She Once Vanished, page 17
Kenzie went over to the vending machines in the corner to look at the brands of the snacks, some of them familiar and some of them not. Zachary stood waiting politely at the desk. He didn’t want to aggravate Jack, or he wouldn’t be open to answering questions.
After a few long minutes, Jack looked up and raised his brows at Zachary.
“Yes? How can I help you?”
“Hi,” Zachary gave him a warm smile. “Listen, I have a friend who stayed here a few months ago. Maybe you remember her. Elysse was her name.” Zachary showed the man his phone, one of the pictures of Elysse at the motel.
He studied the picture. “Nah, I don’t remember her. You sure this is the hotel she came to?”
“That’s it in the background, isn’t it?” Zachary questioned, indicating it.
“Well, could be, could be.” the man said, though he didn’t sound too sure. It was his own motel, and he didn’t seem to recognize it. Maybe he was not the right person to ask whether he recognized a face.
“Oh, well,” Zachary shrugged. “I was just wondering which room she was in. She was telling me about the artwork on the wall, and I wanted to get a look at it. I’m interested in vintage paintings, and would like to get a look at the one she described.”
Zachary had surveyed the room they had booked to try to find something of interest, and the painting was all he could find to talk about. The only unique feature of the room. An actual painting rather than a reproduction, so each room had to have a unique piece rather than being identical.
“What was the picture?” Jack asked.
“Flowers,” Zachary hazarded. The ones in his room were flowers, so several others probably featured flowers. “If you could just look up which room she was in, then I could have a look…”
“We don’t do that. Private records.”
“For a room number? I just want to get a look at the artwork. I’m not asking if she was there alone or meeting someone.”
“That’s not our policy…”
“Are you the owner? If not, maybe I could talk to the manager. Maybe he would be able to give me the room number. Then you wouldn’t have to feel like you had contravened any rules.”
“He’s not going to give you the room number either.”
Zachary nodded. He looked down at his phone and scrolled through pictures. People hated silence. They hated someone who made a request and didn’t back down or accept no for an answer. They felt the need to actively do something. To remove the irritant.
“I told you the answer is no,” the man repeated.
“It’s too bad. That painting could be valuable. But I can’t make a judgment if I don’t see it. If it is valuable, then obviously you and the owner don’t know it, or it wouldn’t still be hanging on the wall. Someday, maybe someone will come along who recognizes its worth and they’ll just take it with them when they go. You’ll have to find another painting to fill that spot and will never know what it was actually worth.”
The man sputtered and tried to come up with something to contradict what Zachary said. But he couldn’t say that he recognized the value of the painting in question, because that wouldn’t get him anywhere. The owner or manager could hire an appraiser to go to each room and look at the paintings, but that would cost money, and here was a guy who would tell them for nothing. Telling the owner and leaving the decision up to him would take the responsibility from the man, but he wouldn’t get anything out of it. On the other hand, if Zachary told him of a valuable painting, he could then tell the owner about it and hope to get something out of the deal, or the painting could disappear and be replaced with a ten-dollar flea market painting. All the profit would go into Jack’s pocket.
“What’s your friend’s name?” he finally demanded.
“Elysse Allan. If she registered under her married name. You don’t recognize her from the picture?”
“I haven’t got a clue.” The man typed Elysse’s name into his computer. Zachary didn’t hold out much hope that Elysse had registered under her own name. Why would she if she were trying to disappear?
“Elysse Dane?” the man asked.
“About six months ago?” Zachary asked, giving him the date in the photo’s metadata.
“Yeah.”
“That’s her.” Zachary shot Kenzie a triumphant look, but she seemed to be mesmerized by the vending machines and didn’t share in his victory.
“Room 103,” the man told him.
“Great!” Zachary didn’t actually need to look at the room. It wasn’t very likely that there would be any remnant of Elysse’s stay there months earlier. Though the housekeeping did not appear to be stellar and the room turnover probably wasn’t very high, judging by the number of cars in the lot. Just enough to keep the hotel running. But he needed to complete his performance. “Can we go see it?”
“Follow me.” The man grabbed the door key for the room in question and led the way. Zachary walked up to Kenzie as he headed toward the door, giving her a nudge.
“Are you coming? Did you hear all of that?”
“Did you see these?” Kenzie asked, pointing to the coins pictured on the vending machine. “They have dollar and two-dollar coins. Look at the two-dollar coins; aren’t they cool?”
The coins were two metals in concentric circles. Zachary had to admit that they were pretty cool.
“Yeah. You want to get some while we’re here? Start a coin collection?”
Kenzie chuckled. “I don’t know. Maybe I will. Memento of our first road trip together.”
They walked out of the lobby back into the parking lot and followed the man to room 103.
“She was here,” Zachary pointed out, in case Kenzie hadn’t been paying attention to their conversation. “That’s confirmation that she did come here after leaving Vermont.”
“Canada.” Kenzie shook her head. “I still can’t fathom why she thought that was a good idea. Having to cross borders when she was trying to vanish? What if the border guards recognized her? What if they had bulletins with her picture on them?”
