Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117443 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117443 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
It was best to avoid Chris 'Shooter' Sullivan. No doubt about that. Either he saw too much or was keeping an eye out anyway for something to confirm his already suspicious mind. Either way, she needed to steer clear.
She made it to the Rainbow just before dark and headed straight to the door of her room. Her peripheral vision caught a shadow and saw a tall man coming out of the vending machine alcove several doors down. He'd leered at her yesterday as she was checking in and she was none too happy to see that he'd been given a room just two doors down from her own.
Hurriedly, she jammed her key in the doorknob. The motel was so old and hadn't been renovated in, well, ever, she guessed. They still used keys instead of cards. She shuffled inside and slammed the door, flipping the lock, setting the chain, and pressing back against it with all her weight. She tossed her bag, strode forward and grabbed the dresser that sat on the far wall. She tugged it to the door and positioned it under the doorknob. It wouldn't keep a really determined person from entering, but the resulting noise would make such an endeavor not worth the effort.
She opened her bag, dug out a prepaid cell phone that she'd purchased during her job search yesterday. She'd been charging it at the bar all day and now sat down on the bed. She pressed the numbers she knew by heart and waited patiently for the ringing on the other end to be answered.
"Mom?" she said in a shaky voice, biting down on her lip in order to force herself not to cry.
"Sarah," her mother breathed in relief.
****************************
"Hey, Shooter." It was Mark, aka Tex, calling his cell.
"Done with what I gotta do for today,” Chris told him. “I'll swing back by the shop and we'll meet up."
"Sure thing," Tex agreed, disconnecting his cell.
Chris wrapped a large rubber band around the half-full shoe box and carried it out to the saddlebags on his bike.
As he pulled into the shop's turnaround, David, who no man who wanted to keep his balls called anything but Hawk, was already straddling his ride and Tex was setting the padlock on the bay doors. They acknowledged each other with a jerk of the chin and waited as they heard the sound of a fourth set of pipes coming up the road. Caleb, Doc because he’d been a medic in their unit, but was now an officer with RCPD, nodded to them and kept going. The boys motored out of the turnaround and filed in behind Doc. They hit I-90 and passed the sign for Sturgis, 26 miles, and below that, Fort Meade VA Medical Center.
Chris' jaw tightened and he sure as fuck knew which destination he'd rather be headed to.
Chapter 3
In the truly twisted and fucked up version of Hayley's life, she'd finally managed to get to sleep just a scant two hours ago when she was woken up by a soft knocking on her hotel room door. She wanted to scream. Partly from fear, and partly from sheer frustration. Instead she glued her eyes to the still-barricaded door.
"Hey," said the now-familiar male voice. The same voice that had awoken her the night before, at nearly the same time. "Hey. Girlie. Open up. I just want to borrow some sugar." Then the giggling started. Again. She wondered if Shooter Sullivan was better or worse than this particular hell.
When her alarm went off in the morning, it actually woke her up. She was both surprised and irritated. She kicked off the covers, staggered toward the shower and got ready for a second day at the bar.
Two weeks passed in pretty much the same fashion, days at the bar followed by nights of barricading the door at the Rainbow. In addition to the Giggler, as she'd dubbed him, there were hookers, who were not at all subtle about what they would do to the john who stiffed them. Cars, trucks, and bikes came and went at all hours and on some days Hayley was so tired she slept through her break at Maria’s rather than eating anything.
On the upside, she'd not had the misfortune to run into Shooter and Maria didn't bring him up. Things were decent at the bar. Slow but easy. Which was about all Hayley could handle on just a few hours of sleep at night. On the up-upside, she slept so fitfully that she rarely dreamed and as such never woke up screaming. Insomnia did have its perks, she figured.
On Friday, her usual day off, she was planning once again to take a look around town for a more suitable place to live, but so far hadn't had any luck. She was putting on her canvas shoes to do another scavenger hunt when her room phone rang.