time she swayed and grabbed the closet door to steady herself.
She ran her fingertips along the plastic baggies in the duffel, which looked like they were stuffed with ice chips—but this ice didn’t melt. She snatched her hand back from the drugs packaged neatly in the bags.
With her heart hammering in her chest, she swept up the hand towel she’d dropped next to Larry’s body and darted around the room, wiping down surfaces from the bathroom to the TV remote to the duffel bags and all the doorknobs and handles in between.
Maybe the dead man had keeled over from a heart attack or a stroke or an aneurysm, but she had no intention of being here when the cops showed up.
She zipped up the drug bag and hoisted the money bag back on top. She gathered the stacks of bills from the floor where she’d dropped them and froze.
She had no purse, no ID, no memory. How could she make her getaway, find herself with no money?
The cash in her hands felt solid, sort of like a crutch, something to hold on to. She needed this money now. If it turned out she was a drug dealer, she’d return it to...someone. She’d pay it back once she discovered her identity.
She stuffed the money into the suitcase by the door and added a few more stacks for good measure. She’d count it later. She’d use just what she needed to get by.
All the excuses she reeled out for herself couldn’t quell the sick feeling in her stomach. She’d make this right, but she couldn’t leave her fate to strangers when she didn’t even know her own story.
Larry’s body emitted a tinny classical tune, and she dropped the money on the floor. She tiptoed toward him and crouched down, clutching the towel in her hand.
A light glowed from the front pocket of his shirt, and she plucked the phone out, using the hand towel. The cell slid off of his body and landed beside his arm.
Squinting, she leaned forward. The display flashed a call from an unknown number, and then went dark. Drug dealers and bank robbers probably didn’t store contact names and numbers of their associates in their phones.
Since she was hovering over the body anyway, she swiped at the man’s pockets where she’d touched him. She would wipe down the car, take her suitcase and hit the road—first stop Timberline, the name of the town on the slip of paper in her pocket. She was about to rise when a dinging sound stopped her.
The phone lit up again, but this time a text message flashed on the display.
She hunched forward and read the text aloud to the dead man. “‘Did you get the girl? Rocky’s...’”
In place of an adjective for Rocky’s emotion, the texter had inserted a little devil face with smoke coming out his ears. Rocky must be very, very angry.
Was she the girl who had to be gotten? Would’ve been nice if the texter had used her name to give her a head start on reclaiming her identity.
Cell phones could be tracked. She pushed to her feet and finished wiping down every possible surface in the room. When she was done, she tucked a corner of the towel in the waistband of her jeans and peeked out the door.
She’d leave the car here—those could be traced, too. She might be Hazel McTavish from Seattle, but she needed to do a little research before stepping into Hazel’s life.
But before she left without the car, she wanted to check the trunk first. She’d found a bag of money, a bag of drugs, what next? A bag of weapons?
Poking her head out the door, she cranked it from side to side. The people at this motel didn’t seem to be early risers—probably because they were sleeping off the night’s activities or had used the room for just a few hours.
She kept her head down and scurried to the compact, unlocking the trunk with the key fob. It sprang open and she used the towel to ease it up.
Chills raced up her spine and her mouth dropped open in a silent scream as her eyes locked on to the vacant stare of her second dead body this morning.
DEA Agent Cole Pierson turned away from the dead woman’s stare. Money, drugs, dead bodies—and he hadn’t even officially clocked in yet.
He returned to the motel room, where the odor of decomposing flesh had started to drift through the air. He swiped the back of his hand across his nose. Someone had left the heat blasting in here, which had accelerated the process of the body’s breakdown.
Cole