“I think she probably crossed the border before being reported missing. But that does make it harder for her to leave the country without anyone catching on. Going back into the US after the bulletins had been issued and it was all over social media and TV. It would have been very easy for her to be recognized. Canadians watch TV. Read social media posts. Being a smaller population helps, but Elysse could still have dozens of followers in Sudbury. We know that at least a couple of people recognized her and took her picture.”
“Maybe she didn’t think she had any Canadian followers,” Kenzie said. “A lot of people think of Canada as this tiny, isolated, permanently frozen country. Not part of the modern world with technology on par with the US.”
The man opened the motel room, and Zachary walked in and took his time studying the paintings on the wall. The small room was set up identically to the room he and Kenzie had booked. The paintings were slightly different but of the same vintage.
He had been right in his guess that there would be a flower painting. There was also a mediocre landscape, thoroughly uninteresting.
Zachary looked for a long time at the flower painting, leaning close and studying it from two inches away, then turning his face and shining his phone’s flashlight LED across it obliquely, studying the brushstrokes and wondering what else a real expert would look at.
“I was hoping,” he said slowly, “but it looks like this is a copy. The brushwork is not right. A good copy, and very pleasant, but… not authentic.” He tsked. “Well, it is disappointing, but thank you so much for letting me look at it.”
“It’s not worth anything?” the man demanded. “As a copy? It must be worth something…”
“Maybe in another fifty years,” Zachary encouraged. “You never know.”
“Fifty years?” the man repeated with disgust. “I’m not waiting fifty years!”
Zachary took a glance around the motel room for anything that would answer the question of what Elysse had been doing there. But as he had expected, there was nothing personal left behind. Nothing that Elysse had dropped six months earlier, no note pleading for help tucked away somewhere with just the corner showing. No message written on the dusty window with her finger.
“Was she here with someone, do you know? Was it single or double occupancy?”
“I thought she was your friend, telling you all about her stay here?” Jack sneered.
Zachary shrugged. He hadn’t expected an answer, but it had been worth at least asking.
“I couldn’t remember whether this was the trip she took with Jose or not,” he told the man.
“Why would anyone bring someone else here?” Jack looked at Zachary and Kenzie, and shook his head. He obviously did not have a very good opinion of his place of employment.
35
Zachary lay in bed, his arm resting over Kenzie’s body, listening to her breath, feeling the rise and fall of her diaphragm. Her breathing was soothing—a peaceful, rhythmic sound. Kenzie had fallen asleep almost immediately. She was still recovering from the attack. Something so emotional and traumatic could be very hard on the body, demanding a lot of energy.
Zachary’s body was suffering and could also use the sleep. Every breath he took was painful, and whenever he moved, he had to be very careful to avoid aggravating his bruised and broken ribs any more than he had to.
That in itself would have been difficult enough to sleep through. It was his brain that was causing the worst problems.
If it was just pain, he could take painkillers and maybe a sleep aid and be able to get a few hours of sleep, all that he needed to keep going.
But he was worried. Everything he had said to Kenzie and her parents about being out of the way of danger and leading the Russians to believe that Walter was, in fact, at death’s door had been true. The chances that any of them would follow Kenzie and Zachary out of Vermont and out of the country were very low. The two of them leaving the state did not cause the Russians any problems. It removed Kenzie from their reach at least temporarily, but they had already seen that Walter could no longer be manipulated by an attack on his daughter. There was no reason for the Russians to follow them.
But Zachary sensed he was being followed. Not just followed, but pursued. Somewhere behind them, somewhere nearby, maybe even in the same motel where they were sleeping, dangerous men who were targeting them were also sleeping. Or not sleeping, because they could be creeping down the sidewalk, preparing themselves to attack any second.
He listened closely for the scrape of a shoe, a whispered voice. A reflection in the window or light racing across the wall.
There were plenty of noises to try to identify and lights and reflections that would have driven a cat crazy. That meant that Zachary couldn’t sleep. He was not relaxed and calm like Kenzie. He was on high alert.
Kenzie jerked in her sleep and murmured something, making Zachary jump. He commanded himself to slow his breathing and pounding heart, to go back to normal, to relax, and to go to sleep, but none of his orders had any effect on his body or hyper-alert brain. He wiggled his toes and flexed and relaxed the muscles in his legs, trying to find ways to stay still despite not being able to fall asleep.
He tried progressive relaxation exercises. He tried anxiety-reducing breathing patterns. He visualized the best outcomes for the things he was worried about. Having a great trip with Kenzie, finding out everything they had been wondering about Elysse, getting home to find that the Russians had backed off and were not interested in Walter, who could clearly no longer be of any service to them. Getting a big paycheck from Dain for the resolution of the case. Kenzie going back to the medical examiner’s office feeling calm and relaxed.
But none of it worked. Zachary’s mind just kept returning to the noises. To the certainty they were after him. The Russians, the bomber, Elysse’s friends or enemies, Teddy Archuro. Everyone who had attacked or hurt him in the past, no matter how impossible it was for them to be there.
