Night Edge (8 page)

Across the street, a man in hunter-green camo pants leaned against the wall of a liquor store, watching Beau. A cigarette dangled from his lips. He could’ve easily been one of Hey Joe’s beer guzzlers, the ones Beau’d seen leering at Lola as she’d wound through two-top tables, her effortless confidence drawing eyes.

Men like that and places like this had gone round and round in Beau’s mind the last nine days, a haunted carousel with Lola trapped in the center. The homeless man from the gas station was always on it, and the guy across the street looked eerily similar to him. Him, with his hands on Lola while Beau had stood there, helpless.

Through the gas station’s glass door, Beau watched Lola approach, her purse swinging in her hand. The corners of her pressed-together lips curved slightly upward, as if it was a real effort not to smile. In the split second before she pulled open the door, her movements were airy and light, like a woman—he hoped—in love.

Beau would’ve shouted at her to run if he hadn’t thought startling the cagey man who held a gun to Beau’s head would earn one of them a bullet.

She breezed in and stopped dead.

“I told you, there isn’t a single thing in my car.” Beau had been trying to convince the man to stay inside with him instead of going out there, where Lola was. She’d come to them anyway. Beau attempted a discrete but firm jerk of his hand in her direction.

He pleaded with her however he could—with a quick glance, with a stiffening of his body.She should’ve been far away from there.
Leave. Go.

She didn’t move an inch. Beau sent the man on a hunt for his wallet as a distraction.

Leave. Get the fuck out of here.

She didn’t budge, but cried out, “I have it,” and the gun was no longer on Beau.

Beau’d barely slept on his one-way flight out of LAX. After talking to Brigitte, he’d called Bragg to stop him from getting on a plane, but the Midwest storm had done it for him. The detective’d been at the airport for two hours trying to get to Missouri. Beau took his place, waiting out the snow, every passing hour another chance for Lola to slip back into the night. When he couldn’t take another minute of that, he demanded a flight that would get him closest to this little lodge in the Missouri mountains. He’d flown into Dallas and driven his rental car eight hours. In the meantime, the storm had mostly passed.

Beau walked up to the front office’s glass door and stood just outside of view. That memory of the gas station was always too ready, too easy to call up. Beau still hadn’t figured out why he was there. He’d know when he saw her. He just needed to lay his eyes on her again—that was step one.

A potbellied, balding man sat at the check-in desk, a phone lodged between his ruddy cheek and his shoulder while he pounded on a computer keyboard. He said something into the receiver and slammed it down.

Almost immediately, a girl came out of the back, her blonde ponytail swinging. She furrowed her eyebrows, put a slender hand on his shoulder and pointed to something on the screen. The lines in his forehead eased as the splotches on his cheeks became less angry. They smiled at each other, and he stood and left the room.

Enter Beau. He straightened his suit jacket and smoothed his palm over his styled hair. He still needed a haircut, but at least he looked presentable today. Bells chirped against the glass door when he walked in, a jingle to announce him. The girl, no older than eighteen or nineteen, looked up and froze.

“Hi.” Beau forced a smile and leaned an elbow on the counter. “How are you?”

“Fine.” The word barely disturbed her parted lips.

Neither of them spoke a moment. He didn’t get this kind of thing much anymore—the curious, innocent-lust look she was giving him. The women he spent time with had already had their rose-colored glasses removed by someone. He glanced at the monitor and back at her.

“Oh.” She jumped into action, clasping the computer mouse in her hand. “You need a room?”

“Actually, no,” Beau said, still smiling, still leaning.

She looked up. “No?”

“Well, sort of. I’m hoping you can help me out—what’s your name?”

“Uh.” She checked over her shoulder. “Matilda?”

“Nice to meet you, Matilda. I’m Beau.” He should’ve been an actor. Or a detective. A story was already brewing inside him, a warm stew to go down easy. “My wife is staying here on business.” He declared it—no question about it. Men in bespoke suits did not just wander into motel lobbies and tell lies. “Tonight’s our anniversary. She thought she’d have to spend it alone.”

“That’s strange,” the girl said. “We don’t get a lot of business types out here, not like Springfield or Harrison. Even then, companies usually book at the Best Western in town.” She pointed behind Beau as if he could see from where he stood.

