Saving Ben (27 page)

“That’s my girl,” he said, winking at me. “What’s your plan?”

“You know me so well,” I said, wadding up my napkin and throwing it at him. “I haven’t gotten beyond this first part, but before the police decide to impound Emma’s car, we’re going to search it until we find something that will lead us to the real killer.”

“Hold on a minute, now. Let’s think about this before we give up so easily.” Thompson lowered himself to the bed opposite me. “Why would Emma have rented this room in the first place if she was planning to spend the night with you?”

I lay back flat and stared at the ceiling. “Who knows? The drive from Texas to Virginia is over twenty hours. Maybe she needed a nap before she crashed our party.”

“Your house is not that easy to find through all the winding country roads. I know she’s visited you a couple of times, but would she have known how to get to your house without directions?” It irritated me when Thompson made me come to my own conclusions instead of giving me the answers right away.

“Well duh.” I rolled over on my side and propped myself up on one elbow. “She used her GPS. She probably got our address from the telephone book.”

Our eyes drifted to the bedside table. “It’s all yours,” Thompson said, handing me the phone book.

I opened it to the
L
’s and ran my finger down the page. “My father’s name is underlined,” I said, flipping through the pages to the
T
’s. “And so is Holden Turner’s. That goddamn little bitch.” I heaved the phone book across the room. “Would this information still be stored on her GPS?”

Thompson shrugged. “At least, on mine, you can pull up previous destinations.” He stood and pulled me to my feet. “Shall we go check it out?”

I held the door open for Thompson. “Do you think there’s any point in talking to the manager?” I asked, jiggling the knob to make sure it was locked.

“Whether we want to or not, here he comes.” Thompson nodded toward a man—probably in his mid-thirties, and wearing blue-jeaned overalls and a camouflaged hunting coat—heading our way from the motel office.

“Just what’d y’all think you’re doing?” he called out to us.

I took a step towards him. “Coming to talk to you, actually. We need your help.”

He remembered Emma right away from the picture I showed him on my iPhone, although he was reluctant to release any information until I shed a few tears and mentioned murder.

The manager held his giant hands up to me. “I don’t want no trouble now, little lady. The local law is my kin. My grandpappy, God rest his soul, was once the sheriff of Lancaster County. His son, my uncle, is a senior patrolman. Whatever I tell you, I’m gonna have to tell them too.”

I nodded my head in enthusiasm. “And we want you to. All I’m trying to do is save my brother from going to jail for something he didn’t do,” I said, shivering against a sudden gust of wind.

The manager’s lips parted in a gentle smile that gave us a glimpse of rotting teeth. “Then let’s go inside where it’s warm. Feels like that cold front has decided to come on through.”

We followed him down the sidewalk, with a trail of body odor and stale cigarettes in his wake. His office was more than warm. It was hot and stuffy, suffocating. He removed a box from under the counter, a wooden card file that resembled my grandmother’s old recipe box. He flipped through slowly, taking his time until he found the card he wanted.

“She checked in around noon on New Year’s Eve day. If I remember right, she’s the one who drove in from Texas?” His eyes scanned down the card. “Yup, white Lexus SUV with Texas tags.”

Thompson leaned over the counter to look at the card. “How’d she pay for her room?”

The man pointed a nicotine-stained finger at the card. “Says here, cash.”

“Did you get an imprint of a credit card?” Thompson asked. “You know, for incidentals?”

“No need for that. We don’t offer room service or fancy movie channels.”

I pointed to a sign above the counter. “Did she rent by the hour or by the day?”

“Says here, daily.” The manager stuffed the card back in the box. “But I remember she had a hard time deciding. She wanted to take a nap and get cleaned up, but she thought she might be staying with friends overnight.” He walked over to the door, watching a middle-aged couple spill out of one of the rooms and climb into the Chevy truck. “Things got kind of busy that afternoon, it being New Year’s Eve and all. But I remember your friend left sometime around four o’clock and was gone for over an hour.”

“Do you have any idea where she might’ve gone?” Thompson asked.

“Nah.” The manager turned back around to face us. “I figured she’d gone out to get some hair thingamajig or sparkly makeup to doll herself up for the big night. She left for good around seven, and I ain’t seen her since.”

“Well, thank you for your help,” I said, jotting my number down on one of his reservation cards.

After making the manager promise to call me if he thought of anything else, Thompson and I jumped into the car and sped back to the house.

“Both addresses are right there, see?” Thompson pointed at the navigation screen in Emma’s Lexus. “The memory doesn’t record the date or time, but she went to the Turners’ address on Creekside Drive at some point before she came here. I’m guessing around four o’clock when she left the motel for an hour.”

My mind was spinning with unanswered questions. Were George’s parents at home at the time of her visit? Did Emma call George first to let him know she was coming, or did she just show up out of the blue? Had she been communicating with George since they first met over Labor Day weekend last year?