Between his anxiety and his broken ribs, he could barely breathe. He knew that the drowning feeling meant that he needed to exhale fully. To expel the carbon dioxide and to keep fluids from accumulating in his lungs. To help reduce the overinflated feeling of doom. Impending disaster.
Eventually, he couldn’t stay in bed any longer. At home, he could get up and pace, watch TV, do some routine work on his computer. There was little he could do in the tiny motel room without the risk of waking Kenzie. And if she woke up, she might not be able to get back to sleep. She needed her sleep.
He paced a few steps back and forth across the room, remaining as silent as possible. It helped a bit. He tried to recite a mantra to keep his breathing slow and regular. When his body was too exhausted to walk, he sat down in the uncomfortable wooden chair and looked at his phone, checking email and social networks and watching a few entertaining videos.
But they all reminded him of Elysse and the questions that still hung over his head about why she would suddenly quit, walking away from the life she had built for herself. What had caught up with her? An outside party? Her own demons? Something to do with her relationships with Dain or Mike? With someone else? He had heard stories of other people just walking away from their lives. Sometimes, with the explanation that they’d had a head injury or some other trauma. Sometimes, with no good explanation at all. They just walked away and left it all behind.
“Zachary?”
Zachary turned his head at Kenzie’s soft query. He put his phone down, rose from the chair, and returned to bed.
“Hey.” He moved slowly and carefully, his ribs protesting every movement, to get closer to her and put his arms around her again. “It’s okay. It’s not time to get up yet.”
“Where were you?” Her voice was faint. “Did you go to the bathroom?”
“Yeah. Did I wake you up?”
“No, no. My body just thinks it’s time to get up.”
“Not yet.”
She breathed softly and slowly, and he thought she was asleep again.
“Zachary?”
“Yeah?” He moved so that his mouth was right over her ear, breathing warm air onto her, inhaling the scent of her sweat and shampoo.
“Don’t go away.”
“Okay. I won’t.”
“Did you go to sleep?”
“I will. I just wasn’t tired yet.”
He was so tired. So bone-achingly, mind-numbingly tired. He needed sleep. Every fiber of his body told him that. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to take a sleep aid. He could not leave Kenzie unguarded. The flimsy locks and chain on the motel door would do nothing to protect them from an attacker. There was no security team hardwired in and ready to respond if something went wrong. If something happened, he was on his own. No one would be coming to his aid this time.
36
Kenzie stirred. She moved around restlessly for a little while, then she was rubbing her eyes and sitting up to look around, maybe disoriented not remembering where she was. She gazed at Zachary across the room.
“Is that coffee I smell?”
He got up from the uncomfortable wooden chair and stretched his legs. He poured Kenzie a cup of coffee and returned the small carafe to brew another. It only brewed a couple of cups at a time, and he would need a few more.
“Thanks.” Kenzie closed her eyes and savored the coffee after a couple of sips. “That’s actually not too bad.”
It was probably the only thing in the motel that was up to par. Maybe the previous occupant of the room had bought his own grounds and replaced what had originally been left in the room.
“What time do we have to go?”
“We’ve got about an hour if you want to shower. We can eat at the airport.”
“Good idea. Then we won’t be too rushed. You want to get us checked out? I have a feeling it may take a while.”
“Are you saying the service here has not been stellar?” Zachary teased. “I don’t see a ‘rate your stay’ survey card…”
“Why would they? They have to know this is about the worst fleabag motel in the city.”
Zachary chuckled. “If you want grab the clothes and toiletries you need, I’ll put everything else in the car so we’ll be ready to go.”
She agreed, taking her time to pick out an outfit and anything else she would need. “Okay, you can take everything else, except my carry-on.”
Zachary agreed. He waited until she was in the shower and he was sure she wasn’t going to ask for anything else before taking everything out to the rental car. He scanned the parking lot and the street for any sign of surveillance. He had done his best to keep an eye on things during the night, but the view from the bedroom was limited and he hadn’t wanted to leave the curtains wide open.
The checkout was surprisingly quick. Maybe they were used to people being in a hurry to get out of there. Zachary paced around the parking lot, waiting for Kenzie to finish getting ready, keeping a sharp eye out for any surveillance. He was less paranoid in the full light of day, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being stalked. Would the Russians really give up that easily? Or did they not even care that Kenzie had left town?
Had that been Elysse’s reason for the strange jaunt to Canada? Was she trying to shake off a pursuer? To have a chance to watch her back trail to see whether someone was following her? Hoping a stalker would not be able to cross the international border?
Kenzie came out of the motel and looked around for him, slightly confused to find him on the other side of the parking lot rather than in the hotel room, car, or lobby.
“All ready to go?” Zachary asked as he got over to the car.
“Yeah.” Kenzie studied him. “Are you okay?”
“Okay? Sure. I’m…”
He had been about to say that he was fine, but that was not the truth. Part of their agreement was not to brush her off by saying he was fine or mask how he was really feeling with another glib phrase.