Beau glanced over her head at the backdoor and absentmindedly straightened his tie. “Well, the point is—I drove a long way to see her. To surprise her.”

Matilda beat her palm once against her chest. “Really?” she crooned. “That is so romantic.”

“I know.” Beau kept a smirk from his face. “Here’s the thing, Matilda. I don’t know which room she’s in.”

Her face fell except for one blonde eyebrow, which rose. “Oh?”

Beau could almost taste his anticipation. Within moments, he’d be standing in front of Lola’s door, and she wouldn’t even know it. He’d worried, as he’d driven, that she wouldn’t be there anymore, that she’d only stayed one night. But his doubts were gone now. He could sense her there, nearby, unprotected, unsuspecting. Caught in her own trap. “If you could just get me a key to her room—”

“I can’t give you that.” Terseness clipped Matilda’s words, made her back rod straight. “That’s illegal.”

Illegal?
Did this girl think she was in an episode of
CSI: Missouri
? Beau blinked slowly at her. “Not if she’s my wife.”

“Um, yes, even if she’s your wife. Why can’t you call her cell phone?”

“I told you, it’s a surprise.” Beau sounded almost sulky. He envisioned Lola slipping out the backdoor again, right through his fingers just as he closed them around her. So he was no detective. But a starry-eyed teenage girl was no seasoned negotiator. “All right, the key is a lot to ask. I’ll just take her room number.”

She shook her head.

“What’s your objection?” Beau asked.

“It’s wrong. How do I know she’s actually your wife, and you’re not some stalker?”

“I’ll leave my wallet and ID here with you. I can get it on my way out.”

“You’re leaving tonight?”

“That’s the plan.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Why, if your wife is here?”

“I’m taking her with me.”

“But…she has her work thing—”

Beau’s nostrils flared. His negotiation skills were better suited to businessmen than stubborn, inquisitive teenagers. He’d once had a good laugh with a subordinate whose fifteen-year-old daughter had seen a picture of daddy’s boss and called Beau a ‘total hottie.’ He plastered on a smile and inclined a little further over the counter. “Matilda, let me ask you something—do you have a boyfriend?”

Her mouth opened and closed. “Not anymore.”

“He dumped you.”

“How’d you know?”

“Because I’ve met enough women like you to know how it works. Pretty girls come and go, but it’s the ones who’re smart
and
pretty who catch shmucks like me off guard.” Beau shrugged. “We’re intimidated by girls like you, so we screw it up.”

She blushed, looking down at the desk. “My dad says that too.”

“He sounds like a smart man. My wife—she’s one of you.” Beau didn’t have to reach far there. Lola stunned men, and she was sharp in a way most people weren’t, even without logging much time on a college campus or facing a boardroom of Harvard MBAs daily.

But that kind of smart could get you into trouble too. After Beau, Lola should’ve run home and cried onto Johnny’s shoulder like most girls would’ve. Her life with Johnny never would’ve been the same, but it would’ve been safe. Stable.

That wasn’t Lola, though. She’d picked a dangerous path instead, willingly entering the ring with a man who had the means—and now an ironclad motive—to bring her down for good if he chose to.

“I’ve been to hell and back for her,” Beau told the girl. “But every time I see her face, I’m reminded why I do it. Help me out, Matilda. I just want to see the expression on her face when I walk into her room. She’ll light up with pure
shock
.”

Matilda’s eyes had grown big and watery, her shoulders slumped with longing. Done deal. He held out his palm for the keycard.

She straightened up, though, pressed her lips together. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said, not sounding the least bit sorry. “I legally can
not
give you that information.”

Beau dropped his hand on the counter with a slap. This was bullshit. Bragg could’ve hacked her computer two times over by now. Beau had one negotiation tool she didn’t, though, and it was bulletproof. “How much?”

She tilted her head, looking utterly confused. “How much what?”

He hadn’t noticed how quick he was to resort to money until he’d done it to Lola’s mom in exchange for information. It was beginning to bother him a little, like a dull cramp in his side. It had upset Lola too. He knew, even when she didn’t mention it.

The portly man came through the backdoor and waddled over to them. “What’s going on, Matty?”

