She turned and faced me head-on, very little space between us.
“I feel that you’re such a sad man,” she said.
“I’m kind of going through a rough patch,” I said.
“I can see it in your eyes. Even before your daughter disappeared, were you sad?”
I wanted to change the subject. “Are you… What does your husband do?”
“He passed away two years ago,” she said, and pointed to her chest. “Heart.”
“He must have been young for a heart attack.”
“He was twenty years older,” she said. “I miss him very much.”
“I’m sure you do,” I said.
“If you didn’t know I had a grandchild, would you have guessed it?”
“No,” I said, honestly. “Not in a million years.”
She leaned in, tilted her head up. Before she could kiss me, I turned my head slightly and rested it on her shoulder, held her lightly for several seconds before gently moving her away and creating some distance between us.
“Veronica…”
“It’s okay,” she said. “You think it would be wrong, with your daughter…”
“I…”
“I know about sadness. I do. My life has been one sadness after another. But if you wait for all of them to be over before you allow yourself any pleasure, you’ll never have any.”
Part of me would have been happy to forget my problems. To put them aside, however briefly, for some human contact, sex without strings. But nothing about this felt right.
When I didn’t say anything, she understood we were done. She went to the bedside table and wrote a number on a pad bearing the hotel logo. She tore off the sheet and handed it to me.
“If you want to talk, or need anything, you call me. Anytime.”
“Thank you,” I said, and held the door for her as she slipped into the hall.
I leaned my back against the door for a second, let out a breath, then killed the lights and returned to the window.
There was something about Ian I couldn’t get out of my head. Something was off about the guy.
I wanted to know more about him. And for now, that meant watching the flower shop from my perch up in this hotel room.
But Ian had just left in the van. He could be gone for hours. What was I going to do? Just sit here all night and stare out the window?
I grabbed the remote, turned the TV to CNN for background noise. I heard Anderson Cooper’s voice, but didn’t listen to anything he had to say.
There was one cushy chair in the room—the one I’d used to hang my clothes on—and I dragged it over by the window so I could sit comfortably while I conducted my amateur surveillance. I leaned my head up against the glass, frosted it with my breath. I turned the TV so the screen didn’t reflect in the window.
This was dumb. What the hell was I doing, staring out the window, waiting for some flower delivery guy to return to his apartment? Maybe I was doing it because I couldn’t think of anything.
I got up, grabbed a pillow, sending Milt on a tumble, and put it between my head and the glass. As awkward as I must have looked, I was actually pretty comfortable.
So comfortable that I drifted off to sleep.
I woke myself up with my own snoring, the TV still blaring. I lifted my head away from the window and the pillow fell to the floor.
I was groggy and disoriented. For several seconds I didn’t know where I was. But quickly things started to make sense. The clock radio by the bed read 12:04.
I’m at the Just Inn Time. I’m staying here because my house has been trashed.
It was all coming back to me.
And I was watching the florist shop.
I blinked a couple of times and looked out the window. There were fewer cars on the road now. Only a couple of pickups were at the porn shop, which was still open.
The Toyota van was back. How long it had been there, I had no idea. But clearly Ian was back home and tucked in his—
Hang on.
Someone was coming around the back of the van and up the passenger side. The van must have just returned, and Ian had just gotten out the driver’s door.
He opened the passenger door, but no one stepped out. He leaned in, like he was undoing the seat belt for someone. But he stayed in that position for several seconds, like he was trying to get hold of something.
Then Ian eased slowly back out of the van, very carefully. He was carrying something large and cumbersome. It looked as though he had something slung over his shoulder, like a sack.
He backed up far enough to clear the door, slammed it shut. A streetlight was casting a soft glow in his direction. There was just enough light to see that Ian was carrying someone over his shoulder. Someone smaller than himself.
Someone with long, possibly blonde hair.
A girl.
And she wasn’t moving a muscle.
SEVENTEEN
I STARTED RUNNING FOR THE DOOR IN MY BARE FEET, stopped, grabbed my shoes, figuring I could slip them on and lace them up in the elevator.