It was nearly four when I parked outside my room at the motel. A dim light emanated from within. I’d left no light on.
I crept to the door and listened. Anyone inside might have been alerted to my arrival by the wheezing of the Escort, if they knew what car to listen for.
A horrible thought flashed through my mind. Could someone have left the body here? It would be logical and vicious. I looked for suspicious cars. Nothing in sight that looked out of place.
I slammed my foot against the door, jumped right, and flattened myself against the wall outside.
I peered in.
Donny Campbell, mouth agape, sat on the bed with a glass of water in his hands. He wore white silk boxers and nothing else. He’d been watching an infomercial on TV. He beamed at me. “As it got later, I was worried about you. What’s going on?”
I wondered if he always worried in his boxers on a bed at four in the morning in someone else’s motel room.
I said, “How’d you get in?”
“It’s a small town. I charmed the maid. She thinks I’m hot.”
I sat down opposite him in the room’s only chair. He rested his right ankle on his left knee as he had in my office the day we met. His shorts gaped open. He did nothing to close them. I doubted if it was accidental that I was getting a full view of what he wanted to display. I looked away.
“What’s up?” he asked.
Campbell was a total stud. Probably he could be trusted, but I gave him the version of the night’s events I’d given the cops. A big part of my job was keeping my mouth shut, even from studs sitting in front of me in their underwear at four in the morning.
When I finished, he scratched, then groped himself, leaving his shorts gaping wider than before. He saw my gaze and let his legs spread wider. His lengthening dick peeked out of the left leg of his shorts.
I responded to the sight with words that didn’t match what was happening in my own pants. “It would be better if we didn’t.” I wanted to. The man was hot, but he was part of the client’s business. Plus, the man I’d had in here twenty-four hours ago was dead. That kind of soured my taste for a rollicking encounter, although I guessed, hoped, Campbell could rollick with the best. But someone I’d been intimate with was dead. I didn’t feel guilt, but I didn’t feel good either.
“Better for who?” he asked. “I’m not a client.”
“You’re part of the case. Sorry.”
“After the case?”
I reiterated what I’d said in the Pitstop Truckstop. “We can talk. It’s nice to be desired. You are a very tempting offer. I’m not saying ‘no’. I’m saying ‘later’.”
“Fair enough.”
He put his clothes on and left. I examined the damage I’d done to my door when I’d kicked it open. A few minutes work, and I managed to restore it to an ability to close but not lock. I moved the cheap dresser in front of it and vowed to get a security lock on my door or a new room or solve the damn case.