I shifted in my seat toward Thompson. “I need to borrow your car.”

“I’m sorry, Katherine,” he said, shaking his head. “No way I’m letting you go over there alone. It’s best to let the police handle this.”

“Because they’re doing such a good job of it?” I got out of the car, slammed the door, and headed toward the house for Dad’s keys.

Thompson caught up with me. “Wait a minute, stop,” he said, grabbing the hood of my coat. “If you insist on going, then I’m going with you.” His deep-blue eyes bored into mine.

“It’s not that I don’t want you to go with me.” I glanced over at the Turners’ farmhouse across the water. “It’s just that Mr. and Mrs. Turner are like my second parents. I have a comfortable relationship with them, and I’m not sure they’ll be able to speak freely in front of a stranger. Anyway, I need you to stay here with Ben. I’m worried about him.”

Reluctantly, he handed me the keys to his Land Rover. “I don’t like it, but all right.”

Sliding the keys from his fingertips, I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “You’re the best. You know that, don’t you?” He pointed at his lips, and I planted one there too, a passionate kiss that expressed my gratitude for his support.

He followed me to his car. “Remember, to start it, you put your foot on the brake, not the gas, and then push the button,” he said, explaining the keyless ignition system that confused me every time I drove his car.

When the car started right up, I closed the door and rolled down the window. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine. I’m going to look them in the eye and dare them to lie to me. I’ll be back here with a confession in my hand in less than an hour.”

He bent over and stuck his head through the open window. “It’s that cocky attitude of yours that worries me. I don’t think you realize the danger in this situation. Emma is dead, Katherine. And if what we believe is true, George is the one who killed her. You need to watch your back.”

“The Turners are not going to hurt me, Thompson,” I said with more conviction than I felt. “They’re like family.”

“Maybe once upon a time, you had that kind of relationship with them, Katherine. But they have made it abundantly clear their allegiance no longer extends beyond their immediate family. Not to you and certainly not to Ben. I want you to text me when you get there, before you go inside, and then again as soon as you leave to head back here. Okay?”

“Fine.” I puckered my lips and kissed the air. “Stop worrying.”

As I drove away, I caught a glimpse of Thompson’s concerned face in the rearview mirror. I remembered his warning—
Watch your back.
I dismissed the idea as paranoid, which would prove to be the biggest in a long list of mistakes I’d make that day.

“I understand Emma came over here for a visit on New Year’s Eve,” I blurted once we were seated in their living room. “Was that the first time you met her?”

The Turners exchanged a concerned look. “That girl was never in this house,” Mr. Turner said, as if delivering the closing arguments to a jury.

George bounded up the stairs from their basement playroom. “Why would your roommate come to see me when she was so in love with your brother?” he asked, plopping down on the sofa next to me.

Here we go with the brother thing again.

I took a closer look at George and I didn’t like what I saw. His eyes were wild, black and shiny like pinballs bouncing off the ceiling and the walls. His smile was bright, too bright considering the circumstances. Afraid of pushing him over the edge, I opted for a more gentle approach. “How’re you holding up, George, in the midst of all this craziness?”

“I have nothing to hide.” His quick response made me wonder whether he’d been rehearsing with his father all afternoon.

Mr. Turner moved to the edge of his leather recliner, the same chair he napped in on Saturday afternoons while watching NASCAR. “George, I caution you to be careful about what you say.”

I didn’t blame Mr. Turner his hostility, but I resented it. The way he’d so easily dismissed our relationship was like a knife to the heart for me. When he noticed me staring at him, I lowered my eyes to the floor at his feet and caught the shimmer of a shiny object beneath his chair. It was hard to tell from where I was sitting, but the object appeared to be a piece of silver jewelry, oddly familiar to me in some way. 

“Stop worrying, Dad.” George leaned back against the cushions and propped his legs up on the coffee table. “I have an alibi, remember?”

His father nodded. “But
you
need to remember that Katherine is desperate. She’ll do anything to protect her brother, to take the suspicion off of Ben, even if that means pointing the finger at you.”

I shifted on the sofa to face George, shutting Mr. Turner out of the conversation. “What time did you leave our house on New Year’s Eve?”

“Hmm, let’s see.” His eyes darted around the room as he tried to remember. “You were out on the porch with Ben at the time. Must’ve been about twenty minutes after your fight with Emma. You really kicked her ass good, didn’t you, Kitty?” George’s expression was smug, just as I imagined it was when he told this story to the detectives.

I leaned back against the sofa cushions and took a deep breath. “It wasn’t like that at all, George.”

“Then what was it like, Katherine?” His use of my given name was pointed. His message was clear. We were no longer close enough for him to call me by my nickname.