In. Out. In. Out.
As she walked around a curve, a hotel sign lit up the sky, boasting vacancies. She sighed in relief and hurried toward it. No one would know she was there. Sue had no choice but to keep moving forward. She could hide away in a room, surrounded by people but alone. One scream, and they’d come running.
In. Out. In. Out.
Sue went into the lobby. The woman behind the front desk reversed her coffee cup mid-drink as she smiled. “Welcome to Dicken’s Inn. Do you have a reservation?”
“No, I’m sorry. I saw you had vacancies on the sign.” Sue wasn’t sure why she was apologizing for being a walk-in. She hated that about herself, always saying sorry even when it wasn’t necessary. The word had always fallen out of her mouth like a preemptive strike against Hank’s moods.
“That’s quite all right. Is there just one?” The woman went to her computed and began typing.
“Yes. I’m alone.” Sue glanced at the woman’s name tag. “Agnes. That’s a pretty name.”
“Thank you, hon. Smoking or non?”
“Non.” Could she ask for a room without a television?
“I have a king- or queen-size bed.” Agnes glanced up and smiled. “Actually, it’s late. I’m going to give you a suite for the regular room price.”
“Oh, ah, thank you,” Sue said in surprise. She reached into her purse and grabbed her license and credit card.
“License plate number?”
“No car. I was on a bus, and it broke down at the gas station down the road. I walked here.” Sue glanced out the window, half expecting other passengers to show up.
“No worries.” Agnes took her credit card, ran it through the reader, and then handed it back to her. “You’re all set, Susan Jewel. Checkout is normally ten, but I’ll write you in for a late check out so you can stay until noon. Breakfast is complimentary. It opens at six. Wi-fi password is right here.” She circled the room number printed on the envelope holding the key card and then handed it to Sue. “You’re in room 336. Elevators are down the hall to your left.”
“Thank you.” She started to turn, only to stop. “Any food delivery nearby?”
“Pizza. Numbers are in the binder in the room. Or, if you’re desperate, there are cookies around the corner under the plastic dome.”
Sue gave a small laugh. “Yeah, desperate.”
The front desk phone began to ring.
“Help yourself, sweetie.” Agnes waved Sue toward the cookies as she picked up the phone.
The chocolate chip cookies looked a little sad on their plate, but she grabbed a handful on her way to the elevator. A grinding, creaking noise sounded over her head as the elevator moved. She shoved a cookie into her mouth and chewed. The taste of hard liquor-filled her mouth and she coughed the cookie into her hand. She stared at the moist blob, going so far as to sniff it. It smelled like chocolate, but the aftertaste in her mouth was all smoky bar and cheap booze.
No. It was Hank’s kisses. His mouth tasted like bourbon and cigarettes after he’d been out drinking with his buddies.
The elevator jerked to a stop, and the doors opened on the third floor. She trembled as she stepped into the hall, dragging her suitcase in one hand while clutching the cookie mash in her other. A maid cart was parked in the hall, and she grabbed a fresh towel to wipe the cookie off her hand before dropping it into the dirty laundry bag on the side.
Sue had to look at the key card envelope for her room number and instantly forgot it again as she moved her tongue around her mouth in a failed attempt to get rid of the taste. She looked yet again and whispered, “Three-three-six. Three-three-six.”
In her over-concentration to find it, she almost walked past it. Shaking, she shoved the card into the key slot and then pressed the door open with her shoulder. Once inside, she released a breath she felt as if she’d been holding for hours.
Sue dropped her bags on the floor and threw the cookies in the bathroom trashcan. The suite was nothing special, looking like a billion other hotel suites just like it in the world—soft pastel walls and nondescript decor. She went to the television in the media cabinet and pulled its cord from the wall before turning the flat screen around to face the wooden back.
Her stomach growled with hunger, protesting the fact she’d thrown out the cookies. Sue grabbed a water bottle from the mini-fridge with its five dollar price tag. She closed her eyes and gulped as the blandness of water turned to the fire of burning liquor as it passed her lips. She tried to ignore it, filling her stomach as fast as she could.
Sue fell back on the bed, still in her travel clothes and not caring. Her hand tingled, and she pulled at the ring to get it off her finger. Everything had changed the second she’d put it on. None of what happened made sense.
Her lips still burned. She waited for the world to spin, but the water turned liquor did not carry alcoholic effects, and her mind remained unhappily aware.
Chapter Four
Everything happened for a reason.
Sue wouldn’t have believed that statement five months ago, but now, as she walked along a sidewalk to look up a woman whose name she’d read in a magazine article, she hoped it was true.
She had been scared into getting on the bus.
Someone thrust the article at her.
She met Jameson, who told her where to find Heather Harrison.
Every sign screamed Freewild Cove. So here she was in North Carolina, following a historical town map that had monstrously bad proportions drawn on it, looking for Old Anderson House.
I’m officially a stalker, she thought in dejection.
What else could she do?
Her hand shook as she held the tattered black box with the antique ring. It had taken soap and a lot of pulling to get it off her finger. Hunger and exhaustion tainted each step and made it hard to concentrate. Everything she put into her mouth tasted like liquor and ash. If she’d slept at all the night before, she wouldn’t know it. She’d closed her eyes and tried, but her mind wouldn’t shut off.
Moving vans passed her on the otherwise quiet road. Sue kept her gaze on the uneven sidewalk as to not make eye contact with the people inside. Tufts of grass pushed through the cracks, and she stepped around them.
Fear lingered in her, causing her heart to beat fast. Sue expected someone to jump out at her from each tree she passed. This was insanity. She knew it. She felt it. She still kept walking.
The wind picked up, bringing with it a chill. She caught the scent of cologne, a fleeting whiff as the breeze carried it past.
In. Out. In. Out.
All she could do was walk and breathe and pray Heather Harrison didn’t think she was insane.
The faint sound of female laughter came from up the block. Sue quickened her pace. A woman stood looking toward where the moving vans had disappeared. She recognized Heather from her picture in the magazine.
Heather wore her long, dark hair pulled away from her face, and jeans with a flannel shirt. There was a natural beauty to her as if she didn’t try too hard. Broken-down moving boxes were stacked by the driveway. It seemed fitting that the looming Victorian would have a local name, Old Anderson House. The half-painted siding contrasted old and new, what had been and the possibility of what could be.
When Heather didn’t notice her and started to go inside, Sue said, “Excuse me?”