Page 35 of Entranced
“Paid cash,” the clerk mumbled. “Jeezie peezie, you expect me to frisk her or something? One long-distance call,” he announced. “Went through the operator.”
Mel dug in her purse for her notepad. “Date and time.” She scribbled them down. “Now listen, friend, and this is the bonus question—no jive. Would you state under oath that this child … and look carefully”—she held up David’s picture—“this child was brought into this motel last May?”
The clerk shifted uncomfortably. “If I had to, I would. I don’t want to go to court or nothing, but she brought him. I remember he had that dimple there and that funny reddish hair.”
“Good job.” She wasn’t going to cry—oh, no, she wasn’t. But she walked outside while Sebastian replaced the photo and passed the clerk another twenty.
“Okay?” he asked when he joined her.
“Sure. Fine.”
“I need to see the room, Mel.”
“Right.”
“You can wait out here if you want.”
“No. Let’s go.”
She didn’t speak again, not when they walked down the broken sidewalk, not when he unlocked the door and stepped inside its stuffy walls. She sat on the bed, clearing her mind while Sebastian used his for what he did best.
He could see the baby, sleeping on a pallet on the floor, whimpering a bit in his confusing dreams.
She’d left the light on in the bathroom so that she could see easily if the child woke and began to cry. She’dwatched a little television, made her call.
But her name wasn’t Susan White. She’d used so many over the years that it was difficult for Sebastian to pick up on the true one. He thought it was Linda, but it wasn’t Linda now, and it wasn’t Susan, either.
And it hadn’t been more than a few weeks before that when she had transported still another baby.
He would have to tell Mel about that once she’d rested.
When he sat on the bed beside her, put a hand on her shoulder, she continued to stare straight ahead.
“I don’t want to know right now how you did it. I might sometime, but not now. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“She had him here in this room.”
“Yes.”
“And he isn’t hurt?”
“No.”
Mel wet her lips. “Where did she take him?”
“Texas, but she doesn’t know where he was taken from there. She’s only one leg of the trip.”
Mel took two deep, careful breaths. “Georgia. Are you sure it’s Georgia?”
“Yes.”
Her hands fisted on her lap. “Where? Do you know where?”
He was tired, more tired than he wanted to admit. And it would drain him even more to look now. But she needed him to. Not in here, he thought. There was too much interference in here, too many sad stories in this sad little room.
“I have to go outside. Leave me alone for a minute.”
