Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Taking the revolver from the glove compartment, I double check that it’s loaded and tuck it into the back of my pants. I hadn’t brought a weapon to the memorial service, so I don’t have my shoulder holster.
After a glance around, I climb out of the SUV and walk to the stairs.
A beige SUV is parked a few spaces down and beyond that is a run-down white Toyota with duct tape holding the rear bumper in place. Cigarette butts are crushed into the asphalt. On the highway in front, cars fly past. Behind the motel, the forest of trees is dense. At the bottom of the stairs, I step over a broken whiskey bottle. I pass six doors to nineteen.
From the large windows, I see that each of those rooms is empty, the beds made. The curtains of room nineteen are drawn shut. I take hold of my revolver and keep it at my side. When I reach the door, I realize it’s not closed all the way. Readying the gun, I push the door open, letting the fading afternoon light fall across the unmade bed inside.
I don’t need the light, though. The bathroom door is open, and the blinking fluorescent light is bright enough to illuminate the hotel room. I step inside, peer into the bathroom. It’s empty. I return to the bedroom. Whoever was here is gone, and they didn’t leave anything behind. I sit on the edge of the bed, the mattress too soft with overuse, and set my pistol on the nightstand. I reread the text.
This is the address.
I try calling the number, which I have tried multiple times. It goes directly to voicemail, as it has every single time. I type out a text.
Me: Who is this?
Because I’m thinking more and more that this is not Thiago but someone with access to his phone’s messaging app. Why would Thiago send me on a wild goose chase? It’s not like him.
The first checkbox appears. Message sent. Second one appears. Delivered. And that’s where it ends.
With a deep sigh, I stand. I will head down to the front office to see who stayed in room nineteen, although I have a feeling there’s no paper trail.
But when I pick up the gun to tuck it away, I notice the nightstand drawer is half-open. I pull at it. It’s cheap and sticks and when I get it open, it jerks so hard whatever is inside rolls to the back.
Inside I find a bible. Standard. Beneath it, however, is an envelope. I take it out, slip my finger under the flap to unseal it. In it are two sheets of paper, one with charred edges that flake off on my fingers, the other a torn half-sheet.
Carefully, I unfold the one that looks like it was snatched out of a fire. It’s almost impossible to make out what it says, I’m holding less than half a page in my hand. The edges are black, what remains of the yellowed paper badly damaged. It looks like some sort of report. There’s nothing handwritten on it.
There is one thing, however, that makes me stop, that tells me this was left for me to find. Because I see a name I recognize. Evelyn Thomas. Thomas is my mother’s maiden name. In addition to that, I can just make out a watermark repeating throughout the damaged piece of paper.
What the hell would Thiago Avery or whoever is impersonating him have that has my mother’s name on it?
Nothing good.
I refold it, set it carefully on the nightstand, and look at the torn piece of paper. I know what it is instantly. I clench my teeth together in anger, an old pain burning my eyes.
It’s a torn off piece of the police report detailing the coroner’s findings after Alexia’s autopsy. I automatically scan the text I can recite by heart. I memorized it years ago. I wonder if this is the same sheet I kept with me for those five years I served the Commander. My secret torture worse than any other. My failure to keep her safe.
But this is only one paragraph of the pages-long report. One paragraph that has been especially selected. Is it to torment me? Again, not Thiago’s MO. The report doesn’t even start on a full sentence, as if the start of it was purposefully torn away.
…victim sustained several wounds from a sharp object, seven in total to the stomach and chest area. These were inflicted in a manner consistent with a right-handed perpetrator. Both hands of the victim were wounded, indicating the victim tried to shield herself from…
That’s where it ends.
This I don’t carefully refold. This I crush in the palm of my hand and shove into my pocket.
The vision of how I found her is still as vivid as if it was yesterday. How her father must have posed her after death. How can a father do that to his daughter? Spell out whore in her own blood along her torn apart stomach? Spread her legs to disgrace her in death?