Forty-One

Munro and his son had a lot to talk about, Lola said as she retreated from the house, scattering excuses like confetti.

Munro called after her. Wasn’t there something about the story she wanted to tell him? Something important?

“It’ll keep.”

She glanced back into the house before she closed the door behind her. Munro had pulled his chair beside his son’s and sat with his arm around Malachi, their heads together. They spoke in low voices. A laugh—Munro’s—punctuated the conversation. Lola’s heart cracked. When was the last time she’d hugged Margaret close? Laughed with her?

She thought again of the inevitable party that awaited her return to Magpie. Maybe it would be a good thing, giving her and Margaret time to get used to being around each other again before they had to face the hard work of figuring out how to be alone together.

But first, she had to make sense of the incomprehensible. She’d gotten lucky twice—with the invitation to meet Melena the next morning, and now with Malachi’s revelation that distracted Munro from his focus on the story. Probably too much to hope for that Mai would still be asleep when she got back to the motel, affording her more precious time to puzzle over this latest bit of information and whether it fit anywhere in the larger picture.

Despite what she’d learned about Malachi and Trang, she’d discovered nothing about Bryce that might support her theory about Bryce and Sariah. And certainly nothing to back up her own recent certainty that Galon was somehow involved. As to the revelation of Malachi’s involvement with Trang, the police were likely to treat it as giving further credence to the belief that Trang as the killer, raging at being forced to marry Tynslee, even if all the kids stated that this particular deal with the devil was voluntary.

Still, she’d press Mai. Find out whatever it was she knew—or thought she knew—about Bryce. And whatever it was, she’d pass it along to Munro. Let him deal with it, whatever it was at this point.

“Because by then, I’ll be on my way home.” To Bub this time, instead of Charlie, as though he were perched as usual on the seat beside her, nose to the window she reflexively lowered a little whenever she started the car. Another tug at her overworked heartstrings. She missed the dog nearly as much as she missed her daughter. She’d developed the secret habit of kissing him almost on the mouth, letting her lips graze the soft hairs of his muzzle, something he tolerated, barely, with an air of wounded dignity. When she got home, she wouldn’t care who saw it. She’d embarrass the dog in front of everyone.

Lola tiptoed down the motel hallway and swiped her key card in the door.

It swung open on an empty room.

Mai’s bed was barely mussed, just a depression in the spread, the blanket Lola had lain over her tossed aside. Lola crossed to the bathroom. The door stood open. Just to be sure, she flipped on the light and pulled the shower curtain aside. The tub was empty and dry. She fought a rising panic. Maybe Mai had been curious about this new place and had gone for a walk. Lola lifted the phone’s receiver and called the front desk.

No, the woman who answered assured her. She hadn’t seen a young woman leave Lola’s room. And she added, with an air of disapproval that wafted from the phone, that she hadn’t realized Lola had a guest. Guests were extra. Did Lola know that?

“I’ll pay,” Lola snapped.

She stood in the middle of the room and turned slowly, a few inches at a time, taking in everything. But nothing was amiss. Shrink-wrapped Styrofoam cups stood beside the empty plastic ice bucket. The remote sat undisturbed atop the television. The card seeking guest comments was still squared off next to the lamp on the nightstand. Lola’s duffel sat mute and unhelpful on its stand near the door, next to the matching stand that had held Mai’s bag. Now that bag, like its owner, was gone.