Page 50 of Silent Bones
Noah half-smirked. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
They walked under the sagging overhang to the front office. Inside, a woman in her fifties sat behind the counter in a T-shirt featuring a wolf howling at a red moon. Her name tag read SANDY. She looked up from her Sudoku book, unfazed by their arrival.
“Can I help you?” she asked, voice gravelly with smoke or boredom.
“We’re here about a guest,” Noah said. “Logan Forrester.”
Her brow rose slightly. “The kid in six?”
“That’s him.”
She sighed. “Checked in the other night. Paid cash. Looked like hell. Came out once yesterday for Funyuns and smokes. Other than that, he’s a ghost.”
“He alone?”
“Far as I know. He declined to have his room cleaned. Room reeks of old sweat and something else, but I don’t think it’s company.”
“Anyone else ask about him?”
Her gaze narrowed. “Yesterday, late afternoon. Red pickup parked two spots down. Guy didn’t get out, didn’t ask for a room. Just sat there, engine off. Gave me the creeps.”
Noah and McKenzie exchanged a glance.
“You get a plate?”
She snorted. “You think I walk around memorizing plates? I clock faces, not numbers.”
“Can you give me a description?”
“Average looking.”
“That’s it?” McKenzie asked. “I thought you clock faces?”
“I do. His was average. He was old.”
“How old? Me or him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Appreciate it,” Noah said, sliding his card across the counter. “If anything changes?—”
“I’ll call,” she said, already turning back to her puzzle.
They crossed the lot toward Room 6. The curtain was closed. Dim yellow light glowed faintly behind it. The rain had darkened the concrete, tiny rivulets running toward a clogged drain at the end of the walkway.
Noah knocked once.
No sound.
He knocked again. “Logan? It’s Investigator Sutherland. We need to speak with you.”
Another pause.
McKenzie leaned close. “You sure he’s in there?”
Noah heard movement coming from inside.
The door opened a few inches. Logan Forrester’s face appeared through the crack, unshaven, sunken-eyed, the drawstrings of his hoodie pulled so tight he looked like a kid playing ghost.