“Dad, this man is asking for a guest’s
room key
.”

Beau cleared his throat. What was happening to him that he couldn’t crack a teenage girl? But at least going up against another man put him back in his comfort zone—because man to man, fortune favored the alpha. “Not a guest,” Beau said. “My
wife
. And I don’t like being kept from her like this. Do yourself a favor and give me her room number. It’ll save you a lot of hassle.”

“Calm down, sir,” he said. “No need to overreact.”

“Overreact?” Beau curled a hand into a fist. “I drove all the way from Dallas to surprise her. That’s eight goddamn hours. If I call her, it’ll ruin everything.”

“She’s your wife?” the man asked. “Let me see your license. The names match, we won’t have an issue.”

Beau refrained from rolling his eyes. His wallet burned a hole in his suit jacket, but showing them his ID with a name that didn’t match hers could mean the end of the conversation. “Well, actually, I don’t have my license on me—”

“Didn’t you say you drove here?”

“Right. Yes. Sometimes I forget it, though.” Beau slid his wallet out. He’d be needing it anyway. He made a show of looking through it, keeping it close to his chest. “That’s what I thought. I left it at home. All I have in here is cash.” Beau looked up. “Plenty of it.”

Both of them shook their righteous heads. “Not going to help you here,” the man said.

Beau put his wallet away and leaned his elbows on the counter. “Look. Her name is Lola Winters. Just look her up.”

Matilda typed with agonizing slowness. She cocked her head at the computer screen. “What’d you say the first name was?”

“Lola.” The look on Matilda’s face told Beau something was amiss. It occurred to him that Lola had a reason to stay hidden—him. And he wasn’t supposed to know her real name. He added, “It could also be under Melody.”

“Here she is.”

“Seriously?” Beau asked, taken aback. Confident as he’d been, the news still hit him right in the chest and sent his heart racing with excitement.

“Yeah.” The man had been watching over Matilda’s shoulder, and he looked up from the computer screen. “You sound surprised.”

Beau covered his ass with the biggest smile he had—and it was genuine too. In no time at all, he’d lay his eyes on that black, shiny hair, those big, lying blue eyes. “I’m just eager to see her. Very, very eager.”

“I remember her,” Matilda quipped. “Checked in last night because of the storm. She didn’t mention anything about work.”

“That’s great,” Beau dismissed with a deep inhalation. “Which room? I have flowers in the car, and they need—”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head at the computer, her eyebrows triangled in the center of her forehead. “She already checked out.”

His heart stabbed him right in the chest, that fickle motherfucker. Bragg had warned him about this—people on the run rarely spent two nights in one spot. But Beau had convinced himself that on some level, Lola wanted him to find her. That maybe, somehow, she wasn’t really on the run. She was just drifting. “When?”

“This afternoon, right after the storm let up. Not too long ago. That’s weird she didn’t mention it to you, especially since she had to work today. What’d you say she does, anyway?”

Beau closed his eyes. He pictured her running away from him through Middle-American wheat fields, her head over her shoulder as she smiled, waved at him.
Ha. Gotcha.
Not knowing where she was had been torture, but just missing her by a few hours was almost worse. If he’d flown to Dallas right when he’d arrived at the airport. If he’d driven twice as fast.

“Did she leave a note?” he asked evenly. “Anything behind?”

“I didn’t check her out, but I haven’t seen—”

“How about lost and found?”

The girl looked up at her dad.

“Why don’t you just call her?” he suggested, watching Beau carefully. “Maybe she went back home or moved to another hotel in the area.”

Beau opened his mouth to make his demands. He wanted to speak to whoever’d checked her out. To see surveillance footage. To check the room she’d stayed in for clues. He took a deep breath and walked outside, leaving behind two suspicious expressions. With the time difference, he’d lost two hours between California and there, and it was almost six o’clock at night.

Beau extracted his cell phone from his suit pocket, cringing as if it were painful. He called Bragg and spoke first. “She’s gone. Are there any new charges?”

“Not since last night.”

“Check again.” Beau ignored the detective’s sigh and waited on the line. He could still catch her, no matter where she was. If she was driving, he would fly. If she moved fast, he would move faster.