AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Perfect. Where are you staying?”
“Nowhere. I just drove up from Reno.”
Sloan thought quickly of the best way to keep Margot Gray calm and close. “Let’s do this. Let’s get you a hotel room in town—”
“A hotel? I gotta be back in Reno for my shift tomorrow night.”
“Fair enough. But you’re available tonight, right?”
“I guess, yeah.”
“Perfect. I’ll put you up in a hotel tonight. We can go there now and I’ll bring my friend over so you can talk with him. It’ll be private.”
Margot looked around and finally nodded. “Okay, yeah. I’ll do that.”
Sloan swiped through her phone and booked a room at the Cedar Creek Inn, then led the way through town with Margot following in her Mazda. They checked in at the front desk and accepted two keycards to room number 303. The elevator deposited them on the third floor and Sloan swiped her keycard to open the door.
“Just stay put,” Sloan said, standing in the doorway as Margot carried her overnight bag into the room and sat on the bed. “I’ll be back in about an hour.”
“Promise me your friend ain’t gonna arrest me or nothing.”
Margot kneaded her hands together as she rocked on the edge of the bed.
“I promise,” Sloan said, although she didn’t know if she was telling the truth or boldly lying to this woman. Her college years, which had been spent studying criminology, told her that there was no way for Margot Gray to come out of this ordeal unscathed. But in that moment Sloan would have said anything to this woman, because Sloan knew that Margot Gray was a conduit to her past, through which all the answers about her birth parents’ disappearance might be answered.
A few minutes later Sloan was in her rental car, driving toward the foothills and Eric’s cabin. She tried his cell phone again, as she had on her way to the Cedar Creek Inn, but the call went straight to voicemail. No service. In a perfect world Sloan would have convinced Margot Gray to drive with her to Eric’s cabin. But Sloan knew the woman, as jumpy as she was, would never go for that. Leaving her was a risk. But even if Margot ran, she wouldn’t get far. Still, Sloan hoped she’d been convincing enough for Margot to stay put, safe and sound at the Cedar Creek Inn.
CHAPTER 43
Cedar Creek, Nevada Thursday, August 1, 2024
MARGOT GRAY CONTINUED TO ROCKAT THE FOOT OF THE BED AFTER Sloan Hastings was gone. She searched for feelings that should be coursing through her body right about now. She waited for the relief she thought she’d feel after finally getting her secret off her chest. She tried to sense the weight of a thirty-year burden being lifted from her shoulders. She anticipated the joy of having finally done the right thing. She looked for the pride she should be feeling for having pieced together what had happened all those years ago, and the righteousness for tracking Sloan Hastings down to tell her the truth. She looked for the inner peace that should have been on the other side of three decades of lies. But none of those emotions were there with her. The only thing present in that hotel room was fear.
She didn’t know much about the law, but it was hard to imagine that she wouldn’t be in some kind of trouble for what she had done all those years ago. Even if the cops believed her story—that she didn’t know the baby had been kidnapped at the time she went through with the adoption—she had still fraudulently posed as the baby’s mother. That, alone, was probably some sort of crime.
She bit her thumbnail down to the cuticle, until she tasted the iron bitterness of blood. A thought occurred to her to run. To get in her car and drive far away from Cedar Creek. But where would she go? And how far would she get? She’d told Sloan Hastings her real name, and it wouldn’t be hard for police to find her no matter where she went. Plus, all the money she had in the world was in her pocket, and it might last a week.
She stood from the bed and pulled her phone from her back pocket. Mr. Menendez’s number was still displayed on the screen from when Margot had shared it with Sloan. A thought occurred to her, and it made sense. At some point in this process she would need a lawyer.
She looked at Mr. Menendez’s number and pressed send. It rang three times before the man answered.
“It’s Margot. I need your help.”
CHAPTER 44
Cedar Creek, Nevada Thursday, August 1, 2024
SLOAN TOOK THE LOUIS-BULLAT BRIDGE OVER CEDAR CREEK, FOLLOWED the roundabout until she was heading north on Harmony, and tried not to speed as she merged onto Highway 67. She dialed Eric’s number again and listened as the call went straight to voicemail. She kept trying with no luck and gave up when she exited the highway and entered the winding roads that twisted into the foothills. She’d already left two messages and sent several texts asking for a callback.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she felt the anxiety of a ticking clock that told her Margot Gray would not stay at the Cedar Creek Inn for long. After thirty minutes, she finally crossed the wooden bridge that jumped the gorge to Eric’s cabin and turned down his long drive. Eric was packing his bag in the back of the 4Runner and turned when he heard Sloan’s car crunching over the gravel driveway.
“Something’s come up,” Sloan said through the open window as she pulled next to him. “I need you to come back to town right away.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I found Wendy Downing.”
CHAPTER 45
